The sound of the translations seemed to bring its attention to the other occupants. "May your probability of acceptance be better than mine," it said by way of greeting. "I am a humble modest branch from Treetrunk (the translator learned the naming convention quickly) and despite my formidable knowledge of prosthodontica my percentage is a mere sixty."
Somewhere in there had been a honk, so Dillingham knew that simultaneous translations were being performed. This device made the little dual-track transcoders seem primitive.
"You are more fortunate than I," Pincushion replied. "I stand at only forty-eight per cent."
They both looked at Dillingham. Pincushion had knobby stalks that were probably eyes, and Treetrunk's apical discs vibrated like the greenery of a poplar sapling.
Twenty-one per cent," Dillingham said sheepishly.
There was an awkward silence. "Well these are only estimates based upon the past performances of your species," Pincushion said. "Perhaps your predecessors were not apt."
"I don't think I
have
any predecessors," Dillingham said. "Earth isn't accredited yet." He hesitated to admit that Earth hadn't even achieved true space travel, by galactic definition.
He had never been embarrassed for his planet before! But he had never had occasion to consider himself a planetary representative before, either.
"Experience and competence count more than some machine's guess, I'm sure," Treetrunk said. "I've been practising on my world for six years. If you're—"
"Well, I did practice for ten years on Earth."
"You see—that will triple your probability when they find out," Pincushion said encouragingly. "They just gave you a low probability because no one from your planet has applied before."
He hoped they were right, but his stomach didn't settle. He doubted that as sophisticated a set-up as the Galactic University would have to stoop to such crude approximation. The administration already knew quite a bit about him from the preliminary application, and his ignorance of galactic method was sure to count heavily against him. "Are there—references here?" he inquired. "Facilities? If I could look them over—"
"Good idea!" Pincushion said. "Come—the operatory is this way, and there is a small museum of equipment."
There was. The apartment had an annex equipped with an astonishing array of dental technology. There was enough for him to study for years before he could be certain of mastery. He decided to concentrate on the racked texts first, after learning that they could be fed into the translator for ready assimilation in animated projection.
"Standard stuff," Treetrunk said, making a noise like chafing bark. "I believe I'll take an estimation."
As Dillingham returned to the main room with an armful of the box-like texts, the elevator loosed another creature. This was a four-legged cylinder with a head tapered like that of an anteater, and peculiarly thin jointed arms terminating in a series of thorns.
It seemed to him that such physical structure would be virtually ideal for dentistry. The thorns were probably animate rotary burrs, and the elongated snout might reach directly into the patient's mouth for inspection of close work without the imposition of a mirror. After the initial introductions he asked Anteater how his probability stood.
"Ninety-eight per cent," the creature replied in an offhand manner. "Our kind seldom miss. We're specialized for this sort of thing."
Specialization—there was the liability of the human form, Dillingham thought. Men were among the most generalized of Earth's denizens, except for their developed brains—and obviously these galactics had equivalent intellectual potential, and had been in space so long they had been able to adapt physically for something as narrow as dentistry. The outlook for him remained bleak, competitively.
A robot-like individual and a native from Electrolus completed the apartment's complement. Dillingham hadn't known that his sponsor-planet was entering one of its own in the same curriculum, though this didn't affect him particularly.
Six diverse creatures, counting himself—all dentists on their home worlds, all specializing in prosthodontics, all eager to pass the entrance examinations. All male, within reasonable definition—the university was very strict about the proprieties. This was only one apartment in a small city reserved for applicants. The university proper covered the rest of the planet.
They learned all about it that evening at the indoctrination briefing, guided to the lecture-hall by a blue glow manifested on each identification band. The hall was monstrous; only the oxygen-breathers attended this session, but they numbered almost fifty thousand. Other halls catered to differing life-forms simultaneously.
The university graduated over a million highly skilled dentists every term, and had a constant enrollment of twenty million. Dillingham didn't know how many terms it took to graduate—the programmes might be variable—but the incidence of depletion seemed high. Even the total figure represented a very minor proportion of the dentistry in the galaxy. This fraction was extremely important, however, since mere admission as a freshman student here was equivalent to graduation elsewhere.
There were generally only a handful of DU graduates on any civilized planet. These were automatically granted life tenures as instructors at the foremost planetary colleges, or established as consultants for the most challenging cases available. Even the drop-outs had healthy futures.
Instructors for the U itself were drawn from its own most gifted graduates. The top one hundred, approximately—of each class of a million—were siphoned off for special training and retained, and a great number were recruited from the lower ranking body of graduates: individuals who demonstrated superior qualifications in subsequent galactic practice. A few instructors were even recruited from non-graduates, when their specialities were so restricted and their skills so great that such exceptions seemed warranted.
The administrators came largely from the University of Administration, dental division, situated on another planet, and they wielded enormous power. The University President was the virtual dictator of the planet, and his pronouncements had the force of law in dental matters throughout the galaxy. Indeed, Dillingham thought as he absorbed the information, if there were any organization that approached galactic overlordship, it would be the Association of University Presidents. AUP had the authority and the power to quarantine any world found guilty of wilful malpractice in any of the established fields, and since any quarantine covered all fields, it was devastating. An abstract was run showing the consequence of the last absolute quarantine: within a year that world had collapsed in anarchy. What followed that was not at all pretty.
Dillingham saw that the level of skill engendered by University training did indeed transcend any ordinary practice. No one on Earth had any inkling of the techniques considered commonplace here. His imagination was saturated with the marvel of it all. His dream of knowledge for the sake of knowledge was a futile one; such training was far too valuable to be reserved for the satisfaction of the individual. No wonder graduates became public servants! The investment was far less monetary than cultural and technological, for the sponsoring planet.
His room-mates were largely unimpressed. "Everyone knows the universities wield galactic power," Treetrunk said. "This is only one school of many, and hardly the most important. Take Finance U, now—"
"Or Transportation U," Pincushion added. "Every space ship, every stellar conveyor, designed and operated by graduates of—"
"Or Communication," Anteater said. "Comm U has several campuses, even, and they're not dinky little planets like this one, either. Civilization is impossible without communications. What's a few bad teeth, compared to that?"
Dillingham was shocked. "But all of you are dentists. How can you take such tremendous knowledge and responsibility so casually?"
"Oh, come now," Anteater said. "The technology of dentistry hasn't changed in millennia. It's a staid, dated institution. Why get excited?"
"No point in letting ideology go to our heads," Treetrunk agreed. "I'm here because this training will set me up for life back home. I won't have to set up a practice at all; I'll be a consultant. It's the best training in the galaxy—we all know that—but we must try to keep it in perspective."
The others signified agreement. Dillingham saw that he was a minority of one. All the others were interested in the education not for its own sake but for the monetary and prestigious benefits they could derive from a degree.
And all of them had much higher probabilities of admission than he. Was he wrong?
Next day they faced a battery of field tests. Dillingham had to use the operatory equipment to perform specified tasks: excavation, polishing, placement of amalgam, measurement, manufacture of assorted impressions—on a number of familiar and unfamiliar jaws. He had to diagnose and prescribe. He had to demonstrate facility in all phases of laboratory work—facility he now felt woefully deficient in. The equipment was versatile, and he had no particular difficulty adjusting to it, but it was so well made and precise that he was certain his own abilities fell far short of those for whom it was intended.
The early exercises were routine, and he was able to do them easily in the time recommended. Gradually, however, they became more difficult, and he had to concentrate as never before to accomplish the assignments at all, let alone on schedule. There were several jaws so alien that he could not determine their modes of action, and had to pass them by even though the treatment seemed simple enough. This was because he remembered his recent experiences with galactic dentition, and the unsuspected mechanisms of seemingly ordinary teeth, and so refused to perform repairs even on a dummy jaw that might be more harmful than no repair at all.
During the rest breaks he chatted with his companions, all in neighbouring operatories, and learned to his dismay that none of them were having difficulties. "How can you be sure of the proper occlusal on #17?" he asked Treetrunk. "There was no upper mandible present for comparison."
"That was an Oopoo jaw," Treetrunk rustled negligently. "Oopoos have no uppers. There's just a bony plate, perfectly regular. Didn't you know that?"
"You recognize all the types of jaw in the galaxy?" Dillingham asked, half jokingly,
"Certainly. I have read at least one text on the dentures of every accredited species. We Treetrunks never forget."
Eidetic memory! How could a mere man compete with a creature who was able to peruse a million or more texts, and retain every detail of each? He understood more plainly why his probability of admittance was so low. Perhaps even that figure was unrealistically high!
"What was #36, the last one?" Pincushion inquired. "I didn't recognize it, and I thought I knew them all."
Treetrunk wilted slightly. "I never saw that one before," he admitted. "It must have been extragalactic, or a theoretic simulacrum designed to test our extrapolation."
"The work was obvious, however," Anteater observed. "I polished it off in four seconds."
"Four seconds!" All the other were amazed.
"Well, we
are
adapted for this sort of routine," Anteater said patronizingly. "Our burrs are built in, and all the rest of it. My main delay is generally in diagnosis. But #36 was a straightforward labial cavity requiring a plastoid substructure and metallic overlay, heated to 540 degrees Centigrade for thirty-seven microseconds."
"Thirty-nine microseconds," Treetrunk corrected him, a shade smugly. "You forgot to allow for the red-shift in the overhead beam. But that's still remarkable time."
"I employed my natural illumination, naturally," Anteater said, just as smugly. He flashed a yellow light from his snout.
"No distortion there. But I believe my alloy differs slightly from what is considered standard, which may account for the discrepancy. Your point is well taken, nevertheless. I trust none of the others forgot that adjustment?"
The Electrolyte settled an inch. "I did," he confessed.
Dillingham was too stunned to be despondent. Had all of them diagnosed #36 so readily, and were they all so perceptive as to be automatically aware of the wavelength of a particular beam of light? Or were such readings available through the equipment, that he didn't know about, and wouldn't be competent to use if he did know? He had pondered that jaw for the full time allotted and finally given it up untouched. True, the cavity had appeared to be perfectly straightforward, but it was too clean to ring true. Could—
The buzzer sounded for the final session and they dispersed to their several compartments.
Dillingham was contemplating #41 with mounting frustration when he heard Treetrunk, via the translator extension, call to Anteater. "I can't seem to get this S-curve excavation right," he complained. "Would you lend me your snout?"
A joke, of course, Dillingham thought. Discussion of cases after they were finished was one thing, but consultation during the exam itself—!
"Certainly," Anteater replied. He trotted past Dillingham's unit and entered Treetrunk's operatory. There was the muted beep of his high-speed proboscis drill. "You people confined to manufactured tools labour under such a dreadful disadvantage," he remarked. "It's a wonder you can qualify at all!"
"Hmph," Treetrunk replied good-naturedly... and later returned the favour by providing a spot diagnosis based on his memory of an obscure chapter of an ancient text, to settle a case that had Anteater in doubt. "It isn't as though we're competing against each other," he said. "Every point counts!"
Dillingham ploughed away, upset. Of course there had been nothing in the posted regulations specifically forbidding such procedure, but he had taken it as implied. Even if galactic ethics differed from his own in this respect, he couldn't see his way clear to draw on any knowledge or skill other than his own. Not in this situation.
Meanwhile, #41 was a different kind of problem. The directive, instead of saying "Do what is necessary", as it had for the #36 they had discussed during the break, was specific. "Create an appropriate mesiocclusodistal metal-alloy inlay for the afflicted fifth molar in this humanoid jaw."