His roommates 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, now—"
"Or Transportation," Pincushion added. "Every spaceship, 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 coming here because this training will set me up for life on my home world. 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 training 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 undertook 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. But 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 neighboring operatories, and learned to his dismay that none of them were having difficulties. "How can you be sure of the proper occlusal on number seventeen?" 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 him, hardly crediting it.
"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 and more plainly why his probability of success was so low. He was beginning to wonder whether it had not been set unrealistically high, in fact.
"What was number thirty-six, the last one?" Pincushion inquired. "I didn't recognize it, and I thought I knew them all."
Treetrunk became slightly wilted. "I never saw that one before," he admitted. "It must have been extra-galactic, 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 others 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 number thirty-six 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, flashing 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 difference. Your point is good, nevertheless. I hope 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 number thirty-six so readily, and were they all so perceptive as to be automatically aware of the wave-length of a particular beam of light? Or were there 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 clear 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—!
"Certainly," Anteater replied. He trotted past Dillingham's unit and entered Treetrunk's compartment. There was the muted beep of his high-speed proboscis drill. "You people confined to manufactured tools labor under such a dreadful disadvantage," he remarked. "It's a wonder you can qualify at all!"
"Hmph," Treetrunk replied goodnaturedly... and later returned the favor by providing a spot diagnosis based on his knowledge of an obscure chapter of an ancient text, to settle a case that had Anteater in doubt. "It isn't as though we were competing against each other," he said. "Every point counts!"
Dillingham ploughed away, upset. Of course there had been nothing in the posted regulations 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 this time specific. "Create an appropriate mesiocclusodistal metal-alloy inlay for the afflicted fifth molar in this humanoid jaw."
This was perfectly feasible. Despite its oddities as judged by Earthly standards, it was humanoid and therefore roughly familiar to him. So men did not have more than three molars in a row; he now knew that other species did. He had by this time mastered the sophisticated equipment well enough to do the job in a fraction of the time he had required on Earth. He could have the inlay shaped and cast within the time limit.