The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 285
For a few seconds the Captain did not reply. He was thinking about the alien crew member or members and their reasons for behaving as they were doing. Whether the reason was technical, physiological, psychological or simply alien was, however, of secondary importance. The main thing was to render assistance as quickly as possible.
If his own ship could not aid the other vessel directly it could, in a matter of days, take it to a place which possessed all the necessary facilities for doing so. Transportation itself posed only a minor problem—the spinning vehicle could be towed without checking its spin by attaching a magnetic grapple to its centre of rotation, and with the shipside attachment point also rotating so that the line would not twist-shorten and bring the alien craft crashing into Descartes' side. During the trip the larger ship's hyper-drive field could be expanded to enclose both vessels.
His chief concern was over the leak and his complete ignorance of how long a period the alien spacecraft had intended to stay in orbit. He had also, if he wanted to establish friendly relations with the people on Meatball, to make the correct decision quickly.
He knew that in the early days of human space-flight leakage was a quite normal occurrence, for there had been many occasions when it had been preferable to carry extra air supplies rather than pay the severe weight penalty of making the craft completely airtight. On the other hand the leak and spinning were more likely to be emergency conditions with the time available for their correction strictly limited. Since the alien astronaut or astronauts would not, for some odd reason, let him immobilise their ship to make a more thorough investigation of its condition and because he could not reproduce their environment anyway, his duty was plain. Probably his hesitancy was due to misplaced professional pride because he was passing responsibility for a particularly sticky one to others.
Quickly and with his usual economy of words the Captain issued the necessary orders and, less than half an hour after it had first been sighted the alien spacecraft was on its way to Sector General.
Chapter Two
WITH QUIET insistence the P.A. was repeating, "Will Senior Physician Conway please contact Major O'Mara ..."
Conway quickly sized up the traffic situation in the corridor, jumped across the path of a Tralthan intern who was lumbering down on him on six elephantine feet, rubbed fur briefly with a Kelgian caterpillar who was moving in the opposite direction and, while squeezing himself against the wall to avoid being run over by something in a highly refrigerated box on wheels, unracked the handset of the communicator.
As soon as he had established contact the P.A. began insisting quietly that somebody else contact somebody else.
"Are you doing anything important at the moment, Doctor?" asked the Chief Psychologist without preamble. "Engaged on vital research, perhaps, or in performing some life-or-death operation?" O'Mara paused, then added drily, "You realise, of course, that these questions are purely rhetorical ..."
Conway sighed and said, "I was just going to lunch."
"Fine," said O'Mara. "In that case you will be delighted to know that the natives of Meatball have put a spacecraft into orbit—judging by its looks it may well be their first. It got into difficulties—Colonel Skempton can give you the details—and Descartes is bringing it here for us to deal with. It will arrive in just under three hours and I suggest you take an ambulance ship and heavy rescue gear out to it with a view to extricating its crew. I shall also suggest that Doctors Mannen and Prilicla be detached from their normal duties to assist you, since you three are going to be our specialists in Meatball matters."
"I understand," said Conway eagerly.
"Right," said the Major. "And I'm glad, Doctor, that you realise that there are things more important than food. A less enlightened and able psychologist than myself might wonder at this sudden hunger which develops whenever an important assignment is mentioned. I, of course, realise that this is not an outward symptom of a sense of insecurity but sheer, blasted greed!
"You will have arrangements to make, Doctor," he concluded pleasantly. "Off."
Conway left the communicator with mixed feelings. He was at once anxious about the coming meeting with the perhaps badly injured Meatball native and the problems of communication which were bound to arise, and glad that Mannen and Prilicla would be on hand to help. For when O'Mara made a "suggestion" it became nothing less than an entry in the pages of future history because, even though there were scores of officers in the Hospital who outranked him, the limits of the Major's authority were difficult to define.
As Chief Psychologist, O'Mara's prime concern was the efficient and smooth integration of its medical staff. But keeping so many different and potentially antagonistic life-forms working in harmony was not an easy job. Given even the highest qualities of tolerance and mutual respect in its personnel, potentially dangerous situations could still arise through ignorance or misunderstanding, or a being might suddenly develop a xenophobic neurosis which might affect its professional efficiency, mental stability or both. An Earth-human doctor, for instance, who had a subconscious, fear of spiders would not be able to bring to bear on one of the insectile Cinrusskin patients the proper degree of clinical detachment necessary for its treatment. It was O'Mara's job to detect and eradicate such troubles, or in extreme cases to remove potentially troublesome individualism and to this end he was given a large, and in many cases the final, say in which doctor was assigned where and to whom.
O'Mara's sarcastic disposition did not anger so much as irritate Conway, and then only slightly. For it was the generally held opinion that when O'Mara was polite and friendly and not at all sarcastic, when he began treating a person as a patient rather than a colleague in other words, that person was in serious trouble. When he was not unduly concerned over an individual, or in some cases when he actually liked them, the psychologist felt able to relax with them and be his natural, bad-tempered self.
Skempton's office was fairly close so that Conway needed just fifteen minutes—which included the time taken to don a protective suit for the two hundred yards of the journey which lay through the levels of the Illensan chlorine-breathers—to reach it.
Sector General was supplied and to a large extent maintained by the Monitor Corps, which was the Federation's executive and law-enforcement arm. As the senior Corps officer in the hospital, Colonel Skempton handled all traffic to and from the establishment together with a horde of other administrative details. The Colonel was a very busy man, his time was valuable, and Conway intended being as brief as possible ...
"Good morning," said Skempton while Conway was still opening his mouth. "Tip the stuff off that chair and sit down. O'Mara has been in touch. I've decided to return Descartes to Meatball as soon as it leaves the distressed spacecraft. To native observers it might appear that the vehicle was taken—one might almost say kidnapped—and Descartes should be on hand to note reactions, make contact if possible and give reassurances. I'd be obliged if you would extricate, treat and return this patient to Meatball as quickly as possible—you can imagine the boon this would be to our cultural contact people.
"This is a copy of the report on the incident radioed from Descartes," the Colonel went on without, apparently, even pausing for breath. "And you will need this analysis of water taken from the sea around the take-off—the actual samples will be available as soon as Descartes arrives. Should you need further background information on Meatball or on contact procedures call on Lieutenant Harrison, who is due for discharge now and who will be glad to assist. Try not to slam the door, Doctor."
The Colonel began excavating deeply in the layer of paperwork covering his desk and Conway closed his mouth again and left. In the outer office he asked permission to use the communicator and got to work.
An unoccupied ward in the Chalder section was the obvious place to house the new patient. The giant denizens of Chalderescol II were water-breathers, although the tepid, greenish water in which they lived was almost one hundred per cent pure compared with the soupy environment of Meatball's seas. The analysis would allow Dietetics and Environmental Control to synthesise the food content of the water—but not to reproduce the living organisms it contained. That would have to wait until the samples arrived and they had a chance to study and breed these organisms, just as the E.C. people could reproduce the gravity and water pressure, but would have to wait for the arrival of the spacecraft to add the finishing touches to the patient's quarters.
Next he arranged for an ambulance ship with heavy rescue equipment, crew and medical support to be made available prior to Descartes' arrival. The tender should be prepared to transfer a patient of unknown physiological classification who was probably injured and decompressed and close to terminal by this time, and he wanted a rescue team experienced in the rapid emergency transfer of shipwreck survivors.
Conway was about to make a final call, to Thornnastor, the Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology, when he hesitated.
He was not quite sure whether he wanted to ask a series of specific questions—even a series of hypothetical questions—or to indulge in several minutes worrying out loud. It was vitally, important that he treat and cure this patient. Quite apart from it being his and the hospital's job to do so, successful treatment would be the ideal way of opening communications with the natives of Meatball and ultimately laying hands on more of those wonderful, thought-controlled surgical instruments.
But what were the owners of those fabulous tools really like? Were they small and completely unspecialised with no fixed physical shape like the tools they used or, considering the mental abilities needed to develop the tools in the first place, were they little more than physically helpless brains dependent on their thought-controlled instruments to feed them, protect them and furnish all their physical needs? Conway badly wanted to know what to expect when the ship arrived. But Diagnosticians, as everyone knew, were unpredictable and even more impatient of muddy or confused thinking than was the Chief Psychologist.
The hospital was equipped to treat every known form of intelligent life, but no single person could hold in his brain even a fraction of the physiological data necessary for this purpose. Surgical dexterity was, of course, a matter of ability and training, but the complete physiological knowledge of any patient was furnished by means of an Educator Tape, which was simply the brain record of some great medical genius belonging to the same or a similar species to that of the patient being treated. If an Earth-human doctor had to treat a Kelgian patient he took one of that species' physiology tapes until treatment was complete, after which it was erased. The only exceptions to this rule were Senior Physicians with teaching duties and the Diagnosticians.
A Diagnostician was one of the Hospital's elite, a being whose mind was considered stable enough to retain six, seven and in some cases ten physiology tapes simultaneously. To their data-crammed minds were given the job of original research in xenological medicine and the treatment of new diseases in hitherto unknown life-forms. But the tapes did not impart only the physiological data—the complete memory and personality of the entity who had possessed that knowledge was transferred as well. In effect a Diagnostician subjected himself or itself voluntarily to the most drastic form of schizophrenia, and the entities apparently sharing the mind could be most unpleasant and aggressive individuals—geniuses were not as a rule charming people, and neither were Diagnosticians.
He would be better advised, Conway told himself, to let his questions wait until he had actually seen his patient, which would be in just over an hour from now. The intervening period he would spend studying Descartes' report.
And having lunch.
Chapter Three
THE MONITOR Survey cruiser popped into normal space, the alien spacecraft spinning like an unwieldy propeller astern, then just as quickly re-entered hyperspace for the return trip to Meatball. The rescue tender closed in, snagged the towline which had been left by Descartes and fixed the free end to a rotating attachment point of its own.
Spacesuited Doctors Mannen and Prilicla, Lieutenant Harrison and Conway watched from the tender's open airlock.
"It's still leaking," said Mannen. "That's a good sign—there is still pressure inside ..."
"Unless it's a fuel leak," Harrison said.
"What do you feel?" asked Conway.
Prilicla's fragile, eggshell body and six pipe-stem legs were beginning to quiver violently so it was obvious that it was feeling something.
Conway felt sorry for the little being at times like these. Prilicla was a Cinrusskin of physiological classification GLNO—insectile, exoskeletal and possessing a highly developed empathic faculty, only on Cinruss—with its feeble gravity could a race of insects have grown to such dimensions and evolved intelligence. Prilicla, because of its empathic faculty, was without doubt the most well-liked entity in the whole hospital, because the little being invariably did and said the right thing to everyone—being an emotion-sensitive, to do otherwise would mean that the feelings of anger or sorrow which a thoughtless word or action caused would bounce back and figuratively smack it in the face. So the little empath had no choice but to be invariably kind and considerate in order to make the emotional radiation of the beings around it as pleasant for itself as possible.
Except when its professional duties exposed it to pain and violent emotion during the treatment of a patient ...
"The vessel contains one living entity," said Prilicla slowly. "Its emotional radiation is comprised chiefly of fear and feelings of pain and suffocation. I would say that these feelings have been with it for many days—the radiation is subdued and lacking in clarity due to developing unconsciousness. But the quality of that entity's mentation leaves no doubt that it is intelligent and not simply an experimental animal ..."
"It's nice to know," said Mannen drily, "that we're not going to all this trouble for an instrument package or a Meatball space puppy ..."
"We haven't much time," said Conway.
He was thinking that their patient must be pretty far gone by now. Its fear was understandable, of course, and its pain, suffocation and diminished consciousness were probably due to injury, intense hunger and foul breathing water. He tried to put himself in the Meatball astronaut's position.
Even though the pilot had been badly confused by the apparently uncontrollable spinning, the being had deliberately sought to maintain the spin when Descartes tried to take it aboard because it must have been smart enough to realise that a tumbling ship could not be drawn into the cruiser's hold. Possibly it could have checked its own spin with steering power if Descartes had not been so eager to rush to its aid—but that was simply a possibility, of course, and the spacecraft had been leaking badly as well. Now it was still leaking and spinning and, with its occupant barely conscious, Conway thought he could risk frightening it just a little more by checking the spin and moving the vehicle into the tender and the patient as quickly as possible into the water-filled compartment where they could work on it.
But as soon as the immaterial fingers of the tractor beams reached out an equally invisible force seemed to grip Prilicla's fragile body and shake it furiously.
"Doctor," said the empath, "the being is radiating extreme fear. It is forcing coherent thought from a mind which is close to panic. It is losing consciousness rapidly, perhaps dying ... Look! It is using steering thrust!"
"Cut!" shouted Conway to the tractor beamers. The alien spacecraft, which had almost come to rest, began to spin slowly as vapour jetted from lateral vents in the nose and stern. After a few minutes the jets became irregular, weaker and finally ceased altogether, leaving the vehicle spinning at approximately half its original speed. Prilicla still looked as if its body was being shaken by a high wind.
"Doctor," said Conway suddenly, "considering the kind of tools these people use I wonder if some kind of psionic force is being used against you—you are shaking like a leaf."
When it replied Prilicla's voice was devoid of all emotion—the words, which were being transmitted to the gigantic translation computer in the bowels of the hospital then redirected to Conway's translator pack, had had all warmth and tonal variation filtered out of them.
"It is not thinking directly at anyone, friend Conway," said the empath. "Its emotional radiation is composed chiefly of fear and despair. Perceptions are diminishing and it seems to be struggling to avoid a final catastrophe ..."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" said Mannen suddenly.
"If you mean am I thinking of setting the thing spinning at full speed again," Conway replied, "the answer is yes. But there's no logical reason for doing so, is there?'
A few seconds later the tractor beam men reversed polarity to increase the vessel's spin. Almost immediately Prilicla's trembling ceased and it said, "The being feels much better now—relatively, that is. Its vitality is still very low."
Prilicla began to tremble again and this time Conway knew that his own feelings of angry frustration were affecting the little being. He tried to make his thinking cooler and more constructive, even though he knew that the situation was essentially the same as it had been when Descartes had first tried to aid the Meatball astronaut, that they were making no progress at all.
But there were a few things he could do which would help the patient, however indirectly.
The vapour escaping from the vehicle should be analysed to see if it was fuel or simply water from the being's life-support system. Much valuable data could be gained from a direct look at the patient—even if it was only possible to see it through the wrong end of a periscope, since the vessel did not possess a direct vision port. They should also seek means of entering the vessel to examine and reassure the occupant before transferring it to the ambulance and the wards.
Closely followed by Lieutenant Harrison, Conway pulled himself along the towing cable towards the spinning ship. By the time they had gone a few yards both men were turning with the rotating cable so that when they reached the spacecraft it seemed steady while the rest of creation whirled around them in dizzying circles. Mannen stayed in the airlock, insisting that he was too old for such acrobatics, and Prilicla approached the vessel drifting free and using its spacesuit propulsors for manoeuvring.
