Double Contact (27 page)

But she was beginning to feel very cold, and Danalta was moving even faster and the water was slapping and tugging and bursting in clouds of spray over her head, arms, and shoulders. In spite of the warm, morning sunshine reflecting off the waves and spray, her body temperature was dropping rapidly and the hands holding her to Danalta were losing feeling. She realized suddenly that while her equipment belt had stayed firmly in place, the swimsuit hadn't.

The spider ships were disappearing behind the curve of the coastline, and the wreck of
Terragar
and the medical station were coming into sight. Within a few minutes they were in the shallows in front of the buildings and the shape-changer was already turning its fins into legs.

Murchison stamped about on the sand and swung her arms briefly to return some heat to her body, then, still shivering, she sprinted for the largest prefab structure that housed the recovery ward.

It was occupied by Naydrad and the three Earth-human casualties. With her teeth chattering, she said, “Charge Nurse, please throw me a set of my whites and…”

“You look fine the way you are, ma'am.” said one of the
Terragar
officers, smiling broadly.

“The way I am,” she said, beginning to pull on the tight, white coveralls, “is bad for your blood pressure. Naydrad, where's Prilicla?”

“In the comm room,” said the Kelgian.

*   *   *

A faint tremor of pleasure and relief shook Prilicla as the pathologist joined him before the communicator screen where the face of the captain was staring out at them. He said, “Friend Murchison, I'm glad to have you back with us, and I feel that you are well but worried. Ease your mind. Friend Fletcher and
Rhabwar
will be with us several minutes before the spider fleet arrives, so that we are in no immediate danger from them.”

“But, Doctor,” said Murchison grimly, “they are in danger, deadly danger, from us.”

“No, ma'am,” the captain joined in. “I've never held with the adage that attack is the best form of defense. We will keep them away from the medical station until you people are ready to transfer to
Rhabwar.
Minimum force, if any, will be used.”

Prilicla could feel the growing concern and impatience behind the words as Murchison went on. “Please listen, Captain. Unknown to me at the time, Danalta was making a record of my attempt at communication, but it didn't include the other things I saw the spiders do earlier, the way they have to live with and use their technology, or their behavior towards me and the, well, consideration one of them showed. They are intelligent, brave, and resourceful people, but terribly vulnerable.”

“I understand,” said the captain. “We'll try not to hurt them, but we do have to defend the station, remember?”

“You
don't
understand!” said Murchison. “The spiders use technology that is partially organic, something we've never met before. All of their fabricated structures large and small, their ships, gliders, tools, and, presumably, their living accommodations, are partly woven of web strands from their own bodies. I don't know how much they value this material, or how difficult or easy it would be to replace, but damaging anything they've made might mean damaging them, or a least a valuable piece of their personal property. You're on very sensitive ground here, Captain.”

Before the other could reply, it went on quickly, “They use fire, but so far as I could see, only for heavily protected lighting, and they seem to be so afraid of it that their bodies as well as their structures must be highly flammable. And in spite of being sailors, they also have an intense aversion to contact with water. Their ships are designed so that the sails can be reconfigured to enclose the entire upperworks so as to shelter them from rain and spray.

“I'm sorry, Captain,” it went on, and Prilicla could feel the apology backing up its words, “for adding these complications to whatever defensive strategy you've worked out. But if we are ever to establish friendly relations with these people, which from personal contact I consider to be a strong probability, you must not use any weapons against them that will generate heat. I'm thinking of signal flares, normally nonharmful pyrotechnics, or any form of radiant energy that would cause an electrical discharge. As well, you must not allow any of their sea or airborne personnel to fall in the water.”

The captain was silent for a moment and, thankfully, still well beyond Prilicla's empathic range. When it spoke, its features and voice were calm and reflected none of what it must have been feeling.

“Thank you for the additional information, Pathologist Murchison,” it said, glancing aside at another screen. “We should be closing with the spider fleet approximately one hundred and fifty meters off your beach in seventeen minutes. In that time I shall try to modify my defensive strategy accordingly. However, you will understand that operationally I do not do my best work with both hands tied behind my back. Off.”

Murchison shook its head at the blank screen and moved to the room's big direct-vision panel. Prilicla followed to hover above its shoulder as they watched the three spider vessels that had rounded the curve of the island and were beginning to foreshorten as they turned in to approach the station. All six of their gliders had been launched and were making slow, tight circles in the sky above them. Distance had reduced the chittering of their crews to a low, insect buzzing. The pathologist's emotional radiation, he noted with approval, reflected wariness, concern, growing excitement, but no fear.

“Friend Murchison,” he said gently, indicating the big diagnostic screen on the other side of the room, “this is a good opportunity for us to review the latest clinical material on the two Trolanni. Patient Keet's condition was not life-threatening and its treatment is progressing satisfactorily, but not so Patient Jasam's.”

The pathologist dipped its head in affirmation and moved to the screen which was already displaying enlargements of the two patients' scanner images. For several minutes it studied them, magnifying and changing the viewpoint several times, while in the direct-vision panel the spider ships drew closer. But unlike Prilicla, it had no attention to spare for them.

Finally it said, “Danalta told me there was a problem with Patient Jasam, and it was right. But Patient Keet's condition, while not giving cause for immediate concern, is not good. There is a general impairment of blood flow, and organic degeneration in several areas that is not, I think, due to any recent trauma, and the indications would support a diagnosis of sterility caused by a long-term dietary deficiency. But Patient Jasam is in serious trouble. I advocate immediate surgical intervention. Would you agree, sir?”

“Fully, friend Murchison,” he replied, gesturing towards the screen. “But there are three main areas of trauma, deep puncture-wounding whose effect on nearby organs is unknown. We should go in at once, certainly, but how, where, and in what order? This is an entirely new life-form to my experience.”

The Earth-human's feelings were predominantly those of concern, apology, and, strangely, an underlying but slowly growing feeling of certainty.

“There is nothing entirely new,” it said, “under this or any other sun. Our Trolanni friend's CHLI physiology has a similarity—very slight I must admit—in its lack of supporting skeletal structure and the fine network of blood vessels and nerve linkages supplying the peripheral limbs and visual and aural sensors, to those found in the Kelgian DBLF classification. There are also similarities in its two fast-beating hearts to those of the light-gravity, LSVO and MSVK life-forms. The digestive system is very strange, but the waste-elimination process could belong to a scaled-down Melfan. If you believe the risk to be acceptable, I think I know what is going on, or what should be going on in there, but…”

It held up its hands with the fingers loosely spread.

“… But I can't do it with clumsy digits like these,” it went on. “It would need much more sensitive hands, yours, and the small, specialized members that the shape-changer can grow to get into and support the awkward corners. You and Danalta would perform the surgery. I could only assist and advise.”

“Thank you, friend Murchison,” said Prilicla, wishing that the other could feel its gratitude and relief. “We will prepare at once.”

“Before we open Jasam up…” it began, and broke off because all around them the loose equipment in the room was vibrating to the increasing subsonic growl that indicated
Rhabwar
was making its low-level approach. Irritably, and without even looking at the ships closing on the beach; it raised its voice.

“I would like to make a closer, hands-on examination of both patients,” it went on, “for purposes of comparison and to obtain physical confirmation of the scanner findings.”

“Of course,” said Prilicla. “But first give me a few minutes so that Naydrad can render them unconscious.”

“But why?” it asked. “We're very short of time.”

“I'm sorry, friend Murchison,” he replied, “but unlike the
Terragar
officers, the Trolanni would take no pleasure in the sight of your body.”

CHAPTER 27

From the deeply upholstered comfort of his control couch, which felt about as soft as a wooden plank due to the body tension required to make him appear relaxed to his subordinates, Captain Fletcher watched the image of the ships and aircraft of the spider landing force as it expanded in his forward vision screen.

Rhabwar
was not a large vessel by Monitor Corps standards, but it was a little longer and its delta wing configuration gave it more width than the big, flattened, turtlelike ships of the opposition. The approach he had originally planned would certainly have caused maximum nonoffensive confusion, if not utter havoc and demoralization, to the opposition. But he had remembered the words of Pathologist Murchison as she had been telling him how he should do his job.

His idea had been to go in low and fast and drag a sonic shockwave along the length of the beach. He didn't think that the ships would suffer or—except psychologically—their crews, but the thought of what the air turbulence created by a supersonic fly-past would do to those ridiculously flimsy gliders made it a bad idea. It wouldn't be like shooting ducks, he thought, but more like blasting butterflies out of the sky.

“Decelerate,” he said, “and bring us to a halt one hundred meters above the beach midway between the station and the waterline. Deploy three tractor beams in pressor mode at equal strength in stilt configuration and hold us there.”

“Sir,” said Haslam, “the slower approach is going to give them time to begin landing their people on the beach.”

The captain didn't reply because he could see everything that was happening as well as the lieutenant could and had arrived at the same conclusion.

“Dodds,” he said. “The opposition's ships are highly flammable. When we're in position, swing around so that our tail flare will be directed inland. Then put out one forward tractor to discourage the spider advance. Focus it to about ten meters' surface diameter and change the point of focus erratically for maximum turbulence as you play it back and forth along the beach across their path. The idea is to create a localized sandstorm down there.”

“Understood, sir,” said Dodds.

“Power room,” he went on briskly. “We'll be supporting the ship's mass on pressor beams with no assist from the thrusters for a while. How long can you give us? A rough estimate will do.”

“A moment, please,” said the engineering officer; then, “Approximately seventy-three minutes on full power drain, reducing by one-point-three percent per minute until exhaustion and an enforced grounding seventeen-point-three minutes later.”

“Thank you, Chen.” said Fletcher, smiling to himself. The power-room lieutenant was a man who disliked giving rough approximations. “I'm putting this operation on your repeater screen. Enjoy the, ah, battle.”

The misty-blue light given off by their three immaterial stilts as well as that of the forward tractor beam would be difficult for the spiders to see in the bright sunlight, so it would seem that the ship drifting to a stop above them was virtually weightless, or at least very lightly built like one of their own flying machines.

“A suggestion, sir,” said Chen suddenly. “If your intention is to make a blatant demonstration of power that will discourage, and probably scare hell out of the enemy without inflicting actual physical injury, this is the way to do it.…”

“The spiders aren't our enemy, Lieutenant,” said Fletcher dryly, “they just act that way. But go on.”

“But if they don't discourage easily,” the other continued, “we could be faced with a siege situation so that balancing ourselves up here on power-hungry stilts would be a short-term activity as well as running down our power reserves. My suggestion is that we land and modify the meteorite shield to provide hemispherical protection widely enough to cover the station and ourselves. That way we can maintain the shield for a much longer period. Once we've made the point, which we have, that we are large, dangerous, and, if necessary, can float motionless in the air, there's no reason to continue doing so. With respect, sir, I think we should land sooner rather than later.”

Exactly the same thoughts had been going through Fletcher's mind, but saying so to Lieutenant Chen would have made the captain sound petty-minded in the extreme. But a development that the other had not foreseen, at least not yet, was that if a spider aircraft should fly into one of the pressor beams supporting
Rhabwar
's weight, it and its pilot would be smashed flat into the ground.

“Thank you, Chen,” he said instead. “Your suggestion is approved. Haslam, take us down. Dodds, kill the pressors but maintain the forward tractor to keep that sandstorm going. Chen, how soon will the meteorite-shield modification be ready?”