Sector General Omnibus 2 - Alien Emergencies (49 page)

“So are you,” Conway said.

She smiled tiredly and went on, “I don’t wish to give the impression that you are not helping, Doctor. You are. But I had the distinct feeling back there that the Captain was just being polite, and he wants to see you very urgently.”

Prilicla, who had been resting on the ceiling between trips outside to monitor the emotional radiation of newly arrived survivors, made trilling and clicking noises which translated as “For a nonempath, friend Murchison, your feeling was remarkably accurate.”

When Conway entered Control a few minutes later, both Captains were present and they looked relieved to see him. It was Nelson who spoke first.

“Doctor,” he said quickly, “I think this rescue mission is getting out of hand. So far thirty-eight contacts have been made and the sensors report the presence of life on all but two of them, and more cylinders are being reported every few minutes. They are all uniform in size and the present indications are that there are many more sections out there than would be necessary to complete one Wheel.”

“If, for technical or physiological reasons, the alien vessel had to have the configuration of a Wheel,” Conway said thoughtfully, “then it could have been built, as were some of our early space stations, in a series of concentric circles, as wheels within wheels.”

Nelson shook his head. “The longitudinal curvature on all sections is identical. Could there have been two Wheels, separate but identical vessels, which were in collision?”

“I disagree with the collision theory,” Fletcher said, joining in for the first time. “At least between two or more Wheels. There are far too many survivors and undamaged sections for that. Their vessel seems to have fallen apart. I think there was a high-velocity collision with a natural body, the shock of which shook the hub and central support structure apart.”

Conway was trying to visualize the finished shape of this alien jigsaw puzzle. He said, “But you still think there was more than one Wheel?”

“Not exactly,” Fletcher replied. “Two of them mounted side by
side, with a different alien or set of aliens in each. Right now we don’t know whether we are retrieving single aliens who have been surgically modified for travel or pieces of much larger creatures, and we won’t know how many we are dealing with until the scoutships begin bringing back heads and tails. I’m assuming that all of the occupants were in suspended animation and their ship ran itself, accelerating or decelerating along its vertical axis. If I’m right then the hub wreckage should contain the remains of just one propulsion unit and one section which contained the automatic navigation and sensor equipment.”

Conway nodded. “A neat theory, Captain. Is it possible to prove it?”

Fletcher smiled and said, “All of the pieces are out there, even though some of them will be smashed into their component parts and difficult to identify, but given time and the necessary assistance we could fit them together.”

“You mean
reconstruct
it?”

“Perhaps,” Fletcher replied in an oddly neutral tone. “But is it really any of our business?”

Conway opened his mouth, intending to tell the other exactly what he thought of a damn fool question like that, then closed it again when he saw the expressions on both Captains’ faces.

For the truth was that the situation which was developing here was no longer any of their business.
Rhabwar
was an ambulance ship, designed and provisioned for short-duration missions aimed at the rescue, emergency treatment, and transfer to the hospital of survivors of accident or disease in space. But these survivors did not require treatment or fast transport to the hospital. They had been in suspended animation for a long time and would be capable of remaining in that condition without harm for a long time to come. Reviving them and, more important, relocating them on a suitable planet would be a major project.

The sensible thing for Conway to do would be to bow out gracefully and dump the problem in the laps of the Cultural Contact specialists.
Rhabwar
could then return to its dock and the medical team could go back to treating the weird and wonderful variety of patients who turned up at Sector General while they waited for the next distress call for their special ambulance ship.

But the two men watching him so intently were a scoutship commander on survey duty, who would be lucky if he turned up one inhabited system in ten years of searching, and Major Fletcher,
Rhabwar
’s Captain and a recognized authority in the field of extraterrestrial comparative technology—and the rescue of this e-t sublight colonization transport could well be the biggest problem to face the Federation since the discovery and treatment of the continent-girdling strata creature of Drambo.

Conway looked from Nelson to Fletcher, then said quietly, “You’re right, Captain, this isn’t our responsibility. It is Cultural Contact’s problem, and they would not think any the less of us, in fact they would expect us to hand it over to them. But I get the impression that you don’t want me to do that.”

Fletcher shook his head firmly and Nelson said, “Doctor, if you have any friends in authority, tell them I would willingly give an arm or a leg to be allowed to stay on this one.”

A cool, logical portion of Conway’s mind was urging him to do the sensible thing, to think about what he was letting himself in for and to remember who would be blamed if things went wrong, but it never had any hope of winning that argument.

“Good,” Conway said, “that makes it unanimous.”

They were both grinning at him in a manner totally unbefitting their rank and responsibilities, as if he had bestowed some great favor instead of condemning them to months of unremitting mental and physical hard labor. He went on, “As the ship responsible for making the original find,
Tyrell
would be justified in remaining, and as the medical team in attendance, the same applies to
Rhabwar
. But we are going to need a lot of help, and if we are to have any hope of getting it you will have to give me detailed information on every aspect of this problem, not just the medical side, and answers to the questions which are going to be asked.

“To begin with, I shall need to know a great deal more about the physiology of the survivors, and you will have to find me a couple of additional cadavers for Thornnastor, the hospital’s Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology. It has six feet and weighs half a ton and if Murchison and I don’t come up with some sensible conclusions about this life-form, and specimens for Thorny to in
vestigate independently, it will walk all over me. And what O’Mara and Skempton will do—”

“They’re public servants, Doctor,” Nelson said, grinning. “You have the rank.”

Conway got to his feet and said very seriously, “This is not simply a matter of whistling up another flotilla of scoutships, gentlemen, and something more than a hyperspace signal will be needed this time. To get the help we need I’ll have to go back to the hospital and argue and plead, and probably thump the table a bit.”

As he entered the gravity-free central well and began pulling himself toward the Casualty Deck he could hear Fletcher saying, “That wasn’t much of an inducement, Nelson. Most of his highly placed friends have more arms and legs than they know what to do with.”

Leaving
Rhabwar
and the rest of the medical team at the disaster site, Conway traveled to Sector General in
Tyrell
. He had requested an urgent meeting with the hospital’s big three—Skempton, Thornnastor, and O’Mara—as soon as the scoutship had emerged into normal space. The request had been granted but Chief Psychologist O’Mara had told him curtly that there would be no point trying to start the meeting prematurely by worrying out loud over the communication channel, so Conway had to curb his impatience and try to marshal his arguments while Sector General slowly grew larger in the forward viewscreen.

When Conway arrived in the Chief Psychologist’s office, Thornnastor, Skempton, and O’Mara were already waiting for him. Colonel Skempton, as the ranking Monitor Corps officer in the hospital, was occupying the only other chair, apart from O’Mara’s own, which was suitable for the use of Earth-humans; Thornnastor, like the other members of the Tralthan species, did everything including sleeping on its six, elephantine feet.

The Chief Psychologist waved a hand at the selection of e-t furniture ranged in front of his desk and said, “Take a seat if you can do so without injuring yourself, Doctor, and make your report.”

Conway arranged himself carefully in a Kelgian relaxer frame and began to describe briefly the events from the time
Rhabwar
had
arrived in response to
Tyrell
’s distress beacon. He told of the investigation of the first section of the fragmented alien vessel which was the product of a race in the early stage of spaceship technology, possessing sublight drive and gravity furnished by rotating their ship. Every undamaged section found had contained an e-t in suspended animation. For this reason additional scoutships had been requested to help find and retrieve the remaining survivors as a matter of urgency because the majority of these widely scattered suspended animation compartments would, in just under twelve weeks’ time, fall into or pass so close to a nearby sun that the beings inside them would perish.

While Conway was speaking, O’Mara stared at him with eyes which opened into a mind so perceptive and analytical that it gave the Chief Psychologist what amounted to a telepathic faculty. Thornnastor’s four eyes were focused equally on Conway and Colonel Skempton, who was staring down at his scratch pad where he was drawing a circle and going over it repeatedly without lifting his stylus. Conway found himself watching the pad as well, and abruptly he stopped talking.

Suddenly they were staring at him with all of their eyes, and Skempton said, “I’m sorry, Doctor, does my doodling distract you?”

“To the contrary, sir,” Conway said, smiling, “you have helped a lot.”

Ignoring the Colonel’s baffled expression, Conway went on, “Our original theory was that a sublight vessel with the configuration of a rotating wheeltype space station suffered a catastrophic malfunction or collision which carried away its hub-mounted propulsion and navigation systems, and jarred the rim structure apart; the subsequent dispersal of the suspended animation containers was aided by the centrifugal force which furnished their ship with artificial gravity. But the number of sections found just before I left the area were more than enough to form three complete Wheels and, because I have been bothered by the fact that no head segments have been found so far, I have decided to discard the Wheel or multiple Wheel theory in favor of the more simple configuration suggested by the Colonel’s sketch of a continuous—”

“Doctor,” Thornnastor broke in firmly. As the Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology it had a tendency toward single-mindedness
where its specialty was concerned. “Kindly describe in detail and give me the physiological classification of this life-form and, of course, your assessment of the number of casualties we will be required to treat. And are specimens of this life-form available for study?”

Conway felt his face reddening as he made an admission no Senior Physician on the staff of Sector General should ever have to make. He said, “We cannot classify this life-form with complete certainty, sir. But I have brought you two cadavers in the hope that you may be able to do so. As I have already said, the survivors are still inside their suspended animation compartments and the relatively few who did not survive are in a badly damaged condition—in several pieces, in fact.”

Thornnastor made untranslatable noises which probably signified approval, then it said, “Had they not been in pieces, I would soon have rendered them so. But the fact that neither Murchison nor yourself are sure of their classification surprises and intrigues me, Doctor. Surely you are able to form a few tentative conclusions?”

Conway was suddenly glad that Prilicla was still on board
Rhabwar
because his embarrassment would have given the little empath a bad fit of the shakes. He said, “Yes, sir. The being we examined was a warm-blooded oxygen breather with the type of basic metabolism associated with that physiological grouping. The cadaver was massive, measuring approximately twenty meters in length and three meters in diameter, excluding projecting appendages. Physically it resembles the DBLF Kelgian life-form, but many times larger and possessing a leathery tegument rather than the silver fur of the Kelgians. Like the DBLFs it is multipedal, but the manipulatory appendages are positioned in a single row along the back.

“There were twenty-one of these dorsal limbs, all showing evidence of early evolutionary specialization. Six of them were long, heavy, and claw-tipped and were obviously evolved for defense since the being was a herbivore, and there were fifteen in five groups of three spaced between the six heavier tentacles. Each of the thinner limbs terminated in four digits, two of which were opposable, and were manipulatory appendages originally evolved for gathering and transferring food to the mouths, of which there are three on each
flank opening into three stomachs. Two additional orifices on each side open into a very large and complex lung. The structure inside these breathing orifices suggests that expelled air could be interrupted and modulated to produce intelligence-bearing sounds. On the underside were three openings used for the elimination of wastes.