Sector General Omnibus 2 - Alien Emergencies (51 page)

“Naturally,” Thornnastor growled. Its six elephantine feet, which had been silent while Conway was speaking, resumed their slow thumping. Clearly the Tralthan was eager to go to work on those specimens of the completely new life-form.

O’Mara waited for precisely three seconds, then he scowled up at Conway and said. “And that is all you require, Doctor?”

Conway nodded. “For the present.”

Colonel Skempton leaned forward and said caustically, “
For the present
he needs the services of a Sector subfleet, including
Descartes
and
Vespasian
. Before we can recommend the deployment of so many Service units we should refer the matter to the Federation Council for—” He broke off because the thumping of Thornnastor’s feet was making conversation difficult.

“Your pardon, Colonel,” the Tralthan said, “but it seems to me that if we refer this matter to the Council they will ponder on it at great length and then decide to make it the responsibility of the beings best able to understand and solve the problem, who are the entities comprising the technical and medical crew of
Rhabwar
. The special ambulance ship program was designed to deal with the unexpected, and the fact that this problem is unexpectedly large is beside the point.

“This is an entity, or entities, of a hitherto unknown species,” it went on, “and I recommend that Senior Physician Conway be given the assistance he requires to rescue and treat it. However, I have no objection to you recommending this course and referring the matter to the Council for discussion and ratification, and for amendment should they come up with a better idea. Well, Colonel?”

Skempton shook his head. He said doggedly, “It’s wrong, I know it’s wrong, for a newly appointed ship commander and a medic to be given so much authority. But the
Rhabwar
people are the only ones who know what they are doing at the moment. Reluctantly, I agree. O’Mara?”

All their eyes, the Colonel’s and Conway’s two and Thornnastor’s four, were on the Chief Psychologist, who kept his steadily on Conway. Finally he spoke.

“If you have nothing else to say, Doctor,” he said dryly, “I suggest you return to
Rhabwar
as quickly as possible before the area becomes so congested that you can’t find your own ship.”

The reaction time of the Monitor Corps to an emergency large or small was impressively fast. In
Tyrell
’s forward viewscreen the area resembled a small, untidy star cluster in which
Rhabwar
’s beacon flashed at its center like a short-term variable. Apart from acknowledging their arrival and giving them permission to lock on, Fletcher did not speak to them because, he explained, fifteen more scoutships had arrived unexpectedly and he was busy fitting them into his
retrieval program. For this reason Conway did not get an opportunity to tell him about the other unexpected things which were about to happen until he was back on board the ambulance ship, and by that time it was too late.

“
Rhabwar
,” a voice said from the wall speaker as Conway entered Control, “this is the survey and cultural contact vessel
Descartes
, Colonel Okaussie commanding. I’m told you have work for us, Major Fletcher.”

“Well, yes, sir,” the Captain said. He looked appealingly at Conway, then went on, “If I might respectfully suggest, sir, that your translation specialists—”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Colonel Okaussie broke in. “Respectfully suggest, I mean. When I know as much about this situation as you do I’ll accept suggestions, respectful or otherwise. But until then, Major, stop wasting time and tell me what you want us to do.”

“Yes, sir,” Fletcher said. Speaking quickly, concisely, and, out of habit, respectfully, he did just that. Then a few seconds after he broke contact the radar screen showed a new trace which was even larger than
Descartes
. It identified itself as the Hudlar-crewed depot ship
Motann
, a star-going engineering complex normally used to bring technical assistance to vessels whose hyperdrive generators had failed noncatastrophically leaving them stranded in normal space between the stars. Its captain, who was not a Monitor Corps officer, was also happy to take his instructions from Fletcher. But then an even larger blip appeared on the screen, indicating that a very large ship indeed had just emerged from hyperspace. Automatically Lieutenant Haslam fed the bearing to the telescope and tapped for maximum magnification.

The tremendous, awe-inspiring sight of an Emperor-class battlecruiser filled the screen.

“
Rhabwar
, this is
Vespasian…
”

Fletcher paled visibly at the thought of giving instructions to the godlike entity who would be in command of
that
ship, whose communications officer was relaying the compliments of Fleet Commander Dermod and a request for full vision contact as soon as convenient. Conway, who had not had time to tell the Captain what to expect because it was already happening, got to his feet.

“I’ll be in the Casualty Deck lab,” he said. Grinning, he reached
across to clap Fletcher reassuringly on the shoulder and added, “You’re doing fine, Captain. Just remember that, a long, long time ago, the Fleet Commander was a major, too.”

The conversation between Fletcher and the Fleet Commander, complete with visuals, was on the Casualty Deck’s repeater when he arrived, but the sound was muted because Prilicla was on another frequency giving instructions to one of the scoutship medical officers regarding a cadaver the other had found and which Murchison wanted brought in for examination. Murchison and Naydrad were still working on the first specimen, which had been reduced to what seemed to be its component parts.

Murchison nodded toward the repeater screen and said, “You seem to have been given everything you needed. Was O’Mara in a good mood?”

“His usual sarcastic, helpful self,” Conway said, moving to join her at the dissection table. “Do we know anything more about this outsize boa constrictor?”

“I don’t know what
we
know,” she said crossly, “but
I
know a little more and feel more than a little confused by the knowledge. For instance…”

The thick pencil of nerve ganglia with its localized bunchings and swellings which ran through the center of the cylindrical body was, almost certainly, the CRLT’s equivalent of a brain, and the idea of a missing head or tail was beginning to seem unlikely—especially since the transparent material which covered the raw areas fore and aft was, despite its appearance, equally as tough as the being’s leathery body tegument.

She had been successful in tracing the nerve connections between the core swellings and the eyes, mouths, and manipulatory appendages, and from both ends of the axial nerve bundle to the puzzling system of muscles which underlay the raw areas on the forward and rear faces of the creature.

The specimen appeared to be male—at least, the female genitalia at the other end were shrunken and seemed to be in a condition of early atrophy—and she had identified the male sperm generator and the method of transfer to a female.

“…There is evidence of unnatural organ displacement,” she went on, “which can only be caused by weightlessness. Gravity, real
or artificial, is a physiological necessity for this life-form. During hibernation the absence of weight would not be fatal, but weightlessness while conscious would cause severe nausea, sensory impairment, and, I feel sure, intense mental and physical distress.”

Which meant that the being would have to be in position on the rim of its rotating vessel or affected by natural gravity, that of its target world, when it was revived.
It isn’t a doctor this patient needed
, Conway thought wryly,
it’s a miracle worker!

“With the Captain’s help,” Murchison continued, “we have established that the medication which produces and or extends the hibernation anesthesia occupies the larger volume of a dispenser mechanism which also contains a smaller quantity of the complex organic secretion which can only be the reviver. Fletcher also traced the input to the automatic sensor and actuator which switches the mechanism from the hibernation to the resuscitation mode and found that it reacted to the combined presence of gravity and external pressure. The same actuator mechanism is also responsible for ejecting the endplates of its hibernation compartment which would enable the CRLT to disembark.

“Sooner or later we’re going to have to revive one of these things,” she ended worriedly, “and we’ll have to be very sure that we know what we are doing.”

Conway was already out of his spacesuit and climbing into his surgical coveralls. He said, “Anything in particular you’d like me to do?”

They worked on the cadaver while the hours flickered past on the time display to become days, then weeks. From time to time a terse, subspace message from Thornnastor would arrive confirming their findings or suggesting new avenues of investigation, but even so it seemed that their rate of progress was slow to nonexistent.

Occasionally they would look up at the Control Room repeater, but with decreasing frequency. Fletcher, a Hudlar space construction specialist, and variously qualified Monitor Corps officers were usually showing each other pieces of twisted metal via their vision channels, comparing identification symbols and talking endlessly about them. No doubt it was all vitally important stuff, but it made boring
listening. Besides, they had their own organic jigsaw puzzle to worry about.

A pleasant break in the routine would occur when they had to go outside to look at one of the other cadavers which had been brought in and attached to the outer hull, there being room for only one CRLT at a time inside
Rhabwar
. On these occasions the investigations were conducted in airless conditions and only the organic material which was of special interest to them was excised for later study. As a result they found a bewildering variety of age and sex combinations which seemed to indicate that the older CRLTs were well-developed males whose raw areas at each extremity had a brownish coloration, while the younger beings were clearly female and the areas concerned were a livid pink under the transparent covering.

Once there was a break in the investigative routine which was not pleasant. For several hours they had been studying a flaccid, purplish lump of something which might have been the organic trigger for the being’s hibernation phase, and making very little progress with it, when Prilicla broke into their angry, impatient silence.

“Friend Murchison,” the empath said, “is feeling tired.”

“I’m not,” the pathologist said, with a yawn which threatened to dislocate her firm but beautifully formed lower mandible. “At least, I wasn’t until you reminded me.”

“As are you, friend Conway—” Prilicla began, when there was an interruption. The furry features of Surgeon-Lieutenant Krach-Yul replaced the pieces of alien hardware which had been filling the repeater screen.

“Doctor Conway,” the Orligian medic said, “I have to report an accident. Two Earth-human DBDGs, simple fractures, no decompression damage—”

“Very well,” said Conway, clenching his teeth on a yawn. “Now’s your chance to get in some more other-species surgical experience.”

“—And a Hudlar engineer, physiological classification FROB,” Krach-Yul went on. “It has sustained a deep, incised, and lacerated wound which has been quickly but inadequately treated by the being itself. There has been a considerable loss of body fluid and associated internal pressure, diminished sensoria, and—”

“Coming,” Conway said. To Murchison he muttered, “Don’t wait up for me.”

While
Tyrell
was taking him to the scene of the accident, an area where three of the coilship sections were being fitted together, Conway reviewed his necessarily scant surgical experience with the Hudlar life-form.

They were a species who rarely took sick, and then only during preadolescence, and they were fantastically resistant to physical injury, with eyes which were protected by a hard, transparent membrane, tegument like flexible armor, and no body orifices except for the temporary ones opened for mating and birth.