Sector General Omnibus 2 - Alien Emergencies (52 page)

The FROBs were ideally suited to space construction projects. Their home planet, Hudlar, pulled four Earth gravities, and its atmospheric pressure—if that dense, soupy mixture of oxygen, inerts, and masses of microscopic animal and vegetable nutrient in suspension could be called an atmosphere—was seven times Earth-normal. At home they absorbed the food-laden air through their incredibly tough yet porous skin, while offplanet they sprayed themselves regularly and frequently with nutrient paint. Their six flexible and immensely strong limbs terminated in four-digited hands which, when the fingers were curled inward and the knuckles presented to the ground, served also as feet.

Environmentally, the Hudlars were a very adaptable species, because the physiological features which protected them against their own planet’s crushing gravity and pressure also enabled them to work comfortably in any noncorrosive atmosphere of lesser pressure right down to and including the vacuum of space. The only item of equipment a Hudlar space construction engineer needed, apart from its tools, was a communicator which took the form of a small, air-filled blister enclosing its speaking membrane and a two-way radio.

Conway had not bothered to ask if there was an FROB medic on the Hudlar ship. Curative surgery had been a completely alien concept to that virtually indestructible species until they had joined the Federation and learned about places like Sector General, so that medically trained Hudlars were about as rare outside the hospital as physically injured ones inside it.

Captain Nelson placed
Tyrell
within fifty meters of the scene of the accident. Conway headed for the injured Hudlar. Krach-Yul had already reached the Earth-human casualties, one of whom was blaming himself loudly and unprintably for causing the accident and tying up the suit frequency in the process.

Conway gathered that the two Earth-humans had been saved from certain death by being crushed between two slowly closing ship sections by the Hudlar interposing its enormously strong body, which would have escaped without injury if the jagged-edged stump of an external bracing member had not snagged one of the FROB’s limbs close to the point where it joined the body.

When Conway arrived, the Hudlar was gripping the injured limb with three of its hands, tourniquet fashion, while the two free hands remaining were trying to hold the edges of the wound together—unsuccessfully. Tiny, misshapen globules of blood were forming between its fingers to drift weightlessly away, steaming furiously. It could not talk because its air bag had been lost, leaving its speaking membranes to vibrate silently in the vacuum.

Conway withdrew a limb sleeve-piece, the largest size he carried, from his Hudlar medical kit and motioned for the casualty to bare the wound.

He could see that it was a deep wound by the way the dark red bubbles grew suddenly larger before they broke away, but he was able to snap the sleeve-piece in position before too much blood was lost. Even so there was a considerable leakage around both ends of the sleeve as the Hudlar’s high internal pressure tried to empty it of body fluids. Conway quickly attached circlips at each end of the sleeve and began to tighten one while the Hudlar itself tightened the other. Gradually the fluid loss slowed and then ceased, the casualty’s hands drifted away from the injured limb, and its speaking membrane ceased its silent vibrating. The Hudlar had lost consciousness.

Ten minutes later the Hudlar was inside
Tyrell
’s cargo lock and Conway was using his scanner to search for internal damage caused by the traumatic decompression. The longer he looked the less he liked what he saw, and as he was concluding the examination Krach-Yul joined him.

“The Earth-humans are simple fracture cases, Doctor,” the Orli
gian reported. “Before setting the bones I wondered if you, as a member of their own species, would prefer to—”

“And rob you of the chance to increase your other-species experience?” Conway broke in. “No, Doctor, you treat them. They’re on antipain, I take it, and there is no great degree of urgency?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Krach-Yul said.

“Good,” Conway said, “because I have another job for you—looking after this Hudlar until you can move it to Sector General. You will need a nutrient sprayer from the Hudlar ship, then arrange with Captain Nelson to increase the air pressure and artificial gravity in this cargo lock to levels as close to Hudlar-normal as he can manage. Treatment will consist of spraying the casualty with nutrient at hourly intervals and checking on the cardiac activity, and periodically easing the tightness of the sleeve-piece if your scanner indicates a serious reduction of circulation to the injured limb. While you are doing these things you will wear
two
gravity neutralizers. If you were wearing one and it failed under four-G conditions there would be another seriously injured casualty, you.

“Normally I would travel with this patient,” he went on, stifling a yawn, “but I have to be available in case something urgent develops with the CRLT. Hudlar surgery can be tricky so I’ll tape some notes on this one for the operating team, including the suggestion that you be allowed to observe if you wish to do so.”

“Very much,” Krach-Yul said, “and thank you, Doctor.”

“And now I’ll leave you with your patients and return to
Rhabwar
,” Conway said. Silently he added,
to sleep
.

Tyrell
was absent for eight days and was subsequently assigned to courier duty, taking specimens to Sector General and returning with information, advice, and detailed lists of questions regarding the progress of their work from Thornnastor. The great, spiral jigsaw puzzle which was the alien ship was beginning to take shape—or more accurately, to take a large number of semicircular and quarter-circular shapes—as the hibernation cylinders were identified, positioned, and coupled. Many of the cylinders were still missing because they had been so seriously damaged that their occupants had died or they had still to be found and retrieved by the scoutships.

Conway was worried because the incomplete coilship and the
motley fleet of Monitor Corps vessels and auxiliaries were on a collision course with the nearby sun, which was growing perceptibly brighter every day. It was clearly evident that the growth rate of the alien vessel was much less perceptible. When he worried about it aloud to the Fleet Commander, Dermod told him politely to mind his own medical business.

Then a few days later
Tyrell
returned with information which made it very much his medical business.

Vespasian
’s communications officer, who was usually a master of the diplomatic delaying tactic, put him through to the Fleet Commander in a matter of seconds instead of forcing him to climb slowly up the ship’s entire chain of command. This was not due to any sudden increase in Conway’s standing with the senior Monitor Corps officer, but simply that while Conway was trying to reach Dermod, the Fleet Commander was trying to contact the Doctor.

It was Dermod who spoke first, with the slight artificiality of tone which told Conway that not only was the other in a hurry and under pressure but that there were other people present beyond the range of the vision pickup. He said, “Doctor, there is a serious problem regarding the final assembly phase and I need your help. You are already concerned over the limited time remaining to us and, frankly, I was unwilling to discuss the problem with you until I was able to present it, and the solution, in its entirety. This can now be done, in reverse order, preferably. My immediate requirement is for another capital ship.
Claudius
is available and—”

“Why—” Conway began, shaking his head in momentary confusion. He had been about to list his own problems and requirements and found himself suddenly on the receiving end.

“Very well, Doctor, I’ll state the problem first,” the Fleet Commander said, frowning as he nodded to someone out of sight. The screen blanked for a few seconds, then it displayed a black field on which there was a thick, vertical gray line. At the lower end of the line a fat red box appeared and on the opposite end a blue circle. Dermod went on briskly, “We now have a pretty accurate idea of the configuration of the alien ship, and I am showing you a very simple representation because I haven’t time to do otherwise right now.

“The ship had a central stem, the gray line,” Dermod explained,
“with the power plant and thrusters represented by the red box aft and the forward-mounted sensors and navigation systems shown as a blue circle. Since the ship’s occupant was unconscious, all of these systems were fully automatic. The stem also provided the anchoring points for the structure which supported the inhabited coil. You will see that the main supports are angled forward to compensate for stresses encountered while the vessel was under power and during the landing maneuver.”

A forest of branches grew suddenly from the stem, making it look like a squat, cylindrical Christmas tree standing in its red tub and with a bright-blue fairy light at the top. Then the continuous spiral of linked hibernation compartments was attached to the ends of the branches, followed by the spacing members which separated each loop of the coil, and the picture lost all resemblance to a tree.

“The coil diameter remains constant throughout at just under five hundred meters,” the Fleet Commander’s voice continued. “Originally there were twelve turns of the coil and, with each hibernation cylinder measuring twenty meters in length, this means there were roughly eighty hibernating CRLTs in every loop of the coil and close on one thousand of the beings on the complete ship.

“Every loop of the coil was separated by a distance of seventy meters, so that the total height of the coilship was just over eight hundred meters. We were puzzled by this separation since it would have been structurally much simpler laying one on top of the other, but we now believe that the open coil configuration was designed both to reduce and localize meteorite collision damage and remove the majority of the hibernation compartments as far as possible from radiation leakage from the reactor at the stern. While encased in its rather unusual vessel we think the creature traveled tail-first so that its thinking end was at the stern to initiate disembarkation following the landing. Unfortunately, the stern section had to be heavier and more rigid than the forward structure since it had to support the weight of the vessel during deceleration and landing, and so it was the stern which sustained most of the damage when the collision occurred, and most of the CRLT casualties were from the sternmost loop of the coil.”

According to
Vespasian
’s computer’s reconstruction, the vessel had been in direct head-on collision with a large meteor, and the
closing velocities involved had been such that the whole central stem had been obliterated, as if an old-time projectile hand weapon had been used to remove the core of an apple. Only a few scraps of debris from the power unit and guidance system remained—enough for identification purposes but not for reconstruction—and the shock of the collision had shaken the overall coil structure apart.

On the screen the widely scattered hibernation compartments came together again into a not quite complete coil: There were several sections missing, particularly near the stern. Then the stem, its power and guidance systems, and the entire support structure disappeared from the display leaving only the incomplete coil.

“The central core of that vessel is a mass of pulverized wreckage many light-years away,” Dermod continued briskly, “and we have decided that trying to salvage and reconstruct it would be an unnecessary waste of time and materiel when there is a simpler solution available. This requires the presence of a second Emperor-class vessel to—”

“But why do you want—?” Conway began.

“I am in the process of explaining why, Doctor,” the Fleet Commander said sharply. The image on the screen changed again and he went on, “The two capital ships and
Descartes
will take up positions in close line-astern formation and lock onto each other with matched tractor and pressor beams. In effect this will convert the three ships into a single, rigid structure which will replace the alien vessel’s central stem, and the branching members which supported the coil will also be nonmaterial but equally rigid tractors and pressors.

“In the landing configuration
Vespasian
will be bottom of the heap,” Dermod continued, with a tinge of pride creeping into his voice. “Our thrusters are capable of supporting the other two ships and the alien coilship during deceleration and landing, with
Claudius
and
Descartes
furnishing lateral stability and taking some of the load with surface-directed pressors. After touchdown, the power reserves of all three vessels will be sufficient to hold everything together for at least twelve hours, which should be long enough, I hope, for the alien to leave its ship. If we can find somewhere to put it, that is.”

The image flicked off to be replaced by the face of the Fleet
Commander. “So you see, Doctor, I need
Claudius
to complete this—this partly nonmaterial structure and to test its practicability in weightless conditions before working out the stresses it will have to undergo during the landing maneuver. Of equal urgency are the calculations needed to extend the combined hyperspace envelope of the three ships to enclose the coil and Jump with it out of here before this damn sun gets too close.”

Conway was silent for a moment, inwardly cringing at the thought of some of the things which could go catastrophically wrong when three linked ships performed a simultaneous Jump. But he could not voice his concern because ship maneuvers were most decidedly the Fleet Commander’s and not the Doctor’s business, and Dermod would tell him so with justification. Besides, Conway had his own problems and right now he needed help with them.

“Sir,” he said awkwardly, “your proposed solution is ingenious, and thank you for the explanation. But my original question was not regarding the reason why you wanted
Claudius
, but why you needed my help in the matter.”