Sector General sg-5

by James White

  been the reservoir for a hydraulic actuator system. Both have been ruptured and their connecting lines fractured, and there is a faint fog surrounding them as if some of the contents remains and is evaporating.

  “Ahead the corridor is partly blocked by wreckage,” he continued. “I can move it but there will be a lot of noise, so don’t—”

  “Captain,” Conway broke in. “Can you please bring us the DCLG and a sample of the hydraulic fluid with the other samples as soon as you can.” To Murchison he added, “I’d like to know if the lung damage is associated with that leakage. It would eliminate another possibility.”

  Fletcher sounded irritated at having to break off his investigation of the ship. He said shortly, “They’ll be outside your hold entrance in ten minutes, Doctor.”

  By the time Conway had retrieved the samples the Captain had already returned to the midships section, but once again his investigation was interrupted, this time by Lieutenant Dodds.

  “The lander is ready to leave, sir,” the Astrogator said. There was a certain hesitancy in his voice as he went on, “I’m afraid there will be time for only one round trip before sunset, so would the Doctor and you decide which casualties should be lifted and which left there for retrieval tomorrow? With you three and Haslam on board just over half of the remaining casualties can be lifted, less if you bring up all portable equipment.”

  “I’m not leaving unattended casualties down here,” Conway said firmly. “The drop in temperature and the sandstorms would probably finish them!”

  “Maybe not,” Murchison said thoughtfully. “If we have to leave some of them, and it seems we’ve no choice, we could cover them with sand. They have a high body temperature, the sand is a good insulator, and they are already sealed up with a self-contained oxygen supply.”

  “I’ve heard of doctors burying their mistakes,” Conway began dryly, but Dodds broke in again.

  “Sorry, there is a problem there, Ma’am,” he said. “There 316 four large thorn patches moving toward the wreck. Slowly, af course, but we estimate their arrival just before midnight. According to my information the thorns are omnivorous and trap mobile prey by slowly encircling it, often at a distance, and allowing the animal to scratch itself on the thorns. These secrete a poison which is paralyzing or lethal, depending on the size of the prey and number of scratches. When the prey is immobilized the thorn clump inserts its roots and removes whatever nutrient material there is available.

  “I don’t think your buried casualties,” he added grimly, “would survive till morning.”

  Murchison swore in very unladylike fashion, and Conway said, “We could move them into the hold here and seal the hatch. We would need heaters and a medical monitor arid — I’m still not happy about leaving them unattended.”

  “Obviously this is something which will have to be carefully considered, Doctor,” the Captain said. “Your casualties wilf not only have to be attended, they may have to be defended as well. Dodds, how long can you delay the launch?”

  “Half an hour, sir,” the Astrogator said. “Then allowing another half hour for the trip and at least an hour on the surface to load up and make provision for the other casualties. If the lander does not leave in two and a half hours there will be serious problems with the wind and sand during take-off.”

  “Very well,” Fletcher said. “We should reach a decision in half an hour. Hold the lander until then.”

  But there was very little discussion and the decision was made, in spite of anything Murchison and Conway could say to the contrary, by the Captain. Fletcher stated that the two medics on Trugdil had done everything possible for the casualties and could do nothing further without the facilities of Rhabwar, except keep them under observation. The Captain insisted that he was capable of doing that, and of defending them in case they were attacked again.

  He was sure that the criminal responsible for their injuries was not currently on the ship, but it might return to the shelter of the wreck when the cold and the sandstorms returned, or even to escape the advancing thorn clumps. He added that the proper place for all of the medical team was on Rhabwar where the casualties there could t?e given proper attention.

  “Captain,” Conway said angrily, unable to refute his arguments, “in the medical area I have complete authority.”

  “Then why don’t you exercise it responsibly, Doctor?” Fletcher replied.

  “Captain,” Murchison broke in quickly, trying to head off an argument which could sour relations on the ambulance ship for weeks to come. “The DCLG specimen you found was not badly injured, compared with some of the others, but it was defunct, I’m afraid. Severe inflammation of the breathing passages and massive lung damage similar to the one you found in the hold. Both sets of lungs contained traces of the sample you took from the hydraulic reservoir. That is lethal stuff, Captain, so don’t open your visor anywhere near a leak.”

  “Thank you, ma’am, I won’t,” Fletcher said calmly, and went on, “Dodds, you can see that the stretch of corridor ahead has been crushed almost flat. There is enough space for crew members to squeeze through, but I will have to cut away a lot of this jagged metal—”

  Conway switched off his radio and touched his helmet against Murchison’s so that they could speak privately. He said furiously, “Whose side are you on?”

  She grinned at him through her visor, but before she could reply Prilicla’s voice rustled timidly from the phones. The empath, too, was trying to calm a potentially unpleasant source of emotional radiation.

  “Friend Conway,” it said, “while friend Fletcher’s arguments are valid, and I would personally welcome the presence of friend Murchison and yourself back on board, friend Naydrad and myself are coping adequately with the patients, all of whom are in a stable condition with the exception of three of the small DCLGs who are showing a slight reduction in body temperature.”

  “Deepening shock, do you think?” Conway asked.

  “No, friend Conway,” Prilicla replied. “There seems to be a slight improvement in their general condition.”

  “Emotional radiation?”

  “Nothing on the conscious level, friend Conway,” the empath replied, “but there are unconscious feelings of deprivation, and need.”

  “They are all hungry,” Conway said dryly, “except one.”

  “The thought of that one is abhorrent to me, too,” Prilicla said. “But to return to the condition of the patients: The lung damage and inflammation of the breathing passages noted by friend Murchison is repeated, to a much lesser degree of severity, in the other survivors, and the cause is correctly attributed to the damaged reservoir. But it is possible that operating in Trugdil conditions with the less sensitive portable equipment—”

  “Prilicla,” Conway said impatiently, “what you mean is that we were too blind or stupid to spot an important medical: datum, but you are too nice a person to hurt our feelings. But intense impatience and curiosity can be unpleasant emotions, too, so just tell us what you discovered, Doctor.”

  “I am sorry, friend Conway,” said the empath. “It is that the food passage as well as the breathing passage is similarly inflamed. The condition is relatively mild, not obvious as are the other areas of inflammation, but is present in uniform intensity in all of the survivors regardless of physiological classification. I wondered if there was anything on their ship which would explain this.

  “I am also puzzled by the amputation wounds,” Prilicla went on. “I have been suturing incised wounds, none of which have penetrated to vital organs, and generally tidying up. But the stumps I have covered with sterile dressings only until the possibility of replacing the original limbs has been eliminated. Have you found anything down there which might be a missing limb or organ? Or have you given thought to the shape, size, and purpose of these missing parts?”

  From amidships there were sounds of metal scraping against metal and of erratic, heavy breathing in their phones as the Captain cleared an obstruction. When it wa
s quiet again, Murchison said, “Yes, Doctor, but I’ve formed no firm conclusions. There is a fairly complex nerve linkage to the stump in all three types and, in the case of the big DCOJ, a collapsed, tubular connection whose origin I have been unable to trace because of its close association with the very complex upper intestinal tract. But taking into account the positioning of these limbs or organs, which are at the base of the spine in the two smaller life-forms and on the medial underside of the large one, all 1 can say is that the missing parts must have been considered particularly edible by the attacker since it did not remove anything else. I have no clear idea of the size or shape of the missing parts, but my guess would be that they are probably tails, genitalia, or mammaries—”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt a medical conference, ma’am,” Fletcher broke in, in a tone which suggested that he was very glad to interrupt before it could go any farther. He went on quickly, “Doctor Conway, I’ve found another DCMH. It is tangled up in bedding, not moving, and seems to be uninjured. I thought you might like to examine it here rather than have it pulled through the wreckage in the corridor.”

  “I’m on my way,” Conway said.

  He climbed out of the hold and crawled along the corridor in the Captain’s wake, listening as Fletcher resumed his commentary. Immediately forward of the cleared section of corridor the Captain had found the Dormitory Deck. It was characteristic of the early type of hyperships which did not have artificial gravity, and was filled with rows of sandwich-style double hammocks which retained the sleeper in weightless conditions. The hammocks were suspended on shock absorbers so as to double as acceleration couches for off-duty crew members.

  There were three distinct sizes of hammock, so the ship had the DCLG, DCMH, and DCOJ life-forms in the crew — which proved that even the large and apparently unintelligent DCOJs were ship’s personnel and not lab animals. Judging by the number and size of the hammocks, the two smaller life-forms outnumbered the large one by three to one.

  He had made a quick count of the hammocks, the Captain said as Conway was passing the damaged hydraulic system reservoir, and the total number, thirty, agreed with the number of casualties found outside and inside the ship, which meant that the missing criminal was almost certainly not of any of the three species who served as the crew.

  It was difficult to be precise regarding occurrences on the Dormitory Deck, Fletcher explained, because loose objects, ornaments, and personal effects had collected on the wall when the ship had fallen on its side. But one third of the hammocks were neatly stowed while the remaining two thirds looked as though they had been hastily vacated. No doubt the neat hammocks belonged to the crew members on duty, but the Captain thought it strange that if the ship operated a one-watch-on, two-off duty roster the rest of the crew were in their bunks instead of half of them being outside the dormitory on a recreation deck. But then he was forgetting the fact that the safest place during the landing maneuver would be inside the acceleration hammocks.

  The Captain was backing out of the dormitory as Conway reached it. Fletcher pointed and said, “It is close to the inner hull among the DCMH hammocks. Call me if you need help, Doctor.”

  He turned and began crawling toward the bows again. But he did not get very far because by the time Conway reached the casualty he could hear the hiss of the cutting torch and the Captain’s heavy breathing.

  It took only a few minutes to piece together what had happened. Two of the hammock’s supports had broken due to the lateral shock when the ship had fallen — they had been designed to withstand vertical G forces, not horizontal ones — and the hammock had swung downward throwing its occupant against the suddenly horizontal wall. There was an area of subcutaneous bleeding where the DCMH’s head had struck, but no sign of a fracture. The blow had not been fatal, but it had been enough to render the being unconscious or dazed until the highly lethal vapor from the damaged reservoir had invaded its lungs. This one had been doubly unlucky, Conway thought as he carefully drew it the rest of the way from its hammock and extended his examination. There was one wound, the usual one, at the base of its spine. Conway’s scalp prickled at the thought that the attacker had been inside the dormitory and had struck even at a victim in its hammock. What sort of creature was it? Small rather than large, he thought. Vicious. And fast. He looked quickly around the dormitory, then returned his attention to the cadaver.

  “That’s unusuaJ,” he said aloud. “This one has what seems to be a small quantity of partially digested food in its stomach.” “You think that’s unusual.” Murchison said in a baffled tone. “The sample containers from the storage deck contain food. Liquid, a powdery solid, and some fibrous material, but all high-grade nutrient suited to the metabolisms of all three life-forms. What was the excuse for cannibalism? And why the blazes was everybody starving? The whole deck is packed with food!”

  “Are you sure—?” began Conway, when he was cut off by a voice in his phones which was so distorted that he could not tell who was speaking.

  “What is that thing?”

  “Captain?” he said doubtfully.

  “Yes, Doctor.” The voice was still distorted, but recognizable.

  “You — you’ve found the criminal?”

  “No, Doctor,” Fletcher replied harshly. “Another victim. Definitely another victim—”

  “It’s moving, sir!” Dodds voice broke in.

  “Doctor,” the Captain went on, “can you come at once. You too, ma’am.”

  Fletcher was crouched inside the entrance of what had to be the ship’s Control Deck, using the cutting torch on the tangle of wreckage which almost filled the space between the ceiling and floor. The place was a shambles, Conway saw by the light coming through the open hatch above them and the few strips of emergency lighting which were still operating. Practically all of the ceiling-mounted equipment had torn free in the fall; ruptured piping and twisted, jagged-edged supporting brackets projected into the space above the control couches on the deck opposite.

  The control couches had been solidly mounted and had remained in position, but they were empty, their restraining webbing hanging loose — except for one. This was a very large, deep cupola around which the other couches were closely grouped, and it was occupied.

  Conway began to climb toward it, but the foothold he had been using gave way suddenly and a stub of broken-off piping dug him painfully in the side without, fortunately, rupturing his suit.

  “Careful, damn it!” Fletcher snapped. “We don’t need another casualty.”

  “Don’t bite my head off, Captain,” Conway said, then laughed nervously at his unfortunate choice of words.

  He cringed inwardly as he climbed toward the central cupola in the wake of the Captain, thinking that the crew on duty and those in the Dormitory Deck had had to find a way through this mess, and in great haste because of the toxic vapor flooding through the ship. They were much smaller than Earth-humans, of course, but even so they must have been badly cut by that tangle of metal. In fact, they had been badly cut, with the exceptions of the DCMH in the dormitory and the new life-form above them, neither of whom had attempted to escape.

  “Careful, Doctor,” the Captain said.

  An idea which had been taking shape at the back of his mind dissolved. Irritably, Conway said, “What can it do except look at me and twitch its stumps?”

  The casualty hung sideways in its webbing against the lower lip of the cupola, a great fleshy, elongated pear shape perhaps four times the mass of an adult human. The narrow end terminated in a large, bulbous head mounted on a walrus neck which was arched downward so that the two big, widely spaced eyes could regard the rescuers. Conway could count seven of the feebly twitching stumps projecting through gaps in the webbing, and there were probably others he could not see.

  He braced himself against a control console which had remained in place and took out his scanner, but delayed beginning the examination until Murchison, who had just arrived, could climb up beside him. Then he said
firmly, “We will have to remain with this casualty overnight, Captain. Please instruct Lieutenant Haslam to evacuate all the other casualties on the next trip, and to bring down the litter stripped of nonessential life-support equipment so that it will accommodate this new casualty. We also need extra air tanks for ourselves and oxygen for die casualty, heaters, lifting gear, and webbing, and anything else you think we need.”

  For a long moment the Captain was silent, then he said, “You heard the Doctor, Haslam.”

  Fletcher did not speak to them while they were examining the new casualty other than to warn them when a piece of loose wreckage was about to fall. The Captain did not have to be told that a wide path would have to be cleared between the big control cupola and the open hatch if the litter was to be guided in and out again carrying the large alien. It was likely to be a long, difficult job lasting most of the coming night, made more difficult by ensuring that none of the debris struck Murchison, Conway, or their patient. But the two medics were much too engrossed in their examination to worry about the falling debris.

  “I won’t attempt to classify this life-form,” Conway said nearly an hour later when he was summing up their findings for Doctor Prilicla. “There are, or were, ten limbs distributed laterally, of varying thicknesses judging by the stumps. The sole exception is the one on the underside which is thicker than any of the others. The purpose of these missing limbs, the number and type of manipulatory and ambulatory appendages, is unknown.

  “The brain is large and well developed,” he want on, looking aside at Murchison for corroboration, “with a small, separate lobe with a high mineral content in the cell structure suggesting one of the V classifications—”

  “A wide-range telepath?” Prilicla broke in excitedly.

  “I’d say not,” Conway replied. “Telepathy limited to its own species, perhaps, or possibly simple empathy. This is borne out by the-fact that its ears are well developed and the mouth, although very small and toothless, has shown itself capable of modulating sounds. A being who talks and listens cannot be a wide-range telepath, since the telepathic faculty is supplemented by a spoken language. But the being did not display agitation on seeing us, which could mean that it is aware our intentions toward it are good.