by James White
Captain Fletcher looked at the sleeping Prilicla, lowered his voice, and, using a frequency that the two aliens could overhear, spoke briskly.
“Courier Vessel One,” he said. “We can now report that the distressed alien ship is non-hostile and that the damage inflicted on Terragar was due to a combination of ignorance and a close-range defense system of high lethality that instantly kills any ship’s computer-controlled systems, but not the living organic contents, that touches it. This defense system remains active and is an extreme danger to any investigating ship — regardless of size and armament — making a close approach. It is imperative that you remain at your present distance and that all other vessels be forbidden to enter this system until a countermeasure has been found.
“The ship’s planet of origin is Trolann,” it went on, “location as yet unknown, where the Trolanni are losing a war that has lasted for many centuries with another indigenous species, the druul, with whom it has been impossible to come to an accommodation. Physically the druul bear a close resemblance to the DBDG physiological classification, a fact which initially made the first-contact procedure very difficult because they looked on Rhabwars Earth-human personnel as natural enemies rather than rescuers. Now I believe that we have done enough to earn their trust…”
“Our limited trust,” Keet broke in. “I trust Prilicla, and to a lesser extent you, because you do as it asks and seem anxious to help us, but Jasam remains fearful and untrusting. About the other ones who look like dmuls, I, too, am uncertain.”
“But that,” said the captain, “is because you haven’t seen them helping you as Prilicla and I have been doing. Their work is in the background, but it is being done. They are not, never were, nor ever will be like the druul. May I continue with my report?
“The Trolanni are of physiological classification CHLI,” he went on when Keet did not reply, “warm-blooded oxygen-breathers, although there is very little breathable oxygen remaining on their heavily polluted planet. They describe themselves as an embattled minority of… Keet, what is the total number of Trolanni on your planet?”
“Just under one hundred thousand,” it replied promptly.
“As few as that?” said the captain, its face paling as it returned to its report and went on. “In that case, and bearing in mind the fact that the Trolanni have a limited space-travel capability, I strongly recommend that the Federation mount a disaster-relief and evacuation operation to move them from their virtually uninhabitable planet to another world, the world below us, in fact, which Keet and Jasam found for their people before their ship was damaged in an attempt to signal its location. I further recommend that provision be made to interdict all druul offensive operations until the Trolanni are evacuated safely, after which, if cultural reeducation is possible, we should determine the druul’s needs for continued survival and…”
Inside the litter canopy, Keet’s body was twitching in great agitation. It said, “Aren’t you going to kill them all, or at least let them die fighting among themselves? That’s what they’ll do if there’s nobody else to fight. Or maybe you can’t kill them. Maybe you’re favorably disposed towards them, more so than towards the Trolanni, because the druul look like you. I’m sorry, but I think we were right about you from the start. A helpful, apparently friendly druul is still a druul. You disappoint us, Fletcher.”
The captain shook his head. “Our physically similar appearance has nothing to do with it. On Earth there are creatures shaped like humans. In our prehistory, we developed intelligence and ultimately civilization, but they did not, and to this day remain non-sapient animals. They are not evil in themselves but are governed by animal instincts that sometimes make them a danger to humans, and for this reason they are confined, restricted, and cared for in their own areas where they cannot harm us. If the druul are thinking animals, implacable, vicious, unable to be taught civilized ways, or are incapable of governing their own instincts and behavior, that — if it is possible for us to do it — is what would happen to them. They would be isolated and Trolann would be interdicted by the Federation and no contact with any other species allowed.
“But we would not exterminate a species just because its long-term enemy thought it was warranted,” the captain ended. “The druul and you may not be able to view each other or your problem with objectivity. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to return to my report—”
The captain resumed his description of the situation on the alien ship and their plans for resolving it while at the same time, by implication, mentally preparing the Trolanni casualties for what was to come by describing the structural problems of casualty extraction before the medical problems could be solved. But Keet was finding it difficult to remain silent.
“Prilicla and you are all right, I suppose,” Keet said, “but are strangers of your kind going to be handling us? That would frighten Jasam and me very much. He might hurt himself even more trying to fight you off. We’d rather Prilicla did everything. We like it.”
“Everybody likes Prilicla,” said Fletcher, looking aside at the sleeping empath, “but physically it is too weak to do everything itself. That’s why it will need heavy cutting equipment and the help of Dodds and Chen, two other Earth-humans like myself, to clear a path to and enclose the area in a pressure envelope before Prilicla can begin treating Jasam’s injuries. But all of us, in my ship and on the surface are the same as Prilicla. We all want to help cure Jasam and yourself. While we’re doing that, you’ll come to know all of us, and trust us, and tell us how we can help your people.”
For a long time there was silence while the captain crawled about in the wreckage surrounding Jasam’s control pod, marking structural members that would have to be cut away, lengths of plumbing to be sealed off, and talking quietly. Everything he said formed part of his report including — although the Trolanni might not have realized it — the conversations with Keet and all the recorded material on the Terragar landing and casualties.
Everything went into a first-contact report.
“Jasam is very worried,” said Keet suddenly, “in case there are healers on the surface who look like you. If there are, he doesn’t want them to touch him. He says he’d rather die. Why don’t we go to the hospital you showed us, where there are many healers who don’t look like the druul?”
In a first-contact situation the rule was to tell the truth but
to keep it as simple as possible. The captain said, “My ship has been ordered to remain in this vicinity to warn off any other vessels who might want to investigate your searchsuit and suffer damage as a result. On Rhabwar there are four Earth-human ship’s officers including myself, and four healers. Prilicla, you already know, is in charge; then an Earth-human female called Murchison who looks, well, somewhat different than me; a Kel-gian who has twenty legs and is covered with mobile fur; and a shape-changer called Danalta who can look like anything or everything, even a Trolanni if it thought that shape would be reassuring to you or your life-mate. There are also three Earth-humans who are badly damaged. The medical team, with the exception of Prilicla, are down there in a special healing facility, taking care of them. None of them, not even the Terragar casualties, will want to harm you while you get to know us better. Besides, the repairing of physical damage isn’t everything. We think that it might make you feel better and assist your non-medical healing if you were to spend some time recuperating on the beautiful world Jasam and yourself have discovered for the Trolanni.”
There was no reply, and the short silence was broken by the quiet voice of Prilicla speaking on the captain’s private frequency.
“I’ve been awake for the past few minutes,” he said, “and I could not have handled the situation better if I’d done it myself. Thank you, friend Fletcher. Keet is feeling greatly comforted and Jasam, who is still anxious and barely conscious, shares its life-mate’s reassurance. This would be a good time to call in friends Dodds and Chen.”
During the next three hours, while the damaged
area surrounding Jasam’s control pod was being isolated in a temporary pressure bubble and excised from its surrounding control actuators, plumbing, and wiring, the lines between technical and medical work were frequently blurred by the fact that Rhabwar’s officers were doing much more delicate work than that being Performed by Prilicla. Even though he was not due to sleep for another four hours, by the time they were finished and Jasam was sharing the other half of the pressure litter with Keet, he felt so tired that it was an effort for him not to lose consciousness prematurely. The captain, who had not slept for two Earth standard days and did not seem to be affected by fatigue, was concluding its report to the courier vessels.
“… Friendly relations have been established with the two Trolanni casualties who are ready for transfer to Rhabwar and immediate onward transportation to the surface medical station,” he said crisply. “According to Dr. Prilicla, the being Keet has superficial injuries and is in no danger, but the other one, Jasam, is giving cause for concern. Urgent surgery is required, and the prognosis is uncertain. You have everything you need to know, but I suggest that you both remain on station, stay well clear of the alien ship’s hull which is still active and a continuing danger, and wait a few hours for the latest good or bad news.
“From here on this is expected to be a routine medical matter,” it ended, “and we cannot foresee anything going wrong.”
CHAPTER 22
At the medical station the routines of the day had proceeded with a similar lack of drama, but the surroundings were beautiful, relaxing, and much too pleasant for boredom to be a consideration. The patients were in satisfactory medical and good psychological shape following their twice-daily immersion in the shallows and subsequent sun-drying, and had been moved indoors. The sun was within an hour of setting, with its close-to-horizontal light reflecting off the reddish-white breakers on a sea that was dark blue. It was the ideal time of day for another walk around the island.
Inevitably accompanied, Murchison thought irritably, by her shape-changing and by now totally redundant guardian angel.
There was no real reason, other than that she had never done so before and the team members and patients might worry, why she should be back inside the station before nightfall. But to reduce the unnecessary worrying all around, she decided not to break with tradition by jogging instead of walking the distance, and to stop only for a brief swim in her favorite beauty spot, a tiny, tree-fringed bay on the opposite side of the island.
She was nearing it, and the station was hidden by the curve of the shoreline behind her, when the sun began to set, although from experience she knew that there would be enough dusk left to see her way back. In the shallows Danalta was keeping pace with her, arrowing through the breaking surf and occasionally leaping into the air as it did its impression of a flying fish. She was running fast over the firm, damp sand with her eyes down so as to avoid the scattered white stones in her path when the shape-changer made a noise that did not translate, and flopped rapidly out of the water and onto the sand beside her. While it was still changing from an aquatic to a land mobile form, what had been one of its fins thickened into a hand and it pointed ahead.
This, Murchison thought as she slowed to a stop under the trees, is certainly an interesting change in the in the usual scenery.
It was a smooth, flattened mound covered with what looked like fibrous, greenish-brown vegetation, or possibly scales or a form of seaweed, that floated in the water with a narrow section of its forward edge projecting a few yards onto the sandy beach. It was large enough to fill a quarter of the tiny inlet and she was reminded of an outsize, beached whale.
“I’d say that this is one of the objects we saw from the high ground that first day,” she said, “and now we’re seeing it close-up. You have better vision than I have. Is it alive?”
Danalta, whose land shape was still indeterminate, enlarged an eye and said, “It has the general appearance of a large sea mammal, although the breathing orifices and fins are concealed from view or underwater. There is a slight overall body movement that is probably due to wave action rather than respiration. It may be alive and close to termination. But there is still a risk. Shall I investigate more closely?”
“We will investigate,” she said, stressing the first word, “after we’ve reported this in. But I’d say the risk is minimal.” She pointed to the sky above the beached creature and laughed quietly. “The vultures are gathering again and that’s always a strong contraindication for casualty survivability.”
The birds were circling stiff-winged as they rode the updrafts
from the sandy beach that was still radiating the day’s heat, and they were lower and closer than she had ever seen them before. Both bodies and their wide-spreading, leathery wings were the same color and seemed to have the same texture as that of the beached creature, and they looked mean. Instinctively she moved back under the concealment of thick, overhanging branches, hoping they hadn’t seen her.
Danalta remained motionless except for lengthening his eye-stalk and bending it up to look at them.
“They aren’t birds,” it said quietly, “they’re flying machines, unpowered gliders. Each one has a pilot.”
For a moment Murchison was too surprised to react, mentally or physically. This was supposed to be an uninhabited world. According to Rhabwar’s sensors it was completely lacking in the signatures of cultivation, roads, electromagnetic radiation, industrial smoke pollution, or any of the signs normally produced by intelligent life, and certainly by an indigenous intelligence capable of building flying machines. It came to her suddenly that the reason why the two gliders were flying so low might be that their pilots wanted the high ground at the center of the island to conceal the operation from the view of the medical station in case someone there decided to look inland.
Fumbling in her haste, Murchison pulled her communicator out of the equipment pouch at her waist and had it almost to her lips when something large and soft and with many hairy legs landed on her back and shoulders. Simultaneously another one of them gripped her legs tightly so that she tripped and fell forwards, dropping the communicator as she instinctively put out both hands to keep her face from hitting the ground.
She was trying to reach for the communicator again when another one landed on her arm before grabbing her by the wrists and pulling them to her sides with small, hard pincers. She was lifted a few feet from the ground and her body was rotated laterally, and she felt her legs being wrapped together tightly in what -1 like very fine rope. The turns continued up and past her hips, pinioning both hands and lower arms to her sides. She was able to get a close if intermittent look at her captor Spiders.
Two of them were holding and rolling her over while a third was producing from a body orifice the continuous, fine white strand that was wrapping her up. Three others were dropping lightly to the ground from overhanging branches on white strands that were almost too thin for her to to see, their brownish-green body coloration making them difficult to see against the vegetation until they landed. Each of them was holding a thick, stubbly crossbow with their bolts notched and bowstrings taut.
She had never had a fear of Earthly spiders, and there were many more visually abhorrent creatures among her friends and colleagues at Sector General, but that didn’t mean that she liked everything that walked on eight hairy legs, especially, as now, when they were placing her life at risk.
Struggling to break free did no good because the thin strands were very tough and she succeeded only in leaving deep indentations and a few shallow cuts on her legs and forearms. She opened her mouth wide and deliberately made loud, whooshing sounds while inflating and deflating her lungs, hoping to demonstrate the need to go on breathing which she would not be able to do if the strands around her chest were too tight.
Whether they understood her body language or that had been their original intention she didn’t know, but the white strands were exerting minimum compression on her rib cage. She could breathe comfor
tably but not too deeply unless she wanted to risk cutting herself. She could turn her head freely and even bend a little at the waist. One of them took an interest in her translator pack and tried to tug it free, but it and the medical pouch were an integral part of the equipment belt so the creature didn’t succeed. When it persisted she made a noise to indicate that it was hurting her and it desisted. Then they rolled her face-upwards onto a hammock made from woven plant fiber of some kind and four of them each lifted a corner and began carrying her towards the beach while the other two followed. One of them, the one who had tried to get her translator, picked up her communicator from the ground and began poking at it curiously. There was no sign of Danalta.
She didn’t know what the shape-changer could do, but it should be able to think of something. So, Murchison thought angrily, should she. For a moment she wondered if she was generating her anger just to keep her growing fear at bay.
The sun had set but there was still enough light to see the beach clearly, and the object she had thought was a sea mammal. The smooth, outer covering was opening up to become a series of low, triangular sails resembling those of an old-time Earth felucca, and their supporting masts and rigging were still being raised, and the two flyers had landed and were half carrying, half dragging their gliders towards it. But her party, being closer, would board first. Plainly the spiders were excited because they were making low, cheeping and chittering sounds to each other or calling more loudly to the glider pilots and others on the ship. Suddenly there was an interruption, a sound that had not come from any local throat.
“Speak, Pathologist Murchison,” said the loud, irritated voice of Charge Nurse Naydrad. “If you don’t want to say something, why are you using your communicator? I have work to do. Stop wasting my time.”