by James White
Quickly Conway explained and demonstrated how to place a pattern of anesthetic bulbs which dissolved in the water and how, gently and at a distance, to maneuver their elusive patients through it. Later, while they were examining the three small, unconscious forms and Conway saw how sensitive and precise was the touch of Prilicla’s manipulators and the corresponding sharpness of the GLNQ’s mind, his hopes for all three of the infant AUGLs increased.
They left the warm and to Conway rather pleasant environment of the AUGLs for the “hot” ward of their section. This time the checking of the occupants was done with the aid of remote-controlled mechanisms from behind twenty feet of shielding. There was nothing of an urgent nature in this ward, and before leaving Conway pointed out the complicated masses of plumbing surrounding it. The maintenance division he explained, used the “hot” ward as a stand — by power pile to light and heat the hospital.
Constantly in the background the wall annunciators kept droning out the progress of the search for the SRTT visitor. It had not been found yet, and cases of mistaken identity and of beings seeing things were mounting steadily. Conway had not thought much about the SRTT since leaving O’Mara, but now he was beginning to feel a little anxious at the thought of what the runaway visitor might do in this section especially — not to mention what some of the infant patients might do to it. If only he knew more about it, had some idea of its militations. He decided to call O’Mara.
In reply to Conway’s request the Chief Psychologist said, “Our latest information is that the SRTT life-form evolved on a planet with an eccentric orbit around its primary. Geologic, climatic and temperature changes were such that a high degree of adaptability was necessary for survival. Before they attained a civilization their means of defense was either to assume as frightening an aspect as possible or to copy the physical form of their attackers in the hope that they would escape detection in this way-protective mimicry being the favorite method of avoiding danger, and so often used that the process had become almost involuntary. There are some other items regarding mass and dimensions at different ages. They are a very long-lived species — and this not particularly helpful collection of data, which was digested from the report of the survey ship which discovered the planet, ends by saying that all the foregoing is for our information only and that these beings do not take sick.”
O’Mara paused briefly, then added, “Hah!”
“I agree,” said Conway.
“One item we have which might explain its panicking on arrival,” O’Mara went on, “is that it is their custom for the very youngest to be present at the death of a parent rather than the eldest — there is an unusually strong emotional bond between parent and last-born. Estimates of mass place our runaway as being very young. Not a baby, of course, but definitely nowhere near maturity.”
Conway was still digesting this when the Major continued, “As to its limitations, I’d say that the Methane section is too cold for it and the radioactive wards too hot-also that glorified turkish bath on level Eighteen where they breathe super — heated steam. Apart from those, your guess is as good as mine where it may turn up.
“It might help a little if I could see this SRTT’s parent,” Conway said. “Is that possible?”
There was a lengthy pause, then: “Just barely,” said O’Mara dryly. “The immediate vicinity of that patient is literally crawling with Diagnosticians and other high-powered talent … But come up after you’ve finished your rounds and I’ll try to fix it.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Conway and broke the circuit.
He still felt a vague uneasiness about the SRTT visitor, a dark premonition that he had not yet finished with this e-t juvenile delinquent who was the ultimate in quick-change artists. Maybe, he thought sourly, his current duties had brought out the mother in him, but at the thought of the havoc which that SRTT could cause — the damage to equipment and fittings, the interruption of important and closely-timed courses of treatment and the physical injury, perhaps even death, to the more fragile life-forms through its ignorant blundering about — Conway felt himself go a little sick.
For the failure to capture the runaway had made plain one very disquieting fact, and that was that the SRTT was not too young and immature not to know how to work the intersection locks …
Half angrily, Conway pushed these useless anxieties to the back of his mind and began explaining to Prilicla about the patients in the ward they were going to visit next, and the protective measures and examinative procedures necessary when handling them.
This ward contained twenty-eight infants of the FROB classification — low, squat, immensely strong beings with a horny covering that was like flexible armor plate. Adults of the species with their increased mass tended to be slow and ponderous, but the infants could move surprisingly fast despite the condition of four times Earth-normal gravity and pressure in which they lived. Heavy-duty suits were called for in these conditions and the floor level of the ward was never used by visiting physicians or nursing staff except in cases of the gravest emergency. Patients for examination were raised from the floor by a grab and lifting apparatus to the cupola set in the ceiling for this purpose, where they were anesthetized before the grab was released. This was done with a long, extremely strong needle which was inserted at the point where the inner side of the foreleg joined the trunk — one of the very few soft spots on the FROB’s body.
… I expect you to break a lot of needles before you get the hang of it,” Conway added, “but don’t worry about that, or think that you are hurting them. These little darlings are so tough that if a bomb went off beside them they would hardly blink.”
Conway was silent for a few seconds while they walked briskly toward the FROB ward-Prilicla’s six, multi-jointed and pencil-thin legs seeming to spread out all over the place, but somehow never actually getting underfoot. He no longer felt that he was walking on eggs when he was near the GLNO, or that the other would crumple up and blow away if he so much as brushed against it. Prilicla had demonstrated its ability to avoid all contacts likely to be physically harmful to it in a way which, now that Conway was becoming accustomed to it, was both dexterous and strangely graceful.
A man, he thought, could get used to working with anything.
“But to get back to our thick-skinned little friends,” Conway resumed, “physical toughness in that species — especially in the younger age groups — is not accompanied by resistance to germ or virus infections. Later they develop the necessary antibodies and as adults are disgustingly healthy, but in the infant stage..
“They catch everything,” Prilicla put in. “And as soon as a new disease is discovered they get that, too.”
Conway laughed. “I was forgetting that most e-t hospitals have their quota of FROBs and that you may already have had experience with them. You will know also that these diseases are rarely fatal to the infants, but that their cure is long, complicated, and not very rewarding, because they straightaway catch something else. None of our twenty-eight cases here are serious, and the reason that they are here rather than at a local hospital is that we are trying to produce a sort of shotgun serum which will artificially induce in them the immunity to infection which will eventually be theirs in later life and so … Stop!”
The word was sharp, low and urgent, a shouted whisper. Prilicla froze, its sucker-tipped legs gripping the corridor floor, and stared along with Conway at the being who had just appeared at the intersection ahead of them.
At first glance it looked like an Illensan. The shapeless, spiny body with the dry, rustling membrane joining upper and lower appendages belonged unmistakably to the PVSJ chlorine-breathers. But there were two eating tentacles which seemed to have been transplanted from an FGLI, a furry breast pad which was pure DBLF and it was breathing, as they were, an atmosphere rich in oxygen.
It could only be the runaway.
All the laws of physiology to the contrary Conway felt his heart battering at the back of his throat somewhere as,
remembering O’Mara’s strict orders not to frighten the being, he tried to think of something friendly and reassuring to say. But the SRTT took off immediately it caught sign of them, and all Conway could find to say was, “Quick, after it!”
At a dead run they reached the intersection and turned into the corridor taken by the fleeing SRTT, Prilicla scuttling along the ceiling again to keep out of the way of Conway’s pounding feet. But the sight in front of them caused Conway to forget all about being gentle and reassuring, and he yelled, “Stop, you fool! Don’t go in there …!”
The runaway was at the entrance to the FROB ward.
They reached the entry lock just too late and watched helplessly through the port as the SRTT opened the inner seal and, gripped by the four times normal gravity pull of the ward, was flung down out of sight. The inner door closed automatically then, allowing Prilicla and Conway to enter the lock and prepare for the environment within the ward.
Conway struggled frantically into the heavy duty suit which he kept in the lock chamber and quickly set the repulsion of its anti-gravity belt to compensate for the conditions inside. Prilicla, meanwhile, was doing similar things to its own equipment. While checking the seals and fastenings of the suit, and swearing at this very necessary waste of time, Conway could see through the inner inspection window a sight which made him shudder.
The pseudo-Illensan shape of the SRTT lay plastered against the floor. It was twitching slightly, and already one of the larger FROB infants was coming pounding up to investigate this odd-looking object. One of the great, spatulate feet must have trod on the recumbent SRTT, because it jerked away and began rapidly and incredibly to change. The weak, membranous appendages of the PVSJ seemed to dissolve into the main body which became the bony, lizard-like form with the wicked, horn-tipped tentacles which they had seen first at Lock Six. This was obviously the SRTT’s most frightening manifestation.
But the infant FROB possessed nearly five times the other’s mass and so could hardly be expected to be frightened. It put down its massive head and butted, sending the SRTT crashing against the wall plating twenty feet across the ward. The FROB wanted to play.
Both doctors were out of the lock and onto the ceiling catwalk now, where the view was much clearer. The SRTT was changing again, fast. The tentacled lizard shape had not worked at all well for it in four-C conditions against these infant behemoths and it was trying something else.
The FROB had closed in on it again and was watching fascinated.
V
Conway said urgently, “Doctor, can you handle the grab apparatus? Good! Then go to it …” As Prilicla scurried along the catwalk to the control cupola Conway set his anti-gravity controls to zero and called, “I’ll direct you from below.” Weightless now, he kicked himself toward the floor.
But Conway was no stranger to the FROB infant — very probably it disliked or was bored by this diminutive figure whose only game was that of sticking big needles in it while something big and strong held it still, and despite all of Conway’s frantic shouting and arm-waving he found himself being ignored. But the other occupants of the ward were taking an interest, and their attention was being drawn to the still-changing SRTT …
“No!” Conway shouted, aghast at what the visitor was changing into. “No! Stop! Change back …
But it was too late. The whole ward seemed to be stampeding toward the SRTT, giving vent to a thunderous bedlam of excited growls and yelps which, from the older infants, were Translated into shouts of “Dolly! Dolly! Nice dolly “'
Springing upward to avoid being trampled, Conway looked down on the milling mass of FROBs and felt the strong and sickening conviction that the luckless SRTT had departed this life. But no. The being had somehow managed to run — or squeeze — the gauntlet of stamping feet and eager, bludgeoning heads by keeping low and tightly pressed against the wall. It emerged battered but still in the shape which it had, chameleon-like, adopted in the mistaken idea that a tiny version of an FROB would be safe.
Conway called, “Quickly! Grab!”
But Prilicla was not sleeping on its job. The massive jaws of the grab were already hanging open above the dazed and slow-moving SRTT, and as Conway shouted they dropped and crashed shut. Conway sprang for one of the lifting cables and as they rose from the floor together he said hurriedly, “You’re safe now. Relax. I’m here to help you..
His reply was a sharp convulsion of the SRTT which nearly shook him loose, and suddenly the being had become a thing of lithe, oily convolutions which slipped between the fingers of the grab and slapped onto the floor. The FROBs hooted excitedly and charged again.
It could not possibly survive this time, Conway thought with a mixture of horror, pity and impatience; this being who had had one fright on arrival and who had not stopped running since, and who was still too utterly terrified even to be helped. The grab was useless but there was one other possibility. O’Mara would probably skin him alive for it, but he would at least be saving SRTT’s life for the time being if he allowed it to escape.
On the wall opposite the entry lock which Prilicla and himself had used was the door through which the FROB patients were brought to the ward. It was a simple door because the corridor outside it, which led to the FROB operating theater, was maintained at the same level of gravity and pressure as was the ward. Conway dived across the intervening space to the controls and slid it open, watching the SRTT — who was not so insensible with fear that it missed seeing this way of escape — as it slithered through. He closed it again just in time to prevent some of the patients from getting out as well, then made for the control cupola to report the whole ghastly mess to O’Mara.
For the situation was now much worse than they all had thought. While he had been at the other end of the ward he had seen something which increased the difficulties of catching and pacifying the runaway many, many times, and which explained the visitor’s lack of response to him while in the grab. It had been the shattered, trampled ruin of the SRTT’s Translator pack.
Conway’s hand was on the intercom switch when Prilicla said, “Excuse me, sir, but does my ability to detect your emotions cause you mental distress? Or does mentioning aloud what I may have found trouble you?”
“Eh? What?” said Conway. He thought that he must be radiating impatience at a furious rate at the moment, because his assistant had picked a great time to start asking questions like that! His first impulse was to cut the other off, but then he decided that delaying his report to O’Mara by a few seconds would not make any difference, and possibly Prilicla considered the matter important. Aliens were funny.
“No to both questions,” Conway replied shortly. “Though in the second instance I might be embarrassed if you made known your findings to a third party in certain circumstances. Why do you ask?”
“Because I have been aware of your deep anxiety regarding the possible depredations of this SRTT among your patients,” Prilicla said, “and I am loath to further increase that anxiety by telling you of the type and intensity of the emotions which I detected just now in the being’s mind.”
Conway sighed. “Spit it out, things couldn’t be much worse than they are now …
But they could and were.
When Prilicla finished speaking Conway pulled his hand away from the intercom switch as though it had grown teeth and bit him. “I can’t tell him that over the intercom!” he burst out. “It would be sure to leak to the patients and if they, or even some of the Staff knew about it, there would be a panic.” He dithered for a moment, then cried, “Come on, we’ve got to see O’Mara!”
But the Chief Psychologist was not in his office or in the nearby Educator room. However, information supplied by one of his assistants sent them hurrying to the forty-seventh level and Observation Ward Three.
This was a vast, high-ceilinged room maintained at a pressure and temperature suited to warm-blooded oxygen-breathers. DBDG, DBLF and FGLI doctors carried out preliminary examinations here on the more puzzling or
exotic cases — the patients, if these atmospheric conditions did not suit them, being housed in large, transparent cubicles spaced at intervals around the walls and floor. It was known irreverently as the Punch and Ponder department and Conway could see a group of medics of all shapes and species gathered around a glass-walled tank in the middle of the ward. This must be the older and dying SRTT he had heard about, but he had no attention to spare for anything until he had spoken to O’Mara.
He caught sight of the psychologist at a communications desk beside the wall and hurried over.
While he talked O’Mara listened stolidly, several times opening his mouth as though to interrupt, then each time closing it in a grimmer, tighter line. But when Conway reached the point where he had seen the broken Translator, O’Mara waved him to silence and hit the intercom switch with the same jerky motion of his hand.
“Get me Engineering Division, Colonel Skempton,” he barked. Then:
“Colonel, our runaway is in the FROB nursery area. But there is a complication, I’m afraid — it has lost its Translator…” There was a short pause, then: “Neither do I know how I expect you to pacify it when you can’t communicate, but do what you can in the meantime-I’m going to work on the communication angle now.
He snapped the switch off and then on again, and said, “Colinson, in Communications… hello, Major. I want a relay between here and the Monitor Survey team on the SRTT’s home planet — yes, the one I had you collecting about a few hours ago. Will you arrange that? And have them prepare a sound tape in the SRTT native language — I’ll give you the wording I want in a moment-and have them relay it here. The substance of the speech, which must be obtained from an adult SRTT, will have to be roughly as follows—”