Ambulance Ship sg-4

by James White

  “The probability is,” the Captain ended, “that it was a hyperdrive generator malfunction, Doctor, and not an explosion.”

  Conway tried to control his irritation at the other’s lecturing and faintly condescending tone, realizing that the Captain could not help his academic background. Conway knew that if one of a matched set of hyperdrive generators was to fail, the other was supposed to cut out automatically; the vessel concerned would emerge suddenly into normal space somewhere between the stars, and sit there, unable to make it home on impulse drive, until either it repaired the sick generator or help arrived. But there had been instances when the safety cutoff on the good generator had failed or had been a split second late in functioning, which meant that a part of the ship had been proceeding at hyperspeed while the rest had been slowed instantaneously to sublight velocity. The effect on the vessel concerned was, at best, only slightly less catastrophic than a reactor explosion-but at least there would be no heat fusion, radiation and the other complications of a reactor blowup to worry about. The chance of finding survivors was very slightly increased.

  “I understand,” said Conway. He flipped the intercom switch on his console and said, “Casualty Deck, Conway here. You may stand down. Nothing will be happening for at least two hours.”

  “That is a pretty accurate estimate,” Fletcher said dryly. “Since when have you become an astrogator, Doctor? Never mind. Dodds, compute a course linking the three largest pieces of wreckage, and put the figures on the Power Room repeater. Chen, we will apply maximum thrust in ten minutes. To save time I plan to make a close pass of the likeliest prospects and decelerate only if Haslam’s sensors or Doctor Prilicla’s empathy say it is worth doing so. Haslam, stay on the sensors and pick out a few more possibilities for us to look at once we’ve checked the first three. And continue searching the radio frequencies in case a survivor is trying to attract our attention in that fashion, and keep an eye on your scope in case it is trying to flash a light at us.”

  As Conway was leaving the Control Deck to rejoin his medical team aft, Haslam said in a quiet, respectful voice, “I’ve only got two eyes, sir, and they don’t swivel independently …

  One hour and fifty-two minutes later they passed heartstoppingly close to the first piece of wreckage. The sensors had already reported negatively on it-no organic material present other than structural plastic trimming panels and furniture, no pockets of atmosphere that might have contained a living entity. When they tried to put a tractor beam on it to check its spin, the whole mass began to fly apart and they had to take violent evasive action.

  They caught up with the next piece in less than an hour. They had to decelerate and return to it, because the sensors reported small pockets of atmosphere inside the wreckage and organic material of a non-structural but not necessarily still-living kind. This time they did not risk trying to check its spin in case the loose mass of wreckage fell apart and the potentially life-giving pockets of air were lost to space. Instead, they set the sensor and vision recorders going during their slow, careful and extremely close approach. The close approach was for Prilicla’s benefit, but the empath reported apologetically that none of the organic material was alive.

  They had three hours to study the recordings before reaching the third piece of wreckage, which was the largest and most promising to be detected. In the process they learned quite a lot about the design philosophy of the alien ship-builders from the way the structural members and bulkheads had been twisted apart by the accident. The dimensions of the corridors and compartments gave an indication of the size of the life-forms that had crewed the ship. They had glimpses of things that looked like thick pieces of manycolored fur trapped and partially hidden in the wreckage. It might have been floor covering or bedding, except that a few of the pieces were restrained by webbing and many of them showed patches of reddish brown, which looked very much like dried blood.

  “Judging by the color of those stains,” Murchison observed as they studied one of the stills on the Casualty Deck repeater, “the chances are pretty good that they are warm-blooded oxygen-breathers. But do you think anyone could survive a disaster like that?”

  Conway shook his head but tried to sound optimistic. “The staining on the fur does not appear to be associated with lacerations or punctured wounds of the kind suffered through violent deceleration or collision when the restraining body harness becomes deeply embedded in the body it was meant to protect. From these pictures it is impossible to tell which end of the body is which, but the staining seems to be located in the same areas of all the bodies. This suggests explosive decompression and the exiting of body fluid through natural openings, rather than massive external injury due to a sudden deceleration or collision. None of these people was wearing spacesuits, but if any of them was fast enough or lucky enough to be wearing suits, they should have been able to survive.”

  Before Murchison could reply the picture changed abruptly to show another mass of wreckage, and the excited voice of the Captain sounded from the wall speaker. “This looks like the best bet so far, Doctor. No spin to speak of, so we can board easily, if necessary. The fog you see is not all escaped air; some of it is boil-off from the vessel’s water and hydraulic systems. If air is escaping, then there must be quite a lot of it still left on board. There is also what seems to be an emergency power circuit in use, weak and probably used for standby lighting. We may want to board this one. Is everyone ready?”

  “Ready, friend Fletcher,” said the empath.

  “Of course,” said Naydrad.

  “We’ll be at the Casualty lock in ten minutes,” said Conway.

  “Lieutenant Dodds and myself will accompany you,’ said the Captain, “in case structural or engineering problems are encountered. Ten minutes, Doctor.”

  There was not a lot of room to spare in the Casualty airlock with the Captain, Dodds, Naydrad and its already inflated pressure litter, Prilicla and Conway all clinging to its deck and walls with foot and wrist magnets while they watched the approach of the wreckage. It looked like a great rectangular metal thicket shrouded in fog and surrounded by smaller clumps of metal, some of which were spinning rapidly and some of which drifted motionless. When Conway asked why this should be, the Captain turned silent in the manner of a person who has asked himself the same question and was unable to answer. They waited while the ambulance ship edged closer, passing between two of the wreckage’s madly spinning satellites, and their suit spotlights as well as those of the ship reflected off the twisted metal plating and projecting structural members. They went on waiting until the little Cinrusskin began trembling inside its spacesuit.

  “Someone,” Prilicla finally managed to utter, “is alive in there.”

  Of necessity, it was a hurried but very careful search, because the emotional radiation of the survivor was weak and characteristic of a mind that was becoming more deeply unconscious by the minute. With Prilicla indicating if not leading the way, the Captain and Dodds cleared a path through obstructions with their cutters or pushed away free-floating debris and tangled cable looms with their insulated gauntlets-there was, after all, a live power circuit in use. Conway followed closely behind, pulling himself along in a kind of weightless crawl through corridors and compartments whose ceilings were only four feet high.

  Twice his spotlight picked out the bodies of crew-members, which he freed and pushed gently back the way they had come so that the waiting Naydrad could load them into the unpressurized section of the litter. Should the survivor need urgent surgical attention, Conway would feel much better if Murchison had a few cadavers to take apart so that she could tell him how the living one should be put together again.

  He still had no clear idea of what they looked like, because the bodies had been encased in spacesuits. But the suits and underlying tissue had been ruptured by violent contact with metallic debris, and if the resulting wounds had not killed the beings, the decompression had. Judging by the shape of the spacesuits, the beings were flatt
ened cylinders about six feet long with four sets of manipulatory appendages behind a conical section that was probably the head, and another four locomotor appendages. There was a marked thickening at what was presumably the rear section of the suit. Apart from the smaller size and number of appendages, the beings physically resembled the Kelgian race, to which Naydrad belonged.

  Conway could hear the Captain muttering to himself about the spacesuited aliens as they stopped at the entrance to a compartment that retained pressure. Prilicla felt carefully with its empathic faculty for the presence of life, in vain. The survivor was located somewhere beyond the compartment, the empath said. Before the Captain and Dodds burned away the door, Conway drilled through to obtain an atmosphere sample for Murchison so that she could prepare suitable life-support for the survivor.

  Inside the compartment there was light-a warm, orange light, which would give important information about the planet of origin and the visual equipment of this species. But right then it illuminated only a shambles of drifting furniture, twisted wall plating, tangles of plumbing, and aliens, some of whom were spacesuited and all of whom were dead.

  The thickened section at the rear of their spacesuits, Conway saw suddenly, was there to accommodate a large, furry tail.

  “This is collision damage, dammit!” Fletcher burst out. “Losing a hypergenerator wouldn’t have done all this!”

  Conway cleared his throat. “Captain, Lieutenant Dodds, I know we haven’t time to gather material for a major research project, but if you see anything in the way of photographs, paintings, illustrations, anything that would give me information about the alien’s physiology and environment, take it along, please.” He picked out another alien cadaver that was not too badly damaged, noting the pointed, fox-like head and the thick, broad-striped coat that made it look like a furry, short-legged zebra with an enormous tail. “Naydrad,” he called, “here’s another one for you.”

  “Yes, that must be it,” the Captain said, half to himself. To Conway he added, “Doctor, these people were doubly unlucky, and the survivor doubly lucky …

  According to Fletcher, the hypergenerator failure had pulled the ship apart and sent the pieces spinning away. But in this particular place a number of the crew had survived and had managed to climb into their suits. They might even have had some warning of the approach of the second disaster-the overtaking of their section by another and equally massive piece of wreckage. When the collision occurred, the forward end of the first piece must have been swinging down while the afterpart of the second was swinging upwards. The kinetic energy of both sections had been cancelled out, bringing them both to rest and practically fusing them together. That, in the Captain’s opinion, was the only explanation for the type of injuries and damage that had occurred here, and for the fact that this was the only section of the alien ship that was not spinning.

  “I think you’re right, Captain,” said Conway, fishing out of the drifting mass of debris a flat piece of plastic with what looked like a landscape on one side of it. “But surely all this is academic now.”

  “Of course it is,” Fletcher replied. “But I dislike unanswered questions. Doctor Prilicla, where now?”

  The little empath pointed diagonally upwards at the compartment’s ceiling. “Fifteen to twenty meters in that direction, friend Fletcher, but I must admit to some feelings of confusion. The survivor seems to be moving slowly since we entered this compartment.”

  Fletcher sighed noisily. “A spacesuited and still mobile survivor,” he said in relieved tones. “That will make the rescue very much easier.” He looked at Dodds, and together they began cutting through the roof plating.

  “Not necessarily,” said Conway. “We could have a rescue and a first-contact situation both at the same time. I much prefer new and injured e-ts to be unconscious so that first contact can be made following curative treatment and we can exercise more control over the—”

  “Doctor,” the Captain broke in, “surely a star-traveling species, with the technical and philosophical background which that capability implies, would be expecting to meet what it would consider extraterrestrials. Even if they did not have the expectation, they surely would realize that there was a strong possibility of it happening.”

  “Granted,” said Conway, “but an e-t who is injured and only partly conscious might react instinctively, illogically, to the sight of an alien being who might physically resemble a natural enemy or a predator on its home planet. And the treatment of a conscious extraterrestrial, a stranger who has no prior knowledge of the beings carrying out the treatment, might be mistaken for something else- torture, perhaps, or medical experimentation. All too often a doctor has to be cruel to be kind.”

  At that moment a large, circular section of the ceiling came free, its edges still bright red with the heat of the cutting torches, and was pushed away by Dodds and the Captain. As it followed them through the gap, Prilicla said, “I’m sorry if I confused you, friends. The survivor is moving slowly, but it is too deeply unconscious to move itself.”

  Their spotlights played over a compartment that was open to space in several places, filled with drifting masses of debris, containers of various sizes, a shoal of bright objects that were probably sealed food packages, shelving and the bodies of three unsuited aliens, which were torn and swollen by the twin effects of massive external injuries and explosive decompression. The lights of the Rhabwar shone brightly through an open tangle of metal, illuminating the areas where their spotlights did not reach.

  “It’s here?” asked Fletcher in disbelief.

  “It is here,” said Prilicla.

  The empath was indicating a large metal cabinet, drifting slowly past on the outer fringes of the wreckage. The container was deeply scratched and furrowed by violent contact with other metal, and there was one dent in particular that was at least six inches deep. There was a slight haze around the object, indicating that the air trapped inside was escaping slowly.

  “Naydrad!” Conway called urgently. “Forget your pressure litter. The survivor has provided one of its own, but it is depressurizing. We’ll push it outside where you can see it, then you can pull it on board with a tractor. As fast as you can, Naydrad.”

  “Doctor,” the Captain asked as they were maneuvering the cabinet through a gap in the wreckage, “do we spend time here looking for information on this species, or do we go on looking for other survivors?”

  “We go looking, Captain,” responded Conway without hesitation. “With luck, the survivor will tell us all we want to know about its species during convalescence …

  When the cabinet had been transferred to the Casualty Deck, the Captain examined its door actuator. He said that the operating mechanism was straightforward and that the strength of the door and its surrounding structure had kept that particular face of the cabinet from being deformed during the collision.

  “He means the door will open,” Dodds translated dryly.

  Fletcher glared at the Lieutenant. “The question is, Should we open it without taking precautions-more precautions than you are taking now, Doctor?”

  Conway finished drilling, and he withdrew an air sample from the cabinet interior before replying. As he handed the sample to Murchison for analysis, he said, “Captain, the box does not contain an Earth-human DBDG with influenza. We will find an e-t of a hitherto unknown species in urgent need of medical attention, and as I have already explained, we are in no danger from extraterrestrial pathogens.”

  “I keep worrying about the exception that might prove the rule, Doctor,” the Captain replied doggedly. But he unsealed his visor to show everyone that he was not too badly worried.

  “Doctor Prilicla, please,” came Haslam’s voice from Control. “Minus ten minutes.”

  The little empath hovered briefly over the cabinet, assured them that there was no marked change in the survivor’s emotional radiation-it was still deeply unconscious, but far from being terminal-and hurried to the airlock so that when the astro
gator made a close approach to the next mass of wreckage Prilicla would be able to ascertain whether or not anything had survived in it. As the Cinrusskin left, Murchison straightened up from the analyzer display.

  “If we assume that the first sample was taken from a compartment at normal atmospheric composition and pressure,” she said, “then, apart from a few innocuous trace elements that our ship atmosphere does not contain, we would be quite happy breathing the same air as they do. But the sample from the cabinet is at half normal pressure and is high in carbon dioxide and water vapor. In short, the air inside that cabinet is dangerously thin and stale, and the sooner we get that beastie out of there the better.”

  “Right,” said Conway. He removed the sampling drill without sealing the hole it had made, and as the Casualty Deck’s air whistled into the cabinet, he said, “Open her up, Captain.”

  The cabinet was lying on its back with the door fastening, a rectangular metal plate with three conical indentations on it, facing upwards. Fletcher pulled off one of his gauntlets, pressed three fingers hard into the impressions and slid the plate aside. They heard a loud click, then he lifted the door open. Inside was a confused, bloody mess.

  It took Conway several minutes to realize what had happened and to withdraw the bloodstained clothing or bedding from around the survivor. The cabinet had once contained upwards of twenty shelves, which had been pulled out hastily and the metal shelf supports padded with bedding or clothing to protect the occupant. But the collision had been a violent one, and there had been no time to attach the padding properly to the supports. As a result, both the padding and the survivor had been tumbled about the interior of the cabinet. The hapless e-t was jammed tightly into one end of the box, still bleeding sluggishly from a great many lacerations made by the shelf supports, and the colored bands of fur could barely be seen through tufted and matted patches of dried blood.