Double Contact (35 page)

“Yes, friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla, feeling the other's tortured, emotional radiation all the way from the ship and trying to do something about it. “But there is a precedent. This is on a smaller, less bloody scale, but remember what happened when Sector General was caught in the middle of the Federation-Etlan War. Due to massive overcrowding the casualties from both sides were treated in the same ward. There is a close similarity to our present situation.”

“Is there,” said the captain, its mind obviously contemplating a future where all was desolation. Irritably it added, “I wasn't there, Doctor, and it wasn't a war. It was a large-scale police action.”

Prilicla well remembered that vicious and incredibly violent battle which had been waged around Sector General, when six of the Federation's sector subfleets including three of its capital ships had opposed a much heavier force from the Etlan Empire, whose ruler had fed his people totally wrong information about the other side. He didn't want to argue with the captain who, like the rest of its Monitor Corps colleagues, were touchy about the fact that their organization comprised the greatest assemblage of military might that the galaxy had ever known.

But Prilicla had been there and it had certainly felt like a war.

CHAPTER 34

The sun shone down on the golden beach, the white, lacy edge of the deep-blue sea, and on the many ships assembling around the island that were continually launching their gliders. Apart from a small working party of spiders who were engaged in transferring odd pieces of
Terragar
's equipment to the beach, there was no ground activity visible, but the aerial bombardment was unceasing.

Instead of carrying an armed passenger as payload, the gliders were loading up with the equivalent weight in rocks, climbing to an altitude of about two thousand meters and dropping them on the med station. More often than not, their aim was wide of the mark, but on the off-chance that some of those ridiculously unsophisticated missiles would pierce the flimsy structures, injuring or killing the patients or team members inside, the meteorite shield had had to be deployed. Everyone was safe for the time being, but that time was limited.

Another battle, verbal rather than physical, was raging between the spider patients and the other occupants of the recovery ward. Apart from Naydrad, that was, who had turned off its translator and whose fur was moving in gentle, restful waves while it watched the medical monitors in case the various blood pressures rose above acceptable safety limits. And in the communications room yet another and more polite war of words was raging between the other members of the medical team and Captain Fletcher and his crew.

“We can't understand why you're waiting, Doctor,” the captain said as it restated the position in unnecessarily simple language for the recorders. “Plainly your idea isn't working. We now have shield power for less than twenty-one hours' duration. With no power to spare for pressor beams to lift us to an area of sea that is clear of ships, it will have to be an environmentally unfriendly takeoff on main thrusters. The vegetation on this half of the island, not to mention the spiders and their ships, will be toast. Go in and explain the scientific facts of life to Irisik and the spider pilot, now that it has regained consciousness. I know this is a hard decision for both of us to make, Doctor, but we can't sacrifice
Rhabwar
's crew and the Trolanni patients by letting a bunch of misguided spiders overrun and kill us.”

It softened its tone, and in spite of the distance separating them, Prilicla could feel the other's determination overriding its reluctance to cause emotional distress to an empathic friend as it went on. “You have the medical rank in the present situation, Doctor, but in this instance I am disputing it. So tell your spider patients, as gently but firmly as you can, that they are not to be eaten but they must leave us and return to their vessels at once before they, and the crews of the ships along the beach, die in the fires we will light during our takeoff. You can move the injured glider pilot in one of your litters, with the power unit and circuitry set for a noncatastrophic self-destruct shortly after they reach their ships. For a prespace age species they've already been contaminated with too much advanced technology as it is.”

“Friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla gently, “please don't be feeling so uncomfortable about your threat to depose the senior medical officer during a medical emergency, and do nothing hasty. Irisik is one cynical spider and I have a strong feeling, amounting to a virtual certainty that it wouldn't believe anything I told it, which is why I shall tell it nothing and allow what it thinks are the other sources of food to do the talking. Please wait, watch the ward vision pickup, and listen.…”

Naydrad had just finished its round of patient observations and had curled its caterpillar-like body into its relaxer frame in front of the monitor screens when the silence was broken by one of the
Terragar
casualties.

“Charge Nurse,” it said, “I'm starving to death.”

“Your self-diagnosis is not confirmed by the monitor readings,” Naydrad replied. “Considering the fact that your lower ambulatory limbs are missing and your food requirements are proportionately reduced, terminal malnutrition would only occur if fluids as well as food were to be withheld for twenty-plus standard days. Lunch will be in three hours. Until then, compose yourself and try to think beautiful thoughts.”

“He can't think beautiful thoughts,” another one of the
Terragar
casualties joined in, “and neither can I, because Pathologist Murchison hasn't been in for nearly three days. I like her around even if the spiders are keeping her from dunking us in the ocean…”

The other Earth-human patients radiated feelings of approval and minor disappointment while making whistling sounds that did not translate.

“… but why,” it ended, “won't she come in and talk to us?”

Unable to lie, Naydrad elected to remain silent.

“Among my people,” said Irisik, speaking for the first time that day, “it is considered socially indelicate, unless the entity concerned is a close family relation or a loved one, to hold a lengthy conversation with what is in effect one's next meal. To do such a thing would unsettle the emotions as well as the digestion, and this one is delicate in its handling of your feelings. After all, your two walking limbs are missing and yet you feel no hostility towards it, the person who ate them. Or is it a religious thing with you, and you know that the food you contribute in this way enables part of your being to survive into the indefinite future?”

“No!” said the
Terragar
casualty, radiating irritation and impatience. “It isn't religious. She doesn't eat intelligent entities.…”

“But all living creatures have intelligence,” Irisik broke in. “Are you saying that it eats only vegetation?”

“No,” said the other. “Meat is eaten, not frequently, and only when it originates from beings of very low intelligence.”

“Like you?” asked Irisik in a disparaging voice. After a moment, it went on. “But who sets the level of intelligence for edibility? You yourself do not appear to be of very low intelligence, so I suspect that a process of mental persuasion, perhaps reinforced by the use of mind-altering poisons rather than a spiritual belief in survival after death, is used to hide from you your status as a food animal. The mental persuasion must be both subtle and strong if it can make you, an apparently young and healthy person whose body has already been partially eaten, argue on behalf of your eater.

“My own mind,” it added, “would not be so easily influenced, especially by another member of my own species.”

“But my legs weren't eaten, dammit,” the other replied. “They were cooked, maybe, but definitely not eaten. I was there and remember exactly what happened to them.”

“They might look like outsized druuls,” said Keet, joining the conversation, “but we know that they don't eat people, they repair them.”

“Or perhaps you only believe that you know what happened,” Irisik went on, “because mental influence or chemicals have been used to influence you into thinking that way. It is natural among civilized beings to conceal the true facts from their prey so that they will not dwell unnecessarily on their fate, and remain content until the ultimate moment.” It swiveled its head towards the Trolanni patient. “Food appearance and presentation are important. Repairing its wounds, so as to avoid the possibility of a premature death, is a sensible course if the food is to live and remain fresh until the time for consumption arrives. There is no reason why living food should be made to suffer unnecessarily.”

Prilicla felt a brief eruption of fear and uncertainty from the two Trolanni which they controlled and negated within a few seconds. From its litter, Jasam said weakly, “When a bunch of outsized druuls tried to tether and board our searchsuit, we had the same idea. But the others who came along later placed themselves in great personal danger while retrieving the first group and learning to communicate with us and repairing our injuries. Plainly they were taking far too much trouble, when we had time to think about it, for a very meager addition to their food supply. As a species we are deeply frightened about our future survival, and these druul-like creatures and the others from their two ships have promised to help us to solve your problems, but we have no fears regarding our survival as individuals. Neither should you.”

Irisik paused before replying. “You say that you and your captors have walked the web between the stars, in ships with structures so hard that they have been neither woven nor grown, and that you have the knowledge to make and use many wondrous tools to build and repair these vessels and the sailors who fly in them. By your standards we Crextic are not educated. But I know the difference between education and intelligence and, with respect, an educated person can also be gullible.”

Keet lost its patience. “I know that skepticism is supposed to be a sign of intelligence, but this is ridiculous. You are a seagoing spider who disbelieves people who have sailed among the stars. It's a waste of time trying to make you see sense because you probably haven't got any. Your mind is tightly closed.”

The growing irritation and impatience from both Trolanni did not quite blot out the quieter, more complex emotional radiation coming from Irisik. The Crextic's mind was beginning to suffer from the first stirrings of self-doubt.

For an instant Prilicla wondered if he should go in and join the conversation, then decided against it. A phrase used by Chief Dietitian Gurronsevas back at the hospital came to him, regarding the preparation of food. He would let Irisik stew in its own juices for a while. He could feel growing uncertainty and a need to ask questions, but decided to wait for Irisik to voice them.

Keet left its litter and and moved quickly to the row of the
Terragar
casualties.

“There is something that Jasam and I must say to you,” it began. “It is an apology for the way that our searchsuit defense systems caused you to be burned and lose limbs. We could not believe that anyone who looked like a druul could want only to help us, but we were wrong. We ask your forgiveness and, if and when we return to Trolann, we offer help with the replacement of the burned limbs. Our technology on the interfacing of organic and inorganic materials is advanced. Your metal limbs would be linked to the relevant nerve connections to produce the sensations of pressure, touch, and temperature you knew in the past, although possibly not with the former degree of sensitivity, and be visually indistinguishable from the missing ones. Your fellow officers on
Rhabwar,
who have had firsthand experience of our searchsuit technology, will confirm this. Unless you have psychological or religious objections to…”

“We haven't,” said one of the casualties.

“Could they be made four or five inches longer than the old ones?” asked another, and explained, “I've always wanted to be tall as well as handsome.”

The third made a derogatory sound that did not translate, and gradually the conversation became increasingly general, serious, and animated as Keet, Jasam, and the
Terragar
casualties talked about their respective futures.

When Irisik tried to join in, it was pointedly ignored. Its emotional radiation, Prilicla noted with satisfaction, was revealing a strange mixture of growing indecision and increasing certainty.

“… I know that the druul are not nice people,” one of the
Terragar
casualties was saying, “but the Federation won't…”

“Not nice?” Keet broke in. “They are vicious, cunning, implacable, depraved vermin who want only to kill and, if possible, eat, everyone and everything who is not a druul. And they have been known to eat their own casualties rather than waste time and resources in treating them. They should be wiped out, exterminated down to the last member of their merciless and murderous species.”

“… As I was saying,” the Earth-human went on, “the Federation will not instruct its Monitor Corps to exterminate a whole species just on your say-so, and they know that we wouldn't do it if they did. That would make us as uncivilized and savage as you say they are. Instead they will investigate the druul and—”

“Maybe you have sympathy, a fellow feeling towards them,” Jasam broke in, radiating sudden suspicion, “because they look so very much like you. People can give sympathy, kindness, and even affection towards pets or dolls or smaller editions of themselves. Until they turn vicious which, believe me, they will.”

“I do believe you,” said the other, “but we're talking about an intelligent species here. We have no right to destroy them. The Federation will subject them to a covert sociological and psychological assessment. If they are as blindly antisocial as you say, they will almost certainly be isolated on their home planet to survive as best they can, fight each other to mutual extinction, or demonstrate to us over a lengthy period that they have learned sense and are on the way to true civilization, in which case we would help them as we are planning to help you.”