Sector General Omnibus 2 - Alien Emergencies (43 page)

“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 unusual,” 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 the 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.

“Regarding the airway and lungs,” Conway continued, “you can see that there is the usual inflammation present but that the lung damage is minor. We are assuming that since the being was unable to move when the gas permeated the ship, it was able, with its large lung capacity, to hold its breath until most of the toxic vapor had dissipated. But the digestive system is baffling us. The food passage is extremely narrow and seems to have collapsed in several places, and with few teeth for chewing food it is difficult…to see how—”

Conway’s voice slowed to a stop while his mind raced on. Beside him Murchison was making self-derogatory remarks because she, too, had not spotted it sooner, and Prilicla said, “Are you thinking what I am thinking, friends?”

There was no need to reply. Conway said, “Captain, where are you?”

Fletcher had cleared a narrow path for himself to the open hatch. While they had been talking they had heard his boots moving back and forth along the outer hull, but for the past few minutes there had been silence.

“On the ground outside, Doctor,” Fletcher replied. “I’ve been trying to find the best way of moving out the big one. In my opinion we can’t swing it down the sides of the wreck, too much sprung
plating and debris, and the stern isn’t much better. We’ll have to lower it from the prow. But carefully. I jarred my ankles badly when I jumped from it to the sand, which is only about an inch deep over a gently sloping shelf of rock in that area. Obviously the big life-form needed a special elevator to board and debark, because the extending ladder arrangement below the hatch is usable only by the three smaller life-forms.

“I’m about to reenter the ship through the cargo hold hatch,” he ended. “Is there a problem?”

“No, Captain,” Conway said. “But on your way here would you bring the cadaver from the Dormitory Deck?”

Fletcher grunted assent and Murchison and Conway resumed their discussion with Prilicla, stopping frequently to verify with their scanners the various points raised. When the Captain arrived pushing the dead DCMH ahead of him, Conway had just finished attaching an oxygen tank and breathing tube to the patient and covering its head in a plastic envelope against the time when, during the night, the entry hatch would be closed and the fumes produced by the cutting torch against the metal and plastic debris might turn out to be even more toxic than those from the hydraulic reservoir.

They took the cadaver from Fletcher and, holding it above their heads, fitted it into one of the control couches designed for it. The big alien did not react and they tried it in a second, then a third couch. This time the patient’s stub tentacles began to twitch and one of them made contact with the DCMH. It maintained the contact for several seconds then slowly withdrew and the big entity became still again.

Conway gave a long sigh, then said, “It fits, it all fits. Prilicla, keep your patients on oxygen and IV fluids. I don’t think they will return to full consciousness until they have food as well, but the hospital can synthesize that when we get back.” To Murchison he said, “All we need now is an analysis of the stomach contents of that cadaver. But don’t do the dissection here, do it in the corridor. It would probably, well, upset the Captain.”

“Not me,” Fletcher said, who was already at work with his cutting torch. “I won’t even look.”

Murchison laughed and pointed to the patient hanging above
them. She said, “He was talking about the other Captain, Captain.”

Before Fletcher could reply, Haslam announced that he would be landing in fifteen minutes.

“Better stay with the patient while I help the Captain load the lander,” Conway told Murchison. “Radiate feelings of reassurance at it; that’s all we can do right now. If we all left it might think it was being abandoned.”

“You intend leaving her here alone?” Fletcher said harshly.

“Yes, but there is no danger—” Conway began, when the voice of Dodds interrupted him.

“There is nothing moving within a twenty-mile radius of the wreck, sir,” he said reassuringly, “except thorn patches.”

Fletcher said very little while they were helping Haslam move the casualties from the outcropping into the lander and while they were pushing the litter with its load of spare equipment to the wreck. It was unlike the Captain, who usually spoke his mind no matter who or what was bothering him, to behave this way. But Conway’s mind was too busy with other things to have time to probe.