Conway shook his head. Then realizing that the gesture probably meant nothing to the GLNO he said, “We are still at the exploratory stage-treatment has not yet begun. But I’ve had a few ideas, which I can’t properly discuss with you until we both take the AUGL tape tomorrow and am fairly certain that two of our three patients will come through-in effect, one of them will have to be used as a guinea-pig in order to save the others. The symptoms appear and develop very quickly,” he continued, “which is why I want such a close watch kept on them. Now that the danger point is so close I think I’ll make it three-hourly, and we’ll work out a timetable so’s neither of us will miss too much sleep. You see, the quicker we spot the first symptoms the more time we have to act and the greater the possibility of saving all three of them. I’m very keen to do the hat-trick.”
Prilicla wouldn’t know what a hat-trick was either, Conway thought, but the being would quickly learn how to interpret his nods, gestures and figures of speech — Conway had had to do the same in his early days with e-t superiors, sometimes wondering fulminating why somebody did not make a tape on Alien Esoterics to aid junior interns in his position. But these were only surface thoughts. At the back of his mind, so steady and so sharp that it might have been painted there, was the picture of a young, almost embryonic life-form whose developing exoskeleton-the hundred or so flat, bony plates normally free to slide or move on flexible hinges of cartilage so as to allow mobility and breathing — was about to become a petrified fossil imprisoning, for a very short time, the frantic consciousness within …
“How can I assist you at the moment?” asked Prilicla, bringing Conway’s mind back from near future to present time with a rush. The GLNO was eyeing the three thin, streamlined shapes darting about the great tank and obviously wondering how it was going to stop one long enough to examine it. It added, “They’re fast, aren’t they?”
“Yes, and very fragile,” said Conway. “Also they are so young that for present purposes they can be considered mindless. They frighten easily and any attempt to approach them closely sends them into such a panic that they swim madly about until exhausted or injure themselves against the tank walls. What we have to do is lay a minefield …
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.”
