“Respiration has ceased,” Prilicla said quietly.
Conway swung around and thumbed the buzzer for Kursedd. He said, “Heart action? Mind?”
“Pulse faster. Emoting a little more strongly.”
Kursedd arrived then and Conway began rattling out instructions. He needed instruments from the adjoining DBLF theater and detailed his requirements. Aseptic procedure was unnecessary, likewise anesthetics — he wanted only a large selection of cutting instruments. The nurse disappeared and Conway called Pathology, asking if they could suggest a safe coagulant for the patient should extensive surgery be necessary. They could and said he would have it within minutes. As he was turning from the intercom, O’Mara spoke:
“All this frantic activity, this window-dressing, proves nothing. The patient has stopped breathing. If it isn’t dead it is as near to it as makes no difference, and you’re to blame. Heaven help you, Doctor, because nobody here will.”
Conway shook his head distractedly. “Unfortunately you may be right, but I’m hoping that it won’t die,” he said. “I can’t explain just now, but you could help me by contacting Skempton and telling him to go easy on that alien colony. I need time, just how much of it I still don’t know.”
“You don’t know when to give up,” said O’Mara angrily, but went to the intercom nevertheless. While he was arranging a link-up, Kursedd undulated in with an instrument trolley. Conway placed it convenient to the patient, then said over his shoulder to O’Mara, “Here is something you might think about. For the past twelve hours the air expelled from the patient’s lungs has been free from impurities. It has been breathing but apparently not using its breath …
He bent quickly, adjusted his stethoscope and listened. The heartbeats were a little faster, he thought, and stronger. But there was a jarring irregularity to them. Through the thick, almost solid growth which enclosed it the sounds were both magnified and distorted. Conway could not tell if the heart alone was responsible for the noise or if other organic movements were contributing. This worried him because he didn’t know what was normal for a patient like this. The survivor had, after all, been in an ambulance ship, which meant that there might have been something wrong with it in addition to its present condition …
“What are you raving about?” O’Mara broke in roughly, making Conway realize that he had been thinking aloud. “Are you saying now that the patient isn’t sick …
Absently, Conway said, “An expectant mother can be suffering, yet not be technically ill.”
He wished that he knew more of what was going on inside his patient. If the being’s ears had not been completely covered by the growth he would have tried the Translator again. The sucking, bumping, gurgling noises could mean anything.
“Conway …!” began O’Mara, and took a breath which could be heard all over the ward. Then he forced his voice down to a conversational level and went on, “I’m in touch with Skempton’s ship. Apparently they made good time and have already contacted the aliens. They’re fetching the Colonel now He broke off, then added, “I’ll turn up the volume so you can hear what he says.”
“Not too loud,” said Conway, then to Prilicla, “How is it emoting?”
“Much stronger. I detect separate emotions again. Feelings of urgency, distress and fear — probably claustrophobic — approaching the point of panic.
Conway gave the patient a long, careful appraisal. There was no visible movement. Abruptly he said, “I can’t risk waiting any longer. It must be too weak to help itself. Screens, Nurse.”
The screens were meant only to exclude O’Mara. Had the psychologist seen what was to come without fully knowing what was going on he would doubtless have jumped to more wrong conclusions, probably to the extent of forcibly restraining Conway.
“Its distress is increasing,” Prilicla said suddenly. “There is no actual pain, but there are intense feelings of constriction …
Conway nodded. He motioned for a scalpel and began cutting into the growth, trying to establish its depth. It was now like soft, crumbling cork which offered little resistance to the knife. At a depth of eight inches he bared what looked like a grayish, oily and faintly iridescent membrane, but there was no rush of body fluid into the operative field. Conway heaved a sigh of relief, withdrew, then repeated the process in another area. This time the membrane revealed had a greenish tinge and was twitching slightly. He moved on again.
Apparently the average depth of the growth was eight inches. Working with furious ’speed Conway opened the covering growth in a total of nine places, spaced out at roughly equal intervals around the ring-like body, then he looked a question at Prilicla.
“Much worse now,” said the GLNO. “Extreme mental distress fear, feelings of… of strangulation. Pulse is up, and irregular-there is considerable strain on the heart. Also it is losing consciousness again …
Before the empath had finished speaking Conway was hacking away. With long, sawing, savage strokes he linked together the openings already made with deep, jagged incisions. Everything was sacrificed for speed. By no stretch of the imagination could what he was doing be called surgery, because a lumberjack with a blunt axe could have performed neater work.
Finished, he stood looking at the patient for three whole seconds, but there was still no sign of movement. Conway dropped the scalpel and began tearing at the growth with his hands.
Suddenly the voice of Skempton filled the ward, excitedly describing his landing on the alien colony and the opening of communications with them. He went on, “… And O’Mara, the sociological set-up is weird, I’ve never heard of anything like it, or them! There are two distinct life forms—”
“But belonging to the same species,” Conway put in loudly as he worked. The patient was showing definite signs of life and was beginning to help itself. He felt like yelling with sheer exultation, but instead he went on, “One form is the ten-legged type of our friend here, but without their tails sticking in their mouths. That is a transition- stage position only.
“The other form is … is …” Conway paused to give the being now revealed before him a searching, analytical stare. The remains of the growth which had covered it lay about the floor, some thrown there by Conway and the rest which it had shaken off itself. He continued, “Let’s see, oxygen-breathing, of course. Oviparous. Long, rod-like but flexible body possessing four insectile legs, manipulators, the usual sense organs, and three sets of wings. Classification GKNM. Visual aspect something like a dragonfly.
“I would say that the first form, judging by the crudely-developed appendages we noticed, performed most of the hard labor. Not until it passed the 'Chrysalis’ stage to become the more dexterous, and beautiful, dragonfly form would it be considered mature and capable of doing responsible work. This would, I suppose, make for a complicated society..
“I had been about to say,” Colonel Skempton broke in, his voice reflecting the chagrin of one whose thunder has just been stolen, “that a couple of the beings are on their way to take care of the survivor. They urge that nothing whatever be done to the patient …
At that point O’Mara pushed through the screen. He stood gaping at the patient who was now engaged in shaking out its wings, then with a visible effort pulled himself together. He said, “I suppose apologies are in order, Doctor. But why didn’t you tell someone …
“I had no clear proof that my theory was right,” Conway said seriously. “When the patient went into a panic several times when I suggested helping it, I suspected that the growth might be normal. A caterpillar could be expected to object to anyone trying to remove its chrysalis prematurely, for the good reason that such a course would kill it. And there were other pointers. The lack of food intake, the ring-like position with the appendages facing outward-obviously a defense mechanism from a time when natural enemies threatened the new being inside the slowly hardening shell of the old, and finally the fact that its expelled breath during the later stages showed no impurities, proving that the lungs and heart we were listening to had no longer a direct connection.
Conway went on to explain that in the early stages of the treatment he had been unsure of his theory, but still not doubtful enough in his mind to allow Mannon or Thornnastor to have their way. He had made the decision that the patient’s condition was normal, or fairly normal, and the best course would be to do absolutely nothing. Which was what he had done.
