background radiation might well have concealed intelligent emoting. The proportion of intelligent life on any given world is only a small proportion of its total life …
“I see,” said Conway, disappointed. “How about the landing?”
The Captain had chosen an area composed of some thick, dry, leathery material. The stuff looked dead and insensitive so that the ship’s tail flare should not cause pain to any life in the area, intelligent or otherwise. They landed without incident and for perhaps ten minutes nothing happened. Then gradually the leathery surface below them began to sag, but slowly and evenly so that the ship’s gyros had no trouble keeping them level. They began to sink into what was at first a shallow depression and then a low-walled crater. The lips of the crater curled toward them, pressing against the landing legs. The legs were designed to retract telescopically, not fold toward the center line of the ship. The extension mechanism and leg housings began to give, with a noise like somebody tearing sheet metal into small pieces.
Then somebody or something began throwing rocks. To Harrison it had sounded almost as if Descartes was sitting atop a volcano in process of erupting. The din was unbelievable and the only way to transmit orders was through the suit radios with the volume turned way up. Harrison was ordered to make a quick damage check of the stern prior to takeoff.
I was between the inner and outer skin close to the venturi orifice level when I found the hole,” the Lieutenant went on quickly. “It was about three inches across and when I started to patch it I found the edges to be slightly magnetized. Before I could finish the Captain decided to take off at once. The crater wall was threatening to trap one of the landing legs. He did give us five seconds’ warning …”
Harrison paused at that point as if to clarify something in his own mind. He said carefully, “There wasn’t much danger in this, you understand. We were taking off at about one-and-a-half Gs because we weren’t sure whether the crater was a manifestation of intelligence, even hostile intelligence, or the involuntary movement of some dirty great beastie closing its mouth, so we wanted to avoid unnecessary destruction in the area. If I hung onto a couple of supporting struts and had somewhere to brace my feet I’d be all right. But long-duration suits are awkward and five seconds isn’t long. I had two good hand-holds and was looking for a bracket which should have been there to brace my foot. Then I saw it, and actually felt my boot touch it, but … but …
“You were confused and misjudged the distance,” Conway finished for him softly. “Or perhaps you simply imagined it was there.”
On the other side of the Lieutenant, Prilicla began to tremble again. It said, “I’m sorry, Doctor. No echoes.”
“I didn’t expect any,” said Conway. “It must have moved on by now.”
Harrison looked from one to the other, his expression puzzled and a little hurt. He said, “Maybe I did imagine it was there. Anyhow, it didn’t hold me and I fell. The landing leg on my side tore free during the takeoff and the wreckage of its housing plugged the inters kin space so tightly that I couldn’t get out. The engine room control lines passed too close to me for them to risk cutting me out, and our medic said it would be better to come here and let your heavy-rescue people cut a way in. We were coming here with the samples anyway.
Conway looked quickly at Prilicla, then said, “At any time during the trip back did your Cinrusskin empath monitor your emotional radiation?”
Harrison shook his head. “There was no need-I was having pain despite the suit’s medication and it would have been unpleasant for an empath. Nobody could get within yards of me …
The Lieutenant paused, then in the tone of one who wished to change an unpleasant subject he said brightly, “We’ll send down an unmanned ship next, packed with communications equipment. If that thing is just a big mouth connected with a bigger belly and with no brains at all, at worst we’ll lose a drone and it will get indigestion. But if it is intelligent or if there are smaller intelligent beings on the planet who maybe use, or have trained, the bigger beasties to serve them-that is a strong possibility, our cultural contact people say-then they are bound to be curious and try to communicate …”
“The imagination boggles,” said Conway, smiling. “At the present moment I’m trying hard not to think about the medical problems a beastie the size of a subcontinent would have. But to return to the here and now, Lieutenant Harrison, we are both very much obliged for the information you’ve given us, and we hope you won’t mind if we come again to—”
“Any time,” said Harrison. “Glad to help. You see, most of the nurses here have mandibles or tentacles or too many feet … No offense, Doctor Prilicla
“None taken,” said Prilicla.
… And my ideas regarding ministering angels are rather old fashioned,” he ended as they turned to go. His expression looked decidedly woebegone.
In the corridor Conway called Murchison’s quarters. By the time he had finished explaining what he wanted her to do she was fully awake.
“I’m on duty in two hours and don’t have any free time for another six,” she said, yawning. “And normally I do not spend my precious time off doing a Mata Han on lonely patients. But if this one has information which might help Doctor Mannon I don’t mind at all. I’d do anything for that man.
“How about me?”
“For you, dear, almost anything. “Bye.”
Conway racked the handset and said to Prilicla, “Something gained entrance to that ship. Harrison suffered the same type of mild hallucination or mental confusion that the OR staff experienced. But I keep thinking about that hole in the outer skin-a disembodied intelligence shouldn’t have to make a hole to get in. And those rocks hitting the stern. Suppose this was only a side-effect of the major, nonmaterial influence-a disturbance analogous to the poltergeist phenomena. Where does that leave us?”
Prilicla didn’t know.
“I’ll probably regret it,” said Conway, “but I think I’ll call O’Mara …”
But it was the Chief Psychologist who did all the talking at first. Mannon had just left his office after having told O’Mara that the Hudlar patient’s condition had deteriorated suddenly, necessitating a second operation not later than noon tomorrow. The Senior Physician, it had been obvious, held no hopes for the patient’s survival, but had said that what little chance it did have would be fractionally increased if they operated quickly.
O’Mara ended, “This doesn’t give you much time to prove your theory, Conway. Now, what did you want to say to me?”
The news about Mannon had put Conway badly off his stride, so that he was woefully aware that his report on the Meatball incident and his ideas regarding it sounded weak and, what was worse where O’Mara was concerned, incoherent. The psychologist had little patience with people who did not think clearly and say exactly what they meant.
And the whole affair is so peculiar,'' he concluded awkwardly, “that I’m almost convinced now that the Meatball business has nothing to do with Mannon’s trouble, except that …”
“Conway!” said O’Mara sharply. “You’re talking in circles, dithering! You must realize that if two peculiar events occur with only a small separation in time then the probability is high that they have a common cause. I don’t mind too much if your theory is downright ridiculous — at least you arrived at it by a tortuous form of logic — but I do mind you ceasing to think at all. Being wrong, Doctor, is infinitely preferable to being stupid!”
For a few seconds Conway breathed heavily through his nose, trying to control his anger enough to reply. But O’Mara saved him the trouble by breaking the connection.
“He was not very polite to you, friend Conway,” said Prilicla. “Toward the end he sounded quite bad- tempered. This is a significant improvement over his feelings for you this morning …
Conway laughed in spite of himself. He said, “One of these days you will forget to say the right thing, Doctor, and everyone in the hospital will drop dead!”
The galling part of the whole affair was that they did not know what exactly they were looking for, and now their time for finding it had been cut in half. All they could do was to continue gathering information and hope that something would emerge from it. But even the questions sounded nonsensical-variations of “Have you done or omitted to do something during the past few days which might lead you to suspect that something was influencing your mind?” They were loosely worded, silly, almost meaningless questions, but they went on asking them until Prilicia’s pencil-thin legs were rubbery with fatigue-the empath’s stamina was proportional to its strength, which was practically nonexistent-and it had to retire. Doggedly Conway went on asking them, feeling more tired, angrier and more stupid with every hour which passed.
