breeding source of food, or its tissues or organs might contain important sources of valuable medication, or the reason maybe a completely alien one. Excuse me.”
She switched on her suit radio. “Naydrad, we have three cadavers to transfer to the lab. Move them in the litter to avoid additional damage to the specimens by decompression.” She turned to Conway and the Captain. “I don’t think the other members of the crew would object to my opening up their friends, especially since the large one has already begun the process.”
Conway nodded. They both knew that the more she was able to discover about the physiology and metabolism of the two dead specimens, the better would be their chances of helping the surviving blind ones.
With Fletcher’s help they extricated the large cadaver from its cage and from the strange assortment of metal rods and bars that were pressing it against the deck. They had to widen the opening it had made in the grill. This required the combined efforts of the three of them and gave some indication of the strength of the being who had forced it apart. When they had the large alien free, its tentacles opened out and practically blocked the corridor as it floated weightless in the confined space.
While they were pushing it towards the airlock, Murchison said, “The deployment of the legs and tentacles is similar to the Hudlar FROB life-form, but that carapace is a thicker ELNT Melfan shell without markings, and it is plainly not herbivorous. Considering the fact that it is warm-blooded and oxygen-breathing and its appendages show no evidence of the ability to manipulate tools or materials, I would tentatively classify it as FSOJ, and probably nonintelligent.”
“Certainly non-intelligent, considering the circumstances,” said Fletcher as they returned to the caged section of corridor. “It was an escaped specimen, ma’am.”
“We medical types,” said Murchison, smiling, “never commit ourselves, especially where a brand-new life- form is concerned. But right now I wouldn’t even try to classify the blind ones.
Since she was the smallest person there, it was Murchison who wriggled carefully through the damaged grill and between the projecting rods and bars. If it had not been for the large alien warping a number of the bars out of true, she would not have been able to reach the blind one at all.
“This,” she said breathlessly as she reached the cadaver, “is a very strange cage.”
Although it was brightly lit, they could not see the other end of the caged section of corridor, because it followed the curvature of the ship, which at this distance from the center was sharp enough to keep them from seeing more than ten meters into it. The corridor walls and ceiling of the section they could see, however, were covered with projecting metal bars and rods. Some of them had sharp tips, others had spatulate ends and a few of them terminated in something that resembled a small metal ball covered in blunt spikes. The metal bars projected from slits in the walls, and the slots were long enough to allow their individual bars a wide angle of travel either up and down or from side to side. The rods protruded from circular holes and collar pieces in the ceiling and were designed only to move in and out.
“It is strange to me, too, ma’am,” said the Captain. “None of the e-t technology I’ve studied gives me any ideas. For one thing, it is a large cage, or should I say a very long cage, if it is continued around the ship. Perhaps it was meant to house more than one specimen, or the one specimen required space in which to exercise. I’m guessing, but I would say that the bars and rods projecting into the corridor formed some kind of restraint whereby the specimen could be immobilized in any part of the caged section for feeding purposes or for physical examination.”
“A pretty good guess, I’d say,” said Conway. “And if there was a malfunction in the mobile restraints, then the metal grill formed a safety backup that couldn’t, on this occasion, withstand the specimen’s attack. But I’m wondering just how far this corridor follows the radius of the ship. Extending this arc to the other side of the vessel places it in the area where Prilicla detected the two survivors. One of those survivors, according to Prilicla, was emoting anger on a very basic, perhaps animal, level while the other being’s emotional radiation was more complex.
“Let’s suppose,” Conway went on, “that there is another large alien at the other end of the corridor cage, maybe even outside the other end of the cage, with a badly injured blind one who wasn’t as successful as its crew-mate here in killing the brute—”
He broke off as Naydrad’s voice sounded in the suit phones, saying that it was outside with the pressure litter.
Murchison pushed the first blind one towards the lock. “Wait for a few minutes, Naydrad, and you can load all three specimens.”
Fletcher had been staring at Conway while the doctor was talking, plainly not liking the thought of another large FSOJ being in the ship. He pointed anxiously at the second blind one’s body. “This one nearly escaped after killing the FSOJ with its horn. If we knew where it was trying to escape to, we might know where to look for its crew-mate who did escape.”
“I’ll help you,” said Conway.
Time for the survivors, whichever species they belonged to, was fast running out.
At deck level there was a low rectangular opening, which was wide and deep enough to allow entry to a blind one. Nearly one third of its flat, circular body was inside the opening, and when they tried to remove it they encountered resistance and had to give the creature a gentle tug to pull it free. They were pushing it towards Murchison, who was waiting to load it into the airlock with the other two specimens, when there was an interruption on the suit frequency.
“Sir! A panel is swinging open topside. It looks like … it is an antenna being deployed.”
“Priicla,” Conway called quickly, “the survivors. Is one of them conscious?”
“No, friend Conway,” the empath replied. “Both remain deeply unconscious.”
Fletcher stared at Conway for a moment. “If the survivors did not extend that antenna, then we did, probably when we were pulling the blind one out from that opening.” He bent suddenly and slid his foot magnets backwards until he was lying flat against the corridor floor. He moved his head close to the opening through which the blind one had tried to escape, and directed his helmet light inside. “Look at this, Doctor, I think we’ve found the control center.”
They were looking into a wide, low tunnel whose internal dimensions were slightly larger than those of the bodies of the blind ones. Visibility was restricted because, like the corridor behind them, it followed the curvature of the ship. For a distance of about fifteen inches inside the opening the floor was bare, but the roof was covered with the tactually labeled actuators of the type they had found in the airlock. There were, naturally, no indicator lights or visual displays. Just beyond this area the tunnel had no roof, and they had a clear view of the first control position.
In shape it resembled a circular, elliptical sectioned sandwich open around the edges to facilitate entry by the blind ones of the crew. They could see hundreds of actuators covering the inside faces of the sandwich and, on the outer surfaces, the cable runs and linkages that connected the actuators with the mechanisms they controlled. The majority of the cable runs led towards the center of the ship while the rest curved towards the rim. There was no evidence of color-coding on the cables, but the sheathing carried various embossed and inset patterns that performed the same function for technicians who felt but could not see. A second control pod was visible beyond the first one.
“I can see only two control positions clearly,” said Fletcher, “but we know that the crew numbered at least three. The survivor is probably out of sight around that curve, and if we could squeeze through the tunnel—”
“Physically impossible,” said Conway.
“—without blundering against actuators every foot of the way,” the Captain went on, ‘and switching on every system in the ship. I wonder why these people, who do not appear to be stupid, even if they are blind, placed a control position so close to the cage of a dangerous captive animal. That was taking a risk.”
“If they couldn’t keep an eye on it,” said Conway dryly, “they had to keep closely in touch.”
“Was that a joke?” the Captain asked disapprovingly while he detached one of his gauntlets and reached into the opening. A few seconds later he said, “I think I feel the actuator we must have snagged pulling the blind one out. I’m pressing it, now.”
Chen’s voice on the suit frequency broke in. “There is another antenna array deploying, close to the first one, sir.”
“Sorry,” said Fletcher. For a moment his face registered an expression of deep concentration as his fingers felt their way over the alien controls; then Chen reported that both antennae had retracted.
