equipment—”
“One large pressure litter, Doctor,” Fletcher broke in. 'There will be five people on board. I am going down as well in case there are technical problems getting into the wreck. You’re forgetting that if the life-forms are new to the Federation, then their spaceship technology could be strange as well. Dodds will fetch anything else you need on the next trip down. Can you be ready at the lander bay in fifteen minutes?”
“We’ll be there,” Conway said, smiling at the eagerness in the other’s voice. Fletcher wanted to look at the inside of that wrecked ship just as badly as Conway wanted to investigate the internal workings of its crew. And if there were survivors, Rhabwar would shortly be engaged in conducting another medial first contact with all the hidden problems, both clinical and cultural, which that implied.
Fletcher’s eagerness was underlined by the fact that he rather than Dodds took the vehicle down and landed it in a ridiculously small area of flat sand within one hundred meters of the wreck. From the surface the wind- eroded rock outcroppings looked higher, sharper, and much more dangerous, but the sandstorm had died down to a stiff breeze which lifted the grains no more than a few feet above the ground. From the orbiting Rhabwar, Haslam reported occasional wind flurries passing through their area which might briefly inconvenience them.
One of the flurries struck while they were helping Naydrad unload the litter, a bulky vehicle whose pressure envelope was capable of reproducing the gravity, pressure, and atmosphere requirements of most of the known life-forms. Gravity nullifiers compensated for the litter’s considerable weight, making it easily manageable by one person, but when the sudden wind caught it, Naydrad, Dodds, and Conway had to throw themselves across it to keep it from blowing away.
“Sorry about this,” Lieutenant Dodds said, as if by studying the available information on the planet he was somehow responsible for its misdemeanors. “It is about two hours before local midday here, and the wind usually dies down by now. It remains calm until just before sunset, and again in the middle of the night when there is a severe drop in temperature. The sandstorms after sunset and before dawn are very bad and last for three to five hours, when outside work would be very dangerous. Work during the night lull is possible but inadvisable. The local animal life is small arid omnivorous, but those thorn carpets on the slope over there have a degree of mobility and have to be watched, especially at night. I’d estimate five hours of daylight calm to complete the rescue. If it takes longer than that, it would be better to spend the night on Rhabwar and come back tomorrow.”
As the Lieutenant was speaking, the wind died again so that they were able to see the wreck, the dark objects scattered around it, and the harsh, arid landscape shimmering in the heat. Five hours should be more than enough to ferry up the casualties to Rhabwar for preliminary treatment. Anything done for then) down here would be done quickly, simple first aid.
“Did they bother to name this Godforsaken planet?” the Captain asked, stepping down from the lander’s airlock.
Dodds hesitated, then said, “Trugdil, sir.”
Fletcher’s eyebrows rose, Murchison laughed, and they could
see agitated movements of Naydrad’s fur under its lightweight suit. It was the Kelgian who spoke first.
“The trugdil,” it said, “is a species of Kelgian rodent with the particularly nasty habit of—”
“I know,” the astrogator said quickly. “But it was a Kelgian-crewed Monitor Corps scoutship which made the discovery. In the Corps it is customary for the Captain of the discovering ship to give his, her, or its name to the world which has been found. But in this instance the officer waived the right and offered it to his subordinates in turn, all of whom likewise refused to give their names to the planet. Judging by the name it ended with, they didn’t think much of the place either. There was another case when—”
“Interesting,” Conway said quietly, “but we’re wasting time. Prilicla?”
Through his helmet phones, the empath’s voice replied at once. “I hear you, friend Conway. Lieutenant Haslam is relaying an overall picture of the area to me through the telescope, and your helmet vision pickups enable me to see all that you see. Standing by.”
“Very good,” Conway said. To the others he went on, “Naydrad will accompany me with the litter. The rest of you split up and take a quick look at the other casualties. If any of them are moving, or there are indications of recent movement, call Pathologist Murchison or me at once.”
As they moved off he added, “It is important that we don’t waste time on cadavers at the expense of possible survivors. But be careful. This is a new life-form to us, and we are likewise strange to it. Physically we may resemble something it fears, and there is the added factor of the survivor being weak, in pain, and mentally confused. Guard against an instinctive, violent reaction from them which, in normal circumstances, would not occur.” He stopped talking because the others were already fanning our and the first casualty, lying very still and partly covered by sand, was only a few meters away.
As Naydrad helped him scoop sand from around the body Conway saw that the being was six-limbed, with a stubby, cylindrical torso with a spherical head at one end and possibly a tail at the other extremity, although the severity of the injuries made it difficult to be sure. The two forelimbs terminated in long, flexible digits. There were two recognizable eyes, partially concealed by heavy lids, and various slits and orifices which were doubtless aural and olfactory sensors and the openings for respiration and ingestion. The tegument, which was pale brown shading to a deeper, reddish color on its top surface, showed many incised wounds and abrasions which had bled freely but had since congealed and become encrusted with sand — perhaps the sand had assisted in the process of coagulation. Even the large wound at the rear, which looked as if it might be the result of a traumatic amputation, was remarkably dry.
Conway bent closer and began going over the body with his scanner. There was no evidence of fracturing or of damaged or displaced organs, so far as he could see, so the being could” be moved without risk of complicating its injuries. Naydrad was waiting with the litter to see whether it was a survivor for immediate loading or a cadaver for later dissection, when Con-way’s scanner’s sensors detected cardiac activity, extremely feeble but undoubtedly present, and respiration so slow and shallow that he had almost missed it.
“Are you getting this, Prilicla?” he said.
“Yes, friend Conway,” replied the empath. “A most interesting life-form.”
“There is considerable tissue wastage,” he went on, still using the scanner. “Possibly the result of dehydration. And there is a similarity in degree and type of the injuries which I find strange …” He trailed off into silence as Naydrad helped him lift the casualty into the litter.
“No doubt it has already occurred to you, friend Conway,” Prilicla said, using the form of words which was the closest it ever came to suggesting that someone had missed the obvious, “that the dehydration and the deeper coloration on the upper areas of the epidermis may be connected with local environmental factors, and the redness is due to sunburn.”
It had not occurred to Conway, but fortunately the emotional radiation associated with his embarrassment was well beyond the range of the empath. He indicated the litter and said, “Naydrad, don’t forget to fit the sun filter.”
In his phones he heard Murchison laughing quietly, then she said, “It hadn’t occurred to me, either, so don’t feel bad about it. But I have a couple of beasties over here I’d like you to look at. Both are alive, just barely, with a'large number of incised wounds. There is a great disparity in mass between them, and the arrangement of the internal organs in the large one is, well, peculiar. For instance, the alimentary canal is—”
“Right now,” Conway broke in, “we must concentrate on separating the living and the dead. Detailed examinations and discussions will have to wait until we’re back on the ship, so spend as little time as possible on each one. But I know how you feel — my casualty has some peculiarities as well.”
“Yes, Doctor,” she replied coldly, in spite of his half apology. Pathologists, even beautiful ones like Murchison, he thought, were strange people.
“Captain? Lieutenant Dodds?” he said irritably. “Any other survivors?”
“I haven’t been looking at them closely, Doctor,” Retcher replied. There was an odd harshness in his voice. Possibly the condition of the crash victims was distressing to a nonmedical man, Conway thought, and some of these casualties were in really bad shape. But before he could reply the Captain went on, “I’ve been moving around the area quickly, counting them and looking to see if any have been covered by sand or hidden between rocks. There are twenty-seven of them in all. But the positioning of the bodies is odd, Doctor. It’s as if the ship was in imminent danger of blowing up or catching fire, and they used the last of their remaining strength to escape from it.
