The fact that the natives of Orligia and their planetary neighbor Nidia had a marked disparity in physical mass and one of them possessed an overall coat of tight, curly red fur was too small a difference to affect the four-letter classification coding, Conway thought as the other doctor was talking. Just like the small difference which had, in the early days of their stellar exploration, caused Orligia and Earth to fight the first, brief, and so far only interstellar war.
For this reason the Orligians and Earth-humans were more than friendly — nowadays they went out of their way to help each other — and it was a great pity that Krach-Yul was too professionally inexperienced to be really helpful. All Conway could hope for was that the Orligian medic had had sense enough to restrain its professional curiosity and not poke its friendly, furry nose into a situation which was completely beyond its experience.
“We did not enter the wreck,” the Orligian was saying, “because our crew members are not specialists in alien technology and there was the danger of them inadvertently contributing to the problem rather than its solution. I considered telling through die hull and withdrawing a sample of the wreck’s atmosphere, in the hope that the survivor was a warm-blooded oxygen breather like ourselves and we could pump in air. But I decided against this course in case their atmosphere was an exotic mixture which we could not supply and we would then have reduced their ship’s internal pressure to no purpose.
“We are not certain that there is a survivor, Doctor,” Krach-Yul went on. “Our sensors indicate pressure within the wreck, a small power source, and the presence of what appears to be one large mass of organic material which is incompletely visible through the viewports. We do not know if it is living.”
Conway sighed. Where extraterrestrial physiology and medicine were concerned this Krach-YuI was uneducated, but it certainly was not unintelligent. He could imagine the Orligian qualifying on its home planet, moving to the neighboring world of Nidia, and later joining the Monitor Corps to further increase its e-t experience and, while treating the minor ills and injuries of an Earth-human scoutship crew, hoping for something just like this to happen. The Orligian was probably one great, furry lump of curiosity regarding the organic contents of the wreck, but it knew its professional limitations. Conway was already developing a liking for the Orligian medic, sight unseen.
“Very good, Doctor,” Conway said warmly. “But I have a request. Your vessel has a portable airlock. To save time would you mind—”
“It has already been deployed, Doctor,” the Orligian broke in, “and attached to the wreck’s hull over the largest entry port we could find. We are assuming it is an entry port, but it could be a large access panel because we did not try to open it. The wreck was spinning about its lateral axis and this motion was checked by Tyrell’s tractor-beams, but otherwise the vessel is as we found it.”
Conway thanked the other and unstrapped himself from his couch. He could see several new traces on the radar display, but it was the picture of Tyrell and the wreck growing visibly larger on the forward screen which was his immediate concern.
“What are your intentions, Doctor?” the Captain asked.
Indicating the image of the wreck, Conway said, “It doesn’t seem to be too badly damaged and there isn’t much sharp metal in sight so, in the interests of a fast recovery, my people will wear lightweight suits. I shall take Pathologist Murchison and
Doctor Prilicla. Charge Nurse Naydrad will remain in the Casualty Deck lock with the litter, ready to pressurize it with the survivors’ atmosphere as soon as Murchison analyzes it. You, sir, will come along to pick the alien airlock?”
Rhabwar was the first of its kind. Designed as a special ambulance ship, it had the configuration and mass of a Federation light cruiser, which was the largest type of Monitor Corps vessel capable of aerodynamic maneuver within a planetary atmosphere. As he pulled himself aft along the gravity-free central well, Conway was visualizing its gleaming white hull and delta wings decorated with the Occluded Sun, the Brown Leaf, the Red Cross, and the many other symbols which represented the concept of aid freely given throughout the worlds of the Federation.
It was a Traltha-built ship with all the design and structural advantages which that implied, and named Rhabwar after one of the great figures of Tralthan medical history. The ship had been designed for operation by an Earth-human crew, whose quarters were immediately below Control on Deck Two. The medical team occupied similar accommodation on Three except in the matter of furniture and bedding for the Kelgian Charge Nurse and reduced artificial gravity for the Cinrusskin empath.
Deck Four was a compromise, Conway thought as he pulled himself past it, a combination Messdeck and recreation room where the people who worked together were expected, regardless of physiological classification, to play together — even though there was barely enough room to play a game of chess when everyone was present. The whole of Five was devoted to the ship’s consumables, which comprised not only the food required by six Earth-humans, a Kelgian, and a Cinrusskin of classifications DBDG, DBLF, and GLNO respectively, but the storage tanks whose contents were capable of reproducing or synthesizing the atmosphere breathed by any species known to the Galactic Federation.
Six and Seven, where Conway was headed, were the Casualty Deck and underlying lab and treatment ward. Here the gravity, atmospheric pressure, and composition could be varied to suit the life-support requirements of any survivors who might be brought in. Deck Eight was the Power Room, the province of Lieutenant Chen, who controlled the ship’s hyperdrive generators and normal space thrusters, the power supply for the artificial gravity grids, tractor and pressor beams, communications, sensors, and everything which made the energy-hungry ship live.
Conway was still thinking of the diminuitive Chen and the frightful powers available at the touch of one of his stubby fingers when he arrived on the Casualty Deck. He did not have to speak because his earlier conversation with the Captain had been relayed to Casualty, as were the more interesting and important displays on Control’s screens. There was nothing for him to do except climb into his spacesuit — he had a very good medical team who kept their equipment and themselves at instant readiness, and who tried constantly to make their leader feel redundant.
Murchison was bending and stretching to check the seals of her lightweight spacesuit, and Naydrad was inside the casualty entrance lock testing a pressure litter, its beautiful silver fur rippling in slow waves along its caterpillarlike body as it worked. The incredibly fragile Prilicla, aided by its gravity nullifiers and a double set of iridescent wings, was hovering close to the ceiling where it would not be endangered by an accidental collision with one of its more massive colleagues. Its eight, pipestem legs were twitching slowly in unison, indicating that it was being exposed to emotional radiation of a pleasurable kind.
Murchison looked from Prilicla to Conway and said, “Stop that.”
Conway knew that it was Murchison, albeit indirectly, and himself who were responsible for the Cinrusskin’s twitchings. Prilicla, like the other members of its intelligent and sensitive race, possessed a highly developed empathic faculty which caused it to react to the most minute changes and levels of feeling in those surrounding it. Pathologist Murchison possessed that combination of physical attributes which made it extremely difficult for any Earth-human male DBDG to regard her with anything like clinical detachment — and while she was Wearing a contour-hugging lightweight suit it was downright impossible.
“Sorry,” Conway said, laughing, and began climbing into his own suit.
The wreck looked like a long section of metal tree trunk with a few short, twisted branches sprouting from it, Conway thought as they launched themselves from Rhabwar’s casualty lock toward the distressed alien ship, but apart from those pieces of projecting metal the vessel seemed to have retained its structural integrity. He could see two small viewports reflecting the ambulance ship’s floodlights like two tiny suns. One of the ports was set about two meters back from the bows of the wreck and the other a similar distance from the stern, although it was impossible to say just then which was which, and he had learned that there were another two viewports in identical positions on the side hidden from him.
He could also see the loose, transparent folds of Tyrell’s portable airlock clinging to the hull like a wrinkled limpet and, beside it, the tiny figure of what could only be the scoutship’s Orligian medic, Krach-Yul.
Fletcher, Mufchison, and Conway landed beside the Orligian. They did not speak and they tried hard not to think so that Prilicla, who was slowly circling the distressed vessel, would be able to feel for survivors with the minimum of emotional interference. If anything lived inside that wreck, no matter how faintly the spark of life glowed, the little empath would detect it.
“This is very strange, friend Conway,” said Prilicla after nearly fifteen minutes had passed and they were all
