had bled spectacularly to death; two, or it may have been three, Melfans with crushed and shattered carapaces and broken limbs, and a Tral-than who had been smashed flat by a collapsing roof beam and was still trying to move.
MacEwan was afraid to touch any of them in case they fell apart in his hands, but he could not be absolutely sure that they were beyond help. He had no idea of their ability to survive major injury, or whether specialized medical intervention could save them if taken in time. He felt angry and useless and the chlorine was beginning to penetrate his face mask.
“This being appears to be uninjured,” the Hudlar beside them said. It had lifted a heavy table from a Tralthan who was lying on its side, its six massive legs twitching feebly and its domelike brain casing, multiple eye-trunk, and thick, leathery hide free of any visible signs of damage. “Could it be that it is troubled only by the toxic gas?”
“You’re probably right,” MacEwan said. He and Grawlya-Ki pressed Nidian masks over the Tralthan’s breathing orifices. Several minutes passed with no sign of improvement in its condition. MacEwan’s eyes were stinging even though he, like the Orligian, was using one hand to press the mask tightly against his face. Angrily, he said, “Have you any other ideas?”
The anger was directed at his own helplessness, and he felt like kicking himself for taking it out on the Hudlar. He could not tell the two beings apart, only that one tended to sound worried, long-winded, and overly polite, while its lifemate was more forthright. This one, luckily, was the former.
“It is possible that its injuries are to the flank lying against the floor and are presently invisible to us,” the Hudlar said ponderously. “Or that the being, which is a squat, heavy-gravity creature with certain physical similarities to myself, is seriously inconvenienced by being laid on its side. While we Hudlars can work comfortably in weightless conditions, gravity if present must act downward or within a very short time serious and disabling organ displacement occurs. There is also the fact that all Tralthan ships use an artificial gravity system with multiple failsafe backup, which is just one of the reasons for the dependability and popularity of Tralthan-built ships. This suggests that a lateral gravity pull must be avoided by them at all costs, and that this particular being is—”
“Stop talking about it,” the second Hudlar said, joining them, “and lift the thing.”
The Hudlar extended its forward pair of tentacles and, bracing itself with the other four in front of the Tralthan’s weakly moving feet, slid them over the creature’s back and insinuated them between the floor and its other flank. MacEwan watched as the tentacles tightened, took the strain, and began to quiver. But the body did not move, and the other Hudlar positioned itself to assist.
MacEwan was surprised, and worried. He had seen those tentacles, which served both as ambulatory and manipulatory appendages, lifting beams, major structural members, and large masses of wreckage seemingly without effort. They were beautifully evolved limbs, immensely strong and with thick, hardened pads forming a knuckle on which the being walked while the remainder of the tentacle — the thinner, more flexible half tipped with a cluster of specialized digits — was carried curled inward against its underside. The Tralthan they were trying to move was roughly the mass of an Earthly baby elephant, and the combined efforts of both Hudlars were shifting it only slightly.
“Wait,” MacEwan said urgently. “Both of you have lifted much heavier weights. I think the Tralthan is caught, perhaps impaled on a structural projection, and you cannot move it because—”
“We cannot move it,” the polite Hudlar said, “because we have been expending large amounts of energy after insufficient sustenance. Absorption of our last meal, which was overdue in any case, was halted by the accident after the process was scarcely begun. We are as weak as infants, as are you and your Orligian friend. But if you would both go to the other side of the being and push, your strength, puny as it is, might make a difference.”
Perhaps it wasn’t the polite one, MacEwan thought as he and Grawlya-Ki did as suggested. He wanted to apologize to we Hudlars for assuming that they were simply organic pieces of heavy rescue machinery whose capabilities he had taken for. But he and Grawlya-Ki had their shoulders under the side of the Tralthan’s cranial dome, their puny efforts were making a difference, and, unlike Hudlars, MacEwan needed breath with which to speak.
The Tralthan came upright, rocked unsteadily on its six, widely spaced feet, then was guided toward the other casualties by the Orligian. Sweat as well as chlorine was in MacEwan’s eyes so he did not know which Hudlar spoke, but presumably it had been the one engaged in lifting injured Illensans into the damaged transporter.
“I am having difficulty with a chlorine breather, Earthper-son,” it said. “The being is abusive and will not allow me to touch it. The circumstances call for a very close decision, one I am unwilling to make. Will you speak to it?”
The area around the transporter had been cleared of casualties with the sole exception of this Illensan, who refused to be moved. The reason it gave MacEwan was that while its injuries were not serious, its pressure envelope had suffered two small ruptures. One of these it had sealed, after a fashion, by grasping the fabric of its envelope around the tear in both manipulators and holding it tightly closed, while the other one it had sealed by lying on it. These arrangements had forced it to increase the internal pressure of the envelope temporarily, so that it no longer had any clear idea of the duration of its chlorine tank and asphyxiation might be imminent. But it did not want to be moved to the relative safety of the transporter, which was also leaking, because that would allow the lethal atmosphere of the lounge to enter its envelope.
“I would prefer to die of chlorine starvation,” it ended forcefully, “than have my breathing passages and lungs instantly corroded by your oxygen. Stay away from me.”
MacEwan swore under his breath but did not approach the Illensan. Where were the emergency rescue teams? Surely they should have been there by now. The clock showed that it had been just over twenty-five Earth minutes since the accident. He could see that the sightseers had been cleared from the lounge’s inner wall, to be replaced by a Nidian television crew and some uninformed ground staff who did not appear to be doing anything at all. Outside there were heavy vehicles drawn up and Nidians with backpacks and helmets scurrying around, but his constantly watering eyes and the ever-present plastic hangings kept him from seeing details.
MacEwan pointed suddenly at the hangings and said to the Hudlars, “Will you tear down a large piece of that plastic material, please, and drape it over the Illensan. Pat it down flat around the being’s suit and smooth the folds out toward the edges so as to exclude our air as much as possible. I’ll be back in a minute.”
He hurried around the transporter to the first Illensan casualty, whose body had turned a livid, powdery blue and was beginning to disintegrate, and tried to look only at the fastenings of the chlorine tank. It took him several minutes to get the tank free of the body harness, and several times his bare hands touched the dead Illensan’s flesh, which crumbled like rotting wood. He knew that oxygen was vicious stuff where chlorine breathers were concerned, but now he could really sympathize with the other Illensan’s panic at the thought of being moved in a leaking suit.
When he relumed it was Grawlya-Ki who was smoothing out the plastic around the Illensan while the two Hudlars were standing clear. One of them said apologetically, “Our movements have become somewhat uncoordinated and the chlorine breather was worried lest we accidentally fall on it. If there is something else we can do—”
“Nothing,” MacEwan said firmly.
He turned on the tap of the chlorine tank and slipped it quickly under the plastic sheet and pushed it close to the Illensan. The extra seepage of the gas would make little difference, he thought, because the whole area around the transporter was fast becoming uninhabitable for oxygen breathers. He pressed the tiny mask hard against his face and took a long, careful breath through his nose, and used it to speak to the Hudlars.
“I have been thoughtless and seemingly ungrateful for the fine work you have been doing here,” he said. “There is nothing more that you can do. Please go at once and spray yourselves with the necessary nutrient. You have acted most unselfishly, and I am, as are we all, most grateful to you.”
The two Hudlars did not move. MacEwan began placing pieces of debris around the edges of the plastic and the Orligian, who was quick on the uptake, began doing the same. Soon the edges were held tightly against the floor, the gas escaping from the tank was beginning to inflate the plastic, and they had the Illensan in a crude chlorine tent. Still the Hudlars had not moved.
“The Colonel is waving at you again,” Grawlya-Ki said. “I would say with impatience.”
