“We cannot use our sprayers here, Earthperson,” one of the Hudlars said before MacEwan could reply. “The absorption mechanism in our tegument would ingest the toxic gas with our food, and in our species trace amounts of chlorine are lethal. The food sprayers can only be used in a beneficent atmosphere or in airless conditions.”
“Bloody hell!” MacEwan said. When he thought of the way the Hudlars had worked to free the casualties, knowing that their time and available energy was severely limited and letting him assume that they had no problems, he should have had more to say — but that was all that came out. He looked helplessly at Ki, but the Orligian’s face was covered by its furry hand holding the ridiculously small mask.
“With us,” the other Hudlar added, “starvation is a rapid process, somewhat akin to asphyxiation in a gas breather. I estimate that we should lose consciousness and die in just under eight of our small time divisions.”
MacEwan’s eyes went to the concentric circles of the lounge clock. The Hudlar was talking about the equivalent of about twenty Earth minutes. Somehow they had to get that boarding tunnel open.
“Go to the tunnel entrance,” he said, “and try to conserve your strength. Wait beside the others until—” He broke off awkwardly, then said to the Orligian, “Ki, you’d better get over there as well. There’s enough chlorine in the air here to bleach your fur. Keep passing the masks around and—”
“The Colonel,” Grawlya-Ki reminded him as it turned to follow the Hudlars. MacEwan waved acknowledgment, but before he could leave the Illensan began speaking, its voice muffled by the fabric of the makeshift chlorine tent.
“That was an ingenious idea, Earthperson,” it said slowly—“There is now a beneficent atmosphere surrounding my sure envelope, which will enable me to repair the torn fabric and survive until Illensan assistance arrives. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” MacEwan said, and began picking his way over the debris toward the gesticulating figure of the Colonel. He was still several meters from the wall when the officer pointed to his ear, then rapped with a knuckle on the interior surface. MacEwan obediently unfastened his mask on one side and pressed an ear against the transparent wall. The other’s voice was low and indistinct, even though the color of the Colonel’s face showed that he was shouting.
“Listen, MacEwan, and don’t try to answer yet,” the Colonel shouted.
“We’ll have you out of there in fifteen, twenty minutes at most, and you’ll have fresh air in ten. Medical help for all of the casualty species is on the way. Everybody on the planet knows about the accident because the TV channels were covering your deportation as a news item, and now this is big news indeed. Their contact mikes and translators are bringing us every word said in there, and the authorities are insisting that every effort be made to speed up the rescue…”
Across the lounge Grawlya-Ki was waving a mask and air tank above his head. When the Orligian was sure that MacEwan had seen it; he threw it away. None of the other casualties were wearing masks so obviously they were useless, their air tanks empty. He wondered how long his own tank would last.
The equipment had been designed for the diminuitive Nidians, whose lungs were less than half the capacity of an Earth-Arson’s. A lot of air had been wasted during the continual Passing of masks between the casualties, and the furry face of the Orligian would have allowed air to leak past the edges of its mask, especially if Grawlya-Ki had increased the pressure to exclude the chlorine.
The Colonel had seen the Orligian’s action and must have leapt to the same conclusion.
“Tell them to hang on for just a few more minutes,” he went on. “We can’t cut a way in from the main concourse because there are too many unprotected people out there. That plastic wall is tough and needs special, high-temperature equipment to cut it. Anyway — accidents, with the plastic tproduce large quantities of highly toxic fumes, bad enough to make your chlorine problem seem like a bad smell.
“So they’re going in through the hole made by the transporter. There is only a few inches clearance around the vehicle’s hull now, but they’re going to pull the transporter out backward and you will be brought out through the hole it made and into the fresh air, where the medics will be standing by—”
MacEwan began banging with his fist and a foot against the plastic to attract the Colonel’s attention, and breathing as deeply as he could through the mask. He had some shouting to do himself.
“No.” MacEwan said loudly, putting his mouth as close to the wall as the mask would allow: “All but one of the injured Illensans are inside the transporter. The structure was damaged in the collision and is leaking chlorine from every seam. If you drag it out like that it is likely to fall apart and the air will get to the casualties. I’ve seen what exposure to oxygen did to one of them.”
“But if we don’t go in there fast the oxygen breathers will die,” the Colonel replied. His face was no longer red now, but a sickly white.
MacEwan could almost see the way the officer’s mind was working. If the transporter with the chlorine- breathing casualties on board was hauled out and it broke up, the Illensan authorities would not be amused. But neither would the governments of Traltha, Kelgia, Melf, Orligia, and Earth if they did not act quickly to save those people.
This was how an interstellar war could start.
With the media covering every incident as it occurred, with their contact mikes picking up every translated word as it was spoken, and with fellow beings of the casualties’ species on Nidia watching, judging, feeling, and reacting, there was no possibility of this incident being hushed up or diplomatically smoothed over. The decision to be taken was a simple one: Certain death for seven or eight chlorine-breathing Illensans to possibly save triple that number of Tralthans, Hudlars, Kel-gians, Melfans, many of whom were dying anyway. Or death by chlorine poisoning for the oxygen breathers.
MacEwan could not make the decision and neither, he saw, could the pale, sweating, and silent Colonel trapped inside his
office. He banged for attention again and shouted, “Open the boarding tunnel! Blast it open from the other side if you have to. Rig fans or pump in fresh air from the ship to raise the tunnel pressure and keep back this chlorine. Then send the emergency team to this end of the tunnel and open it from the inside. Surely the wiring of the safety system can be short-circuited and—”
While he was talking, MacEwan was thinking about the distance between the tunnel entrance and the take- off apron. It would take a long time to traverse the tunnel if the fast walkway was not operating. And explosives might not be quickly available in an air and space terminal. Maybe the Monitor Corps vessel in dock could provide some, given time, but the time they had was to be measured in minutes.
“The safety system is triggered from your end,” the Colonel broke in. “The other end of the tunnel is too close to the ship for explosives to be used. The vessel would have to take off first and that would waste more time. The system can only be overriden at your end by a special key, carried by the Nidian on lounge duty, which unlocks the cover of the tunnel controls. The cover is transparent and unbreakable. You see, contamination can be a killer in a big complex like this one, especially when you consider that chlorine is mild compared with the stuff some of the offworlders breathe—”
MacEwan thumped the wall again and said, “The Nidian with the key is buried under the transporter, which can’t be moved. And who says the cover is unbreakable? There is bar metal, furniture supports, among the wreckage. If I can’t unlock the cover then I’ll try levering or bashing it off. Find out what I’m supposed to do when it is off.”
But the Colonel was ahead of him. He had already asked the Nidians that same question. In order, to make accidental operation impossible for non-Nidian digits, the tunnel controls were in the form of six recessed buttons, which had to be Depressed in a certain sequence. MacEwan would have to use stylus or something similar to operate them because his Earthly fingers were too thick. He listened carefully, signaled that he understood, then returned to the casualties.
Grawlya-Ki had heard MacEwan’s half of the shouted con-versation and had found two lengths of metal. It was using one of them to attack the console when he arrived. The metal was a strong-enough alloy, but lacked the necessary weight and inertia. The metal bounced or skidded off the cover every time they swung at it, without leaving a mark.
Damn the Nidians and their superhard plastics! MacEwan raged. He tried to lever off the cover, but the join was almost invisible and the fastenings were flush with the console pedestal. He swore and tried again.
The Orligian did not speak because it was coughing all the time now, and the chlorine was affecting its eyes
