“Thank you, Captain,” Prilicla replied. “We want to talk about Khone as well. Please relay friend Wainright’smessage to the casualty deck here and to the lander bay when we move out. We can work as we talk.”
“Will do,” Fletcher said. “Relay complete. You are through to Senior Physician Prilicla, Lieutenant. Goahead.”
In spite of the distortion caused by the translation into Sommaradvan, Cha Thrat could detect the deep anxiety in Wainright’s voice. She listened carefully with only part of her mind on the job of helping Naydrad load medical equipment onto the litter.
“I’m sorry, Doctor,” it said, “the original arrangements for the pickup on our landing area will have to be scrapped. Khone isn’t able to travel, and sending transport manned by off-planet people to collect it from its town will be tricky. At a time like this the natives are particularly, well, twitchy, and the arrival of visually horrifying alien monsters to carry it and its unborn child away could cause a joining and—”
“Friend Wainright,” Prilicla interrupted gently, “what is the condition of the patient?”
“I don’t know, Doctor,” the Lieutenant replied. “When we met three days ago it told me that Junior would arrive very soon and would I please send for the ambulance ship. It also said that it had to make arrangements to have its patients cared for, and that it would come to the base shortly before the lander was due. Then a few hours ago a message was relayed verbally to the base saying that it could not move from its house, but the bearer of the message could not tell me whether the cause was illness or injury. Also, it asked if you had another power pack for the scanner Conway left with it. Khone has been impressing its patients with that particular marvel of Federation medical science and the energy cell is flat, which would explain why Khone was unableto give us any clinical information on its own present j condition.”
“I’m sure you are right, friend Wainright,” Prilicla I said. “However, the patient’s sudden loss of mobility in- 1 dicates a possibly serious condition that may be deter- 1 iorating. Can you suggest a method of getting it into the! lander, quickly and with minimum risk to itself and its j friends?”
“Frankly, no, Doctor,” Wainright said. “This is going to be a maximum-risk job from the word go. If it was a member of any other species we know of, I could load it < onto my flyer and bring it to you within a few minutes. But no Gogleskan, not even Healer Khone, could sit that close to an off-planet creature without emitting a distress call, and you know what would happen then.”
“We do,” Prilicla said, trembling at the thought of the widespread, self-inflicted property damage to the town and the mental anguish of the inhabitants that would ensue.
The Lieutenant went on. “Your best bet would be to ignore the base and land as close as possible to Rhone’s house, in a small clearing between it and the shore of an inland lake. I’ll circle the area in a flyer and guide you down. Maybe we can devise something on the spot. You’ll need some special remote handling devices to move it out, but I can help you with the external dimensions of Rhone’s house and doorways …”
While Cha Thrat helped the rest of the medical team move equipment into the lander, Wainright and the empath continued to wrestle with the problem. But it was obvious that they had no clear answers and were, instead, trying to provide for all eventualities.
“Cha Thrat,” Prilicla said, breaking off its conversation with the base commander. “As a nonmember of the crew I cannot give you orders, but we’ll need as manyextra hands down there as we can assemble. You areparticularly well equipped with manipulatory appendages, as well as an understanding of the devices used to move and temporarily accommodate the patient, and I feel in you a willingness to accompany us.”
“Your feeling is correct,” Cha Thrat said, knowing that the intensity of excitement and gratitude the other’s words had generated made verbal thanks unnecessary.
“If we load any more gadgetry into the lander,” Nay-drad said, “there won’t be enough space for the patient, much less a hulking great Sommaradvan.”
But there was enough space inside the lander to take all of them, especially when those not wearing gravity compensators, which was everyone but Prilicla, were further compressed by the lander’s savage deceleration. Lieutenant Dodds, Rhabwar’s astrogation officer and the lander’s pilot, had been told that speed had priority over a comfortable ride, and it obeyed that particular order with enthusiasm. So fast and uncomfortable was the descent that Cha Thrat saw nothing of Goglesk until she stepped onto its surface.
For a few moments she thought that she was back on Somrnaradva, standing in a grassy clearing beside the shore of a great inland lake and with the tree-shrouded outlines of a small, servile township in the middle distance. But the ground beneath her feet was not that of her home planet, and the grass, wildflowers, and all the vegetation around her were subtly different in color, odor, and leaf structure from their counterparts on Som- maradva. Even the distant trees, although looking incredibly similar to some of the lowland varieties at home, were the products of a completely different evolutionary background.
Sector General had seemed strange and shocking toher at first, but it had been a fabrication of metal, a gigantic artificial house. This was a different world!
“Is your species afflicted with sudden and inexplicable bouts of paralysis?” Naydrad asked. “Stop wasting time and bring out the litter.”
She was guiding the powered litter down the unloading ramp when Wainright’s flyer landed and rolled to a stop close beside them. The five Earth-humans who manned the Goglesk base jumped out. Four of them scattered quickly and began running toward the town, testing their translation and public address equipment as they went, while the Lieutenant came toward the lander.
“If you have anything to do that involves two or more of you working closely together,” it said quickly, “do it now while the flyer is hiding you from view of the town. And when you move out, remain at least five meters apart. If these people see you moving closer together than that, or making actual bodily contact by touching limbs, it won’t precipitate a joining, but it will cause them to feel deeply shocked and intensely uncomfortable. You must also—”
“Thank you, friend Wainright,” Prilicla said gently. “We cannot be reminded too often to be careful.”
The Lieutenant’s features deepened in color, and it did not speak again until, walking i a well-separated line abreast, they were approaching the outskirts of the town.
“It doesn’t look like much to us,” Wainright said softly, the feelings behind its words making Prilicla tremble, “but they had to fight very hard every day of their lives to achieve it, and I think they’re losing.”
The town occupied a wide crescent of grass and stony outcroppings enclosing a small, natural harbor. There were several jetties projecting into deep water, and most of the craft tied up alongside had thin, high funnels andpaddle wheels as well as sails. One of the boats, clearly the legacy of a past joining, was smoke- blackened and sunk at its moorings. Hugging the water’s edge was a widely separated line of three- and four-story buildings, made of wood, stone, and dried clay. Ascending ramps running around all four walls gave access to the upper levels, so that from certain angles the buildings resembled thin pyramids.
These, according to the Goglesk tape, were the town’s manufacturing and food-processing facilities, and she thought that the smell of Gogleskan raw fish was just as unpleasant as that of their Sommaradvan counterparts. Perhaps that was the reason why the private dwellings, whose roofs and main structural supports were provided by the trees around the edge of the clearing, were so far away from the harbor.
As they moved over the top of a small hill, Wainright pointed out a low, partially roofed structure with a stream running under it. From their elevated position they could see into the maze of corridors and tiny rooms that was the town’s hospital and Rhone’s adjoiningdwelling.
The Lieutenant began speaking quietly into its suit mike, and she could hear the words of warning and reassurance being relayed at full volume from the speakers carried by the four Earth-humans who had precededthem.
“Please do not be afraid,” it was saying. “Despite the strange and frightening appearance of the beings you are seeing, they will not harm you. We are here to collect Healer Khone, at its own request, for treatment in our hospital. While we are transferring Khone to our vehicle we may have to come very close to the healer, and this may accidentally cause a call for joining to go out. A joining must not be allowed to happen, and so we urgeeveryone to move away from your homes, deep into th forest or far from the shore, so that a distress signal will not reach you. As an additional safeguard, we will place! around the healer’s home devices that will make a loud, and continuous sound. This sound will be as unpleasant to you as it is to us, but it will merge with and change the sound of any nearby distress signal so that it will no longer be a call for joining.”
Wainright looked toward Prilicla and when the empath signaled its approval, it changed to the personal suit
