tele-1 scope into the sensor bearing and putting the image onf your repeater screen.”
A narrow, fuzzy triangle appeared in the center of the screen, becoming more distinct as Haslam brought it into focus.
It went on. “Prepare for maximum thrust in ten minutes. Gravity compensators set for three Gs. We should close with it in less than two hours.”
Cha Thrat and Khone watched the screen with the rest of the medical team, who were making Prilicla tremble with the intensity of their impatience. They were as ready as it was possible to be, and the more detailed preparations would have to wait until they had some idea of the physiological classification of the people they were about to rescue. But it was possible for the ship ruler to draw conclusions, even at long range.
“According to our astrogation computer,” Fletcher said, “the nearest star is eleven light-years distant and without planets, so the ship did not come from there. Although large* it is still much too small to be a generation ship, so it is highly probable that it uses a form of hyperdrive similar to our own. It does not resemble any vessel, past, current, or under development, on the Federation’s fleet list.
“In spite of its large size,” the Captain went on, “it has the aerodynamically clean triangular configuration typical of a vessel required to maneuver in a planetaryatmosphere. Most of the star-traveling species that we know prefer, for technical and economic reasons, to keep their combined atmosphere-and-space vessels small and build the larger nonlanders in orbit where streamlining is unnecessary. The two exceptions that I know of build their space-atmosphere ships large because the crews needed to operate them are themselves physicallymassive.”
“Oh, great,” Naydrad said. “We’ll be rescuing abunch of giants.”
“This is only speculative at the moment,” the Captain said. “Your screen won’t show it, but we’re beginning to resolve some of the structural details. That ship was not put together by watchmakers. The overall design philosophy seems to have been one of simplicity and strength rather than sophistication. We are beginning to see small access and inspection panels, and two very large features that must be entry locks. While it is possible that these are cargo locks that double as entry ports for personnel who are physically small, the probability is that these people are a very large and massive life-form—”
“Don’t be afraid, friend Khone,” Prilicla broke in quickly. “Even a demented Hudlar couldn’t break through the partition Cha Thrat put around you, and our casualties will be unconscious anyway. Both of you will be quite safe.”
“Reassurance and gratitude are felt,” the Gogleskan said. With a visible effort it added, more personally,'Thank you.”
“Friend Fletcher,” the empath said, returning its attention to the Captain, “can you speculate further about this life-form, other than that it is large and probably lacks digital dexterity?”
“I was about to,” the Captain said. “Analysis of internal atmosphere leakage shows that—”
“Then the hull has been punctured!” Cha Thrat said excitedly. “From within or without?”
“Technician,” said the ship ruler, reminding her of her position and her insubordination with the single word. “For your information, it is extremely difficult, expensive, and unnecessary to make a large, space-going structure completely airtight. It is more practical to maintain the vessel at nominal internal pressure and replace the negligible quantity of air that escapes. Inthis case, had escaping air not been observed, it would almost certainly have meant that the ship was open to space and airless.
“But there are no signs of collision or puncture damage,” Fletcher went on, “and our sensor data and analysis of the atmosphere leakage suggests that the crew are warm-blooded oxygen-breathers with environmental temperature and pressure requirements similar to our own.”
“Thank you, friend Fletcher,” Prilicla said, then joined the others who were silently watching the repeater screen.
The image of the slowly rolling and spinning ship had grown until it was brushing against the edges of the screen, when Murchison said, “The ship is undamaged, uncontrolled, and, the sensors tell us, there is no abnormal escape of radiation from its main reactor. That means their problem is likely to be disease rather than traumatic injuries, a disabling or perhaps lethal illness affecting the entire crew. Under illness I would include the inhalation of toxic gas accidentally released from—”
“No, ma’am,” said Fletcher, who had maintained the communicator link with Control. “Toxic contaminationof the air supply system on that scale would have showed up in our leak analyses. There’s nothing wrong with theirair.”
“Or,” Murchison went on firmly, “the toxic materialmay have contaminated their liquid or food supply, and been ingested. Either way, there may be no survivors and nothing for us to do here except posthumously investigate, record the physiology of a new life-form, and leave the rest to the Monitor Corps.”
The rest, Cha Thrat knew, would mean carrying out a detailed examination of the vessel’s power, life- support, and navigation systems with the intention of assessing the species’ level of technology. That might provide the information that would enable them to reconstruct the elements of the ship’s course before the disaster occurred and trace it back to its planet of origin. Simultaneously, an even more careful evaluation of the nontechnical environment — crew accommodation and furnishings, art or decorative objects, personal effects, books, tapes, and self-entertainment systems — would be carried out so that they would know what kind of people lived on the home planet when they succeeded in finding it, as they ultimately would.
And eventually that world would be visited by the Cultural Contact specialists of the Monitor Corps and, like her own Sommaradva, it would never be the same again.
“If there are no survivors, ma’am,” Fletcher said regretfully, “then it isn’t a job for Rhabwar. But we’ll only know when we go inside and check. Senior Physician, do you wish to send any of your people with me? At this stage, though, getting inside will be a mechanical rather than a medical problem. Lieutenant Chen and Technician Cha Thrat, you will assist me with the entry— Wait, something’s happening to the ship!”
Cha Thrat was very surprised that Fletcher wanted her to help with such important work, badly worried in case she might not be able to perform to his expectations, and more than a little frightened at the thought of what might happen to them when they got inside the distressed ship. But the feelings were temporarily submerged at the sight of what was happening on the screen.
The ship’s rate of spin and roll were increasing as they watched, and irregular spurts of vapor were fogging the forward and aft hull and the tips of the broad, triangular wings. She suffered a moment’s sympathetic nausea for anyone who might be inside the vessel and conscious, then Fletcher’s voice returned.
“Attitude jets!” it said excitedly. “Somebody must be trying to check the spin, but is making it worse. Maybe the survivor isn’t feeling well, or is injured, or isn’t familiar with the controls. But now we know someone is alive in there. Dodds, as soon as we’re in range, kill that spin and lock on with all tractors. Doctor Prilicla, you’re in business again.”
“Sometimes it’s nice,” Murchison said, speaking to nobody in particular, “to be proved wrong.”
While Cha Thrat was donning her suit, she listened to the discussion between the medical team members and Fletcher that, had it not been for the presence of the gentle little empath, would have quickly developed into a bitter argument.
It was plain from the conversation that the Captain was Rhabwar’s sole ruler so far as all ship operations were concerned, but at the site of a disaster its authority had to be relinquished to the senior medical person on board, who wasempowered to use the resources of the ship and its officers as it saw fit. The main area of con- tention seemea to oe me responsibility ended and Prilicla’s began.
The Captain argued that the medics were not, considering the fact that the distressed ship was structurally undamaged, on the disaster site until it got them into the ship, and until then they should continue to obey its orders or, at very least, act on its advice. Its advice was that they should remain on Rhabwar until it had effected an entry, because to do otherwise was to risk becoming casualties themselves if the injured or ill survivor — who had already made a mess of checking its ship’s spin with the attitude jets — decided to do something equally unsuccessful and much more devastating with the main thrusters.
If the medical team was waiting outside the distressed ship’s entry lock when thrust was applied, they would either be smashed against the hull plating or incinerated by its tail flare, and the rescue would be aborted because of a sudden lack of rescuers.
Fletcher’s reasons for wanting the medics to remain behind until the other ship had been opened were sound, Cha Thrat thought, even though they had given her a new danger to worry about. But the medical team
