otherwise? And why are you examining every square inch of the body surface, including its hands and individual digits which, in my layperson’s opinion, are not usually the site of life-threatening injuries?”
Prilicla was silent for a moment while he tried to organize the results of his examination in a form that would not embarrass him when the recording was played back, as it would be many times, by the cultural-contact people.
“I began by assuming that the air inside its suit was one of the oxygen-and-inert combinations used by warm-blooded oxygen-breathers, and identified the species tentatively as physiological classification CHLI. Sub- surface scanner investigation of the suit, and a deeper, detailed examination of its content, revealed the presence of unique technology of a level of complexity that I am not qualified to assess. The subsequent forensic investigation suggests that the position and sharply defined area of heat damage to the suit — the head section, forward pair of limbs, and particularly the attached digits which are literally fused together — was sustained before, rather than after, the subject was taken on board Terragar. The later atmospheric heating effects suffered by the ship had no effect on the occupant. No doubt, friend Fletcher, you will wish me to help you to make a more thorough investigation at a more convenient time.
“To summarize,” he ended, “life — as we understand the term — is no longer present. I very much doubt that it ever was.” He felt the sudden burst of surprise and curiosity from the medical team, but it was on a low level because their attention was being concentrated on their Earth-human casualties. The captain’s emotional radiation was accompanied by words.
“Wait, Doctor,” it said. “Do I understand you correctly? Are you saying that the subject is a robot of unique and advanced design, and, and that it may be a casualty of war?”
“I’m unwilling to speculate on the available evidence, friend Fletcher,” Prilicla replied, “but judging by the sophistication of design and constructionin this mechanism, it may even be possible that we have discovered a non-organic form of intelligent life. But I advise extreme caution during any subsequent examination, because the actions of this creature or others like it may be the reason why Terragar was trying so hard to avoid contact with us. We won’t know more until or unless the ship’s officers are able to talk to us.
“Friend Murchison,” he added, “I’ll be with you in five minutes.”
“The sooner the better,” he heard Naydrad say. In spite of Murchison’s earlier, reassuring situation report, he could feel that it was speaking for all of them.
The field medical station was a prefabricated, modular structure designed for use at the scene of space construction accidents or planetary disaster-relief operations. It comprised a self-contained, multiple-species operating room to which recovery wards, medical-staff accommodation, and ancillary equipment could be added as required. The OR was already in use and Rhab-war’s pressor beams had lifted in the less urgently required sections together with a couple of general-purpose robots that were busily attaching them as he approached.
As if it were an unconscious emotional preparation for the serious clinical problems ahead, a childhood memory of his home world, like a waking dream, came flooding back to calm his mind. In those days it had been himself who had been assembling brightly-colored structures out of building-blocks on the sand, and peopling them with legendary creatures out of his imagination who had strange and varied capabilities for performing great deeds of good or evil on those in their power — short of ending their lives, that was, because violent death was something that even an adult Cinrusskin did not willingly think about. This stretch of golden beach could have been the same, as was the green fringe of vegetation inland that was too indistinct to appear alien and therefore different. But there all similarity ended.
The steep, low-gravity waves of Cinruss had been replaced by the low, smooth rollers that peaked and foamed only as they broke in the shallows; and here the people inhabiting the bright building blocks were more varied and wonderful than anything he could ever have imagined as a child, and death was something that they thought about, faced, and, in the majority of their cases, conquered every day of their lives.
But not today.
From Murchison and the other team members he felt the sudden burst of sorrow, self-criticism, and near anger characteristic of healers who had just lost a patient.
CHAPTER 8
When he joined them a few minutes later, Naydrad was moving the deceased casualty to an adjoining compartment on a litter with a closed, opaque cover. The features of Captain Fletcher looked silently down from the wall communicator screen, the fleshy edges of its mouth pressed tightly together and its strong feelings tenuous with distance. Two other casualties had been given preliminary treatment and were floating above an enclosed, air-cushioned bed while Murchison and Dan-alta were working on the remaining one. They were concentrating all of their attention on excising the areas of charred tissue while covering the less severely affected sections of the body surface with the thick, creamlike, clinging medication that had been developed for the treatment of DBDG burn cases. It would aid tissue regeneration, deaden pain on the patient’s return to consciousness, and protect against same-species airborne infection. The latter was the reason why it was the pathologist alone who was dressed for a full aseptic operational procedure.
Microorganisms that had originated on one planet could not cross the species barrier to affect or infect life- forms who had evolved on another. Naydrad felt the downdraft from Prilicla’s on its uncovered fur and looked up. I’m beginning to feel like a redundant limb here,” it said,
looking at the newly arrived casualty with feelings of concern and impatience ruffling its mind and its fur. “Will I help you to cut off its suit?”
As a specialist in heavy rescue, Naydrad was the hospital’s acknowledged expert at cutting all shapes and sizes of injured space casualties out of their environmental protection and underlying body coverings, if the species concerned wore them, without inflicting further damage to the living contents. It made no effort to salvage any part of the suit, but instead used its highspeed cutter to section the entire surface, leaving it with so many connected incisions that the pieces could be peeled away and discarded like the shell of a multiply cracked egg. Except in the places where the material and underlying skin had fused together into a single, charred mass, the uniform went the same way. While it was dealing with those areas, Naydrad positioned the patient for him on its frictionless bed of cooling air and began the rehydration process. Murchison and Danalta joined them without comment and smoothly took over the procedure while he withdrew to hover above the patient.
“How is it, sir?” said Murchison. They both knew that it wasn’t asking about the patient’s physical condition, which was clear to see, but the unseen emotional radiation that only he could detect. “Can it withstand major surgery?”
“It is better than I would have expected, and yes,” Prilicla replied. “It has suffered major trauma and as a result is deeply unconscious, but the emotional radiation is characteristic of a being who, unconsciously, is still fighting to survive. That situation could change for the worse if we don’t operate quickly.
“This patient,” he went on for the benefit of the recorders, “took shelter in a heavy metal equipment cabinet. It was found in the kneeling position with its body folded forward at the waist and steadied by one hand. That hand and its lower limbs were in lengthy contact with metal whose heat was conducted through the suit fabric to the feet and knees so that these areas have sustained deep charring that involves the underlying circulatory system, muscles, and associated nerve networks. The other two casualties have already lost their feet and lower limbs. We may be able to save the hand on this one, which seems to have been holding a non-conducting tool to keep it from direct contact with the hot metal. Your feelings, friend Murchison, and those of the rest of you, indicate that you have come to a decision, but I must ask the question verbally.
“Is there general agreement,” he ended, “that the lower legs should be removed without delay?”
He was aware of their feelings, so there was no real need for them to speak, but Murchison, who had its own, peculiarly Earth-human form of empathy, was feeling Prilicla’s need for support and reassurance.
“Yes,” it said firmly.
Before anyone else could reply, there was an interruption in the form of the captain clearing its breathing passages. It said, “Much as I dislike watching major operative procedures, especially on fellow officers of my own species who are personally known to me, I’ve been forcing myself to do so. The reason is that, to my medically untutored mind, and considering the literal hell they went through on that ship, it seems to me that there is a
