but there was no change in the other’s emotional radiation. He asked the captain to duplicate sequence with the ship’s lighting. Still there was no response. Friend Fletcher,” he said, hiding his feelings with unemotional words, “I have detected the presence of a second all survivor. Its emotional radiation suggests that they are not i contact or presently aware of each other. The first one is distressed but not seriously injured. The second one, whose sensory and life-support systems are compromised as a result, I feel sure of it being closer to the damaged side of their ship, is injured and short of food, air, and water. It is also deaf, dumb, and blind.
“Full communications with and between the two aliens must be established as soon as possible,” he ended, “and both survivors must be extricated and treated without delay.”
“Doctor,” said the captain, “just how will we manage that?” “Thankfully I am not the specialist in other- species technology, friend Fletcher,” he replied. “I’mreturning to my quarters now to rest. Perhaps the solution will come to me in my sleep.
CHAPTER 16
The Terragar casualties were progressing well enough to have their litters moved outside for a few hours each day so that the psychological therapy of fresh air and sunshine could reinforce the effects of her medication. The sun would warm and relax and tan the pallor of long service in space from their bodies and, because this world’s ionization layer was intact, there would be no harmful aftereffects. But she could not spend all of her free time in ministering-angel mode and saying reassuring things to her patients even though, because of them being officers and presumably gentlemen, they did not object to her company or comment on her abbreviated dress. Now that their burns were healing to the point where there was no longer the risk of her Earth-human pathogens getting to them, she was not wearing her breathing mask and white coveralls.
Murchison’s intention was to walk completely around the island over the firm sand by the water’s edge. From their first hilltop observations three days earlier, she had estimated that the trip would take just under two hours and, while nobody had ever accused her of being antisocial, she would have preferred to walk alone and avoid having to tell therapeutic half-truths to a colleague. The casualties had progressed to the stage where they were becoming restive and worrying less about whether or not the would survive than how soon the transfer to Sector General for their reconstructive surgery would take place. Danalta and Nay drad were asking the same questions, which were valid and deserving of straight answers, but she had no hard information to give them because she hadn’t been given any herself.
When asked, during her daily report to Rhabwar, the captain had stated that it was a medical matter and referred her to her boss. Prilicla, in its gentle, inoffensive, but totally immovable fashion, said that the timing was uncertain because they were trying to communicate with and extricate two other-species casualties from the alien vessel, that there were complications and the answer was “not soon.”
She had passed this information on to Naydrad and Danalta but not to the patients. They might be disturbed by the thought that very soon the two beings who had been responsible for destroying their ship might be lying in the beds beside theirs.
Obviously Danalta had grown tired of being a multicolored beach-ball shape and had changed itself into a more challenging shape, that of a Drambon Roller.
Outwardly it was a perfect replica of the CLHG physiological classification native to the planet Drambo, although she doubted that even Danalta could mimic the complex movements of the original creature’s internal organs which enabled it to roll continuously from the moment of partuition until the end of its life.
Physically, a water-breathing Roller resembled an animated donut that rotated vertically on its outer edge, with a fringe of short, manipulatory tentacles sprouting from the inner circumference and curving outwards on both sides to give balance at slow speeds. Between the roots of the tentacles she could see that the shape- changer had perfectly reproduced the series of gills as well as the visual equipment which operated coeleostat fashion to compensate for its constantly rotating field of vision. The original life-form had used a gravity feed system for circulation rather than a muscular pump, which was why they died quickly when weakness, accident, or an attacking predator caused them to fall on their sides and stop rotating. Her first experience of giving CPR. to a stopped Drambon had been like rolling a floppy, half-inflated ground car’s inner tube around underwater. She laughed suddenly.
“That’s very good, Doctor,” she said. “If there were another Drambon on the island, it would find you irresistible.”
Ahead of her, the donut shape made a right-angle turn, stopped, and bent almost double in a bow of appreciation at the compliment. Then it melted and slumped into a shapeless mound of green jelly which sprouted vertically into a tall, erect, yellowish-pink shape which oozed and melted into a near-perfect, two-thirds-scale replica of Murchison herself.
It was smaller than she was because Danalta was constrained by the limits of its own body mass and, although the detail in the eyes, ears, and fingernails was very good, the edges of her white swimsuit, hair, and eyebrows merged into the adjacent skin coloration like the uniform and features painted on a toy soldier. She gave an involuntary shudder.
Murchison had seen Danalta take some weird and often repulsive shapes with a minimum of inner distress, but for some reason this one was making her feel really uncomfortable.
Why don’t you go for a walk up to the hill?” Murchison said, more sharply that she had intended. “I’m safe enough here on the beach. No insects, no crabs, no fish or amphibians in the water to crawl out and attack me. You might find something more interesting to mimic inland.”
No danger large enough to see,” said the smaller Murchi-son, “but we’re on an alien planet, remember?”
Being reminded of the obvious had always irritated her, especially-y when, as now, she needed the reminder. Even so, it was very difficult to believe that this wonderful place was not on Earth; She didn’t reply
“So far we’ve seen only one species of animal,” said Danalta, unless the others are hiding from us, and that one is boring to mimic. But I sense your annoyance. I’m sorry. Pathologist, is this body configuration not to your liking?”
The half-sized Murchison, with the exception of its communications-and-translator pack, began to subside like melt ing wax into a pink, sluglike shape with a tiny mouth and a large single eye. The real Murchison concentrated on looking out to sea.
Apologetically, it went on. “If you would rather walk alone without distractions, I can take on an aquatic form and keep pace with you without holding conversation. Or if you would like to immerse yourself for a while, I can serve as a protective escort, should one be necessary, although there is no evidence of any threat here, from the land, sea, or air.”
“Thank you,” she said.
That was what she had most wanted to do since the beginning of today’s walk, although, perversely, she didn’t want to appear too eager. As she continued walking, her peripheral vision showed her Danalta entering the water and spreading out into a fiat, carpet shape resembling an Earthly stingray with the addition of a high, dorsal fin which had an eye at its tip to give both lateral stability and all-around visibility.
She laughed suddenly and thought, The people I have to work with!
Gradually her path curved until the waves were breaking over and cooling her feet, then her calves and around her knees. Her back was to the beach as she suddenly broke into a long, high-stepping, splashing run, dived in, and began to swim.
The water was cold, pleasantly so, and so clear that if there had been anything on the sandy bottom larger than her thumbnail she would have seen it. After a few minutes of fast swimming, most of it underwater, she rolled onto her back and floated with only her face above the surface, comfortable in the embrace of an alien ocean which, on this world as well as on Earth, had been the mother of all life. She was looking up at the deep- blue sky and thinking that the casualties were well enough to profit from therapeutic, closely supervised immersion, when she saw the
There were two of them, not quite overhead and circling, dipping and banking slowly to take advantage of rising air currents They were so high, a few thousand feet at least, that they almost hidden by the glare from the
