Space Lash

a little slide-rule work, the Guppy's commander had declined; no time would have been saved, and the elimination of one ship-to-ship transfer for the injured men was probably less important than economy of minutes.

Mancini would have agreed with this, had he been able to join in the discussion. By the time Dandridge had finished his second transmission, however, the mechanic had fainted from the pain of his leg.

Objectively, the winchman supposed that it was probably good for his friend to be unconscious. He was not too happy, though, at being the only one aboard who could take responsibility for anything. The half hour it took for the Conger to arrive was not a restful one for him, though it could not have been less eventful. Even sixty years later, when the story as his grandchildren heard it included complications like a North Atlantic winter gale, he was never able to paint an adequate word picture of his feelings during those thirty minutes — much less an exaggerated one.

The manta-like structure of the tenders made transshipping most practical from bow-to-bow contact, but it was practical at all only on a smooth sea. In the present case, the Conger's commander could not bring her bow closer than ten meters to that of the crippled ship, and both were pitching too heavily even for lines to be used.

One of the Conger's divers plunged into the water and swam to the helpless vessel. Dandridge saw him coming through the bow ports, went back to his console, and rather to his surprise found that the hatch and ladder responded to their control switches. Moments later the other man was on the deck beside him.

The diver took in the situation after ten seconds of explanation by Dandridge and two of direct examination, and spoke into the transmitter which was part of his equipment. A few seconds later a raft dropped from the Conger's hatch and two more men clambered down into it. One of these proved on arrival to be Mancini's opposite number, who wasted no time.

“Use the foam,” he directed. “Case them all up except for faces; that way we can get them to the bench without any more limb motion. You say Marco thought there might be skull or spine fractures?”

“He said Ishi had a fractured skull and Winkle might have. All he said about spines was that we'd have to be careful in case it had happened.”

“Right. You relax; I'll take care of it.” The newcomer took up the foam generator and went to work.

Twenty minutes later the Conger was on her hydroplanes once more, heading for rendezvous with the Guppy.

In spite of tradition, Rick Stubbs knew where he was when he opened his eyes. The catch was that he hadn't the faintest idea how he had gotten there. He could see that he was surrounded by blood-transfusion equip- ment, electronic circulatory and nervous system monitoring gear, and the needle-capillary-and-computer maze of a regeneration unit, though none of the stuff seemed to be in operation. He was willing to grant from all this that he had been hurt somehow; the fact that he was unable to move his head or his right arm supported this notion. He couldn't begin to guess, however, what sort of injury it might be or how it had happened. He remembered talking and working with Mancini at the latter's lab bench. He could not recall for certain just what the last thing said or done might be, though; somehow the picture merged with the foggy struggle back to consciousness which had culminated in recognition of his surroundings.

He could see no one near him, but this might be because his head wouldn't turn. Could he talk? Only one way to find out.

“Is anyone here? What's happened to me?” It didn't sound very much like his own voice, and the effort of speech hurt his chest and abdomen; but apparently words got out.

“We're all here, Rick. I thought you'd be switching back on about now.” Mancini's face appeared in Stubbs' narrow field of vision.

“We're all here? Did everyone get hurt somehow? What happened?”

“Slight correction — most of us are here, one's been and gone. I'll tell you as much as I can; don't bother to ask questions, I know it must hurt you to talk. Gil was here for a while, but he just had a few bruises and is back on the job. The rest of us were banged up more thoroughly. My right leg was a jigsaw puzzle; Bert had an interesting time with it. I thought he ought to take it off and start over, but he stuck with it, so I got off with five hours of manual repair and two in regeneration instead of a couple of months hooked up to a computer. I'm still splinted, but that will be for only a few more days.

“No one knows yet just what happened. Apparently the Shark hit something going at full clip, but no one knows yet what it was. They're towing her in; I trust there'll be enough evidence to tell us the whole story.”

“How about the other fellows?”

“Ishi is plugged in. He may need a week with computer regeneration control, or ten times that. We won't be able to assess brain damage until we find how close to consciousness he can come. He had a bad skull fracture. The captain was knocked out, and some broken ribs I missed on the first-aid check did internal damage. Bert is still trying to get him off without regeneration, but I don't think he'll manage it.”

“You didn't think he could manage it with you, either.”

“True. Maybe it's just that I don't think I could do it myself, and hate to admit that Jellinge is better at my own job than I am.”

“How about Joe?”

“Both arms broken and a lot of bruises. He'll he all right. That leaves you, young fellow. You're not exactly a critical case, but you are certainly going to call for professional competence. How fond are you of your fingerprints?”

“What? I don't track.”

“Most of your right hand was sliced off, apparently by flying glass from my big culture flask. Ben Tulley from the Conger, which picked us up, found the missing section and brought it back; it's in culture now.”

“What has that to do with fingerprints? Why didn't you or Mr. Jellinge graft it back?”

“Because there's a good deal of doubt about its condition. It was well over an hour after the accident before it got into culture. You know the sort of brain damage a few minutes without oxygen can do. I know the bone, tendon, and connective tissue in a limb is much less sensitive to that sort of damage, but an hour is a long time, chemically speaking. Grafting calls for healing powers which are nearly as dependent on genetic integrity as is nerve activity; we're just not sure whether grafting is the right thing to do in your case. It's a toss-up whether we should fasten the hand back on and work to make it take, or discard it and grow you a new one. That's why I asked how much you loved your fingerprints.”

“Wouldn't a new hand have the same prints?”

“The same print classification, which is determined genetically, but not the same details, which are random.”

“Which would take longer?”

“If the hand is in shape to take properly, grafting would be quicker — say a week. If it isn't, we might be six or eight times as long repairing secondary damage. That's longer than complete regeneration would take.”

“When are you going to make up your minds?”

“Soon. I wondered whether you'd have a preference.”

“How could I know which is better when you don't? Why ask me at all?”

“I had a reason — several, in fact. I'll tell you what they were after you've had two years of professional training in molecular mechanics, if you decide to come into the field. You still haven't told me which you prefer.”

The boy looked up silently for a full minute. Actually, he spent very little of that time trying to make his mind up; he was wondering what Mancini's reasons might be. He gave up, flipped a mental coin, and said, “I think I'd prefer the original hand, if there's a real chance of getting it back and it won't keep me plugged in to these machines any longer than growing a new one would.”

“All right, we'll try it that way. Of course, you'll be plugged in for quite a while anyway, so if we do have trouble with the hand it won't make so much difference with your time.”

“What do you mean? What's wrong besides the hand?”

“You hadn't noticed that your head is clamped?”