by James White
“Friend Cha,” Prilicla broke in. “In the short time since you inhaled the odor, has there been any irritation of your breathing passages, nausea, impairment of vision, or dulling of sensation or intellect?”
“What intellect?” Fletcher murmured in a disparaging voice.
“No,” she replied. “I am opening the door of the last remaining storage closet to be searched. It is larger than the others, filled with racked tools and what looks like replacement parts for the dormitory furniture, but is otherwise empty. The crew members are still ignoring me. I’m leaving now to search the next dormitory.”
“Technician,” Fletcher said quietly. “If you can reply to Prilicla I know you can hear me. Now, I’m willing to consider your earlier disobedience as a temporary aberration, a fit of overenthusiasm, and a minor disciplinary matter. But if you continue the search in direct contravention of my orders you will be in major trouble. Neither the Monitor Corps nor the hospital has time for irresponsible subordinates.”
“But I take full responsiblity for my actions,” Cha Thrat protested, “including any credit or discredit that may result from them. I know that I lack the training to investigate an other-species ship properly, but I am simply opening and closing doors and being very careful while I’m doing it.”
The Captain did not reply and maintained its silenceeven when the sensors must have been showing Cha Thrat entering the second dormitory. It was Prilicia who spoke first.
“Friend Fletcher,” the empath said quietly, “I agree that there is a small element of risk in what the technician is doing. But it has discussed some of its ideas with me and is acting with my permission and, well, limited approval.”
Ignoring the tranquilized FGHJs and riot speaking at all, Cha Thrat was able search the dormitory much more quickly, but with the same negative result. None of the storage cabinets revealed the missing survivor, adult or child, and the.narrow, floor-level flap held nothing but the smell of glytt, which never had been one of her favorite aromas.
But the Cinrusskin’s attempts to divert the Captain’s anger from her aroused such a sudden emotional warmth in her that she hoped the empath would feel her gratitude. Without breaking into the conversation, and hoping that Prilicia could not feel her growing disappointment, she began searching the third and last dormitory.
“… In any case, friend Fletcher,” the empath was saying, “the responsibility for whatever happens on the distressed ship until the survivors are treated and evacuated is not yours, but mine.”
“I know, I know,” the Captain agreed irritably. “On the site of a disaster the medical team leader has the rank. In this situation you can tell a Monitor Corps ship commander like myself what to do, and be obeyed. You can even give orders to a Corps Maintenance Technician Grade Two called Cha Thrat, but I seriously doubt if they would be obeyed.”
There was another long silence, broken by the subject of the discussion. She said, “I’ve finished searching thedormitories. All three contain identical arrangements of fittings and storage compartments, none of which contains the FGHJ we’re looking for.
“But the first and second dormitories share a common wall,” she went on, trying to sound hopeful, “likewise the second and third. But the first and third are divided by a short corridor leading inboard toward what must be another, fairly large storage compartment whose sides are common to the inner walls of the three dormitories. The missing FGHJ could be there.”
“I don’t think so,” Fletcher said. “The sensors show it as an empty compartment, about half the size of a dormitory, with a lot of low-power circuitry and ducting, probably environmental control lines to the dormitories, mounted on or behind the wall surfaces. By empty we mean that there are no large metal objects in the room, although organic material could be present if it was stored in nonmetal containers. But a piece of organic material of the body mass and temperature of a living FGHJ, whether moving or at rest, would show very clearly.
“All the indications are that it is just another storeroom,” the Captain ended. “But no doubt you will search it, anyway.”
With difficulty, Cha Thrat ignored Fletcher’s tone as she said, “During my first search of this area I looked into this corridor and saw the blank end-wall containing what I mistakenly thought to be a section of badly fitted wail plating. My excuse for making this mistake is that there is no external handle or latch visible. On closer examination I see that it is not a badly fitted plate but an inward-opening door that is very slightly ajar, and the scanner shows that it fastens only from the inside.
“The vision pickup is on,” she added. “I’m pushing the door open now.”
The place was a mess, she thought, with weightlessness adding to the general disorder so that floating debris made it difficult to see any distance into the room. There was a very strong smell of glytt.
“We aren’t receiving a clear picture,” said Fletcher, “and something close to the lens is blocking most of the view. Have you attached the pickup correctly or are we seeing part of your shoulder?”
“No, sir,” she replied, trying to keep her tone properly subordinate. “The compartment is gravity-free and a large number of flat, roughly circular objects are floating about. They appear to be organic, fairly uniform in size, dark gray on one surface and with a paler, mottled appearance on the other. I suppose they could be cakes of preprepared food that escaped from a ruptured container, or they might be solid body waste, similar to that found in the dormitories, which has dried and become discolored. I’m trying to move some of it out of the way now.”
With a sudden feeling of distaste, she cleared the visual obstructions from the front of the pickup, using her medial hands because they were the only ones still covered by gloves. There was no response from Rhabwar.
“There are large, irregular clumps of spongelike or vegetable material attached to the walls and ceiling,” she went on, moving her body so that the pickup’s images would let the others see, however unclearly, what she was trying to describe. “So far as I can see, each clump is colored differently, although the colors are subdued, and under each one there is a short length of padded shelf.
“At floor level,” she continued, “I can see three narrow, rectangular flaps. Their size and positions correspond to those found in the dormitories. These pancakes, or whatever, are all over the place, but I cansee something large floating in a corner near the ceiling … It’s the FGHJ!”
“I don’t understand why it didn’t register on the sensors,” Fletcher said. It was the kind of Captain who insisted on the highest standards of efficiency from its crew and the equipment in its charge, and treated a malfunction in either as a personal affront.
“Good work, friend Cha,” Prilicla said, enthusiastically breaking in. “Quickly now, move it to the entrance for loading into the litter. We’ll be with you directly. What is the general clinical picture?”
Cha Thrat moved closer, swatting more obstructions from her path as she said, “I can’t see any physical injuries at all, not even minor bruising, or external evidence of an illness. But this FGHJ isn’t like the others. It seems to be a lot thinner and less well muscled. The skin appears darker, more wrinkled, and the hooves are discolored and cracked in several places. The body hair is gray. I … I think this is a much older FGHJ. It might be the ship ruler. Maybe it hid itself in here to avoid what happened to the rest of its crew …”
She broke off, and Prilicla called urgently, “Friend Cha, why are you feeling like that? What happened to you?”
“Nothing happened to me,” she replied, fighting to control her disappointment. “I am holding the FGHJ now. There is no need to hurry. It is dead.”
“That explains why my sensors didn’t register,” Fletcher said.
“Friend Cha,” Prilicla said, ignoring the interruption, “are you quite sure"! I can still feel the presence of a deeply unconscious mind.”
Cha Thrat drew the FGHJ toward her so that she could use her upper hands, then said, �
�The body temperature is very low. Its eyes are open and do not react tolight. The usual vital signs are absent. I’m sorry, it i dead and …” She broke off to look more closely at th creature’s head, then went on excitedly. “And I think know what killed it! The back of the neck. Can you s< it?”
“Not clearly,” Prilicla replied quickly, obviously feeling her own growing excitement, and fear. “One of those disklike objects is in the way.”
“But that’s it,” she said. “I thought at first that one of them had drifted against the cadaver and stuck to its head. But I was wrong. The thing attached itself deliberately to the FGHJ with those thick white tendrils you can see growing from the edge of the disk. Now that I’m looking for them, I can see that they all have the tendrils and, judging by their length, the penetration into the cadaver’s spinal column and rear cranium is very deep. That thing is, or was, alive, and could have been responsible for—”
“Technician,” Fletcher broke in harshly, “get out of there!”
“At once,” Prilicla said.
Very carefully Cha Thrat released her hold on the dead FGHJ, removed her vision pickup, and attached its magnetic clips to a clear area of wall. She knew that the medical team would want to study this strange and abhorrent life-form that was infesting the ship before deciding how to deal with it. Then she turned toward the entrance, which now seemed to be very far away.
The disks hung thickly like an alien minefield between the door and herself. Some of them were still moving slowly in the air eddies caused by her entry or by the blows with which she had so casually knocked them aside, or perhaps of their own volition. They presented views from every angle — the smooth surface of the mot-tied side, the gray and wrinkled reverse side, and the edges with their fringe of limp white tendrils.
She had been so busy searching for an FGHJ survivor that she had scarcely looked at the objects she had mistaken for cakes of food or dried wastes floating in the room. She still did not know what they were, only of what they were capable, which was the utter destruction of the highly trained and intelligent minds of their victims to leave them with nothing but the basic and purely instinctive responses of animals.
The thought of a predator who did not eat or physically harm its prey, but gorged itself on the intelligence of its victim, made her want to seek refuge in madness. She was desperately afraid of touching one of them again, but there were too many of them for her to avoid doing so. But if any of them got in her way, Cha Thrat decided grimly, she would touch it, hit it, very hard.
The gentle, reassuring voice of Prilicla sounded in her earpiece. It said, “You are controlling your fear well, friend Cha. Move slowly and carefully and don’t—”
She winced as a high-pitched, piercing sound erupted from the earpiece, signifying that too many people were talking to her at once and had overloaded her translator. But they realized immediately what was happening because the oscillation wavered and died to become one voice, the Captain’s.
“Technician, behind yourBy then it was too late.
All of her attention had been directed ahead and to the sides, where the greatest danger lay. When she felt the surprisingly light touch, followed by a sensation of numbness on the back of her neck, a cool, detached part of her mind thought that it was considerate of the thing to anesthetize the area before inserting its tendrils. She swung an eye to the rear to see what was happening, andinstinctively raised her upper hands to push away the disk that had left the dead FGHJ and was attaching itself to her. But the hands fumbled weakly, their digits suddenly powerless, and the arms fell limply away.
Other parts of her body ceased working, or began twitching and bending in the random, uncoordinated fashion of a person with serious brain damage. The calm, detached portion of her mind thought that her condition was not a pleasant sight for friends to see.
“Fight it, Cha Thrat!” Murchison’s voice shouted from her earpiece. “Whatever it’s doing, fight it! We’re on our way.”
She heard and appreciated the concern in the Patholo-gist’s voice, but her tongue was one of the organs that was not working just then because her jaw was clamped shut. Altogether, she was in a state of considerable physiological confusion as muscles continued to twitch uncontrollably, her body writhed in weightless contortions, and sensations of heat, cold, pain, and pleasure affected random areas of her skin. She knew that the creature was exploring her central nervous system, trying to find out how her Sommaradvan body worked so that it would be able to control her.
Gradually the twitchings and writhings and even her fear diminished and were gone, and her body was able to resume its interrupted journey. The lens of the vision pickup turned to follow her. When she reached the door, she slammed it closed and locked it with fastenings that had suddenly become familiar.
“Technician,” Fletcher said sharply, “what are you doingTIt was obvious that she was locking the door from the inside, Cha Thrat thought irritably. Probably the Captain meant why was she doing it. She tried to reply but her lips and tongue would not work. But surely her actionswould tell all of them that she, it, both of them, did not wish to be disturbed.
CHAPTER 19
They were all talking at once again. She had to bend the earpiece back to reduce the sudden howl of translator oscillation that was making it difficult to think. The vision pickup was still following her and they must have realized the significance of her action because the babble died quickly and became one voice.
“Friend Cha,” Prilicla said, “listen to me carefully. Some kind of parasitic life-form has attached itself to you and the quality of your emotional radiation is changing. Try, try hard to pull it off and get out of there before your condition worsens.”
“I’m all right,” Cha Thrat protested. “Honestly, I feel fine. Just leave me alone until I can—”
“But your thoughts and feelings aren’t your own anymore,” Murchison broke in. “Fight, dammit! Try to keep control of your mind. At least try to open that door again so we won’t waste time burning through it when we get to you.”
“No,” the Captain said firmly. “I’m very sorry, Technician, they aren’t leaving this ship …”
The argument that ensued immediately overloaded Cha Thrat’s translator again, which made it impossible for her to talk to any of them. But there were parts of it,particularly when Fletcher was speaking in its ruler’s voice, that she heard clearly.
The Captain was reminding them, and calling on Prili-cla to support it, that the strictest possible rules of quarantine governed this situation. They had encountered a life-form that absorbed the memory, personality, and intelligence of its victims and left them like mindless animals. Moreover, judging by their recent observations of Technician Cha Thrat, the things were capable of adapting to and quickly controlling any life-form.
By then nobody was trying to interrupt Fletcher as it went on. “This could mean that they are not native to the planet of the FGHJs, that they may have come aboard anywhere, and are capable of doing this to the members of every intelligent species in the Federation! I don’t know what drives them, why they’re content to suck out the intelligence of their victims instead of feeding on the bodies, and I don’t even want to think about it. Or about how, or how rapidly, they can reproduce themselves. There are dozens of them in the room with Cha Thrat, and they’re so small that more of them could be hidden in odd corners all over the ship.
“Until we get a properly equipped and protected decontamination squad in there,” Fletcher went on, “I have no choice but to seal and place a guard on the boarding tube. This is something completely new to our experience, and it may well be that the hospital will advise the complete destruction of the ship, and its contents.
“If you will all think about it for a moment,” the Captain ended, sounding very unhappy with itself, “you will realize that we cannot take the slightest risk of that life-form getting onto this ship, or running loose in Sector General.”
There was silence for several mo
ments while theythought about it, and Cha Thrat thought about the strange thing that had happened, and was still happening, to her.
While trying to help Rhone she had experienced a joining, and with it the shock and disorientation and excitement of having her mind invaded, but not taken over, by a personality that was completely alien to her. The effect had been rendered even stranger and more frightening by the fact that the Gogleskan’s mind had also contained material from a previous joining with a mind whose memories were even more confusing, those of the Earth-human Conway. But this sensation was entirely different. The approach and entry was gentle, reassuring, and even pleasant, giving her the feeling that it was a process perfected after a lifetime of experience. But like herself, this invader seemed to be badly confused by the contents of her part-Sommaradvan, part-Gogleskan, and part Earth-human mind and, because of that confusion, it was having trouble controlling her body. She was still not sure of its intentions, but quite certain that she was still herself and that she was learning more and more about it with every passing second.
Murchison was the first to break the silence. It said, “We have protective suits and cutting torches. Why don’t we decontaminate that compartment ourselves and burn them all, including the one on the technician’s neck, and get Cha Thrat back here for treatment while it still has some of its mind left? The hospital people can finish the decontamination when we—”
“No,” the Captain said firmly. “If any of you medics go onto that ship, you won’t be allowed back here.”
Cha Thrat did not want to join in because speaking would involve a minor mental effort and consequent disruption in an area of her mind that she wished to remain receptive. Instead, she moved her lower arms inthe Sign of Waiting, then realizing that it meant nothing to non-Sommaradvans, held up one hand palm forward in the Earth-human equivalent.
