by James White
“Regarding the airway and lungs,” Conway continued, “you can see that there is the usual inflammation present but that the lung damage is minor. We are assuming that since the being was unable to move when the gas permeated the ship, it was able, with its large lung capacity, to hold its breath until most of the toxic vapor had dissipated. But the digestive system is baffling us. The food passage is extremely narrow and seems to have collapsed in several places, and with few teeth for chewing food it is difficult … to see how—”
Con way’s voice slowed to a stop while his mind raced on. Beside him Murchison was making self-derogatory remarks because she, too, had not spotted it sooner, and Prilicla said, “Are you thinking what I am thinking, friends?”
There was no need to reply. Conway said, “Captain, where are you?”
Fletcher had cleared a narrow path for himself to the open hatch. While they had been talking they had heard his boots moving back and forth along the outer hull, but for the past few minutes there had been silence.
“On the ground outside, Doctor,” Fletcher replied. “I’ve been trying to find the best way of moving out the big one. In my opinion we can’t swing it down the sides of the wreck, too much sprung plating and debris, and the stern isn’t much better. We’ll have to lower it from the prow. But carefully. I jarred my ankles badly when I jumped from it to the sand, which is only about an inch deep over a gently sloping shelf of rock in that area. Obviously the big life-form needed a special elevator to board and debark, because the extending ladder arrangement below the hatch is usable only by the three smaller life-forms.
“I’m about to reenter the ship through the cargo hold hatch,” he ended. “Is there a problem?”
“No, Captain,” Conway said. “But on your way here would you bring the cadaver from the Dormitory Deck?”
Fletcher grunted assent and Murchison and Conway resumed their discussion with Prilicla, stopping frequently to verify with their scanners the various points raised. When the Captain arrived pushing the dead DCMH ahead of him, Conway had just finished attaching an oxygen tank and breathing tube to the patient and covering its head in a plastic envelope against the time when, during the night, the entry hatch would be closed and the fumes produced by the cutting torch against the metal and plastic debris might turn out to be even more toxic than those from the hydraulic reservoir.
They took the cadaver from Fletcher and, holding it above their heads, fitted it into one of the control couches designed for it. The big alien did not react and they tried it in a second, then a third couch. This time the patient’s stub tentacles began to twitch and one of them made contact with the DCMH. It maintained the contact for several seconds then slowly withdrew and the big entity became still again.
Conway gave a long sigh, then said, “It fits, it all fits. Prilicla, keep your patients on oxygen and IV fluids. I don’t think they will return to full consciousness until they have food as well, but the hospital can synthesize that when we get back.” To Murchison he said, “All we need now is an analysis of the stomach contents of that cadaver. But don’t do the dissection here, do it in the corridor. It would probably, well, upset the Captain.”
“Not me,” Fletcher said, who was already at work with his cutting torch. “I won’t even look.”
Murchison laughed and pointed to the patient hanging above them. She said, “He was talking about the other Captain, Captain.”
Before Fletcher could reply, Haslam announced that he would be landing in fifteen minutes.
“Better stay with the patient while I help the Captain load the lander,” Conwaytold Murchison. “Radiate feelings of reassurance at it; that’s all we can do right now. If we all left it might think it was being abandoned.”
“You intend leaving her here alone?” Fletcher said harshly.
“Yes, but there is no danger—“Conway began, when the voice of Dodds interrupted him.
“There is nothing moving within a twenty-mile radius of the wreck, sir,” he said reassuringly, “except thorn patches.”
Fletcher said very little while they were helping Haslam move the casualties from the outcropping into the lander and while they were pushing the litter with its load of spare equipment to the wreck. It was unlike the Captain, who usually spoke his mind no matter who or what was bothering him, to behave this way. But Conway’s mind was too busy with other things to have time to probe.
“I was thinking,” Conway said when they reached the open cargo hatch, “that according to Dodds the thorn patches are attracted to food and warmth. We are going to create a lot of warmth inside the wreck, and there is a storage deck filled with food containers as well. Suppose we move as much food as we can from the wreck and scatter it in front of the thorn clumps — that might make them lose interest in the wreck for a while.”
“I hope so,” Fletcher said.
The lander took off in a small, self-created sandstorm as Conway was dragging the first containers of food toward the edge of the nearest thorn patch, which was about four hundred meters astern of the wreck. They had agreed that Fletcher would move the containers from the storage deck to the ground outside the hatch, and Conway would scatter them along the front of the advancing thorns. He had wanted to use,the litter with its greater capacity and gravity neutralizers, but Naydrad had stated in its forthright fashion that the Doctor was unused to controlling the vehicle and if the gravity settings were wrong or a part of the load fell off, the litter would disappear skyward or blow weightlessly away.
Conway was forced to do it the hard way.
“Make this the last one, Doctor,” the Captain said as he was coming in from his eighth round trip. “The wind is rising.”
The shadow of the wreck had lengthened steadily as he worked and the sky had deepened in color. The suit’s sensors showed a marked drop in the outside temperature, but Conway had been generating so much body heat himself that he had not noticed it. He threw the containers as far in front and to each side of him as he could, opening some of them to make sure that the thorns would know that the unopened containers also held food, although they could probably sense that for themselves. The thorn clumps covered the sand across a wide front like black, irregular crosshatching, seemingly motionless. But every time he looked away for a few minutes then back again, they were closer.
Suddenly the thorn patches and everything else disappeared behind a dark-brown curtain of sand and a gust of wind punched him in the back, knocking him to his knees. He tried to get to his feet but an eddy blew him onto his side. Half crawling and half running, he headed back toward the wreck, although by then he had no clear idea where it was. The storm-driven sand was hissing so loudly against his helmet that he could barely hear Dodds’ voice.
“My sensors show you heading toward the thorns, Doctor,” the astrogator said urgently. “Turn right about one hundred ten degrees and the wreck is about three hundred meters distant.”
Fletcher was outside the cargo hatch with his suit spotlight turned to maximum power to guide him in. The Captain pushed him through the hatch and closed it behind him. The crash had warped the hatch so that sand continued to blow in around the edges, except near the bottom where it came through in a steady trickle.
“Within a few minutes the outside of the hatch will be sealed by a sand drift,” Fletcher said without looking at Conway. “It will be difficult for our cannibal to get in. Dodds will spot it on the sensors anyway and I’ll have time to take the necessary steps.”
Conway shook his head and said, “We’ve nothing to worry about except the wind, sand, and thorn patches.” Silently he added, If that wasn’t enough.
The Captain grunted and began climbing through the hatch leading to the corridor, and Conway crawled after him. But it was not until Fletcher slowed to pass the leaking hydraulic reservoir, which was steaming very faintly now, that Conway spoke.
“Is there anything else bothering you, Captain?”
Fletcher stopped and for the first time in over an hour
looked directly at the Doctor. He said, “Yes, there is. That creature in the Control Deck bothers me. Even in the hospital, what can you do for it, a multiple amputee? It will be completely helpless, little more than a live specimen for study. I’m wondering if it would not be better just to let the cold take it and—”
“We can do a great deal for it, Captain,” Conway broke in, “if we can get it safely through the night. Weren’t you listening to Murchison, Prilicla, and me discussing the case?”
“Yes and no, Doctor,” Fletcher said, moving forward again. “Some of it was quite technical, and you might as well have been talking untranslated Kelgian so far as I was concerned.”
Conway laughed quietly and said, “Then I had better translate.”
The alien vessel had released, its distress beacon, he explained, not because of a technical malfunction but because of serious illness on board which had affected the entire crew. Presumably the least affected crew members were on duty on the Control Deck while the rest were confined to their hammocks. It was still not clear why the ship had to put down on a planet. Possibly there were physiological reasons why a planetary gravity or atmosphere was needed, or maybe the weightless conditions on board aggravated the condition and they could not provide artificial gravity by using their thrusters because the crew were fast losing consciousness. Whatever the reason they had made an emergency landing on Trugdil. There were much better landing sites on the planet, but their degree of urgency must have been extreme and they had landed here.
Conway broke off as they entered the Control Deck because Murchison was high above them closing the personnel hatch. She said, “Don’t let me interrupt you, but now that we will be using the cutting torches in a confined space, I’m going to take the patient off pure oxygen. It seems to be breathing easily now. Would one part oxygen to four inert.be suitable, Doctor?”
“Fine,” Conway said. “I’ll help you.”
The hissing of sand against the outer hull rose suddenly and the whole ship seemed to lurch sideways. There was a screeching and banging sound from amidships, which halted suddenly as a section of hull plating tore free and blew away.
“A piece of the wreck has blown away,” Dodds reported unnecessarily, then went on, “The thorn patches have halted over the food containers, and those nearby are converging on the area. But there are other large clumps off to the side which are still heading directly for the wreck. They are moving quite fast. The wind is behind them and they are letting it carry them forward using only enough of their root system to maintain a loose hold on the ground. At this rate they could be at the ship in half an hour.”
It was as if an enormous, soft pillow struck the side of the ship. The deck tilted under their feet, then righted itself. This time it sounded as if maniacs with sledgehammers were attacking three different sections of the hull until, a few seconds later, the banging ceased. But to the sound of the sand beating against the hull plating was added the discordant moaning and whistling of the wind as it forced its way into the wreck.
“Our defenses,” the Captain said worriedly, “have become decidedly porous. But go on, Doctor.”
“The ship made an emergency landing here,” Conway resumed, “because they had no time to look for a better spot. It was a good landing, all things considered, and it was sheer bad luck that they toppled and as a result ruptured that hydraulic reservoir. If they hadn’t done so it is possible that their illness, whatever the cause, would have run its course and in time they would have taken off again. Or maybe the first sandstorm would have knocked them over anyway. But instead they crash-landed and found themselves suddenly in a wreck which was rapidly filling with toxic fumes. Weakened by their condition as they were, they had to get out fast and, because the escape routes aft led past the source of the contaminant and were partly blocked by wreckage from the fall, they had to evacuate through the Control Deck here and along the upper surface of the hull, then slide to the ground.
“They injured themselves very seriously in doing so,” Con-way added.
He paused for a moment to help Murchison change over the patient’s air supply. From the stern there was a clanking sound which reverberated steadily and monotonously throughout the ship. One of the pieces of wreckage was refusing to become detached. Conway raised his voice.
“The reason they did not move far from their ship was probably two-fold,” he continued. “As a result of the debilitating effects of their illness, they did not have the strength to move farther, and I suspect there were strong psychological reasons for remaining close to their ship. Their physical condition, the high temperatures, and the indications of malnutrition observed, which we mistakenly assumed to be due to enforced starvation, were symptoms of the disease. The state of deep unconsciousness may also have been a symptom, or possibly some kind of hibernation mode which they adopt when injured or otherwise distressed and assistance is likely to be delayed, and which slows the metabolic rate and reduces bleeding.”
Fletcher was readying his cutting torch and looking baffled. He said, “Disease and injuries caused by escaping from the wreck I can believe. But what about the missing limbs and—”
“Dodds, sir,” Rhobwar’s astrogator broke in. “I’m afraid the midnight drop in wind strength will not affect your area. There are local weather disturbances. Three large thorn patches have reached the stern and sections of the peripheral growth are entering the food storage deck. A lot of hull plating is missing there. Once they open that concentrated store of food they’ll probably lose interest in anything else.” His optimism sounded forced.
Murchison said, “We’re not completely sure that it was a disease that caused the trouble, Captain. From the analysis of the stomach contents of the cadaver from the dormitory deck the indications are that it was a severe gastrointestinal infection caused by a bug native to their home planet, and the symptom which led us to suspect malnutrition was total regurgitation of stomach contents in all of the other cases. The casualty from the dormitory had been knocked unconscious before the process was complete and was asphyxiated shortly afterward so that involuntary regurgitation did not take place. But it is also possible that the ship’s own food supply was contaminated and that caused the trouble.”
Conway wondered if it was possible for a mobile omnivorous vegetable to get food poisoning, and if it would take effect in time to save them from the thorns. He rather doubted it.
“Thank you, Ma’am,” Fletcher said, and went on, “About the missing limbs?”
“There are no missing limbs. Captain,” she replied. “Or perhaps the crew are all missing the same organ, their head. The large number of the other injuries concealed the truth at first, but there are no missing limbs, and there is no criminal.”
Fletcher looked at Conway, too polite to express his disbelief to the pathologist in words, and the Doctor took over the explanation. But he had to work as he talked because he and Murchison were faced with the long, difficult job of transferring the big alien from its cupola to the litter.
It was hard to imagine the set of environmental circumstances which had caused such an essentially helpless life-form to evolve, become dominant, and in time achieve a culture capable of star travel, Conway said, but these gross, limbless, and all too obviously immobile creatures had done just that. It was a host-symbiote, they now knew, who had developed multiple symbiotes specialized so as to act as short-and long-range manipulators and sensors. Its stumps and the areas which on the casualties had been mistaken for amputation sites were the interfaces which joined the host creature to its symbiotes when physical activity became necessary or the host required sustenance.
It was likely that a strong mental as well as physical bond existed between the host Captain and its crew, but continuous contact was not needed because in and around the wreck there had been three times the number of crew members as there were organic connectors on the host. It was also probable that the host entity did not sleep and provided continual, nonphys-ical support to its sym
biotes. This was borne out by the type of emotional radiation being picked up on Rhabwar by Prili-cla — confusion and feelings of loss. The host Captain’s telepathic or empathic faculty did not reach as far as the ambulance ship’s orbit.
“The smallest, DCLG life-form is independently intelligent and performs the finer, more intricate manipulative operations,” Murchison joined in, clarifying the situation in her own mind as well as for the Captain, who had disappeared briefly into the corridor to check on the position of the thorns. “As is the slightly larger DCMH. But the function of the big DCOJ is purely that of eating and supplying predigested food to the host. There is evidence, however, that all three of these life-forms have their own ingestion, digestion, and reproductive systems, but one of them must figure in the transfer of sperm or ova between immobile host creatures—”
She broke off as the Captain returned, his cutter in one hand and what looked like a short, tangled piece of barbed wire in the other. He said, “The thorns have grown out of the food storage deck and are halfway along the corridor. I brought you a sample, ma’am.”
She took it from him carefully and Conway joined her for a closer look. It was like a dark-brown, three-dimensional zigzag with fine green thorns growing out of every angle, except one which sprouted a long, tapering hollow tube like the vegetable equivalent of a hypodermic needle, and which was probably a root. She snipped off the thorns with surgical scissors and let them drop into her analyzer.
“Why did we have to wear lightweight suits?” she said a few minutes later. “A scratch from a thorn won’t kill you, but three or four would. What are you doing, Captain?”
