by James White
The general went on to say that as the next officer in line of seniority to Colonel Morrison, Lieutenant Colonel McCullough should be prepared at any time to take full control of the expedition. Should casualties occur, should McCullough be forced to assume command, he must be very careful in the matter of wording his reports. The general was not suggesting that he conceal the fact that casualties had occurred -- he must use his own discretion in this, or perhaps a simple verbal code could be worked out which would allow the communication of sensitive material. The next of kin had the right to know, naturally -- but McCullough had no idea how each simple incident at the Ship was being blown up out of all proportion by the news media.
". . . While I don't approve of the emotional frenzy they are whipping up over this, one good point about it is that the supplies you need will be forthcoming. I don't mean to suggest that we would not have sent them anyway even if you did not have the support and sympathy of billions of people, but if you stop to consider how much it will cost to send you just one extra spacesuit, or the price of even a few sips of water . . ."
"If you're really worried," said McCullough sarcastically, "we might be able to steal water from the Ship! This would mean us forcing ourselves to overcome a certain -- repugnance, shall we say. But have you forgotten that we have an aversion to using even a fellow astronaut's reclaimed water, and for that reason the psychologists insist that our waste fluids are individually recycled . . ."
McCullough broke off. He was supposed to be careful of everything he said and this was, after all, one of the less publicized aspects of space travel . . .
His sarcasm would take just over sixteen minutes to reach General Brady and the same time for the other's reaction to bounce back again. But it seemed suddenly as if the project's chief was telepathic and that thought traveled much faster than light, because Brady went on apologetically, "We are not counting the pennies on this, however, or even the millions of dollars, so there is no reason for concern over this aspect of the situation. Just take it easy, do your best and, before you open your mouth, remember all those listening millions who are ready to jump to wrong conclusions.
"And now we will consider the matter of urgent supplies.
"These will reach you via a modified high-acceleration probe in forty-one days -- a five-day countdown, which has already started, and thirty-six days for the trip. We will discuss rendezvous procedure later. Right now I must tell you that the payload is an integral part of the vehicle and ask that you give urgent thought to its composition. Should priority he given to food, water, replacement spacesuits, weapons and in what proportion? "No doubt you will want to talk about this with the men on the Ship, so I'll sign off now. Good luck to all of you."
The general was followed by a McDonnell man who talked endlessly about the weight and size limitations of their supply vehicle and the rendezvous problems. McCullough left Walters to listen to him while he relayed a shortened version of Brady's instructions to the men in the Ship. He spoke to Drew because everyone else was asleep. Drew did not want to wake the colonel and McCullough agreed that the matter could wait for a few hours. But the mention of sleep made him pause for a moment to calculate how long it had been since he had had any, and the immediate result of his calculations was a jaw-wrenching yawn. He told Drew that Walters, Hollis and he would stand radio watch in turn while the others caught up on their sleep, and asked to be called if there was the slightest change in the condition of their wounds, or any other emergency.
Hollis returned while he was talking. As if his arrival was the cue, a dry, pedantic voice replaced that of the McDonnell man. From the physicist's expression McCullough knew that questions of a highly specialized and technical nature were about to be directed at Hollis. He wanted to avoid another delayed-action dialogue starting up while they were all so tired, so he broke in to say that they all needed rest and would resume contact, unless there was a sudden emergency, in twelve hours.
To Walters and Hollis he suggested -- McCullough did not feel comfortable about giving orders, despite his technically superior rank -- that they get some rest while he stood first watch.
The physicist nodded and began struggling out of his suit prior to strapping in. Walters, who was already strapped into his couch, linked fingers behind his neck and elaborately closed his eyes. Shortly afterward the pilot was asleep and Hollis had his eyes closed, pretending. He was scratching surreptitiously at the side of his neck turned away from McCullough. Despite himself, the doctor felt his own eyes closing.
Obviously he was going to need something more strenuous than worrying about the physicist's mental health to keep him awake, and his first thought was the investigation of the alien cadaver. But he could not work here -- it would be stretching even Walters' sense of humor to the breaking point if the pilot was to wake up to find the module filled with drifting alien entrails -- and the lock where he had left the specimen was too cramped. The best thing would be for him to move to P-Two's command module, which he would have all to himself, and use the other ship's radio to listen for trouble developing at the bridgehead.
After listening to Brady and Drew, he thought irritably, even I'm beginning to think like a general!
But as his examination of the e-t proceeded, McCullough's tiredness was forgotten. He had begun by assuming that the alien's vital organs, including its brain, would be housed high under the protective carapace and his assumption proved correct. He was able to identify and isolate the lungs, the odd-looking muscular pump which was the heart, and the mechanism of ingestion, digestion and excretion. At each major step in the examination he took photographs.
There were puzzles at first, but one by one they were solved as he charted the digestive, respiratory and, so far as he was able with the instruments available to him, the nervous system. Tracing the connections to the eyes, ears and to the vicious weapon projecting from its underside was relatively easy -- the thing was simply a curved horn with a small degree of mobility and not, as he had at first thought, a sting. But there were a few puzzles which refused to be solved. The being's reproductive system was a completely closed book to him. He had no idea what sort of environment could cause a creature shaped as this one was to evolve, and there were points which bothered him about angles of vision and the degree of control the being exercised over all four tentacles. There was no evidence of specialization in any of the appendages.
He wondered if ambidextrous was the right word to use for a being with four hands, but he was too weary to solve that puzzle as well. He began to tidy away the grisly pieces of alien which floated about the command module, thinking that he would have to waken Walters so that he, McCullough, would have a chance to sleep on his many problems.
But when he did go to sleep there were no solutions waiting to rise out of his subconscious. Instead he dreamed only of Berryman, Morrison and Drew and of the nightmarish fates which could befall them, culminating in one which involved a fungus growing out of their wounds and spreading over their whole bodies until they became great, livid, mobile sponges which mewed and gobbled appealingly at him while they chased him along the bright, net-covered corridors of the alien Ship.
That one woke him up screaming.
chapter thirteen
Six days went by and none of the men on the Ship died or even became infected. Perhaps their bodies were too alien an environment for extraterrestrial microorganisms to survive in them, or it may have been that Earth medication and antibiotics were a match for most germs regardless of origin. McCullough's pleasure and relief over this was intense, but the feeling was banished shortly afterward by his row with the general.
McCullough had evolved a number of theories about the alien Type Two, but he wanted to have his conclusions regarding some of the more puzzling aspects of its physiology vetted by someone more eminent in the field. He had prepared, and had Walters transmit, a group of eight photographs taken during the alien's post-mortem before commencing his verbal report, and in the thousand-odd
seconds it took for the signal to reach Earth and for the general's first reaction to come back, he said quite a lot.
Too much, obviously.
"Silence! Stop talking at once!" Brady's voice roared at him suddenly. "For God's sake STOP TALKING!"
But so far as the general was concerned, there was nothing that could stop McCullough's voice arriving for at least another half hour, and Brady quickly realized this. He was still angry but his tone became almost resigned as he went on, "You are supposed to be very careful of every word you say, McCullough. If you do or say anything wrong, it reflects on all of us. Not just on you people out there or on the project personnel, our whole country and its ideology suffers as a consequence! Don't you realize that what you've just done will cause a storm of criticism and censure from inside as well as outside the country, that a large section of the world's population is going to feel angry and ashamed of what you have done out there?
"Every time you open your mouth, McCullough, you lose friends and we lose support! Think, dammit, before you talk!
"There are some who will be pleased with what you are doing," the general went on bitterly. "The biologists who are too interested in finding out what makes an alien tick to think of ethical and politicai side effects. And there are the various groups advocating that a stronger line should be taken against these unfriendly aliens. But even you must be aware of how much trouble is caused by people who object to dissection practiced on domestic animals and pets, and now YOU have to start cutting up a member of an intelligent extraterrestrial species!"
And so it went on.
McCullough remained silent with a considerable effort. A lot had happened during the six days since the fight with the aliens. From Earth the first high-acceleration supply vehicle had been launched, proceeded, accompanied and followed by thousands of words of cautious advice. In P-Two McCullough had completed his examination of the alien and had passed his thoughts about it to the three men marooned on the Ship. His chief reason for doing this had been to give them something else to think about other than their wounds -- wounds from which they had not really expected to recover. But now that recovery was simply a matter of time, it was a little embarrassing for McCullough that his theory had been accepted in toto by everyone but himself.
The reason for that, of course, was that it made them feel less guilty over some of the things they had done.
But it was, after all, only a theory, and the facts on which it was based could be interpreted several ways. McCullough had transmitted a group of pictures and a number of verbal facts before the general had started having hysterics. He had not even mentioned his theory. Apparently Brady did not want to hear it. Brady did not want to hear anything!
"Doctor," said Walters in a whisper. "You've been tapping that mike with your finger for the past ten minutes. When the general gets around to hearing it he will think something terrible is happening."
"Something is," said McCullough. "I'm losing my patience."
He paused, then choosing his words with great care, went on, "Since I am forbidden to discuss my findings on the Type Two alien's physiology, or draw conclusions from them or even ask questions regarding them from people who are more knowledgeable than myself, there is nothing more to say except this. The photographs and verbal report transmitted so far represent facts, and both my theory and the questions arising from it are implicit in these facts if you bring them to the attention of the right people. Message ends."
The general was still complaining bitterly. McCullough tuned him down to a whisper and knocked off the transmit switch. He picked up the length of modified tubing Walters and he had been working on, then told the pilot that he was going to the Ship and that he would send Hollis back as soon as he arrived there. If the general or any lesser light from Control wanted to hear from them, they should talk about hyperdrive generators and nothing else.
He entered the lock chamber a few minutes later and Hollis left it, closing the outer seal behind him. Immediately there was a rush of air entering from the corridor which was quickly followed by the three marooned men. Even though there were no aliens outside the chamber, the men's movements were fast, precise and economical -- a complex, well practiced drill. Outwardly at least, they were adapting to conditions inside the Ship. Before McCullough could speak, Drew dived toward him, checked himself expertly against a lashing point and said, "Is that the new weapon?"
McCullough nodded and with obvious reluctance handed it over.
"I know how you feel, Doctor," said Drew. "You are worried about this new form of frightfulness you are about to unloose on our little world. But this isn't a mass-destruction weapon. We will be discriminating in its use and kill only aliens who are trying to kill us . . ."
"But they are aliens!" said McCullough angrily. "My theory could be completely wrong."
"I think not," said Colonel Morrison, joining them. "In any case we are badly in need of a Two-stopper, and it looks as if you've given us one."
When a Two was stabbed with one of the existing spears it was still possible for it to inflict considerable damage before it died, so the weapon had been shortened slightly so as to make it handle like a sword. At the business end, the tubing had been cut diagonally in the manner of a hypodermic needle and the tip flattened and given a razor edge on both sides. A few inches back from the tip, the blade curved through an angle of about thirty degrees so that it looked a little like a bullfighter's sword.
The effect would be to inflict a deep-punctured wound, after which the damage could be multiplied and compounded by giving the weapon a quick, semicircular twist before tugging it free. The thought of the frightful internal devastation a properly delivered thrust and twist would inflict on the victim's body made McCullough feel physically as well as mentally uncomfortable. He was still not sure how he had become a party to this thing.
Hippocrates and Asclepius, he thought, would not have approved of his behavior in this matter.
His only real excuse for producing the weapon was an unsatisfactory one even to himself, the fact that the Two's horn was also a cruel and deadly instrument of destruction. There was also the fact that the damage the new weapon would inflict on vital organs, the massive hemorrhaging it would cause, would paralyze the alien with shock and cause death within a few seconds, so that in a way it was almost humane.
The colonel's voice broke in on his thoughts, giving him a welcome change of mental subject. Morrison said, "What I really want to know is how much freedom of action I am allowed. Can we use our own initiative regarding the local situation and the problems rising out of it, or must all our thinking be done from the Cape?"
"Our thinking is being done," said McCullough with a deliberate lack of inflection in his voice, "by the Russians, the Buddhists, the United Nations, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals."
They were all watching him.
Morrison's shoulder and arm were still giving him pain, McCullough knew, and the other two were by no means comfortable. They had all lost a good deal of blood and been under constant strain with inadequate sleep since being marooned on the Ship. The bright-blue lighting made it impossible to conceal subtle changes of expression or variations of facial pallor. They were all staring at him so intently that the thought uppermost in his mind must have been plain for all of them to see.
I want to go home!
"Go on, Doctor," said Morrison harshly.
"Very well, sir," said McCullough. "Our problem, or rather your problem, is this. We are being told what to do by people who do not know all the facts, and who don't want to be told them because of the effect the telling might have on public opinion. Their instructions to us, if you could call them instructions, are so general in nature and so hedged around with qualifiers and warnings that they don't really seem to mean anything. We need help. Not only are we not getting it, we are being ordered not to ask for it!
"I, personally, would like corroboration of my findings in the Two autopsy," McCullou
gh went on, anger gradually replacing the fear in his voice. "Moral support, if you like, for a theory and a decision I am too much a coward to take alone. Instead of giving me the necessary support, Brady nearly had a fit and would not let me finish explaining the situation! I don't know what has happened to them back there. They act as if they are having an emergency instead of us!"
"In a sense, they are -- " began Morrison.
