Double Contact

by James White

  The captain was silent for a moment and, thankfully, still well beyond Prilicla’s empathic range. When it spoke, its features and voice were calm and reflected none of what it must have been feeling.

  “Thank you for the additional information, Pathologist Murchison,” it said, glancing aside at another screen. “We should be closing with the spider fleet approximately one hundred and fifty meters off your beach in seventeen minutes. In that time I shall try to modify my defensive strategy accordingly. However, you will understand that operationally I do not do my best work with both hands tied behind my back. Off.”

  Murchison shook its head at the blank screen and moved to the room’s big direct-vision panel. Prilicla followed to hover above its shoulder as they watched the three spider vessels that had rounded the curve of the island and were beginning to foreshorten as they turned in to approach the station. All six of their gliders had been launched and were making slow, tight circles in the sky above them. Distance had reduced the chittering of their crews to a low, insect buzzing. The pathologist’s emotional radiation, he noted with approval, reflected wariness, concern, growing excitement, but no fear.

  “Friend Murchison,” he said gently, indicating the big diagnostic screen on the other side of the room, “this is a good opportunity for us to review the latest clinical material on the two Trolanni. Patient Keet’s condition was not life-threatening and its treatment is progressing satisfactorily, but not so Patient Jasam’s.”

  The pathologist dipped its head in affirmation and moved to the screen which was already displaying enlargements of the two patients’ scanner images. For several minutes it studied them, magnifying and changing the viewpoint several times, while in the direct-vision panel the spider ships drew closer. But unlike Prilicla, it had no attention to spare for them.

  Finally it said, “Danalta told me there was a problem with Patient Jasam, and it was right. But Patient Keet’s condition, while not giving cause for immediate concern, is not good. There is a general impairment of blood flow, and organic degeneration in several areas that is not, I think, due to any recent trauma, and the indications would support a diagnosis of sterility caused by a long-term dietary deficiency. But Patient Jasam is in serious trouble. I advocate immediate surgical intervention. Would you agree, sir?”

  “Fully, friend Murchison,” he replied, gesturing towards the screen. “But there are three main areas of trauma, deep puncture-wounding whose effect on nearby organs is unknown. We should go in at once, certainly, but how, where, and in what order? This is an entirely new life-form to my experience.”

  The Earth-human’s feelings were predominantly those of concern, apology, and, strangely, an underlying but slowly growing feeling of certainty.

  “There is nothing entirely new,” it said, “under this or any other sun. Our Trolanni friend’s CHLI physiology has a similarity—very slight I must admit—in its lack of supporting skeletal structure and the fine network of blood vessels and nerve linkages supplying the peripheral limbs and visual and aural sensors, to those found in the Kelgian DBLF classification. There are also similarities in its two fast-beating hearts to those of the light-gravity, LSVO and MSVK life-forms. The digestive system is very strange, but the waste-elimination process could belong to a scaled-down Melfan. If you believe the risk to be acceptable, I think I know what is going on, or what should be going on in there, but…”

  It held up its hands with the fingers loosely spread.

  “… But I can’t do it with clumsy digits like these,” it went on. “It would need much more sensitive hands, yours, and the small, specialized members that the shape-changer can grow to get into and support the awkward corners. You and Danalta would perform the surgery. I could only assist and advise.”

  “Thank you, friend Murchison,” said Prilicla, wishing that the other could feel its gratitude and relief. “We will prepare at once.”

  “Before we open Jasam up…” it began, and broke off because all around them the loose equipment in the room was vibrating to the increasing subsonic growl that indicated Rhabwar was making its low-level approach. Irritably, and without even looking at the ships closing on the beach; it raised its voice.

  “I would like to make a closer, hands-on examination of both patients,” it went on, “for purposes of comparison and to obtain physical confirmation of the scanner findings.”

  “Of course,” said Prilicla. “But first give me a few minutes so that Naydrad can render them unconscious.”

  “But why?” it asked. “We’re very short of time.”

  “I’m sorry, friend Murchison,” he replied, “but unlike the Terragar officers, the Trolanni would take no pleasure in the sight of your body.”

  CHAPTER 27

  From the deeply upholstered comfort of his control couch, which felt about as soft as a wooden plank due to the body tension required to make him appear relaxed to his subordinates, Captain Fletcher watched the image of the ships and aircraft of the spider landing force as it expanded in his forward vision screen.

  Rhabwar was not a large vessel by Monitor Corps standards, but it was a little longer and its delta wing configuration gave it more width than the big, flattened, turtlelike ships of the opposition. The approach he had originally planned would certainly have caused maximum nonoffensive confusion, if not utter havoc and demoralization, to the opposition. But he had remembered the words of Pathologist Murchison as she had been telling him how he should do his job.

  His idea had been to go in low and fast and drag a sonic shockwave along the length of the beach. He didn’t think that the ships would suffer or—except psychologically—their crews, but the thought of what the air turbulence created by a supersonic fly-past would do to those ridiculously flimsy gliders made it a bad idea. It wouldn’t be like shooting ducks, he thought, but more like blasting butterflies out of the sky.

  “Decelerate,” he said, “and bring us to a halt one hundred meters above the beach midway between the station and the waterline. Deploy three tractor beams in pressor mode at equal strength in stilt configuration and hold us there.”

  “Sir,” said Haslam, “the slower approach is going to give them time to begin landing their people on the beach.”

  The captain didn’t reply because he could see everything that was happening as well as the lieutenant could and had arrived at the same conclusion.

  “Dodds,” he said. “The opposition’s ships are highly flammable. When we’re in position, swing around so that our tail flare will be directed inland. Then put out one forward tractor to discourage the spider advance. Focus it to about ten meters’ surface diameter and change the point of focus erratically for maximum turbulence as you play it back and forth along the beach across their path. The idea is to create a localized sandstorm down there.”

  “Understood, sir,” said Dodds.

  “Power room,” he went on briskly. “We’ll be supporting the ship’s mass on pressor beams with no assist from the thrusters for a while. How long can you give us? A rough estimate will do.”

  “A moment, please,” said the engineering officer; then, “Approximately seventy-three minutes on full power drain, reducing by one-point-three percent per minute until exhaustion and an enforced grounding seventeen-point-three minutes later.”

  “Thank you, Chen.” said Fletcher, smiling to himself. The power-room lieutenant was a man who disliked giving rough approximations. “I’m putting this operation on your repeater screen. Enjoy the, ah, battle.”

  The misty-blue light given off by their three immaterial stilts as well as that of the forward tractor beam would be difficult for the spiders to see in the bright sunlight, so it would seem that the ship drifting to a stop above them was virtually weightless, or at least very lightly built like one of their own flying machines.

  “A suggestion, sir,” said Chen suddenly. “If your intention is to make a blatant demonstration of power that will discourage, and probably scare hell out of the enemy without inflicting actu
al physical injury, this is the way to do it.…”

  “The spiders aren’t our enemy, Lieutenant,” said Fletcher dryly, “they just act that way. But go on.”

  “But if they don’t discourage easily,” the other continued, “we could be faced with a siege situation so that balancing ourselves up here on power-hungry stilts would be a short-term activity as well as running down our power reserves. My suggestion is that we land and modify the meteorite shield to provide hemispherical protection widely enough to cover the station and ourselves. That way we can maintain the shield for a much longer period. Once we’ve made the point, which we have, that we are large, dangerous, and, if necessary, can float motionless in the air, there’s no reason to continue doing so. With respect, sir, I think we should land sooner rather than later.”

  Exactly the same thoughts had been going through Fletcher’s mind, but saying so to Lieutenant Chen would have made the captain sound petty-minded in the extreme. But a development that the other had not foreseen, at least not yet, was that if a spider aircraft should fly into one of the pressor beams supporting Rhabwar’s weight, it and its pilot would be smashed flat into the ground.

  “Thank you, Chen,” he said instead. “Your suggestion is approved. Haslam, take us down. Dodds, kill the pressors but maintain the forward tractor to keep that sandstorm going. Chen, how soon will the meteorite-shield modification be ready?”

  “It’s difficult to be precise,” said Chen. “Fairly soon.”

  “Try to make it sooner than that,” he said.

  The gliders had sheared off at Rhabwar’s approach but now they were circling back again, possibly thinking that the grounding of the ship was a sign of weakness. All three of the spider vessels had run their prows up onto the beach and the nearest one had its landing-ramp lowered. The first few spiders were already crawling ashore with crossbows held at the ready. Dodds took a moment to check the focus of his tractor beam. The landing party now numbered close on twenty, with more of them coming down the ramps at intervals of a few seconds.

  Directly in front of them a carpet of sand twenty meters in diameter and about three inches deep rose high into the air and exploded into a cloud as the tractor’s point of focus was vibrated erratically in and out. A thick curtain of fine, powdery sand dropped in front of and a little on top of the spiders.

  For a moment they milled about uncertainly. Then Fletcher saw a spider with a large speaking trumpet climb onto the superstructure of it ship to chitter loudly at them. At once they split into two groups that crawled rapidly along the beach in opposite directions. The sandstorm, its effect only slightly diminished by the fact that the line of targets was lengthening, followed them.

  The other two ships were also disgorging spiders while the gliders were flying in tight circles above Rhabwar and the station, although fortunately not low enough for them to hit the meteorite shield when it came on.

  “Sir,” said Dodds worriedly, “the sand doesn’t appear to bother them very much, especially now that all three landing parties are strung out along the beach. It looks as though they are trying move out of sight and circle round behind us. Shall I increase the power and area of focus, sir, to stir up more sand, or maybe try to box them in by—”

  “Deploying another tractor would help,” Haslam broke in. “I’m not doing anything else at the moment.”

  “—By pulling in some water instead of sand,” Dodds continued, “and splashing it down in their path? That might stop them spreading out sideways. They’d be caught between the sea and a wet place.”

  Pleased with the lieutenant because this was an idea Fletcher had not already thought of himself, he said, “We’re told that water has a very bad effect on them and we are, after all, trying to be friendly. Try it, but be very careful not to dowse them.”

  A few minutes later Dodds said jubilantly, “They certainly are afraid of the water; they’ve stopped in their tracks. But now they’re pushing inland again.”

  “Haslam,” said the captain, “man another tractor beam unit—Dodds will give you the settings—and help him out. While he concentrates on the two farther parties, you take the nearest one. Keep moving up and down the line of spiders trying to advance on the station. Leave the waterplashing, if necessary, to Dodds. You shower them with sand only. Try to spoil their ability to see where they’re going, and generally make them feel uncomfortable, but don’t hurt them.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Haslam.

  More and more spiders were crawling down their ships’ landing ramps, but not spreading out because of the threat from the containing splashes of water. If the positions were reversed, Fletcher thought, he would have been wondering why they were not being constantly drenched by water instead of dusted with harmless sand, but then, their minds might not share the same rules of logic.

  Suddenly they were changing tactics.

  “Look at this, sir,” Dodds said urgently. “They’re beginning to weave from side to side, then darting into the falling sand. And when I’m dealing with one flank the other one pushes forward and gains a meter or so of ground. I have to keep changing the point of focus, narrowing it or moving the tractor beam back to keep from hitting them. Chen, we’re going to need that meteorite shield, like now.”

  “The same thing is happening here,” Haslam said. “We’d need to drop a ton of sand on this lot to discourage them. They take turns at running in, zigzagging at random, and … Hell, I hit one of them!”

  It must have been the briefest of touches on one side of the spider’s body, but the tractor beam lifted it two meters into the sand-filled air and flipped it onto it back. It lay with its six limbs waving. Haslam withdrew his beam without being told as a few of the others gathered round their injured companion to lift it back onto its feet. Through the air which was now free of sand, Fletcher had a clear view of the spiders farther up and down the beach beginning to move purposefully towards the station again. Then high on the superstructure of the middle ship of the three, the spider with the speaking trumpet began chittering loudly at them.

  The advance hesitated and slowed to a dead stop. Within a few seconds all three spider landing parties had turned around and were hurrying back to their ships, the injured one being half carried by two of its companions. The gliders were already coming in to land close to their boarding ramps.

  “I’m sorry about hitting that one, sir,” said Haslam, “and I don’t think it was badly hurt. But it looks as though we’ve taught them a lesson because they’ve decided to pull out.”

  “Don’t bet on that, Lieutenant,” said Fletcher dryly. He was raising his hand to point at the scene in the forward viewscreen when the communicator chimed and its screen lit with the image of Dr. Prilicla.

  “Friend Fletcher,” said the Cinrusskin. “The traces of emotional radiation emanating from your crew have been characteristic of excitement, tension and concern, all of which feelings have suddenly diminished in strength. A long and tricky surgical procedure is about to be attempted—once, that is, we solve an associated nonmedical problem. Can you tell me whether or not we can proceed without outside emotional interruptions or distractions?”

  “Doctor,” Fletcher said, laughing softly, “you will be free of distractions for the rest of the day. Judging by the look of that sky there is a heavy rainstorm, not just a squall, moving in. The spiders are returning to their ships as we speak.”

  They watched the dark grey clouds on the horizon expanding to fill the sky and the paler curtain of heavy rain rushing closer. The spiders and their aircraft were safely on board and the sail shields of the three ships were closed tight before the deluge arrived, but they could hear it rattling and bouncing off the flattened domelike hulls which, he realized suddenly, looked very much like umbrellas.

  “This must be the first time,” Haslam said, “that a battle was called off because of rain.”

  CHAPTER 28

  The patient had been prepped for surgery, the operating team of Danalta, Naydrad, and himself h
ad been standing by the table for more than twenty minutes, and friend Murchison was still trying to solve Prilicla’s associated nonmedical problem. It was trying with such intensity to be patient and reasonable that its emotional radiation was making him tremble.

  “Keet,” it was saying, “your life-mate Jasam is unconscious and will not feel pain, either during or while recovering from this procedure. You, however, are feeling the nonmaterial pains of concern, uncertainty, and the continuing emotional trauma over what you think will be the loss of a loved one. To be brutally honest, we may lose Jasam, but we would have a better chance of saving it if you would cooperate by moving out of visual range. Untutored as you are in medical matters, not seeing every incision, resection, and repair as they take place would be easier on you, too. Besides, would Jasam want you to suffer needlessly like this?”

  Keet lay watching the towel-draped form of its life-mate from its litter, which it had insisted be moved into the operating room. It made no reply.

  “In all my nursing experience,” said Naydrad, its fur ruffling in disapproval, “never has the next of kin, or any other nonmedically oriented relative, been allowed to witness a procedure of this complexity. On all the civilized worlds I know of, it is just not done. If this is the custom on Trolann, I think it is a misguided, unnecessarily painful, completely wrong, and barbaric custom.”

  Prilicla was about to apologize for Naydrad’s forthright speech, but stopped himself because the reasons for the Kelgian species’ lack of tact had already been explained to it, but Keet didn’t give him a chance to talk.