“Granted,” said Conway, “but an e-t who is injured and only partly conscious might react instinctively, illogically, to the sight of an alien being who might physically resemble a natural enemy or a predator on its home planet. And the treatment of a conscious extraterrestrial, a stranger who has no prior knowledge of the beings carrying out the treatment, might be mistaken for something else- torture, perhaps, or medical experimentation. All too often a doctor has to be cruel to be kind.”
At that moment a large, circular section of the ceiling came free, its edges still bright red with the heat of the cutting torches, and was pushed away by Dodds and the Captain. As it followed them through the gap, Prilicla said, “I’m sorry if I confused you, friends. The survivor is moving slowly, but it is too deeply unconscious to move itself.”
Their spotlights played over a compartment that was open to space in several places, filled with drifting masses of debris, containers of various sizes, a shoal of bright objects that were probably sealed food packages, shelving and the bodies of three unsuited aliens, which were torn and swollen by the twin effects of massive external injuries and explosive decompression. The lights of the Rhabwar shone brightly through an open tangle of metal, illuminating the areas where their spotlights did not reach.
“It’s here?” asked Fletcher in disbelief.
“It is here,” said Prilicla.
The empath was indicating a large metal cabinet, drifting slowly past on the outer fringes of the wreckage. The container was deeply scratched and furrowed by violent contact with other metal, and there was one dent in particular that was at least six inches deep. There was a slight haze around the object, indicating that the air trapped inside was escaping slowly.
“Naydrad!” Conway called urgently. “Forget your pressure litter. The survivor has provided one of its own, but it is depressurizing. We’ll push it outside where you can see it, then you can pull it on board with a tractor. As fast as you can, Naydrad.”
“Doctor,” the Captain asked as they were maneuvering the cabinet through a gap in the wreckage, “do we spend time here looking for information on this species, or do we go on looking for other survivors?”
“We go looking, Captain,” responded Conway without hesitation. “With luck, the survivor will tell us all we want to know about its species during convalescence …
When the cabinet had been transferred to the Casualty Deck, the Captain examined its door actuator. He said that the operating mechanism was straightforward and that the strength of the door and its surrounding structure had kept that particular face of the cabinet from being deformed during the collision.
“He means the door will open,” Dodds translated dryly.
Fletcher glared at the Lieutenant. “The question is, Should we open it without taking precautions-more precautions than you are taking now, Doctor?”
Conway finished drilling, and he withdrew an air sample from the cabinet interior before replying. As he handed the sample to Murchison for analysis, he said, “Captain, the box does not contain an Earth-human DBDG with influenza. We will find an e-t of a hitherto unknown species in urgent need of medical attention, and as I have already explained, we are in no danger from extraterrestrial pathogens.”
“I keep worrying about the exception that might prove the rule, Doctor,” the Captain replied doggedly. But he unsealed his visor to show everyone that he was not too badly worried.
“Doctor Prilicla, please,” came Haslam’s voice from Control. “Minus ten minutes.”
The little empath hovered briefly over the cabinet, assured them that there was no marked change in the survivor’s emotional radiation-it was still deeply unconscious, but far from being terminal-and hurried to the airlock so that when the astrogator made a close approach to the next mass of wreckage Prilicla would be able to ascertain whether or not anything had survived in it. As the Cinrusskin left, Murchison straightened up from the analyzer display.
“If we assume that the first sample was taken from a compartment at normal atmospheric composition and pressure,” she said, “then, apart from a few innocuous trace elements that our ship atmosphere does not contain, we would be quite happy breathing the same air as they do. But the sample from the cabinet is at half normal pressure and is high in carbon dioxide and water vapor. In short, the air inside that cabinet is dangerously thin and stale, and the sooner we get that beastie out of there the better.”
“Right,” said Conway. He removed the sampling drill without sealing the hole it had made, and as the Casualty Deck’s air whistled into the cabinet, he said, “Open her up, Captain.”
The cabinet was lying on its back with the door fastening, a rectangular metal plate with three conical indentations on it, facing upwards. Fletcher pulled off one of his gauntlets, pressed three fingers hard into the impressions and slid the plate aside. They heard a loud click, then he lifted the door open. Inside was a confused, bloody mess.
It took Conway several minutes to realize what had happened and to withdraw the bloodstained clothing or bedding from around the survivor. The cabinet had once contained upwards of twenty shelves, which had been pulled out hastily and the metal shelf supports padded with bedding or clothing to protect the occupant. But the collision had been a violent one, and there had been no time to attach the padding properly to the supports. As a result, both the padding and the survivor had been tumbled about the interior of the cabinet. The hapless e-t was jammed tightly into one end of the box, still bleeding sluggishly from a great many lacerations made by the shelf supports, and the colored bands of fur could barely be seen through tufted and matted patches of dried blood.
Very gently Murchison and Naydrad helped Conway lift out the survivor and lay it on the examination table. One of the gashes in its side began to bleed more freely, but as yet they did not know enough about the being to risk using one of their coagulants. Conway began going over its body with his scanner. “There must not have been any spacesuits in that compartment. But they must have had a few minutes’ warning, enough for this one to clear and pad the cabinet and get inside, leaving the other three we saw to—”
“No, Doctor,” said the Captain. He indicated the airtight cabinet. “It cannot be closed or opened from inside. The four of them must have decided which one was to survive, and they did their best for it, very quickly and, I should say, with minimum argument. As a species they seem to be very … civilized.”
“I see,” said Conway without looking up.
He did not know if there was any minor displacement of the survivor’s internal organs, but his scanner indicated that none of the major ones were damaged or radically out of position. The spine also appeared to be undamaged, as did the elongated rib cage. On the back just above the root of the thick, furry tail was a bright pink area, which Conway thought at first was a patch where the fur was missing. But closer examination showed that it was a natural feature, and there were large flakes of what appeared to be some kind of pigment adhering to it. The being’s head, which was tucked against its underside and partially covered by the tail, was conical, rodentlike and thickly furred. The skull itself appeared intact, but there was evidence of subcutaneous bleeding in several areas, which in a being without facial fur would have shown as massive bruising. There was some bleeding from the mouth, but Conway could not be sure whether it was due to an external blow or was the effect of lung damage caused by decompression.
“Help me straighten the poor thing out,” he said to Naydrad. “It looks as if it tried to roll itself into a ball. Probably an instinctive defense posture it adopts when threatened by natural enemies.”