Any species that had evolved to the point of social and technological cooperation necessary for them to travel between the stars had to be civilized. This was the considered opinion of the Federation’s most advanced minds, which were housed inside some sixtyodd different life-forms. Conway had never been the slightest bit xenophobic, but neither was he completely convinced that somewhere there wasn’t an exception that would prove the rule.
“I’m going back with the specimens now,” Murchison said. “I may be able to find some answers. The trouble is finding the right questions to ask.”
Fletcher was stretched out on the deck again with one hand inside the control area. “I’ll have to shut off that … whatever it is. But I don’t know where exactly my hand was when I switched it on, or if I switched on anything else at the same time.” He tripped his suit radio toggle. “Haslam, Chen. Will you chart the extent of the noise and vibrations, please, and is there evidence of any other unusual activity within the ship?” He turned to Conway. “Doctor, while I’m trying to find the right button to push, would you do something for me? Use my cutting torch on the corridor wall midway between the L-bend here and the airlock—”
He broke off as they were suddenly plunged into absolute darkness, which seemed to augment the clanging and metallic screeching sounds to such an extent that Conway fumbled for his helmet light switch in near panic. But before he could reach it the ship’s lighting came on again.
“That wasn’t it,” said the Captain, then he continued: “The reason I want you to do this, Doctor, is to find an easier path to the survivors than the one along the corridor. You probably noticed that the majority of the cable runs originating in the control pods go inboard towards the power generation area of the ship, with very few leading out to the periphery. From this I assume that the area of the vessel outboard of the corridor cage and control center is the storage or cargo sections, which should, if the blind ones follow basic design philosophy where their spaceships are concerned, be comprised of large compartments connected by simple doors rather than pressurized bulkheads and airlocks. If this is so, and the sensor readings seem to confirm it, we should have to move only some cargo or stores out of the way to be able to bypass the control pods and get to the survivors fairly quickly. We would not have to risk running through that corridor, or worry about accidentally depressurlzing the ship by cutting in from topside …
Before the Captain had finished speaking, Conway began cutting a narrow vertical rectangle in the wall plating, a shape that would enable both his eyes and the helmet light to be directed through the opening at the same time so that he could see into the adjoining compartment. But when he burned through the wall there was nothing to see except a black, powdery substance, which spilled out of the opening and hung in a weightless cloud until the movement of his cutter flame sent it spinning into tiny three-dimensional whirlpools.
He worked his hand carefully into the hole, feeling the warmth of the still-hot edges through his thin gauntlets, and withdrew a small handful of the stuff to examine it more closely. Then he moved to another section of the wall and tried again. And again.
Fletcher watched him but did not speak. All of the Captain’s attention was again concentrated in his fingertips. Conway began working on the opposite wall of the corridor, reducing the size of the test holes to speed up the process. When he had cut four widely separated fist-sized holes without uncovering anything but the powdery material, he called Murchison.
“We are finding large quantities of a coarse black powder,” he told her, “which has a faint odor suggesting an organic or partly organic composition. It could be a form of nutrient soil. Does that fit the crew’s physiology profile?”
“It fits,” said Murchison promptly. “From my preliminary examination of the two small cadavers I would say that the atmosphere in their ship is for the convenience of the larger FSOJ life-form. The blind ones do not possess lungs as such. They are burrowers who metabolize the organic constituents of their soil as well as any other plant or animal tissue that happens to be available. They ingest the soil via the large frontal mouth opening, but the larger upper lip is capable of being folded over the lower one so that the mouth is sealed shut when it needs to burrow without eating. We’ve noticed atrophy of the limbs, or to be more accurate, the movable pads on the underside that propel it, and of hypersensitivity in the uppersurface tactual sensors. This probably means that their culture has evolved to the stage where they inhabit artificially constructed tunnel systems with readily accessible food supplies, rather than having to burrow for it. The material you describe could be a special loosely packed nutrient soil that combines the ship’s food supply with a medium for physical exercise.”
“I see,” said Conway.
A blind, burrowing worm who somehow managed to reach the stars! Then Murchison’s next words reminded him that the blind ones were capable of seemingly petty and cruel activities as well as those that were great and glorious.
“Regarding the survivors,” she went on, “if the FSOJ laboratory animal, or whatever it is, is too close to the surviving crew-member and we cannot rescue both without endangering ourselves or the blind one, a large reduction in atmospheric pressure, provided it is carried out gradually so as to avoid decompression damage to the blind one’s tissues, would disable or more likely kill the FSOJ.”
“That would be the last thing we would try,” said Conway firmly. The rules were very strict in first-contact situations like this, where one could never be absolutely sure that an apparently senseless and ferocious beast was, in fact, a non-sentient creature.
“I know, I know,” Murchison replied. “And it will interest you to know that the FSOJ was in an advanced stage of pregnancy, a time during which most life-forms, regardless of their degree of intelligence, can feel overprotective, overemotional and overaggressive if they think their unborn is being threatened. That might be the reason why the FSOJ broke out of its cage. As well, the blind one would not have been able to kill it with its horn if the FSOJ’s underbody had not been locally weakened in preparation for the imminent birth.”
Conway considered that for a moment. “The female FSOJ’s condition and the beating and prodding it had to take in the—”
“I didn’t say it was female,” Murchison broke in, “though it may be. In many ways it is a far more interesting life-form than the blind one.
“Save your mental energy for the one we know is intelligent,” Conway snapped at her. There was a moment’s silence, broken only by the background hiss from the suit radio. Then he apologized:
“Ignore me, please, I’ve got a bad headache.”
“Me, too,” Fletcher said. “I expect it is caused by the noise and subsonic effects of the vibration of all this moving machinery. If his headache is half as bad as mine you can forgive him, ma’am, and if you could have some helpful medication ready when we return to the ship—”
“Make that three,” said Murchison. “My head has been aching since I came back here, and I was exposed to the noise and vibration for only a few minutes. And I’ve bad news for you: The headache does not respond to medication.”
She broke contact. “Doesn’t it seem strange,” Fletcher asked worriedly, “that three people who breathed the air in this ship are suffering from—”
“Back at the hospital,” Conway broke in, “they have a saying that psychosomatic aches are contagious and incurable. Murchison’s analyzer checked the ship’s atmosphere for toxic material, and any alien bugs present are just not interested in us. This particular headache could be a product of anxiety, tension, or a combination of various psychological factors. But because it is affecting all three of us at once, and all three of us have spent some time inside the ship, it is probable that the headache is being caused by some outside agency, very likely the noise and vibration from that corridor, and you were right the first time. I’m sorry I mentioned it.”