"Jupiter! All of you!" It was Miranda's voice. "What's the matter with the old man?"
And then they all dragged themselves hastily to Many-face's couch, Delilah grabbing at his wrist to check pulse, Castor pulling down an eyelid set into the great pumpkin-head to peer at the pupil.
The pulse was faint but regular, the breathing shallow but steady. When Castor released the eyelid it closed and stayed closed.
Manyface was certainly alive. From all external signs he was merely, and contentedly, asleep. But they could not wake him up.
V
Within the patchwork brain of Manyface some voices called out in panic; others were ominously silent. Said Potter Alicia nervously, "What happened? Are we all right? Why do we have pain?" Said Angorak Aglat, as always shouting angrily, "The old fool has had a stroke or something. What a useless creature he is! Now we're all in for it!" Said Su Wonmu, "Comrades, comrades, let us be at peace among ourselves! We gain nothing by squabbling. Something has happened to our body, yes, that is clear. But let's not blame anyone—not, at any rate, until we learn what stupid thing Fung Bohsien did to land us in this mess!" And Fung himself said wearily, "Oh, shut up, all of us. Can't you see there is an embolism somewhere, or perhaps an aneurism?"
Silent shrieks and yells of rage: Embolism! Stroke! It was no use telling the voices to shut up. They couldn't be coerced, and they saw no reason to cooperate. A couple did not speak at all. "Corelli?" called Fung, as loudly as he could. "Hsang?" But they did not answer. The committee had lost some of its members, it seemed. The quorum still present yelled even louder, if silence can ever be loud—drowned each other out, in as wild a display of confusion as ever accompanied any implant. It was not merely fear that gripped them, it was actual pain. The skull they held in joint tenancy seemed to throb with explosions of agony, and each time the voices screamed louder. "Please, quiet," Fung begged his colleagues. "It doesn't help anything to go crazy!"
"But what are they doing to us?" wailed Potter, trying to make sense of the skewed sensory impressions that filtered through the disturbed perceptual systems.
Surprisingly, it was Shum Hengdzhou who answered. The whilom ironworker had listened bashfully while everyone else shouted and ranted, but now he ventured, "Alicia? I think they are only trying to help us."
"Help!" several voices sneered, but Shum was steadfast.
"Yes, I think help," he said mildly. "I think they are attempting first aid. Of course, it is true that this vessel has no complete life-support system, and so perhaps they cannot do much, but still... Comrades? Is there a point in shouting at each other, since there is nothing we can do while we are acting this way?"
"What a fool you are, Shum," said Su Wonmu in spiteful disgust. "However we act, what can we do?"
"Well, Comrade Su," said Shum, "I do recall that the first advice to any stroke patient is to relax. We could do that much, anyway, while our shipmates attempt to do what they can."
For a wonder, there was a moment's silence. Then Fung spoke heavily. "That's good advice, Shum. It is not likely to save our lives—not all of us, anyway, since it seems we have already lost one or two. But it is the best we can do, only—"
Pause of a microsecond or two, while the surviving members of the committee waited to hear what came next. "Only?" prompted Potter Alicia worriedly.
"Only what I am thinking is that our lives are not really that important. By all rights we should all have been dead long ago anyway. What is important is to keep the erks from wiping out everybody on Earth... and about that we can do nothing at all."
They had long since set up a patch to the diagnostic machines on World, and it was the pilot, Delilah, who was assigned to watch the readouts. "He's alive all right," she reported. "But there's something wrong with his brain."
"There's a great deal wrong with his brain," Jupiter agreed. He was trying to hold the medical sensors to arm, chest, head, and throat; the sticky pastes were not strong enough to withstand Manyface's erratic movements. "Tell them they mustn't let him die!" he ordered. Delilah gave him a surprised and ironic look. "I mean," he explained, "have you thought about what it means if we're stuck with a corpse for the next couple of days? He'll begin to smell." He looked surprised at the expressions on the faces of his shipmates. "But it is only sensible to think of such things," he protested indignantly.
Miranda said, "Just shut up and hold those electrodes on, will you?" She was cradling the old man's huge, queer head in her arms. It weighed nothing, of course, but when he had a spasm he seemed likely to bash himself or even snap the overstrained old neck. "Can't they tell us anything to do?" she demanded fiercely.
"They've been telling us," sighed Delilah. "Only we don't have any of the things to do it with."
"It's the wrong ship," said Castor sadly. "The other one had life-support systems for Manyface."
"Then we should have taken the other ship!" snapped Feng Miranda. It was only when she, too, noticed the expressions on the faces looking at her that it occurred to her that her concern was odd. Manyface was an enemy, after all! Jupiter might easily have to shoot him if there was any nonsense aboard the ship—she herself had made sure that could happen. And yet, looking down on the face beneath the great domed forehead, Miranda's thoughts were all of saving life, not taking it. "Shouldn't we give him more .anticoagulants?" she asked fretfully.
"Tchai Howard says no," said Delilah.
"Tchai Howard is no doctor!"
"But the Yank medical sisters agree with him, Miranda. Please try to control yourself. We're doing the best we can."
"It's been hours! How long can he survive like this?"
"However long it is," said Delilah steadily, "that is how long he has to do it. Wait. They are complaining about a degraded signal. Are the electrodes in place?"
Guiltily Jupiter looked back at his charge and readjusted his holds. The currents that flowed through them measured resistances and temperatures, mapped the alpha and beta waves of the brain, told all that could be told of the invisible struggle going on inside the huge head. Thousands of kilometers below them, the erks and humans gathered at Mission Control knew more about what was happening within that structure of bone and metal and plastic than they could see. Miranda sobbed, "He really was not a bad old man."
And realized she had spoken in the past tense.
And within the skull of Manyface the committee was beginning to think of itself in the same way. "I wish I could have seen my grandchild," sighed Potter Alicia.
"We all have regrets," said Angorak, for once not shouting.
They were all silent, thinking of regrets, until Shum 282 spoke up. "Our biggest regret, I think, should be that we are doing nothing to keep the Earth from being destroyed," he said mildly.
"We do regret that, you foolish person," said Angorak at once. Then, repenting, "I am sorry, Shum. I spoke out of anger. I am angry because I am helpless. There is nothing we can do."
"Yes," agreed Shum, "if we are helpless we can do nothing. If we cannot speak or act, we are helpless. If we are imprisoned here among ourselves with no contact, then everything is in vain for us; but is that true? Are we completely without contact?"
Silence for a moment. Then Potter Alicia, diffidently, "Shum? I did think I saw just a flicker of light a moment ago. Is that what you mean?"