The robot followed close behind him as he turned and moved out of the passageway, past the T-junction to the door opposite. It made no attempt tointerfere when he pressed the actuator buttons on the opposite door. As well as being its sole protector, he was beginning to think that it was the only source of vision that the first survivor had.
The door opened into another passageway that was identical in size and layout to the one he had just left, but there the resemblance ended. Only two of the lighting units came on as the door opened so that he had to use his helmet light to see through the transparent access hatches.
“Are you seeing this?” he said again, unnecessarily. “The plumbing and circuitry in this area has sustained damage.”
“We see it, Doctor,” replied the captain, who must have joined Haslam in control. “And there are signs that someone has been trying to effect repairs.”
Two of the pipe junctions had been wrapped in some form of metalized, adhesive tape, but not tightly enough to prevent a rush of air or vaporized fluid from fogging the joints. Behind the hatches he could see that many of the visible cable looms showing patches of heat discoloration, and several had been ruptured. One group, which bore the color-coding indicating that it led from the hull sensors, had been pulled apart, opened and the fine, hair-thin individual strands of wiring fanned outwards in preparation for splicing.
The repair work was nowhere near completion. Prilicla indicated the areas of damage in turn, pointing at the robot each time, then he pointed several times towards the damage and to himself. He was trying to ask two questions— whether the robot was responsible for the attempted repairs, and if Prilicla would be allowed to help complete the work. If the robot or its director understood him, there was no way as yet that they could answer. He moved to the inner door.
It was no surprise that the robot was there first, its body covering the actuator buttons to bar his entrance. But for now he would be content to touch the mind rather than the body on the other side of the door.
The general emotional texture was the same as he had detected from the other survivor, but the content was shockingly different. This time there was physical as well as emotional trauma. He couldn’t even guess at what was causing the physical discomfort, but there was a feeling of constriction, possibly of suffocation, that was overlaid by fear, despair, and the dreadful, negative emotion characteristic of utter isolation. He edged a little closer to the door and, as he had done earlier, concentrated on rejecting reassurance, friendship, and sympathy.
It took longer this time, possibly because he was tiring again, but finally there was a reaction. Faintly, through the cloud of Nativity he detected surprise, curiosity, and a feeling of hope. He began using his helmet light, but there was no change in the other’s emotional radiation. He asked the captain to duplicate sequence with the ship’s lighting. Still there was no response. Friend Fletcher,” he said, hiding his feelings with unemotional words, “I have detected the presence of a second all survivor. Its emotional radiation suggests that they are not i contact or presently aware of each other. The first one is distressed but not seriously injured. The second one, whose sensory and life-support systems are compromised as a result, I feel sure of it being closer to the damaged side of their ship, is injured and short of food, air, and water. It is also deaf, dumb, and blind.
“Full communications with and between the two aliens must be established as soon as possible,” he ended, “and both survivors must be extricated and treated without delay.”
“Doctor,” said the captain, “just how will we manage that?” “Thankfully I am not the specialist in other-species technology, friend Fletcher,” he replied. “I’mreturning to my quarters now to rest. Perhaps the solution will come to me in my sleep.
CHAPTER 16
The Terragar casualties were progressing well enough to have their litters moved outside for a few hours each day so that the psychological therapy of fresh air and sunshine could reinforce the effects of her medication. The sun would warm and relax and tan the pallor of long service in space from their bodies and, because this world’s ionization layer was intact, there would be no harmful aftereffects. But she could not spend all of her free time in ministering-angel mode and saying reassuring things to her patients even though, because of them being officers and presumably gentlemen, they did not object to her company or comment on her abbreviated dress. Now that their burns were healing to the point where there was no longer the risk of her Earth-human pathogens getting to them, she was not wearing her breathing mask and white coveralls.
Murchison’s intention was to walk completely around the island over the firm sand by the water’s edge. From their first hilltop observations three days earlier, she had estimated that the trip would take just under two hours and, while nobody had ever accused her of being antisocial, she would have preferred to walk alone and avoid having to tell therapeutic half-truths to a colleague. The casualties had progressed to the stage where they were becoming restive and worrying less about whether or not the would survive than how soon the transfer to Sector General for their reconstructive surgery would take place. Danalta and Nay drad were asking the same questions, which were valid and deserving of straight answers, but she had no hard information to give them because she hadn’t been given any herself.
When asked, during her daily report to Rhabwar, the captain had stated that it was a medical matter and referred her to her boss. Prilicla, in its gentle, inoffensive, but totally immovable fashion, said that the timing was uncertain because they were trying to communicate with and extricate two other-species casualties from the alien vessel, that there were complications and the answer was “not soon.”
She had passed this information on to Naydrad and Danalta but not to the patients. They might be disturbed by the thought that very soon the two beings who had been responsible for destroying their ship might be lying in the beds beside theirs.
Obviously Danalta had grown tired of being a multicolored beach-ball shape and had changed itself into a more challenging shape, that of a Drambon Roller.
Outwardly it was a perfect replica of the CLHG physiological classification native to the planet Drambo, although she doubted that even Danalta could mimic the complex movements of the original creature’s internal organs which enabled it to roll continuously from the moment of partuition until the end of its life.
Physically, a water-breathing Roller resembled an animated donut that rotated vertically on its outer edge, with a fringe of short, manipulatory tentacles sprouting from the inner circumference and curving outwards on both sides to give balance at slow speeds. Between the roots of the tentacles she could see that the shape-changer had perfectly reproduced the series of gills as well as the visual equipment which operated coeleostat fashion to compensate for its constantly rotating field of vision. The original life-form had used a gravity feed system for circulation rather than a muscular pump, which was why they died quickly when weakness, accident, or an attacking predator caused them to fall on their sides and stop rotating. Her first experience of giving CPR. to a stopped Drambon had been like rolling a floppy, half-inflated ground car’s inner tube around underwater. She laughed suddenly.
“That’s very good, Doctor,” she said. “If there were another Drambon on the island, it would find you irresistible.”
Ahead of her, the donut shape made a right-angle turn, stopped, and bent almost double in a bow of appreciation at the compliment. Then it melted and slumped into a shapeless mound of green jelly which sprouted vertically into a tall, erect, yellowish-pink shape which oozed and melted into a near-perfect, two-thirds-scale replica of Murchison herself.