“It might not be important,” said Stillman, “but Hewlitt was found sleeping beside that thing. At the time I was too interested in his condition to bother looking at another piece of wreckage.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Murchison, moving quickly to join Fletcher. “Danalta, Naydrad, until we know what this means, forget about the bug and plant specimens.”
Still trembling from the emotional radiation of the others as well as its own excitement, Pnilicla alighted on the ground beside them. “Ml recorders are on, friend Fletcher,” it said. “When you are ready.”
The captain’s words and actions were precise and unhurried as he described aloud what he saw, thought, and did at every stage of his examination, so much so that Hewlitt wondered if the other was talking for posterity in case the thing blew up in his face. Pnilida, with whom cowardice was a prime survival characteristic, and everyone else were standing or hovering as close to Fletcher as possible without getting in his way and seemed not to be worried. Hewlitt moved closer to join them.
According to Fletcher, the object was just a hollow cylinder under three meters long and half a meter in diameter, with two sets of four triangular stabilizers projecting from the midsection and tail. The outer surface of the casing was pitted and discolored and showed evidence of surface melting that suggested it had been subjected to a brief period of ultra-high temperature. There was also a trace of radioactivity, very faint and harmless, indicating that it might have been briefly exposed to an external source of intense radiation as well as heat. Propulsion was by a single, integral chemical booster that occupied three-quarters of the volume. From the analysis of the burnt residue and a rough estimate of the vehicle’s weight, he judged the range to be about sixty to seventy miles.
There were two small, recessed compartments with opened, hinged flaps spaced about one meter apart along the longitudinal axis, equidistant from the vehicle’s center of gravity. The remains of four rotted strands of cable sprouted from the openings, suggesting that the vehicle was intended to be soft-landed in the horizontal position by twin parachutes. There was no sign of the parachute fabric because, Fletcher said, it was either biodegradable or it had been torn off by branches on the way down.
“The first ten inches of the nose section hinges downward,” Fletcher went on. “It probably fell open on landing and was later covered by soil and grass. Apart from the latch mechanism it seems to be filled with dense padding that has not rotted. The forward quarter of the vehicle, where normally I would expect to find the warhead, is filled with the same padding except for a cylindrical space five inches in diameter running along the longitudinal axis for a distance of three-quarters of a meter. Inside the hollow there is a five-inch circle of plastic, thickly padded on the forward face and with the other side attached to a short bar and… and what looks like a piston mechanism designed to expel a cylindrical container of some kind from the hollow interior. But, owing possibly to a malfunction or a rough landing, the piston traveled only halfway along its track so that the container was not completely expelled and, an unknown time later, it was shattered.”
The gloves he was wearing were like a tough, transparent second skin, combining sensitivity of touch with maximum protection. Fletcher kept his eyes on the scanner display as he moved his free hand into the opening.
“As well as about a million insects nesting in the padding,” he continued, “there are small pieces of glasslike material inside and, yes, I can see more of them partially buried in the grass and soil around the hinged nose cone. They appear to be highly polished on one side and covered with a dark brown, matte coating on the other. I expect you will want specimens?”
Murchison dropped onto her hands and knees beside him and said, “Yes!”
Hewlitt could not remember ever hearing a word spoken with such vehemence and suppressed excitement. Fletcher gave her one of the fragments, which she placed in the portable analyzer hanging from her equipment harness. Everyone waited for her to speak.
“Our analyzers agree,” she said to Fletcher. “It is a thin, brittle, very strong glasslike plastic. The degree of curvature indicates that it is a fragment of a cylindrical flask. Apart from a few small traces of insect excrement, the outer surface is clean and highly polished. The opaque coating on the inner surface appears to be a synthetic nutrient, probably in solution, that has since dried out. I will need more specimens and a lengthy session with the ship’s analyzer to tell you the form of life it was meant to feed. Ml I can say now is that the vehicle contained an organism or organisms that needed to be kept alive.”
Fletcher was about to hand her another one of the fragments when he stopped to look at Stillman.
“Doctor,” he said, “did the Etlans ever use chemical or biological weapons?”
CHAPTER 20
Hewlitt took an instinctive step backward, his body breaking into a sweat that was not due to the warmth of the sun, but nobody else moved. Either they were all lacking in imagination, which was unlikely, or there was no danger in the situation. He took another step backward anyway.
“Not to our knowledge, Captain,” Stillman replied. “There is no historical record of them ever being used in Etlan planetary wars, and they would be pretty ineffective in a space battle. Besides, this world was sick enough already. They could have been developed secretly by the emperor’s scientists, and toward the end of the rebellion he might have been desperate enough to use everything he had, but I would say not. The casualty lists of the period mention traumatic injuries resulting from explosions, shrapnel, and gunshot wounds, not disease.”
He paused long enough for Fletcher to pass Murchison three more fragments before going on. “In any case, chemical or biological weapons are designed to burst on impact or in the air above the target. This one was soft-landed by parachute, the expulsion mechanism malfunctioned, and it didn’t break open until it was struck by something.”
“Or someone,” said Prilicla.
One by one they turned to stare at Hewlitt, as surprised by the empath’s words as he was himself. It was Stillman who spoke first.
He said, “If you mean that it was the Hewlitt child who fell onto this thing, smashed it, and released whatever was inside, I can’t help you. He was lying beside it, but it was dark and I was too busy examining him to notice whether there was any broken glass lying around. Besides, Etlan pathogens cannot affect anyone from off-planet. We all know that. And, well, he looks as if he hasn’t had a day’s illness in his life.”
There was a faint trembling in Prilicla’s limbs as it nerved itself for the effort of telling another person that he was wrong.
“Friend Hewlitt has a long history of nonspecific illnesses,” it said, “all of which responded negatively to treatment. For that reason, diagnosis has been uncertain and the strange succession of symptoms displayed was initially and perhaps mistakenly thought to have a purely psychological basis. Our provisional diagnosis is that he suffers from a wide-ranging, hyperallergic reaction to all forms of medication used so far. We are fairly sure that the condition is not life-threatening, except when an attempt is made to administer medication orally, by subcutaneous injection, or by external application and massage into the dermis. It is a clinically confusing picture.”
Stillman shook his head, then pointed at the torpedo. “And is this thing helping to reduce your confusion?”
A faint tremor shook the empath’s body as if someone, perhaps Prilicla itself, was generating unpleasant emotional radiation. Instead of answering the question, it said, “Friend Stillman, I have been feeling your hunger and that of the others since I refused the Tralthans’ offer of hospitality at the house. My reason for doing so is that Rhabwar’s food synthesizer was recently reprogrammed by Chief Dietitian Gurronsevas himself, and we could do a better job of satisfying it on the ship. Would you like to dine with us on board, now?”