“Interesting,” Conway said quietly, “but we’re wasting time. Prilicla?”
Through his helmet phones, the empath’s voice replied at once. “I hear you, friend Conway. Lieutenant Haslam is relaying an overall picture of the area to me through the telescope, and your helmet vision pickups enable me to see all that you see. Standing by.”
“Very good,” Conway said. To the others he went on, “Naydrad will accompany me with the litter. The rest of you split up and take a quick look at the other casualties. If any of them are moving, or there are indications of recent movement, call Pathologist Murchison or me at once.”
As they moved off he added, “It is important that we don’t waste time on cadavers at the expense of possible survivors. But be careful. This is a new life-form to us, and we are likewise strange to it. Physically we may resemble something it fears, and there is the added factor of the survivor being weak, in pain, and mentally confused. Guard against an instinctive, violent reaction from them which, in normal circumstances, would not occur.” He stopped talking because the others were already fanning our and the first casualty, lying very still and partly covered by sand, was only a few meters away.
As Naydrad helped him scoop sand from around the body Conway saw that the being was six-limbed, with a stubby, cylindrical torso with a spherical head at one end and possibly a tail at the other extremity, although the severity of the injuries made it difficult to be sure. The two forelimbs terminated in long, flexible digits. There were two recognizable eyes, partially concealed by heavy lids, and various slits and orifices which were doubtless aural and olfactory sensors and the openings for respiration and ingestion. The tegument, which was pale brown shading to a deeper, reddish color on its top surface, showed many incised wounds and abrasions which had bled freely but had since congealed and become encrusted with sand — perhaps the sand had assisted in the process of coagulation. Even the large wound at the rear, which looked as if it might be the result of a traumatic amputation, was remarkably dry.
Conway bent closer and began going over the body with his scanner. There was no evidence of fracturing or of damaged or displaced organs, so far as he could see, so the being could” be moved without risk of complicating its injuries. Naydrad was waiting with the litter to see whether it was a survivor for immediate loading or a cadaver for later dissection, when Con-way’s scanner’s sensors detected cardiac activity, extremely feeble but undoubtedly present, and respiration so slow and shallow that he had almost missed it.
“Are you getting this, Prilicla?” he said.
“Yes, friend Conway,” replied the empath. “A most interesting life-form.”
“There is considerable tissue wastage,” he went on, still using the scanner. “Possibly the result of dehydration. And there is a similarity in degree and type of the injuries which I find strange …” He trailed off into silence as Naydrad helped him lift the casualty into the litter.
“No doubt it has already occurred to you, friend Conway,” Prilicla said, using the form of words which was the closest it ever came to suggesting that someone had missed the obvious, “that the dehydration and the deeper coloration on the upper areas of the epidermis may be connected with local environmental factors, and the redness is due to sunburn.”
It had not occurred to Conway, but fortunately the emotional radiation associated with his embarrassment was well beyond the range of the empath. He indicated the litter and said, “Naydrad, don’t forget to fit the sun filter.”
In his phones he heard Murchison laughing quietly, then she said, “It hadn’t occurred to me, either, so don’t feel bad about it. But I have a couple of beasties over here I’d like you to look at. Both are alive, just barely, with a'large number of incised wounds. There is a great disparity in mass between them, and the arrangement of the internal organs in the large one is, well, peculiar. For instance, the alimentary canal is—”
“Right now,” Conway broke in, “we must concentrate on separating the living and the dead. Detailed examinations and discussions will have to wait until we’re back on the ship, so spend as little time as possible on each one. But I know how you feel — my casualty has some peculiarities as well.”
“Yes, Doctor,” she replied coldly, in spite of his half apology. Pathologists, even beautiful ones like Murchison, he thought, were strange people.
“Captain? Lieutenant Dodds?” he said irritably. “Any other survivors?”
“I haven’t been looking at them closely, Doctor,” Retcher replied. There was an odd harshness in his voice. Possibly the condition of the crash victims was distressing to a nonmedical man, Conway thought, and some of these casualties were in really bad shape. But before he could reply the Captain went on, “I’ve been moving around the area quickly, counting them and looking to see if any have been covered by sand or hidden between rocks. There are twenty-seven of them in all. But the positioning of the bodies is odd, Doctor. It’s as if the ship was in imminent danger of blowing up or catching fire, and they used the last of their remaining strength to escape from it.
“The sensors show no such danger,” he added.
Dodds waited for a few seconds to be sure that the Captain had finished speaking, then said, “Three alive and showing slight movement. One that looks dead, but you’re the doctor, Doctor.”
“Thank you,” Conway said dryly. “We’ll look at them as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Lieutenant, help Naydrad load the litter, please.”
He joined Murchison then, and for the next hour they moved among the casualties, assessing the degree of injury and readying them for transfer to the lander. The litter was almost full and had space for two of the medium-sized casualties, which they had tentatively classified as belonging to physiological type DCMH, or one of the large DCOJs. The very small DCLGs, which were less than half the mass of the DCMH Conway had first examined, were left for the time being because they all showed flickerings of life. As yet neither Murchison nor Conway could make sense of them physiologically. She thought the small DCLGs might be nonintelligent lab animals or possibly ship’s pets, while Conway was convinced that the large DCOJs were food animals, also nonintelligent. But with newly discovered e xtra-terrestrial life-forms, one could never be sure of anything, and all of them would therefore have to be treated as patients.
Then they found one of the small aliens who was quite definitely dead. Murchison said briskly, “I’ll work on it in the lander. Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll have something to tell Prilicla about their basal metabolism before the casualties begin arriving.”
A flurry of wind blew the sand disturbed by her feet ahead of her as she moved toward the lander, the small cadaver supported by her shoulder and one arm while the other hand, carrying her med kit, acted as a counterbalance. Conway was about to suggest that a proper examination on Rhabwar, where the full laboratory facilities were available, would be better. But Murchis-on would already have considered doing that and decided agai nst it, for two obvious reasons: If she returned to the ambulance ship with Dodds and Naydrad, some of the casualties already loaded would have to be left behind, and she needed to tell Prilicla only enough for the empath to provide emergency surgery and supportive treatment until the survivors were taken to Sector General.
“Captain, you overheard?” Conway said. “I’d like Dodds and Naydrad to take off as soon as Pathologist Murchison is through. It looks as if three trips will be necessary to lift all of them, and another for ourselves. We’re going to be pushed for time if th is is to be wrapped up before the sunset storm hits the area.”