Conway broke off as they entered the Control Deck because Murchison was high above them closing the personnel hatch. She said, “Don’t let me interrupt you, but now that we will be using the cutting torches in a confined space, I’m going to take the patient off pure oxygen. It seems to be breathing easily now. Would one part oxygen to four inert.be suitable, Doctor?”
“Fine,” Conway said. “I’ll help you.”
The hissing of sand against the outer hull rose suddenly and the whole ship seemed to lurch sideways. There was a screeching and banging sound from amidships, which halted suddenly as a section of hull plating tore free and blew away.
“A piece of the wreck has blown away,” Dodds reported unnecessarily, then went on, “The thorn patches have halted over the food containers, and those nearby are converging on the area. But there are other large clumps off to the side which are still heading directly for the wreck. They are moving quite fast. The wind is behind them and they are letting it carry them forward using only enough of their root system to maintain a loose hold on the ground. At this rate they could be at the ship in half an hour.”
It was as if an enormous, soft pillow struck the side of the ship. The deck tilted under their feet, then righted itself. This time it sounded as if maniacs with sledgehammers were attacking three different sections of the hull until, a few seconds later, the banging ceased. But to the sound of the sand beating against the hull plating was added the discordant moaning and whistling of the wind as it forced its way into the wreck.
“Our defenses,” the Captain said worriedly, “have become decidedly porous. But go on, Doctor.”
“The ship made an emergency landing here,” Conway resumed, “because they had no time to look for a better spot. It was a good landing, all things considered, and it was sheer bad luck that they toppled and as a result ruptured that hydraulic reservoir. If they hadn’t done so it is possible that their illness, whatever the cause, would have run its course and in time they would have taken off again. Or maybe the first sandstorm would have knocked them over anyway. But instead they crash-landed and found themselves suddenly in a wreck which was rapidly filling with toxic fumes. Weakened by their condition as they were, they had to get out fast and, because the escape routes aft led past the source of the contaminant and were partly blocked by wreckage from the fall, they had to evacuate through the Control Deck here and along the upper surface of the hull, then slide to the ground.
“They injured themselves very seriously in doing so,” Con-way added.
He paused for a moment to help Murchison change over the patient’s air supply. From the stern there was a clanking sound which reverberated steadily and monotonously throughout the ship. One of the pieces of wreckage was refusing to become detached. Conway raised his voice.
“The reason they did not move far from their ship was probably two-fold,” he continued. “As a result of the debilitating effects of their illness, they did not have the strength to move farther, and I suspect there were strong psychological reasons for remaining close to their ship. Their physical condition, the high temperatures, and the indications of malnutrition observed, which we mistakenly assumed to be due to enforced starvation, were symptoms of the disease. The state of deep unconsciousness may also have been a symptom, or possibly some kind of hibernation mode which they adopt when injured or otherwise distressed and assistance is likely to be delayed, and which slows the metabolic rate and reduces bleeding.”
Fletcher was readying his cutting torch and looking baffled. He said, “Disease and injuries caused by escaping from the wreck I can believe. But what about the missing limbs and—”
“Dodds, sir,” Rhobwar’s astrogator broke in. “I’m afraid the midnight drop in wind strength will not affect your area. There are local weather disturbances. Three large thorn patches have reached the stern and sections of the peripheral growth are entering the food storage deck. A lot of hull plating is missing there. Once they open that concentrated store of food they’ll probably lose interest in anything else.” His optimism sounded forced.
Murchison said, “We’re not completely sure that it was a disease that caused the trouble, Captain. From the analysis of the stomach contents of the cadaver from the dormitory deck the indications are that it was a severe gastrointestinal infection caused by a bug native to their home planet, and the symptom which led us to suspect malnutrition was total regurgitation of stomach contents in all of the other cases. The casualty from the dormitory had been knocked unconscious before the process was complete and was asphyxiated shortly afterward so that involuntary regurgitation did not take place. But it is also possible that the ship’s own food supply was contaminated and that caused the trouble.”
Conway wondered if it was possible for a mobile omnivorous vegetable to get food poisoning, and if it would take effect in time to save them from the thorns. He rather doubted it.
“Thank you, Ma’am,” Fletcher said, and went on, “About the missing limbs?”
“There are no missing limbs. Captain,” she replied. “Or perhaps the crew are all missing the same organ, their head. The large number of the other injuries concealed the truth at first, but there are no missing limbs, and there is no criminal.”
Fletcher looked at Conway, too polite to express his disbelief to the pathologist in words, and the Doctor took over the explanation. But he had to work as he talked because he and Murchison were faced with the long, difficult job of transferring the big alien from its cupola to the litter.
It was hard to imagine the set of environmental circumstances which had caused such an essentially helpless life-form to evolve, become dominant, and in time achieve a culture capable of star travel, Conway said, but these gross, limbless, and all too obviously immobile creatures had done just that. It was a host-symbiote, they now knew, who had developed multiple symbiotes specialized so as to act as short-and long-range manipulators and sensors. Its stumps and the areas which on the casualties had been mistaken for amputation sites were the interfaces which joined the host creature to its symbiotes when physical activity became necessary or the host required sustenance.
It was likely that a strong mental as well as physical bond existed between the host Captain and its crew, but continuous contact was not needed because in and around the wreck there had been three times the number of crew members as there were organic connectors on the host. It was also probable that the host entity did not sleep and provided continual, nonphys-ical support to its symbiotes. This was borne out by the type of emotional radiation being picked up on Rhabwar by Prili-cla — confusion and feelings of loss. The host Captain’s telepathic or empathic faculty did not reach as far as the ambulance ship’s orbit.
“The smallest, DCLG life-form is independently intelligent and performs the finer, more intricate manipulative operations,” Murchison joined in, clarifying the situation in her own mind as well as for the Captain, who had disappeared briefly into the corridor to check on the position of the thorns. “As is the slightly larger DCMH. But the function of the big DCOJ is purely that of eating and supplying predigested food to the host. There is evidence, however, that all three of these life-forms have their own ingestion, digestion, and reproductive systems, but one of them must figure in the transfer of sperm or ova between immobile host creatures—”
She broke off as the Captain returned, his cutter in one hand and what looked like a short, tangled piece of barbed wire in the other. He said, “The thorns have grown out of the food storage deck and are halfway along the corridor. I brought you a sample, ma’am.”