“And rob you of the chance to increase your other-species experience?” Conway broke in. “No, Doctor, you treat them. They’re on antipain, I take it, and there is no great degree of urgency?”
“Yes, Doctor,” Krach-Yul said.
“Good,” Conway said, “because I have another job for you — looking after this Hudlar Until you can move it to Sector General. You will need a nutrient sprayer from the Hudlar ship, then arrange with Captain Nelson to increase the air pressure' and artificial gravity in this cargo lock to levels as close to Hudlar-normal as he can manage. Treatment will consist of spraying the casualty with nutrient at hourly intervals and checking on the cardiac activity, and periodically easing the tightness of the sleeve-piece if your scanner indicates a serious reduction of circulation to the injured limb. While you are doing these things you will wear two gravity neutralizers. If you were wearing one and it failed under four-G conditions there would be another seriously injured casualty, you.
“Normally I would travel with this patient,” he went on, stifling a yawn, “but I have to be available in case something urgent develops with the CRLT. Hudlar surgery can be tricky so I’ll tape some notes on this one for the operating team, including the suggestion that you be allowed to observe if you wish to do so.”
“Very much,” Krach-Yul said, “and thank you, Doctor.”
“And now I’ll leave you with your patients and return to Rhabwar” Conway said. Silently he added, to sleep.
“Tyrell was absent for eight days and was subsequently assigned to courier duty, taking specimens to Sector General and returning with information, advice, and detailed lists of questions regarding the progress of their work from Thomnas-tor. The great, spiral jigsaw puzzle which was the alien ship was beginning to take shape — or more accurately, to take a large number of semicircular and quarter-circular shapes — as the hibernation cylinders were identified, positioned, and coupled. Many of the cylinders were still missing because they had been so seriously damaged that their occupants had died or they had still to be found and retrieved by the scoutships.
Conway was worried because the incomplete coilship and the motley fleet of Monitor Corps vessels and auxiliaries were on a collision course with the nearby sun, which was growing perceptibly brighter every day. It was clearly evident that the growth rate of the alien vessel was much less perceptible. When he worried about it aloud to the Fleet Commander, Dermod told him politely to mind his own medical business.
Then a few days later Tyrell returned with information which made it very much his medical business.
Vespasian’s communications officer, who was usually a master of the diplomatic delaying tactic, put him through to the Fleet Commander in a matter of seconds instead of forcing him to climb slowly up the ship’s entire chain of command. This was not due to any sudden increase in Conway’s standing with the senior Monitor Corps officer, but simply that while Conway was trying to reach Dermod, the Fleet Commander was trying to contact the Doctor.
It was Dermod who spoke first, with the slight artificiality of tone which told Conway that not only was the other in a hurry and under pressure but that there were other people present beyond the range of the vision pickup. He said, “Doctor, there is a serious problem regarding the final assembly phase and I need your help. You are already concerned over the limited time remaining to us and, frankly, I was unwilling to discuss the problem with you until I was able to present it, and the solution, in its entirety. This can now be done, in reverse order, preferably. My immediate requirement is for another capital ship.Claudius is available and—”
“Why—” Conway began, shaking his head in momentary confusion. He had been about to list his own problems and requirements and found himself suddenly on the receiving end.
“Very well, Doctor, I’ll state the problem first,” The Fleet Commander said, frowning as he nodded to someone out of sight. The screen blanked for a few seconds, then it displayed a black field on which there was a thick, vertical gray line. At the lower end of the line a fat red box appeared and on the opposite end a blue circle. Dermod went on briskly, “We now have a pretty accurate idea of the configuration of the alien ship, and I am showing you a very simple representation because 1 haven’t time to do otherwise right now.
“The ship had a central stem, the gray line,” Dermod explained, “with the power plant and thrusters represented by the red box aft and the forward-mounted sensors and navigation systems shown as a blue circle. Since the ship’s occupant was unconscious, all of these systems were fully automatic. The stem also provided the anchoring points for the structure which supported the inhabited coil. You will see that the main supports are angled forward to compensate for stresses encountered while the vessel was under power and during the landing maneuver.”
A forest of branches grew suddenly from the stem, making it look like a squat, cylindrical Christmas tree standing in its red tub and with a bright-blue fairy light at the top. Then the continuous spiral of linked hibernation compartments was attached to the ends of the branches, followed by the spacing members which separated each loop of the coil, and the picture lost all resemblance to a tree.
“The coil diameter remains constant throughout at just under five hundred meters,” the Fleet Commander’s voice continued. “Originally there were twelve turns of the coil and, with each hibernation cylinder measuring twenty meters in length, this means there were roughly eighty hibernating CRLTs in every loop of the coil and close on one thousand of the beings on the complete ship.
“Every loop of the coil was separated by a distance of seventy meters, so that the total height of the coilship was just over eight hundred meters. We were puzzled by this separation since it would have been structurally much simpler laying one on top of the other, but we now believe that the open coil configuration was designed both to reduce and localize meteorite collision damage and remove the majority of the hibernation compartments as far as possible from radiation leakage from the reactor at the stern. While encased in its rather unusual vessel we think the creature traveled tail-first so that its thinking end was at the stern to initiate disembarkation following the landing. Unfortunately, the stern section had to be heavier and more rigid than the forward structure since it had to support the weight of the vessel during deceleration and landing, and so it was the stern which sustained most of the damage when the collision occurred, and most of the CRLT casualties were from the sternmost loop of the coil.”
According to Vespasian’s computer’s reconstruction, the vessel had been in direct head-on collision with a large meteor, and the closing velocities involved had been such that the whole central stem had been obliterated, as if an old-time projectile hand weapon had been used to remove the core of an apple. Only a few scraps of debris from the power unit and guidance system remained — enough for identification purposes but not for reconstruction — and the shock of the collision had shaken the overall coil structure apart.
On the screen the widely scattered hibernation compartments came together again into a not quite complete coiclass="underline" There were several sections missing, particularly near the stern. Then the stem, its power and guidance systems, and the entire support structure disappeared from the display leaving only the incomplete coil.
“The central core of that vessel is a mass of pulverized wreckage many light-years away,” Dermod continued briskly, “and we have decided that trying to salvage and reconstruct it would be an unnecessary waste of time and materiel when there is a simpler solution available. This requires the presence of a second Emperor-class vessel to—”