That kind of grunt labor was primarily reserved to the humans aboard. The Doc was the specialist now, fully occupied in dismantling bits of machinery, pausing only to collect another fistful of the aromatic food. It wasn’t light labor, either. Hilda had not done this much physical work in a long time; in her normal existence that sort of thing was what she directed others to do. Even after the machines were inside the lander the work wasn’t over. The things had to be stowed with care-with very great care, Hilda thought, imagining one of those bulky objects breaking loose in the shuddery violence of reentry and crashing down on her unprotected head.
The exertion and the well-used air inside Starlab were having their effect on her, too. She wasn’t at the point of throwing up, quite. But the queasiness did not go away, and at last she was forced to make her way to the ancient microgravity toilet.
The training she had received at Kourou was not adequate to her present needs. It took her forever to close the lid on her wastes and then manage the stiff levers that noisily disposed of it. And when she came out the Doc had declared a halt. He was demonstrating to Colonel duValier that the other machines of any interest were simply too big to fit through the docking port.
The colonel surrendered. He ordered everyone inside and grouchily sealed the ports. While the French female astronaut checked the stowage of the goods, the colonel himself strapped down the un-protesting Doc, who still had the one scrap of metal cloth bound oddly around his head, the other clutched firmly in one minor arm. Hilda, busy with her own seat fastenings, was paying little attention until a yelp from the colonel made her turn swiftly.
But General Delasquez was laughing. “You should not attempt to take that thing away from him,” he said. “Naturally he resisted.”
Colonel duValier sucked his wrist, where the Doc had thrust him away-not violently, but enough to hurt. “We will see,” he snarled, “if the creature continues to resist when we are back at Kourou.” But he left the Doc alone and pulled himself back to the control deck. A moment later he called, “Check your restraints. Are we all secured?”
When the crew, one by one, reported themselves strapped in, he said crisply: “Disengage.”
The copilot touched something; there was a gentle lurch. The nausea that Hilda had quelled came back. She inhaled deeply and managed to repress it once again, bracing herself for the thrust that would start them back to Earth.
It didn’t come. They weren’t moving, except to drift slowly away from Starlab. Craning her neck, Hilda saw that the colonel was speaking into a microphone while the copilot was scanning the interior of the LuftBuran with a handheld camera. He was speaking softly and in French; Hilda could catch only a few words, but it sounded as though he was complaining about the Doc and demanding armed guards to meet them on landing.
Stupid, she thought.. . but then something new caught Hilda’s attention. She wrinkled her nose and craned her neck to look back at the Doc.
All that food had had its inevitable result. The Doc had relieved himself again, and the stench was one thing too many for Hilda Morrisey to bear. She barely got die spacesick bag to her face before everything came up at once.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
When the new orders came in over the command channel Lieutenant Colonel Priam Makalanos saw no particular problem. Immediately on off-loading the object will be airlifted to Camp Smolley for study and biological analysis. If suitable, limited amounts of the contents may be included in rations for the extraterrestrials.
Curiously it was signed D.S. Fennell, Vice Deputy Director, rather than by the deputy director himself, but that was only a small puzzle that undoubtedly would be clarified in time. Makalanos glanced up at the wall screen, which for some time had been displaying the object in question. The thing from space was lashed to the deck of a Navy tug steaming toward Hampton Roads. Two destroyers, three Coast Guard corvettes and half a dozen smaller vessels were patrolling the perimeter around the tug, keeping the ships of other nationals away from what, after all, was something that had been found in American territorial waters. Makalanos grinned at the thought of all the indignant diplomatic protests that would be storming on the American State Department over this episode, but that wasn’t his problem. All Makalanos had to do was to get Camp Smelly ready to receive the cargo.
Actually, he thought, Dr. ben Jayya and his old biowar staff would be glad for something to do that was more along their lines of expertises; but while he was alerting the laboratory chiefs a breathless corporal rapped on his office door. “There’s some kind of trouble with the turkey, sir,” he panted. “Dr. Adcock thinks you ought to come.”
Even before Makalanos got to the isolation room he could hear Dopey’s excited yammering. Pat One was waiting for him at the door. “He’s been like this,” she managed to get out before the little creature turned to him, great fan almost glowing with passion.
“Lieutenant Colonel Makalanos! What have you done with my bearer? Is he dead?”
Makalanos glanced at Pat One for help, but she only shook her head worriedly. He tried his best. He said, trying to be placating, “If you mean the one at Walter Reed-“
“I do not mean the one at Walter Reed! I mean the one I agreed to let you take to your Starlab for the purpose of obtaining food, which it appears we no longer need, and devices for your study, which I now believe I should never have permitted. What have you allowed to happen to him?”
Puzzled, Makalanos did his best. “As far as I know, nothing has happened to him.”
“As far as you know!” Dopey sneered.
“Which is pretty far, actually,” Makalanos said levelly, “but it’s always possible something has happened I don’t know about. If you’ll try to calm down, I’ll go to my office and check.” Turning, he gave Dannerman a curt nod. “You come with me.”
In his office, he turned on the agent. “All right. What happened?”
Dannerman shook his head. “Beats the hell out of me, Colonel. We told him about his food package coming-your order, Colonel.”
“I know what my order was. What did he do?”
“He seemed pleased, that’s all.”
“Pleased? Not surprised?”
“Just pleased. Then he complained for a while about the food he’s been getting, as usual, and then, all of a sudden, he went ape. He said we’d killed his bearer.”
Makalanos scowled. “Just like that?”
“Just like that. There wasn’t any warning, just one minute he was pissing and moaning as usual, then all of a sudden he was having fits. I tried to tell him that killing the Doc was the last thing we wanted to do, because we needed him, but he wasn’t listening. Shaking all over. Screeching. As close to hysterical as I’ve ever seen him. We couldn’t calm him down, even though we kept telling him the Doc was all right.” He paused there, and then asked, “He is all right, isn’t he?”
Was the creature all right? The obvious way to find out was to query headquarters. What was wrong with that was that Makalanos felt a little foolish about asking that sort of question on nothing more substantial than the unsubstantiated conjecture-or hunch, or suspicion-of the bizarre little beast from space. Colonel Makalanos didn’t like to feel foolish.
He liked it even less when the Bureau duty officer assured him that of course the Doc was all right, the Starlab party was busily loading Scarecrow materiel into the LuftBuran at that very moment. “Anyway,” she added, “when they’re through there’ll be a report, so why don’t you just watch your news screen?”
Nettled, Makalanos sent Dannerman back to give Dopey the word and do his best to keep him quiet. Then he considered what he should do next. Was it worth reporting Dopey’s hysterics to the deputy director?
It probably was, he thought-but when he tried to get through he found the D.D. was not taking calls-was getting ready to head for Kourou himself, to be there when the LuftBuran landed with its cargo.
He swore to himself. Colonel Makalanos was as good at following orders as at giving them, but what orders was he to give to deal with Dopey? And who was to tell him what to do, with Brigadier Morrisey off somewhere in orbit and the deputy director too busy even to answer his phone?
D. S. Fennell, that was who; the one who had signed his latest orders. Makalanos put in a call to her on the coded line, and found her impatient, harried, annoyed at being bothered-but willing to talk. She listened briefly, then shook her head. “Did you tell him the Bundles for Beasties were on the way? And that didn’t cheer him up? Well, just do the best you can, Priam.”