The number of boobs, errors and mistakes was surprising, he suspected, only because he had not interested himself in such things before now. Even so, the silly, stupid mistakes he encountered, especially among the highly trained and responsible OR staff, were definitely uncharacteristic, he thought. And they did not form the sort of pattern he had expected. A plot of times and places should have shown an early focal point of this hypothetical mental contagion becoming more widespread as the disease progressed. Instead the pattern indicated a single focus moving within a certain circumscribed area-the Hudlar theater and its immediate surroundings. Whatever the thing was, if there was anything there at all, it was behaving like a single entity rather than a disease.
… Which is ridiculous!” Conway protested. “Even I didn’t seriously believe in a disembodied intelligence-it was a working hypothesis only. I’m not that stupid!”
He had been filling Prilicla in on the latest developments while they were on the way to see the Lieutenant. The empath kept pace with him along the ceiling for a few minutes in silence, then said inevitably, “I agree.
Conway would have preferred some constructive objections for a change, so he did not speak again until they had reached 283-Four. This was a small private ward off a larger e-t compartment and the Lieutenant seemed glad to see them. He looked, and Prilicla said that he felt, bored.
“Apart from some temporary structural damage you are in very good shape, Lieutenant,” Conway began, just in case Harrison was worried by the presence of two Senior Physicians at his bed. “What we would like to talk about is the events leading up to your accident. If you wouldn’t mind, that is.”
“Not at all,” said the Lieutenant. “Where do you want me to start? With the landing, or before that?”
“If you were to tell us a little about the planet itself first,” suggested Conway.
The Lieutenant nodded and moved his headrest to a more comfortable angle for conversation, then began, “It was a weirdie. We had been observing it for a long time from orbit. .
Christened Meatball because Captain Williamson of the cultural contact and survey vessel Descartes had declined, very forcibly, to have such an odd and distasteful planet named after him, it had to be seen to be believed-and even then it had been difficult for its discoverers to believe what they were seeing.
Its oceans were a thick, living soup and its land masses were almost completely covered by slow-moving carpets of animal life. In many areas there were mineral outcroppings and soil which supported vegetable life, and other forms of vegetation grew in the water, on the sea bed, or rooted itself on the organic land surface. But the greater part of the land surface was covered by a layer of animal life which in some places was half a mile thick.
This vast organic carpet was subdivided into strata which crawled and slipped and fought their way through each other to gain access to necessary top surface vegetation or subsurface minerals or simply to choke off and cannibalize each other. During the course of this slow, gargantuan struggle these living strata heaved themselves into hills and valleys, altering the shapes of lakes and coastlines and changing the whole topography of their world from month to month.
It had been generally agreed by the specialists on Descartes that if the planet possessed intelligent life it should take one of two forms, and both were a possibility. The first type would be large-one of the tremendous, living carpets which might be capable of anchoring itself to the underlying rock while pushing extensions toward the surface for the purpose of breathing, ingestion, and the elimination of wastes. It should also possess a means of defense around its far-flung perimeter to keep less intelligent strata creatures from insinuating themselves between it and the ground below or from slipping over it and cutting off light, food, and air as well as discouraging sea predators large and small who seemed to nibble at it around the clock.
The second possibility might be a fairly small life-form, smooth skinned, flexible, and fast enough to allow them to live inside or between the strata creatures and avoid the ingestive processes of the strata beasts whose movements and metabolism were slow. Their homes, which would have to be safe enough to protect their young and develop their culture and science, would probably be in caves or tunnel systems in the underlying rock.