There could be no doubt about their sincerity-on this cockeyed world the warmth of a welcome was directly proportional to the degree of strangeness. And they did not mind answering questions one little bit. From here on in, Conway was sure his job would be easy.
Almost the first thing he discovered was that they had no real need of his professional services.
It was a society whose members never stopped moving through and around “towns” which were simply facilities for manufacture, learning or research rather than large groupings of living quarters-on Meatball there were no living quarters. After a period of work on a mechanically rotated frame the doughnut slipped out of its retaining harness and rolled away to seek food, exercise, excitement or strange company somewhere across the sea bed.
There was no sleep, no physical contact other than for reproduction, no tall buildings, no burial places.
When one of the rollers stopped due to age, accident or a run-in with one of the predators or a poison-spined plant it was ignored. The generation of internal gases which took place shortly after death caused the body to float to the surface where the birds and fish disposed of it.
Conway spoke to several beings who were too old to roll and who were being kept alive by artificial feeding while they were rotated in their individual ferris wheels. He was never quite sure whether they were kept alive because of their value to the community or simply the subject of experimentation. He knew that he was seeing geriatrics being practiced, but other than a similar form of assistance with difficult births this was the only form of medicine he encountered.
Meanwhile the survey teams were mapping the planet and bringing in specimens by the boatload. Most of this material was sent to Sector General for processing and very soon detailed analysis suggestions for treatment began coming from Thornnastor. According to the Diagnostician-Pathologist Meatball had a medical problem of the utmost urgency. Conway and Edwards, who had had a preliminary look at the data and a number of low-level flights over the planetary surface, could not have agreed more.
“We can begin a preliminary diagnosis of the planet’s troubles,” said Conway angrily, “which are caused by the rollers being too damned free with the use of nuclear weapons! But we still badly need a local appreciation of the medical situation and that we are not getting. The big question is-”
“Is there a doctor in the house?” said Edwards, grinning. “And if so, where?”
“Exactly,” said Conway. He did not laugh.
Outside the direct vision port the slow, turgid waves reflected the moonlight through a curtain of surface mist. The moon, which was approaching Roche’s Limit and disintegration, would pose the inhabitants of Meatball yet another major problem-but not for another million years or so. At the moment it was a great jagged crescent illuminating the sea, the two hundred feet of Descartes which projected above the surface and the strangely peaceful shoreline.
Peaceful because it was dead and the predators refused to eat carrion.
“If I built a rotating framework for myself would O’Mara.. . ?” began Conway.
Edwards shook his head. “Surreshun’s tape is more dangerous than you think-you were very lucky not to have lost all of your marbles, permanently. Besides, O’Mara has already thought of that idea and discarded it. Rotating yourself while under the influence of the tape, either in a swivel chair or in a gadget built by our machine shop, will fool your mind for only a few minutes, he says. But I’ll ask him again, if you like?”
“I’ll take your word for it,” said Conway. Thoughtfully, he went on, “The question I keep asking myself is where on this planet is a doctor most likely to be found. Suppose the answer is where the greatest number of casualties occur, that is, along the coastlines-”
“Not necessarily,” Edwards objected. “One doesn’t normally find a doctor in a slaughterhouse. And don’t forget that there is another intelligent race on this planet, the makers of those thought-controlled tools. Isn’t it possible that your doctors belong to this race and your answer lies outside the roller culture entirely?”