“Grease,” said Conway. “How did grease get spread over the outer seal?”
Haslam sounded impatient as he replied: “Probably one of the dispenser canisters broke loose during the crash and spun against the seal. There is a pressure nozzle at one end of the canister, which, if depressed with sufficient force, discharges several ounces of grease automatically. If you’re very interested, Doctor, I can show you one of them later. Stand back, please, I’m going to open up.
The seal swung open, and Haslam, Conway and Dodds stepped into the Tenelphi’s lock chamber. Haslam checked the telltales as Dodds closed the outer seal. The pressure inside the ship was dangerously low, but not lethally low for a person who was fit and healthy. What it would do to an unprotected casualty who might be in shock-with decompression effects accelerating the loss of blood from even superficial cuts and lacerations-was another matter. Suddenly the inner seal opened; their suits creaked and swelled with the pressure differential, and they moved quickly inside.
Haslam gasped. “I don’t believe it!”
The lock antechamber was filled with spacesuited figures drifting loosely on the ends of pieces of rope or webbing that had been attached to equipment support brackets or any other convenient tethering point. The emergency lighting system was functioning and bright enough to show all the figures in detail, including the webbing that bound each man’s legs together, his arms tightly to his sides and extra air tanks on his back. The spacesuits were all of the rigid, heavy-duty type, so the tight webbing did not compress the underlying limbs and torsos and whatever injuries they might have sustained. In each case the helmet visor was covered by its almost opaque sun filter.
Moving carefully between two of the drifting figures, Conway steadied one and slid back the sun filter. The inside of the visor was badly fogged, but he could make out a face that was much redder than normal and eyes that squeezed themselves shut as soon as the light hit them. He slid back the filter of another casualty, then another, with similar results.
“Untether them and move them to the Casualty Deck, quickly,” Conway said. “Leave the arm and leg restraints in place for the present. It makes them easier to move, and the strapping will support the fractured limbs, if any. This is not the complete crew?”
It was not really a question. Obviously, someone had trussed up the casualties and moved them to the Tenelphi’s airlock to be ready for a fast evacuation.
“Nine here, Doctor,” said Haslam after a quick count. “One crew-member is missing. Shall I look for him?”
“Not yet,” said Conway, thinking that the missing officer had been a very busy man. He had sent a subspace radio message, released a distress beacon when the automatic release mechanism had malfunctioned or he had been unable to work it, and he had moved his companions from their duty positions in various parts of their ship to the airlock antechamber. It was not inconceivable that during these activities he had damaged his spacesuit and had been forced to find himself an airtight compartment somewhere to await rescue.
The man who had accomplished all that, Conway swore to himself, was damn well going to be rescued!
While he was helping Haslam and Dodds transfer the first few casualties through to the Rhabwar, Conway described the situation for the benefit of those on the Casualty Deck and for the Captain. Then he added, “Prilicla, can you be spared back there for a few minutes?”
“Easily, friend Conway,” the little empath replied. “My musculature is not sufficiently robust to assist directly in the treatment of DBDG casualties. My support is moral rather than medical.”
“Fine,” said Conway. “Our problem is a missing crew-member who may or may not be injured, perhaps sheltered in an airtight compartment. Will you pinpoint his position for us so we won’t waste time searching through wreckage? Are you wearing a pressure envelope?”
“Yes, friend Conway,” Prilicla replied. “I’m leaving at once.
It took nearly fifteen minutes for the casualties to be moved out of the Tenelphi and into the ambulance ship. By that time Prilicla was drifting back and forth along the exterior of the wreck’s hull in an effort to detect the emotional radiation of the missing crewmember. Conway stayed inside the wreck and tried to keep his feelings of impatience and concern under control so as not to distract the Cinrusskin.
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