Listening, Conway could not help admiring the smooth way in which Murchison was getting the Corps medic to tell them about the things he had done wrong. As an e-t pathologist she was used to non-specialists interfering and complicating her job, and it was necessary that she discover as much as possible about the being’s original condition before the changes or additional damage caused by inexpert examination-no matter how well-intentioned-had been introduced. She was finding out all that she needed to know quietly and without giving offense, as if she was Prilicla in human form.
But as Brenner continued talking it became increasingly clear that he had made few, if any, mistakes, and a fair proportion of Conway’s professional admiration was being diverted towards the Lieutenant.
….. After I sent the preliminary report and we were on our way,” Brenner was saying, “I discovered two small, rough areas on the black stuff covering the creature-a small, circular patch at the base of the neck, right here, and an oval patch, a little larger, which you can see on the underside. In both these areas the black stuff is cracked but with the cracks filled, or partly filled, by more of the stuff, and a few of the barnacles in these areas have been damaged as well. This is where I took my specimens.”
“Marking the places you took them from, I see,” said Murchison. “Go on, Doctor.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the Lieutenant, and went on. The black material seems to be a near-perfect insulator-it is highly resistant to heat, including that of a cutting torch at medium power. At very high temperatures the area under test formed a black ash which flaked away but showed no sign of softening or cracking. The chips of shell from the damaged barnacles were not quite so heat-resistant unless they happened to be covered by the black material.
“The black stuff was also resistant to chemical attack,” Brenner continued, “but not the pieces of shell. When the chips were exposed to various basic atmospheric types, the results seemed to indicate that they had not originated on one of the exotic environments- methane- or ammonia- or even chlorine-based atmosphere envelopes. Composition of the fragments seems to be basic hydrocarbon material, and they did not react to short-term exposures to an oxygen-rich mixture-”
“Give me the details of the tests you made,” said Murchison, suddenly becoming very businesslike and, although the Lieutenant did not know it, very complimentary. Conway signaled Prilicla to come closer, leaving the professional and amateur pathologists to get on with it.
“I don’t think the patient is capable of movement,” he told the Cinrusskin. “I don’t even know if it’s alive. Is it?”
Prilicla’s limbs trembled as it steeled itself to make a negative reply and by so doing, become just the slightest bit disagreeable. It said, “That is a deceptively simple question, friend Conway. All that I can say is that it doesn’t appear to be quite dead.”
“But you can detect the emotional emanations from a sleeping or deeply unconscious mind,” said Conway incredulously. “Is there no emotional radiation at all?”
“There are traces, friend Conway,” said the Cinrusskin, still trembling, “but they are too faint to be identifiable. There is no selfawareness and the traces which are apparent do not, so far as I am able to tell, originate from the being’s cranial area-they seem to emanate from the body as a whole. I have never encountered this effect before, so I lack sufficient information or experience even to speculate.”
“But you will,” said Conway, smiling.
“Of course,” said Prilicla. “It is possible that if the being was both deeply unconscious and at the same time was having the nerve endings in its skin constantly stimulated by severe pain, this might explain the effect which I can detect on and for some distance below the skin.”
“But that means that you are detecting the peripheral nerve network and not the brain,” said Conway. “That is unusual.”
“Highly unusual, friend Conway,” said the little empath. “The brain in question would have to have had important nerve trunks severed or have suffered major structural damage.”
In short, Conway thought grimly, we may have been handed someone’s cast-off patient.
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