since the rescue. He felt as though every bone and muscle in his body was
aching. The rescue and transfer of the survivor to Rhabwar had required intense
muscular activity, followed by a three-hour emergency op, and another hour
sitting still in Control. No wonder he felt stiff.
Try to think about something else, Conway told himself firmly. He exercised
briefly to ease his cramped muscles but the dull, unlocalized aching persisted.
Angrily he wondered if he was becoming a hypochondriac.
“Subspace radio transmission in five seconds,” the muted voice of Lieutenant
Haslam said from the cabin speaker. “Ex-Pect the usual fluctuations in the
lighting and artificial gravity systems.”
As the cabin lights flickered and the deck seemed to twitch under his feet,
Conway was forced to think of something else— specifically, the problems
encountered in transmitting intelli-Sence over interstellar distances compared
with the relative simplicity of sending a distress signal.
Just as there was only one known method of traveling faster wan light, there was
only one way of calling for help when an accident left a ship stranded between
the stars. Tight-beam subspace radio could rarely be used in emergency
conditions
since it was subject to interference from intervening stellar material and
required inordinate amounts of a vessel’s power— power which a distressed ship
was unlikely to have available. But a distress beacon did not have to carry
intelligence.’ It was simply a nuclear-powered device which broadcast its
location, a subspace scream for help which ran up and down the usuable
frequencies until it died, in a matter of a few hours. And on I this occasion it
had died amid a cloud of wreckage containing one survivor who was very lucky
indeed to be alive.
But considering the extent of the being’s injuries, Conway thought, it could not
really be described as lucky. Mentally shaking himself loose of these
uncharacteristically morbid feelings, he went down to the Casualty Deck to
check on« the patient’s condition.
Typed as physiological classification EGCL, the survivor was a warm-blooded,
oxygen-breathing life-form of approximately twice the body weight of an adult
Earth-human. Visually it resembled an outsize snail with a high, conical shell
which was pierced around the tip where its four extensible eyes were I located.
Equally spaced around the base of the shell were eight triangular slots from
which projected the manipulatory appendages. The carapace rested on a thick,
circular pad of muscle I which was the locomotor system. Around the
circumference of the pad were a number of fleshy projections, hollows and slits
associated with its systems of ingestion, respiration, elimination,
reproduction, and nonvisual sensors. Its gravity and atmospheric pressure
requirements had been estimated but, because of its severely weakened condition,
the artificial gravity I setting had been reduced to assist the heart and the
pressure increased so that decompression effects would not aggravate the
bleeding.
As Conway stood looking down at the terribly injured EGCL, Pathologist Murchison
and Charge Nurse Naydrad joined him at the pressure litter. It was the same
litter which had been I used to move the casualty from the wreck, and, because
the patient should not be subjected to unnecessary movement,- it would be used
again to transfer the EGCL into the hospital. The only difference was that for
the second trip the casualty had been tidied up.
In spite of his considerable experience with spacewreck casualties of all
shapes, sizes, and physiological classifications, Conway winced at the memory of
what they had found. The compartment containing the EGCL had been spinning
rapidly when they discovered it, and the being had been rolling about inside and
demolishing furniture and equipment with its massive body for many hours before
it had lodged itself in a corner under some self-created debris.
In the process its carapace had sustained three fractures, one of which was so
deeply depressed that the brain had been involved. One of the eyes was missing,
and two of the thin, tentacular manipulators had been traumatically severed by
sharp-edged obstructions—these limbs had been retrieved and preserved for
possible rejoining—and there were numerous punctured and incised wounds to the
base pad.
Apart from carrying out the emergency surgery to relieve some of the cranial
pressure, controlling the major areas of bleeding with clamps and temporary