White, James – Sector General 05 – Sector General

operation.”

Murchison laughed softly and returned to her work, and Conway joined her. As the

Captain turned to go, he said, “We can’t spend much time here, but I must make

as full a report as possible of the incident and all relevant circumstances.

This is a new species to the Federation, a different technology, and the purpose

of this ship might have a bearing on the case. Was our criminal a responsible

being, perhaps a captive, or an un­intelligent animal? If it was intelligent was

it deranged, and if so why? And was the distressed condition of the ship and

crew a contributory factor? I know that it is difficult to conceive of

extenuating circumstances for grievous wounding and canni­balism, but until all

the facts are known—”

He broke off and placed his sensor against the deck beside him. A few seconds

later he went on, “There is nothing other than ourselves moving inside the

wreck. I’ve left the outside hatch open only a few inches. If anything tried to

get in you will have plenty of warning, either from the beastie itself forc­ing

it open against the sand or from the sensors on Rhabwar. I can get back to you

in plenty of time in any case, so you have nothing to worry about.”

While they resumed the dissection they could follow every step of the Captain’s

progress stern ward, because he insisted on verbally describing and amplifying

the pictures he was send­ing up to Dodds. The corridor was low and not very

roomy by Earth-human standards, he reported. He had to crawl on hands and knees

and it would be difficult to turn around to come back other than at an

intersection. Cable looms and air or hydraulic pipelines ran along the sidewalls

of the corridor, and coarse-mesh netting was. attached to the floor and ceiling

indicating that the ship did not possess an artificial gravity system.

Aft of the compartment occupied by the medics there was another cargo deck, and

beyond that the unmistakable shapes of the hyperdrive generators. Further aft

the reactor and thrust-ers were sealed from him and heavily shielded, but the

sensor indications were that there had been a complete power shut­down—probably

an automatic safety measure built into the design—when the ship had toppled. But

he could detect a residue of power in some of the corridor lines which he

thought might be associated with an emergency lighting circuit, and he thought

he had identified a light switch.

It was a light switch, he confirmed a few seconds later. A large stretch of the

corridor was illuminated. The lighting was uncomfortably bright but his eyes

were adjusting to it. He was moving amidships.

They heard him pause outside their cargo hold, and suddenly the lights came on

all over the ceiling beside them. Conway switched off his now-unnecessary helmet

light.

“Thank you, Captain,” he said, then continuing the discus­sion he had been

having with Murchison, went on, “There is capacity for a large brain in the

cranium, but we cannot assume

that all of the available’volume is used for cerebration. I don’t see how a

beastie with four feet and two manipulators which are little more than claws

could be a tool user, much less a crew member of a starship. And those teeth

bother me. They are certainly not those of a predator. In the distant past they

might have been fearsome natural weapons, but now their con­dition shows that

they have not much to do.”

Murchison nodded. “The stomach system is overlarge in relation to the mass of

the being,” she said, “yet there is no evidence of adipose or excess edible

tissue which would be present if it was an animal bred for food. And the stomach

resembles that of an Earth-type ruminant. The digestive system is odd, too, but

I’d have to work out the whole intake to elimination cycle to make any sense out

of it, and I can’t do that down here. I’d love to know what these things ate

before their food ran out.”

“I’m passing a storage deck of some kind,” Fletcher said at that point. “It is

divided into large racks with passages between mem. The racks are filled with