White, James – Sector General 05 – Sector General

could be dangerously low or normal so far as the survivor is concerned.

Composition, the proportion of oxygen to inert gases, makes it a warm-blooded,

oxygen-breathing life-form. I shall now insert the Eye.”

Conway saw her detach the analyzer from the hollow drill and, so expertly that

she could not have lost more than a few cubic centimeters of ship’s atmosphere

in the process, replace it with the Eye. Very carefully she threaded in the

transparent tube containing the lens, light source, and vision recorder through

the hollow center of the drill, then attached the eyepiece and magnifier which_

would enable her to use the instrument while wearing a space helmet.

For what seemed like an hour but was probably only ten minutes she swiveled the

lens and varied the light intensity, without speaking. Then she wriggled

backward out of the open­ing to give Conway and the others a look.

“It’s big,” she said.

The interior of the wreck was a hollow cylinder completely free of compartment

dividers or structural crossmembers and the floor—Conway was assuming it was the

floor because it was flat and ran the length of the ship—had a double line of

closely spaced holes three or four inches in diameter running down the middle.

Seven or eight pairs of the survivor’s feet disappeared into the holes so they

were probably part of the vessel’s system of safety restraints, as were the

broad bands of torn webbing which floated loosely about its body.

The Eye was positioned close to floor level so that Conway could see the being’s

flank along the section whose feet were held in the deck holes. Farther along,

where the feet had been pulled free by the force of the accident to its ship, he

could see in detail the double line of stubby, centipedal legs and the pale-gray

underside. In the opposite direction—he could not

tell whether it was toward the being’s head or tail—he could make out part of

the upper surface of the creature and a single line of dorsal tentacular

appendages. The long, cylindrical com­partment did not give the being much room

to maneuver arid the twists and curves of the weightless, flaccid body seriously

hampered viewing, but at the limit of his vision Conway could just make out

three lengths of tubing, pencil thin, transparent, and apparently flexible,

which sprouted from a container at­tached to the wall to disappear into the body

of the survivor.

Despite the multiplicity of the being’s arms and legs there seemed to be very

little if anything for it to do. Apart from a large number of wall-mounted

storage cabinets, the interior of the ship was bare of anything resembling

control and indication systems or any obvious means by which the vessel could be

guided by its occupant—unless, of course, there was a small control center

forward in the area concealed by the survivor’s body.

Conway must have been thinking aloud because the Captain, who had just returned

from an external examination of the ship, said seriously, “There is nothing for

it to do, Doctor. Except for a very unsophisticated power cell which, at

present, is not being used to power anything, there is nothing. No propulsion

unit, no attitude control jets, no recognizable external sensors or

communications, no personnel lock. I’m beginning to won­der if this is a ship or

some kind of survival pod. This would explain the odd configuration of the

vessel, which is a cylinder of constant diameter with a perfectly flat face at

each end. However, when I sighted along the hull in an effort to detect minor

protrusions which could have housed sensor equipment, I observed that the

cylinder was very slightly curved along its longitudinal axis. This opens up

another possibility which—”

“What about power sources and comm equipment mounted outboard?” Conway broke in

before the Captain’s observations could develop into a lecture on ship design

philosophy. “We have matched hyperdrive generators on our wingtips and per­haps

these people had a similar idea.”

“No, Doctor,” Fletcher said in the cool, formal tone he used when he thought

someone was trying to tell him his business. “I examined those external spars,

which have been broken off too short to give any indication of the type of