White, James – Sector General 05 – Sector General

them back to sleep. Can you drill through the wall of the container, ignoring

the sensors and actuators, and withdraw the required quantity of medication

directly?”

For a moment there was silence while Fletcher’s features fell into an angry,

why-didn’t-I think-of-that? expression, then he said, “Of course, Doctor.”

But even when injections of the CRLTs own hibernation medication were ready

their troubles were far from over. The pressor beam operators who were

responsible for immobilizing the creatures could not hold down the two joined

e-ts without also flattening the medics who were trying to work on them. Their

best compromise was to leave a two-meters clearance on each side of the

operative field wherein the medical team would not be inconvenienced by the

pressors. But this meant that there was no restraint placed on the movements of

the creature along a four-meter length of its body, which wriggled and humped

and lashed out with its dorsal appendages and generally made it plain that it

did not want strange beings climbing all over it and sticking it with needles.

Several times Conway was knocked away from the patient and once, if it had not

been for a warning from Fletcher, he would have lost his helmet and probably the

head inside it. Murchison observed crossly that the big advantage in dealing

with cadavers was that, regardless of their physiological clas­sifications, they

did not assault the pathologist and leave her normally peachlike skin

pigmentation black and blue. But with Naydrad’s long, caterpillarlike body

wrapped around one ap­pendage and both Fletcher and Colonel Okaussie hanging

onto the other limb which threatened the operative field, and with Murchison

steadying the scanner for him while he sat astride the creature like a bareback

horserider, Conway was able to guide his hypo into the correct vein and

discharge its contents before a particularly violent heave pulled the needle

free.

Within a few seconds Prilicla, whose fragile body had no place in this violent

muscular activity announced from its po­sition on the ceiling that the being was

going back to sleep. When they withdrew to turn their attention to its

companion, its movements were already growing weaker.

By the time they had dealt similarly with the other CRLT,

the two creatures had separated. The hollows and protuberances and flaps of

muscle had collapsed and smoothed themselves out, and the raw interface areas

began exuding the clear liquid which congealed into a thin, transparent film.

Gently the tractor and pressor beam men lifted and pushed the two beings back

into their respective hibernation cylinders. Conway signaled for the artificial

gravity to be reduced to zero and, as expected, they were able to replace the

cylinder endplates without trouble. The cargo hold’s air pressure was reduced

gradually so that they could check whether the premature opening of the

hiber­nation compartments had caused a leak. It had not.

“So far so good,” Conway said. “Return them to their po­sitions in the coil and

bring in the next two.”

The first two had been the occupants of adjoining cylinders and their linking up

had been automatic, a natural process in all respects. But the second two had

been separated by a com­partment which had been ruptured by a piece of flying

debris and its occupant killed. The affinity between these two might not be so

strong, Conway thought.

However, they merged as enthusiastically and naturally as had the first two. The

resuscitation process was reversed before they were fully conscious so as to

eliminate the multispecies wrestling match needed to put them into hibernation

again. Prilicla reported a minor variation in the emotional radiation associated

with the initial body contact-^-a feeling, very faint and temporary., of

disappointment. But the two segments of the group entity were compatible and

that particular break in continuity in the coil could be closed up.

Conway felt uneasy. Too much good luck worried him. Something was bothering

Prilicla, too, because he had long since learned to recognize the difference

between the little empath’s reaction to its own feelings and those of the beings

around it.

“Friend Conway,” Prilicia said, while they were awaiting the arrival of the

third set of CRLTs. “The first two beings were relatively immature and taken