White, James – Sector General 11 – Mind Changer

Through the fog of air bubbles escaping from Kledenth’s fur he saw the dark, indistinct shape of one of the Tralthans falling slowly down on them. Desperately he felt around with his free hand in the opaque turbulence for the lounger frame, found it, and, bending at the knees and changing to a two-handed grip on the Kelgian’s frantically wriggling body, he planted his feet against the frame and prepared to kick out hard. But too late.

The Tralthan’s massive body landed on them, pinning O’Mara’s feet and the Kledenth’s lower body to the deck. There was a sudden, bright explosion of bubbles as the sudden pressure from the Tralthan’s body pushed all the air out of the Kelgian’s lungs. He fought the instinctive urge to grasp with the pain in his feet and fought instead to keep as much air as possible in his own lungs.

He was going to need it.

CHAPTER 21

O’Mara released his grip on Kledenth and quickly bent double to get his hands under the Tralthan’s massive body. It was unconscious and unable to help him. In normal conditions it would have been impossible to lift it but, supported as it was by the water and with less than a quarter G acting on it, he should be able to roll the dead weight off his feet and the Kelgian’s trapped lower body.

The Tralthan’s body had lost three quarters of its weight, but it still possessed all of its inertia. He gripped it solidly at the roots of two of its four tentacles and strained upward until he felt as if his arms would tear off at the shoulders. Slowly it began to move and just as slowly kept on moving. Suddenly his feet were free and so was the trapped Kelgian. But he had used too much of his available oxygen. The turbulence had settled and the water was no longer clouded by bubbles, but large, throbbing patches of blackness were keeping him from seeing clearly and he felt as if the Tralthan beside them were sitting on his chest. He wrapped his arms around Kledenth’s middle again, felt for the deck surface with his feet. The stale air in his lungs burst out in an explosion of bubbles as he used the last of the strength in his leaden legs to jump straight up.

He was startled at how soon they broke surface and, gasping desperately for air as he looked around, he immediately saw why. The captain had remotely opened the airtight doors at each side of the room. Presently they were under the surface and the pool water was gurgling through the openings into two large, adjoining storerooms. The surface was still puckered with tiny, steep-sided, low-gravity wavelets, but the level was dropping rapidly. Suddenly his feet were in contact with the deck and he was able to hold Kledenth’s head clear of the water.

The upper body of one of the Tralthan swimmers was emerging slowly from the water. It was choking and gasping and obviously in great emotional distress as it slapped at the water with its tentacles in a desperate effort to find its life-mate, who was still under the surface, but he knew that it would be fine as soon as it cleared its air passages. High above him the Melfan and the Nidian passengers were holding on to fixed equipment near the entrance and Joan was doing the same about five meters distant. He was about to call to her when a Melfan wearing an antigravity harness and with a caduceus on its crew insignia appeared in the entrance and came swooping down toward them. Dr. Sennelt had arrived.

“Doctor,” he said urgently. “This is passenger Kledenth, Kelgian, non-aquatic, immersed and unconscious for two plus minutes with emptied lungs. Will you be careful to check for…”

“Don’t worry, sir,” said the medic as it cradled Kledenth’s limp body in its triple-jointed forward limbs. “I’ll take over from here. How about you, Lieutenant?”

O’Mara shook his head. “I’m all right,” he said impatiently. “But there could be internal trauma as a result of it being rolled on by a drowning Tralthan, who is still underwater, lying on its side and unconscious.”