“No, sir,” the lieutenant replied. “It’s still dead in the water, so to speak.”
Prilicla paused for a moment, nerving himself for the effort of saying something argumentative if not disagreeable to another person whose irritated or angry reaction would bounce back and hit him hard.
“It was their feelings I read,” he said carefully. “Because of the interference from the emotional radiation around me, theirs were difficult to define. There was agitation, however, and it had to be intense to reach me at this distance. May I make a suggestion and ask a favor?”
The captain was feeling the irritation characteristic of an entity whose ideas and authority were being questioned, but it was quickly brought under control. It said, “Go ahead, Doctor.”
“Thank you,” he said, looking around the casualty deck to indicate that his words were for them as well. “It is this. Would you please instruct your officers, as much as they are able, to relax mentally and avoid intensive thinking or associated feelings? I would like to get a clearer idea of what is bothering the Terragar crew. I am having a bad feeling about this situation, friend Fletcher.”
“And since when,” said Murchison in a quiet voice that was just loud enough for the captain to overhear it, “has a feeling of Prilicla’s been wrong?”
“Do as the Doctor says, gentlemen,” the captain replied promptly, pretending that it hadn’t heard. “All of you make your minds blank”—it gave a soft Earth-human bark—“or at least blanker than usual.”
All over the ship, from the control deck forward and the power room aft and from the medical team around him, they were staring at blank walls and deck surfaces or the backs of closed eyelids, those who had them, or were using whatever other means they had of reducing cerebration and feeling. Nobody knew better than himself how difficult it was to switch the mind to low alert and think of absolutely nothing, but they were all trying.
Terragar’s control canopy had rolled out of sight, but that had no effect on the crew’s emotional radiation, which was still tenuous, confused, and at a strength that was barely readable. But without the local empathic interference the individual feelings were gradually becoming clearer and easier to define, and they were anything but pleasant.
“Friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla urgently, “I feel fear and, intense negation. For me to be able to detect them at this range, those feelings must be extreme. The fear seems to be both personal and impersonal, the latter emotion characteristic of a being who fears a threat to others besides itself. I’m an empath, not a telepath, but I’d say… Look, they’re coming into sight again—–”
He could see no details of the four faces other than that their mouths were opening and closing. Their hands were gesticulating wildly, sometimes pointing at the alien ship but more often towards Rhabwar and the communicator floating at the end of its sensor cable midway between their two vessels. Their pale, Earth-human palms were showing as they pressed them repeatedly against the inside of the canopy.
What were they trying to say?
“… They’re pointing at the alien ship and at us,” he went on quickly, “but mostly at the communicator you’re sending over. And they’re making pushing movements with their hands. Their fear and agitation is increasing. I feel sure they want us to go away.”
“But why, dammit?” said the captain. “Have they lost their senses? I’m just trying to stabilize their ship and establish a communicator link.”
“Whatever you’re doing,” said Prilicla firmly, “it is making them fearful and they badly want you to stop doing it.”
One of the four gesticulating crew members had moved quickly out of sight. Before he could mention it to the captain, Fletcher spoke again. Its voice and the feelings that accompanied it were calm and confident with the habit of command.
“With respect, Doctor,” it said, “the feelings you read from them make no sense, and won’t until we talk to them and they explain themselves and this whole damn situation. We need that “formation before we can risk boarding the alien ship. Haslam, love the communicator close and be ready to attach it when you’ve killed the spin.”