But Prilicla had been there and it had certainly felt like a war.
CHAPTER 34
The sun shone down on the golden beach, the white, lacy edge of the deep-blue sea, and on the many ships assembling around the island that were continually launching their gliders. Apart from a small working party of spiders who were engaged in transferring odd pieces of Terragars equipment to the beach, there was no ground activity visible, but the aerial bombardment was unceasing.
Instead of carrying an armed passenger as payload, the gliders were loading up with the equivalent weight in rocks, climbing to an altitude of about two thousand meters and dropping them on the med station. More often than not, their aim was wide of the mark, but on the off-chance that some of those ridiculously unsophisticated missiles would pierce the flimsy structures, injuring or killing the patients or team members inside, the meteorite shield had had to be deployed. Everyone was safe for the time being, but that time was limited.
Another battle, verbal rather than physical, was raging between the spider patients and the other occupants of the recovery ward. Apart from Naydrad, that was, who had turned off its translator and whose fur was moving in gentle, restful waves while it watched the medical monitors in case the various blood pressures rose above acceptable safety limits. And in the communications room yet another and more polite war of words was raging between the other members of the medical team and Captain Fletcher and his crew.
“We can’t understand why you’re waiting, Doctor,” the captain said as it restated the position in unnecessarily simple language for the recorders. “Plainly your idea isn’t working. We now have shield power for less than twenty-one hours’ duration. With no power to spare for pressor beams to lift us to an area of sea that is clear of ships, it will have to be an environmentally unfriendly takeoff on main thrusters. The vegetation on this half of the island, not to mention the spiders and their ships, will be toast. Go in and explain the scientific facts of life to Irisik and the spider pilot, now that it has regained consciousness. I know this is a hard decision for both of us to make, Doctor, but we can’t sacrifice Rhabwars crew and the Trolanni patients by letting a bunch of misguided spiders overrun and kill us.”
It softened its tone, and in spite of the distance separating them, Prilicla could feel the other’s determination overriding its reluctance to cause emotional distress to an empathic friend as it went on. “You have the medical rank in the present situation, Doctor, but in this instance I am disputing it. So tell your spider patients, as gently but firmly as you can, that they are not to be eaten but they must leave us and return to their vessels at once before they, and the crews of the ships along the beach, die in the fires we will light during our takeoff. You can move the injured glider pilot in one of your litters, with the power unit and circuitry set for a non-catastrophic self-destruct shortly after they reach their ships. For a pre-space age species they’ve already been contaminated with too much advanced technology as it is.”
“Friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla gently, “please don’t be feeling so uncomfortable about your threat to depose the senior medical officer during a medical emergency, and do nothing hasty. Irisik is one cynical spider and I have a strong feeling, amounting to a virtual certainty that it wouldn’t believe anything I told it, which is why I shall tell it nothing and allow what it thinks are the other sources of food to do the talking. Please wait, watch the ward vision pickup, and listen… .”
Naydrad had just finished its round of patient observations and had curled its caterpillar-like body into its relaxer frame in front of the monitor screens when the silence was broken by one of the Terragar casualties.
“Charge Nurse,” it said, “I’m starving to death.”
“Your self-diagnosis is not confirmed by the monitor readings,” Naydrad replied. “Considering the fact that your lower ambulatory limbs are missing and your food requirements are proportionately reduced, terminal malnutrition would only occur if fluids as well as food were to be withheld for twenty-plus standard days. Lunch will be in three hours. Until then, compose yourself and try to think beautiful thoughts.”