“Subject to the usual safety checks,” it went on, “we’d like permission to take turns exercising and relaxing outside. This really is a lovely place. The casualties would benefit from the fresh air and sunshine as well, especially if our stay here is likely to be extended. Is it?”
“It is,” said Prilicla. “Rhabwar will have to remain in orbit to investigate the alien vessel and its crew, who may themselves be with you soon as casualties. Permission granted, friend Murchison. But remember that this is a completely strange as well as a pleasant world, so be very careful.”
“You, too, sir,” she replied.
He ended the transmission as the captain pointed at its own screen and spoke.
“You wanted to see this before I send it off,” it said. “Well, what do you think?”
Prilicla hovered above the screen for a moment, studying it, then he said, “With respect, friend Fletcher, I think it is too polite, too subservient, and too long. You should tell your superiors what you want done, as I will also do, without regard to the high rank of those concerned. Because of our knowledge of the situation here, limited as it is, we have the rank. May I?”
He felt Fletcher’s agreement before it could reply, and dropped his feather-light digits onto the keyboard. The original draft, scaled down, moved to the corner of the screen and the new one appeared. It read: TO: GALACTIC FEDERATION EXECUTIVE; COPIES FEDERATION MEDICAL COUNCIL; SECTOR TWELVE GENERAL HOSPITAL; MONITOR CORPS HIGH COMMAND; SECTOR MARSHAL DERMOD, FLEET COMMANDERS, ALL SHIP CAPTAINS, AND OFFICERS OF SUBORDINATE RANK.
WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT THIS SOLAR SYSTEM IS TO BE PLACED IN QUARANTINE.
REASONS: UNIQUE TECHNOLOGICAL AND/OR MEDICAL THREAT BY DISTRESSED ALIEN SHIP MOUNTING UNIQUE WEAPONRY CAPABLE OF DESTROYING ALL SPACE VESSELS REGARDLESS OF SIZE OR POWER RESOURCES. DISTANCE IS ONLY KNOWN SAFEGUARD.
THREE TERRAGAR SURVIVORS RECOVERED. RHABWAR INVESTIGATING ALIEN SHIP AND TRYING TO CONTACT CREW.
REQUEST TWO COMMUNICATIONS VESSELS TO BE STATIONED MINIMUM OF FIVE MILLION MILES DISTANCE TO RELAY LATER INFORMATION AS IT BECOMES AVAILABLE. ALL OTHER VESSELS AND PERSONNEL REGARDLESS OF SPECIALITY OR RANK ARE EXPRESSLY ORDERED TO STAY CLEAR.
NO REPEAT NO EXCEPTIONS. FLETCHER, COMMANDING RHABWAR PRILICLA SENIOR PHYSICIAN, SECTOR GENERAL For a long moment the captain stared at the screen while it regained control of its feelings, then it said reluctantly, “It’s shorter and … well, better. But Sector Marshal Dermod doesn’t usually receive messages like this from subordinates. He and his staff will probably have a collective fit. I didn’t realize, Doctor, that you could be so, so .. .”
“Nasty?” said Prilicla. “You’re forgetting, friend Fletcher, that your sector marshal is halfway across the Galaxy, and I am unable to detect its emotional radiation over interstellar distances.”
CHAPTER 13
It was a rule of interspecies medicine to which no exception had ever been found that pathogens which had evolved on one world could not affect or infect any creature belonging to another. There was nothing in this world’s microbiology, therefore, that could threaten her. But that did not stop Danalta, in the respectful manner befitting a subordinate, from insisting that Murchison take no chances with the life-forms that were large enough to see.
The shape-changer had already scouted the beach, shallows, and the trees and undergrowth inland to a distance of five hundred meters, for evidence of large and possibly harmful life-forms. A few varieties of water-breathing and amphibious creatures inhabited the shallows, tiny animals and insects crawled or flew among the tree roots and branches, but none of them were large enough to constitute a physical threat. This did not mean that they could be completely ignored. Pathogens could not jump the off-world species barrier, Danalta reminded her unnecessarily, but insects secreting organic toxins in poison sacs were capable of delivering painful if not lethal stings, the crablike sea-dwellers could nip, and all of them, should they feel threatened or hungry enough, could bite.
That was why she was walking along a golden beach without the gentle abrasion of hot sand between her toes while, “ from her uncovered face and the backs of her bare hands, much of the sun’s heat was being reflected away by her white rails In this situation she would have preferred to wear much and the other members of the team would neither have cared or noticed if she had worn nothing at all because Earth-humans were one of the few intelligent species with a nudity taboo. The others covered themselves only when their working environment required the wearing of body protection. In spite of her advancing years, Peter kept telling her with maximum ardor and minimum poetry—and when his brain was not so busy with other-species mind partners that he was unsure of who and what he was and why they were lying together—that she was in very good shape.