CHAPTER 25
Using its power-hungry tractor beams in reverse rather than the noisy thrusters, Rhabwar had come in low and quiet to transfer Prilicla and the Trolanni casualties to the station before returning as it had come, to orbit where the captain would be able to watch the spider ships without them seeing him, or if they did, they wouldn’t know that the new star in their sky was watching them.
“There are three vessels,” it reported simultaneously to the med station and the waiting courier vessel, “but all are stationary with their bows resting on the beach. Five gliders are flying around them at low altitude, too low for the med station to spot them. A number of ship’s personnel have been moving about on the beach and under the nearby trees, but too few, I feel sure, for them to be mounting an attack. In any case, the personnel concerned and the gliders went back on board their ships about ten minutes ago and just before a rain cloud blotted out the area.
“Doctor,” it added, “have you any medical or other developments that you want me to relay to Courier Two?”
“None, friend Fletcher,” Prilicla replied.
‘None?” the other said. “What about your missing pathologist? What’s the shape-changer doing about finding her? With the increased number of casualties I should think her presence is desirable right now.”
“It is …” he began, when Naydrad, who had been assisting him with Keet’s treatment, answered for him in its usual tactless disregard for the fact that the listening patient was wearing a translator.
“It is not desirable, Captain,” it broke in; “it is necessary. Physiologically the Trolanni are an unusually complex life-form. This one will survive but its mate will almost certainly not, unless Murchison, who is a specialist in other-species pathology, returns to us soon. We are all concerned for her safety and the possible loss of her unrivaled expertise.”
Unlike the Kelgian, who could not help saying exactly what it was thinking at any time, the captain tried to be more circumspect.
“Your medical team is two members short,” it said gently, “and Danalta would be of more use to you there than remaining in the vicinity of the bay. What I’m trying to say is that Pathologist Murchison may not be returning to you. Isn’t that a strong possibility, Doctor?”
Prilicla felt a tremor shaking his limbs and body, the significance of which Naydrad, but not Keet, would understand. He controlled his emotions with difficulty and stilled his body before he was able to speak.
“It is a possibility, friend Fletcher,” he said, “but I hope that it is a remote one. Danalta lost contact with Pathologist Murchison shortly after its capture and while it was still on the ground rescuing the communicator. The shape-changer has since been trying to discover the ship to which friend Murchison was taken and where within that ship it is being held, so far unsuccessfully-
“I shall not call off this search,” he went on, “because I have known Pathologist Murchison for many years. I know its personality, its warmth, sympathy, humor, its sensitivity, and in particular the intensity of feeling it holds for its life-mate, and many other qualities that cannot be put into words. Of even more importance, I know its emotional-radiation signature almost as well as I know my own.
“The spider ships are at extreme range for my empathic faculty.” he concluded, “and while I cannot honestly say that I sense its presence at any given moment, if friend Murchison was to terminate, I feel sure that I would know of it at once.”
The captain broke contact without speaking.
Murchison began with the approach long-hallowed by tradition, even in the days before mankind had learned how to leave Earth, by drawing pictures of the people and things she wanted to name. They were small and simple; small for the reason that she didn’t know whether or not the supply of broad leaves was limited, and simple because the ink ran like water and she had botched the first two attempts by overloading the brush. She held the leaf horizontally sketch-upwards for the few seconds it took the ink to dry, then showed it to the spider.