He was watching helplessly as the AACL prepared to launch itself again.
….. We are here to help you,” the PVSJ was saying as the being landed with a soundless crash four yards from the padre. Five great tentacles anchored themselves firmly, and a sixth lashed out in a great, curving blur of motion that caught the PVSJ and smashed it against the wall. Life-giving chlorine spurted from the PVSJ’s suit, momentarily hiding in mist the shapeless, pathetic thing which rebounded slowly into the middle of the room. The AACL began making cheeping noises again.
Conway heard himself babbling out a report to Mannon, then Mannon shouting for Lister. Finally the Director’s voice came in to him. It said thickly, “You’ve got to kill it, Conway.”
You’ve got to kill it, Conway!
It was those words which shocked Conway back to a state of normality as nothing else could have done. How very like a Monitor, he thought bitterly, to solve a problem with a murder. And to ask a doctor, a person dedicated to the preserving of life, to do the killing. It did not matter that the being was insane with fear, it had caused a lot of trouble in the hospital, so kill it.
Conway had been afraid, he still was. In his recent state of mind he might have been panicked into using this kill-or-be-killed law of the jungle. Not now, though. No matter what happened to him or the hospital he would not kill an intelligent fellow being, and Lister could shout himself blue in the face . .
It was with a start of surprise that Conway realized that both Lister and Mannon were shouting at him, and trying to counter his arguments. He must have been doing his thinking aloud without knowing it. Angrily he tuned them out.
But there was still another voice gibbering at him, a slow, whispering, unutterably weary voice that frequently broke off to gasp in pain. For a wild moment Conway thought that the ghost of the dead PVSJ was continuing Lister’s arguments, then he caught sight of movement above him.
Drifting gently through the hole in the ceiling was the space suited figure of Williamson. How the badly injured Monitor had got there at all was beyond Conway’s understanding-his broken arms made control of his gravity pack impossible, so that he must have come all the way by kicking with his feet and trusting that a still-active gravity grid would not pull him in a second time. At the thought of how many times those multiple fractured members must have collided with obstacles on the way down, Conway cringed. And yet all the Monitor was concerned with was trying to coax Conway into killing the AACL below him.
Close below him, with the distance lessening every second…
Conway felt the cold sweat break out on his back. Helpless to stop himself, the injured Monitor had cleared the rent in the ceiling and was drifting slowly floorward, directly on top of the crouching AACL! As Conway stared fascinated one of the steel-hard tentacles began to uncurl preparatory to making a death-dealing swipe.
Instinctively Conway launched himself in the direction of the floating Monitor, there was no time for him to feel consciously brave-or stupid-about the action. He connected with a muffled crash and hung on, wrapping his legs around Williamson’s waist to leave his hands free for the gravity pack controls. They spun furiously around their common center of gravity, walls, ceilings and floor with its deadly occupant whirling around so fast that Conway could barely focus his eyes on the controls. It seemed years before he finally had the spin checked and he had them headed for the hole in the ceiling and safety. They had almost reached it when Conway saw the hawser-like tentacle come sweeping up at him…
X
Something smashed into his back with a force that knocked the breath out of him. For a heart-freezing moment he thought his air-tanks had gone, his suit torn open and that he was already sucking frenziedly at vacuum. But his gasp of pure terror brought air rushing into his lungs. Conway had never known canned air to taste so good.