“No!” Conway shouted, aghast at what the visitor was changing into. “No! Stop! Change back…
But it was too late. The whole ward seemed to be stampeding toward the SRTT, giving vent to a thunderous bedlam of excited growls and yelps which, from the older infants, were Translated into shouts of “Dolly! Dolly! Nice dolly “‘
Springing upward to avoid being trampled, Conway looked down on the milling mass of FROBs and felt the strong and sickening conviction that the luckless SRTT had departed this life. But no. The being had somehow managed to run-or squeeze-the gauntlet of stamping feet and eager, bludgeoning heads by keeping low and tightly pressed against the wall. It emerged battered but still in the shape which it had, chameleon-like, adopted in the mistaken idea that a tiny version of an FROB would be safe.
Conway called, “Quickly! Grab!”
But Prilicla was not sleeping on its job. The massive jaws of the grab were already hanging open above the dazed and slow-moving SRTT, and as Conway shouted they dropped and crashed shut. Conway sprang for one of the lifting cables and as they rose from the floor together he said hurriedly, “You’re safe now. Relax. I’m here to help you..
His reply was a sharp convulsion of the SRTT which nearly shook him loose, and suddenly the being had become a thing of lithe, oily convolutions which slipped between the fingers of the grab and slapped onto the floor. The FROBs hooted excitedly and charged again.
It could not possibly survive this time, Conway thought with a mixture of horror, pity and impatience; this being who had had one fright on arrival and who had not stopped running since, and who was still too utterly terrified even to be helped. The grab was useless but there was one other possibility. O’Mara would probably skin him alive for it, but he would at least be saving SRTT’s life for the time being if he allowed it to escape.
On the wall opposite the entry lock which Prilicla and himself had used was the door through which the FROB patients were brought to the ward. It was a simple door because the corridor outside it, which led to the FROB operating theater, was maintained at the same level of gravity and pressure as was the ward. Conway dived across the intervening space to the controls and slid it open, watching the SRTT-who was not so insensible with fear that it missed seeing this way of escape-as it slithered through. He closed it again just in time to prevent some of the patients from getting out as well, then made for the control cupola to report the whole ghastly mess to O’Mara.
For the situation was now much worse than they all had thought. While he had been at the other end of the ward he had seen something which increased the difficulties of catching and pacifying the runaway many, many times, and which explained the visitor’s lack of response to him while in the grab. It had been the shattered, trampled ruin of the SRTT’s Translator pack.
Conway’s hand was on the intercom switch when Prilicla said, “Excuse me, sir, but does my ability to detect your emotions cause you mental distress? Or does mentioning aloud what I may have found trouble you?”
“Eh? What?” said Conway. He thought that he must be radiating impatience at a furious rate at the moment, because his assistant had picked a great time to start asking questions like that! His first impulse was to cut the other off, but then he decided that delaying his report to O’Mara by a few seconds would not make any difference, and possibly Prilicla considered the matter important. Aliens were funny.
“No to both questions,” Conway replied shortly. “Though in the second instance I might be embarrassed if you made known your findings to a third party in certain circumstances. Why do you ask?”
“Because I have been aware of your deep anxiety regarding the possible depredations of this SRTT among your patients,” Prilicla said, “and I am loath to further increase that anxiety by telling you of the type and intensity of the emotions which I detected just now in the being’s mind.”