Conway sighed. “Spit it out, things couldn’t be much worse than they are now…
But they could and were.
When Prilicla finished speaking Conway pulled his hand away from the intercom switch as though it had grown teeth and bit him. “I can’t tell him that over the intercom!” he burst out. “It would be sure to leak to the patients and if they, or even some of the Staff knew about it, there would be a panic.” He dithered for a moment, then cried, “Come on, we’ve got to see O’Mara!”
But the Chief Psychologist was not in his office or in the nearby Educator room. However, information supplied by one of his assistants sent them hurrying to the forty-seventh level and Observation Ward Three.
This was a vast, high-ceilinged room maintained at a pressure and temperature suited to warm-blooded oxygen-breathers. DBDG, DBLF and FGLI doctors carried out preliminary examinations here on the more puzzling or exotic cases-the patients, if these atmospheric conditions did not suit them, being housed in large, transparent cubicles spaced at intervals around the walls and floor. It was known irreverently as the Punch and Ponder department and Conway could see a group of medics of all shapes and species gathered around a glass-walled tank in the middle of the ward. This must be the older and dying SRTT he had heard about, but he had no attention to spare for anything until he had spoken to O’Mara.
He caught sight of the psychologist at a communications desk beside the wall and hurried over.
While he talked O’Mara listened stolidly, several times opening his mouth as though to interrupt, then each time closing it in a grimmer, tighter line. But when Conway reached the point where he had seen the broken Translator, O’Mara waved him to silence and hit the intercom switch with the same jerky motion of his hand.
“Get me Engineering Division, Colonel Skempton,” he barked. Then:
“Colonel, our runaway is in the FROB nursery area. But there is a complication, I’m afraid-it has lost its Translator. . .” There was a short pause, then: “Neither do I know how I expect you to pacify it when you can’t communicate, but do what you can in the meantime-I’m going to work on the communication angle now.
He snapped the switch off and then on again, and said, “Colinson, in Communications.., hello, Major. I want a relay between here and the Monitor Survey team on the SRTT’s home planet-yes, the one I had you collecting about a few hours ago. Will you arrange that? And have them prepare a sound tape in the SRTT native language-I’ll give you the wording I want in a moment-and have them relay it here. The substance of the speech, which must be obtained from an adult SRTT, will have to be roughly as follows-”
He broke off as Major Colinson’s voice erupted from the speaker. The communications man was reminding a certain desk-bound headshrinker that the SRTT planet was halfway across the Galaxy, that subspace radio was susceptible to interference just like any other kind and that by the time every sun in the intervening distance had splattered the signal with their share of static it would be virtually unintelligible.
“Have them repeat the signal,” O’Mara said. “There are sure to be usable words and phrases which we can piece together to reconstruct the original message. We need this thing badly, and I’ll tell you why..
The SRTT species were an extremely long-lived race, O’Mara explained quickly, who reproduced hermaphroditically at very great intervals and with great pain and effort. There was therefore a bond of great affection and-what was more important in the present circumstances-discipline between the adults and children of the species. There was also the belief, so strong as to be almost a certainty, that no matter what changes a member of this species worked it would always try to retain the vocal and aural organs which allowed it to communicate with its fellows.
Now if one of the adults on the home planet could prepare a few general remarks directed toward youths who misbehaved when they ought to have known better, and these were relayed to Sector General and in turn played over the PA to their runaway visitor, then the young SRTT’s ingrained obedience to its elders would do the rest.