But what were the owners of those fabulous tools really like? Were they small and completely unspecialized with no fixed physical shape like the tools they used or, considering the mental abilities needed to develop the tools in the first place, were they little more than physically helpless brains dependent on their thought-controlled instruments to feed them, protect them and furnish all their physical needs? Conway badly wanted to know what to expect when the ship arrived. But Diagnosticians, as everyone knew, were unpredictable and even more impatient of muddy or confused thinking than was the Chief Psychologist.
He would be better advised, Conway told himself, to let his questions wait until he had actually seen his patient, which would be in just over an hour from now. The intervening period he would spend studying Descartes’ report.
And having lunch.
The Monitor Survey cruiser popped into normal space, the alien spacecraft spinning like an unwieldy propeller astern, then just as quickly reentered hyperspace for the return trip to Meatball. The rescue tender closed in, snagged the towline which had been left by Descartes and fixed the free end to a rotating attachment point of its own.
Space suited Doctors Mannon and Prilicla, Lieutenant Harrison and Conway watched from the tender’s open airlock.
“It’s still leaking,” said Mannon. “That’s a good sign-there is still pressure inside . .
“Unless it’s a fuel leak,” Harrison said.
“What do you feel?” asked Conway.
Prilicla’s fragile, eggshell body and six pipe-stem legs were beginning to quiver violently so it was obvious that it was feeling something.
“The vessel contains one living entity,” said Prilicla slowly. “Its emotional radiation is comprised chiefly of fear and feelings of pain and suffocation. I would say that these feelings have been with it for many days-the radiation is subdued and lacking in clarity due to developing unconsciousness. But the quality of that entity’s mentation leaves no doubt that it is intelligent and not simply an experimental animal..
“It’s nice to know,” said Mannon dryly, “that we’re not going to all this trouble for an instrument package or a Meatball space puppy…
“We haven’t much time,” said Conway.
He was thinking that their patient must be pretty far gone by now. It’s fear was understandable, of course, and its pain, suffocation and diminished consciousness were probably due to injury, intense hunger and foul breathing water. He tried to put himself in the Meatball astronaut’s position.
Even though the pilot had been badly confused by the apparently uncontrollable spinning, the being had deliberately sought to maintain the spin when Descartes tried to take it aboard because it must have been smart enough to realize that a tumbling ship could not be drawn into the cruiser’s hold. Possibly it could have checked its own spin with steering power if Descartes had not been so eager to rush to its aid-but that was simply a possibility, of course, and the spacecraft had been leaking badly as well. Now it was still leaking and spinning and, with its occupant barely conscious, Conway thought he could risk frightening it just a little more by checking the spin and moving the vehicle into the tender and the patient as quickly as possible into the water-filled compartment where they could work on it.
But as soon as the immaterial fingers of the tractor beams reached out an equally invisible force seemed to grip Prilicla’s fragile body and shake it furiously.
“Doctor,” said the empath, “the being is radiating extreme fear. It is forcing coherent thought from a mind which is close to panic. It is losing consciousness rapidly, perhaps dying. . . Look! It is using steering thrust!”
“Cut!” shouted Conway to the tractor beamers. The alien spacecraft, which had almost come to rest, began to spin slowly as vapor jetted from lateral vents in the nose and stern. After a few minutes the jets became irregular, weaker and finally ceased altogether, leaving the vehicle spinning at approximately half its original speed. Prilicla still looked as if its body was being shaken by a high wind.
“Doctor,” said Conway suddenly, “considering the kind of tools these people use I wonder if some kind of psionic force is being used against you-you are shaking like a leaf.”