“But right now,” the Captain continued, “I could not say with certainty whether or not anyone or anything was alive inside that thing. The close approach to the sun has heated up the outer hull to such an extent that it is no longer possible to detect subtle differences of temperature inside, and the other sensor readings are badly distorted because of the effect of the heat expansion on the structure as a whole. Besides, that ship is big. Its hull is so torn and punctured by meteorite collisions that Sutherland could have found a way in anywhere. Where would you start looking for him, Doctor?”
“If he’s there,” said Conway, “he’ll let us know where to look.”
The Captain remained silent for a moment, and Conway, despite his irritation with Fletcher’s manner towards him, could sympathize with the other’s dilemma. No more than Conway did the Captain want to leave the area without finding or otherwise establishing the fate of the missing Surgeon-Lieutenant. But there was the welfare of the other casualties to consider, which properly was Conway’s responsibility, and the safety of the ambulance ship, which was very definitely Fletcher’s.
With all three vessels sliding down the gravity well of the system’s sun with an acceleration that did not bear thinking about, the time allocated for a search for the missing officer would be strictly limited, and the Captain would not want to be placed in the position of having to abandon Senior Physician Conway of Sector General as well as the Monitor Corps medic on the derelict. Neither could he risk sending one of his officers with Conway because if he, too, was lost the Captain would have a very serious problem. The Rhabwar’s crew was small and there was no overlapping of specialties. Fletcher would probably be able to Jump back to Sector General eventually, but serious risks and delays would be involved that could adversely affect the casualties.
The wall speaker rustled with another sigh, and Fletcher said, “Very well, Doctor, you may search for the Surgeon-Lieutenant. Dodds, take the scope. You are searching for evidence of a recent entry into the derelict. Lieutenant Chen, forget the pathologist’s samples for the time being and return to the Power Room. I want maneuvering thrust in five minutes. Doctor, I shall circle the derelict longitudinally at a distance of half a mile. Since it is rotating once every fifty-two minutes, this will enable us to scan its hull surface in four orbits. Haslam, do what you can with the sensors, and give the doctor some idea of the geography of the interior.~~
“Thank you,” said Conway.
Dodds had been helping Murchison move one of the casualties into a pressure tent. As soon as he was finished he excused himself and headed for Control. Conway looked at the repeater screen and the image of the derelict, half of which was a featureless blackness and half a confusion of brilliantly reflective hull plating that was crisscrossed by black fissures and craters. He glanced at it from time to time while he was helping attach bio-sensors to the casualties, seeing it grow larger and begin to unroll from top to bottom of the screen. Suddenly the image flicked off, to be replaced by a diagrammatic representation of the derelict.
It showed the cross section of the spherical vessel, with its deck levels making concentric circles to its core. Near the center several compartments of different sizes were marked in various shades of green, and close to the inner wall of the hull at one point there was a large, rectangular compartment marked in red. Fine red lines joined this area with the green compartments at the center.
“Doctor, Haslam here. I’m projecting a sensor diagram of the derelict’s interior. It is not detailed, I’m afraid, and a lot of it is guesswork..
The derelict had been a generation transport, Haslam went on to explain, of the spherical configuration favored at a time when maximum living and cultivating space was a necessity. Direction of travel was along the vertical axis, with the control area forward and the reactor and drive units, which were marked in red, astern. The vessel could rotate fairly rapidly around the vertical axis so as to furnish the outer deck levels amidships with artificial gravity even when the ship was using thrust.