“Edanelt’s condition is stable, friend Conway,” reported Prilicla, who was keeping well clear of the Hudlar and the hissing metal juggernaut of the TLTU, who were moving Thornnastor. It made a feather-light landing on the Melfan’s carapace for a closer feel of Edanelt’s emotional radiation. “It is breathing with difficulty but is in no immediate danger.”
Of the three e-ts affected, it had been the farthest away from the DBPK casualty-which should mean something. Conway shook his head angrily. Too much was happening at once. He was not being given a chance to think..
“Friend Conway,” called Prilicla, who had moved to the DBPK casualty. “I detect feelings of increasing discomfort not associated with its injuries-feelings of constraint. It is also extremely worried, but not fearful, about something. The feeling is of intense guilt and concern. Perhaps, in addition to the injuries sustained in its ship, there is a history of psychological disturbance of the type common to certain preadolescents . .
The mental state of the DBPK survivor was low on Conway’s order of priorities right then, and there was no way he could conceal his impatience from Prilicla.
“May I ease its physical restraints, friend Conway?” the empath ended quickly.
“Yes, just don’t let it loose,” Conway replied, then felt stupid as soon as he finished speaking.
The small, furry, utterly inoffensive being did not represent a physical threat-it was the pathogens it carried that provided the danger, and they were already loose. But when Prilicla’s fragile pipestem manipulators touched the buttons that reduced the tightness of the restraining webbing holding the DBPK to the examination table, it did not try to escape. Instead it moved itself carefully until it lay like a sleeping Earth cat, curled up with its head pushed underneath its long and furry tail, looking like a mound of striped fur except for the bare patch at the root of its tail where the skin showed pinkish brown.
“It feels much more comfortable now, but is still worried, friend Conway,” the Cinrusskin reported. Then it scuttled across the ceiling towards Thornnastor’s position, trembling slightly because the unconscious Diagnostician was experiencing strong emotions.
The TLTU had taped Thornnastor’s rear legs together, then withdrawn to enable the Hudlar and four team-members to do their work. With one man each grasping a middle or forward leg, they strained to pull them diagonally apart so as to expand the Tralthan’s chest as much as possible. The Hudlar was saying, “Pull together. Harder. Hold it. Let go.” When it said “let go” the legs resumed their natural position while simultaneously the Hudlar pressed on Thornnastor’s massive rib-cage with its own not inconsiderable weight to ensure that the lungs were deflated before the process was repeated. Behind the visors of the men tugging on Thornnastor’s legs were faces deep red and shining with perspiration, and some of the things they were saying were not suitable for translation.
Every medic, orderly and maintenance man in Sector General was taught the rudiments of first aid as it applied to members of the species that made up the Galactic Federation-those, that is, whose environmental requirements were not so exotic that only another member of their race could aid them without delay. The instructions for giving artificial respiration to a Tralthan FGLI was to tie the rear legs together and open and close the other four so as to suck air into the FGLI’s lungs. Thornnastor’s mask was in position, and it was being forced to breathe pure oxygen. Prilicla was available to report any change in its condition.
But a Kelgian tracheotomy was most decidedly not a first-aid measure. Except for a thin-walled, narrow casing that housed the brain, the DBLF species had no bone structure. The DBLF body was composed of an outer cylinder of musculature, which, in addition to being its primary means of locomotion, protected the vital organs within it. The Kelgian life-form was dangerously susceptible to lethal injury, because the complex and highly vulnerable circulatory system that fed those great bands of encircling muscle ran close under the skin and was protected only by its thick fur. An injury that most other species would consider superficial could cause a Kelgian to bleed to death in minutes. Conway’s problem was that the Kelgian trachea was deeply buried under the neck muscles and passed within half an inch of the main artery and vein, which carried the blood supply to and from the brain.