“If everyone moves back to the hull of our ship,” said Prilicla, “that would be more than adequate, friend Conway. It would also assist me if they engaged in cerebral rather than emotional thinking, and switched off their suit radios.”
For what seemed to be a very long time they stood together on the wing of the Rhabwar with their backs to the alien ship and Prilicla. Conway had told them that if they were to watch the empath at work they would probably feel anxiety or impatience or disappointment if it did not find a survivor quickly, and any kind of strong feeling would cause emotional interference as far as Prilicla was concerned. Conway did not know what form of cerebral exercise the others were performing to clear their minds of troublesome emotional radiation, but he decided to look around him at the star clusters embedded in their billows and curtains of glowing star stuff. Then the thought came that he was exposing his eyes and his mind to too much sheer splendor, and the feeling of wonder might also be disturbing to an emotion-sensitive.
Suddenly the Captain, who had been sneaking an occasional look at Prilicla, began pointing towards the other ship. Conway switched on his radio in time to hear Fletcher say, “I think we can start emoting again.”
Conway swung round to see the spacesuited figure of Prilicla hanging above the metal landscape of the ship like a tiny moon while it directed a spray of fluorescent marker paint at an area midway between the center and the rim. The painted area was already about three meters across and the empath was still extending it.
“Prilicla?” called Conway.
“Two sources, friend Conway,” the Cinrusskin reported. “Both are so faint that I cannot pinpoint them with any degree of accuracy other than to say they are somewhere beneath the marked area of hull. The emotional radiation in both cases is characteristic of the unconscious and severely weakened subject. I would say they are in worse shape than the Dwerlan we rescued recently. They are very close to death.”
Before Conway could reply, the Captain said harshly, “Right, that’s it. Haslam, Chen, break out the portable airlock and cutting gear. This time we’ll search the rim in pairs, except for Doctor Prilida, with one man doing the looking with his light switched off while the other directs side lighting onto the plating so as to throw any joins into relief. Try to find anything that looks like a lock entrance, and cut a way in if we can’t solve the combination. Search carefully but quickly. If we can’t find a way through the rim inside half an hour, we’ll cut through the upper hull in the center of the marked area and hope we don’t hit any control linkages or power lines. Have you anything to add, Doctor?”
“Yes,” said Conway. “Prilicla, is there anything else, anything at all, you can tell me about the condition of the survivors?”
He was already on the way back to the distressed ship with the Captain slightly ahead of him, and the little empath had attached itself magnetically to the marked area of hull.
“My data is largely negative, friend Conway,” said Prilicla, “and comprises supposition rather than fact. Neither being is registering pain, but both share feelings suggesting starvation, asphyxiation and the need of something that is vital to the continuance of life. One of the beings is trying very hard to stay alive while the other appears merely to be angry. The emotional radiation is so tenuous that I cannot state with certainty that the beings are intelligent life-forms, but the indications are that the angry one is probably a nonintelligent lab animal or ship’s pet. These are little more than guesses, friend Conway, and I could be completely wrong.”
“I doubt that,” said Conway. “But those feelings oUstarvation and strangulation puzzle me. The ship is undamaged, so food and air supplies should be available.”
“Perhaps, friend Conway,” Prilicla replied timidly, “they are in the terminal stages of a respiratory disease, rather than suffering from gross physical injury.”
“In which case,” said Murchison, joining the conversation from the Rhabwar, “I will be expected to brew up something efficacious against a dose of extraterrestrial pneumonia. Thank you, Doctor Prilicla!”