“I hadn’t realized,” said Conway dully, “that it was as serious as that. But there must be something we can do He tried to pull his face muscles into a smile. “. . . if only to preserve Brenner’s illusions about the miracle-workers of Sector General.”
Brenner had been looking from one to the other, obviously wondering whether this was a spirited professional discussion or the beginning of some kind of family fight. But the Lieutenant was tactful as well as observant. He said, “I would have given up a long time ago.
Before either of them could reply the communicator chimed and Chief of Pathology Thornnastor was framed in the screen.
“My department,” said the Tralthan, “has worked long and diligently to discover a method of removing the coating material by chemical means, but in vain. The material is, however, affected by intense heat. At high temperatures the surface crumbles, the ashy deposit can be scraped or blown away and heat again applied. The process can be continued safely until the coating is very thin, after which it could be removed in large sections without harm to the patient.”
Conway obtained the temperature and thickness figures, thanked Thornnastor and then used the communicator to call the maintenance section for cutting torches and operators. He had not forgotten Murchison’s doubts regarding the advisability of attempting a cure, but he had to go on trying. He did not know that the great, diseased bird would end as a winged vegetable, and he would not know until they knew everything possible about the disease which was affecting it.
Because the heat treatment was untried they began near the tail, where the vital organs were deeply buried and where the area had already been disturbed, presumably by the efforts of their medical predecessors.
After only half an hour’s continuous burning they had their first stroke of luck in three days. They discovered a barnacle which was embedded upside down in the patient-its bundle of rootlets fanned out to link up with the other barnacles, but a few of them curved down and past the rim of its shell to enter the patient. The surface rootlet network was clearly visible as the flame of the torch burned the rootlet material into a fine, incandescent web. One of the briefly incandescent rootlets pointed towards a barnacle which was larger and differently shaped.
Patiently they painted both objects and their immediate surroundings with the cutting torches, brushing away the crumbling layers of coating until it was wafer thin. They cracked it, carefully peeled back the remains of the coating and lifted away two perfect specimens.
“They are dead,” asked Conway, “not just dormant?”
“They are dead,” said Prilicla.
“And the patient?”
“Life is still present, friend Conway, but the radiation is extremely weak, and diffuse.”
Conway studied the area bared by the removal of the two specimens. Beneath the first was a small, deep hollow which followed the contours of the reversed shell. The underlying tissues showed a high degree of compression, and the few rootlets in evidence were much too weak and fine to have held the barnacle so tightly against the patient. Something or somebody had pressed the barnacle into position with considerable force.
The second, and different, specimen had been held only by the coating, apparently-it did not possess rootlets. But it did possess wings folded into long slits in its carapace and so, on closer inspection, did the first type.
Prilicla alighted beside them, trembling slightly and erratically in the fashion which denoted excitement. It said, “You will have noticed that these are two entirely different species, friend Conway. Both are large, winged insects of the type which require a lowgravity planet with a thick air envelope-not unlike Cinruss. It is possible that the first type is a predator parasite and that the second is a natural enemy, introduced by a third party in an attempt to cure the patient.”
Conway nodded. “It would explain why type one turned on to its back when approached by type two…
“I hope,” said Murchison apologetically, “that your theory is flexible enough to accept another datum.” She had been scraping persistently at a piece of coating which was still adhering to a smaller slit in the barnacle. “The coating material was not applied by a third party, it is a body secretion of type one.