said, “Yes, sir. The being we examined was a warm-blooded oxygen breather with
the type of basic metabolism associated with that physiological grouping. The
cadaver was massive, measuring approximately twenty meters in length and three
meters in diameter, excluding projecting appendages. Physically it resembles the
DBLF Kelgian life-form, but many times larger and possessing a leathery
tegument rather than the silver fur of the Kelgians. Like the DBLFs it is
multipedal, but the manipulatory appendages are positioned in a single row along
the back.
“There were twenty-one of these dorsal limbs, all showing evidence of early
evolutionary specialization. Six of them were long, heavy, and claw-tipped and
were obviously evolved for defense since the being was a herbivore, and there
were fifteen
in five groups of three spaced between the six heavier tentacles. Each of the
thinner limbs terminated in four digits, two of which were opposable, and were
manipulatory appendages originally evolved for gathering and transferring food
to the mouths, of which there are three on each flank opening into three
stomachs. Two additional orifices on each side open into a very large and
complex lung. The structure inside these breathing orifices suggests that
expelled air could be interrupted and modulated to produce intelligence-bearing
sounds. On the underside were three openings used for the elimination of wastes.
“The mechanism of reproduction was unclear,” he continued, “and the specimen
showed evidence of possessing both male and female genitalia on the forward and
rear extremities, respectively. The brain, if it was the brain, took the form of
a cable of nerve ganglia with localized swellings in three places, running
longitudinally through the cadaver like a central core. There was another and
much thinner nerve cable running parallel to the thicker core, but below it and
about twenty-five centimeters from the underside. Positioned close to each
extremity were two sets of three eyes, two of which were mounted dorsally and
two on the forward and rear flanks. They were recessed but capable of limited
extension and together gave the being complete and continuous vision vertically
and horizontally. The type and positioning of the visual equipment and
appendages suggest that it evolved on a very unfriendly world.
“Our tentative classification of the being,” Conway ended, “was an incomplete
CRLT.”
“Incomplete?” Thornnastor said.
“Yes, sir,” Conway said. “The cadaver we examined had sustained minimum damage
since it had died during a slow decompression while in suspended animation. We
could be wrong, but there were signs of some kind of radical surgery having
taken place, a double removal of what may have been the head and tail of the
being. This was not a traumatic amputation caused by the disaster to their
ship, but a deliberate procedure which may have been required to fit the being
into its suspended animation container for the colonization attempt. The body
tegument overall is thick and very tough, but at the extremities the only
protection is a hard, transparent layer of
organic material, and the underlying protrusions, fissures, orifices, and
musculature look raw. This suggests—”
“Conway,” O’Mara said sharply, with a glance toward the suddenly paling Colonel.
“With respect to Thornnastor, you have moved too quickly -from the general to
the particular. Please confine yourself at this stage to a simple statement of
the problem and your proposed solution.”
Colonel Skempton was the man responsible for making Sector General function as
an organization— but, as he was fond of telling his medical friends when they
started to talk shop in grisly detail, he was a glorified bookkeeper, not a
bloody surgeon! The trouble was that there was no way Conway could state his
problem simply without offending the sensibilities of the overly squeamish
Colonel.
“Simply,” Conway said, “the problem is a gigantic, worm-like entity, perhaps
five kilometers or more in length, which has been chopped into many hundreds of
pieces. The indicated treatment is to join the pieces together again, in the
correct order.”
The Colonel’s stylus stopped in mid-doodle, Thornnastor made a loud,
untranslatable sound, and O’Mara, normally a phlegmatic individual, said with
considerable vehemence, “Conway, you are not considering bringing that—that
Midgard Serpent to the hospital?”
Conway shook his head. “The hospital is much too small to handle it.”