“And so,” Skempton said, looking up for the first time, “is your ambulance
ship.”
Before Conway could reply, Thornnastor said, “I find it difficult to believe
that the entity you describe could survive such radical amputation. However, if
Prilicla and yourself state that the separate sections so far recovered are
alive, then I must accept it. But have you considered the possibility that it is
a group entity, similar to the Telphi life-form which are stupid as individuals
but highly intelligent as a gestalt? Physical fragmentation in those
circumstances would be slightly more credible, Doctor.”
“Yes, sir, and we have not yet discarded that possibility—” Conway began.
“Very well, Doctor,” O’Mara broke in dryly. “You may restate the problem in less
simple form.”
The problem… thought Con way.
He began by asking them to visualize the vast, alien ship as it had been before
the disaster—not the multiple Wheel shape first discussed but a great,
continuous, open coil of constant diameter and similar in configuration to the
shape on the Colonel’s pad. The separate turns of the coil had been laced
together by an open latticework of metal beams which held the vessel together as
a rigid unit and provided the structural support needed along the thrust axis
during take-off, acceleration, and landing. Assembled in orbit, the ship had
been approximately five hundred meters in diameter and close on a mile long,
with* its power and propulsion system at one end of an axial support structure
and the automatic guidance system and sensors at the other.
The exact nature of the accident or malfunction was not yet known, but judging
by the observed effects it had been caused by a collision with a large natural
object which, striking the vessel head-on, had taken out the guidance system
forward, the axial structure, and the stern thrusters. The shock of the
collision had shaken the great, rotating coil into its component suspended
animation compartments, and centrifugal force had done the rest.
“This being—or beings—is so physiologically constituted,” Conway went on, “that
to assist it we must first rebuild its ship and land it successfully. Fitting
the pieces together again can be done most easily in weightless conditions. The
fact that the twenty-meter sections of the coil have flown apart but retained
their positions with respect to each other will greatly assist the reassembly
operation—”
“Wait, wait,” the Colonel said. “I cannot see this operation being possible,
Doctor. For one thing, you will need a very potent computer indeed to work out
the trajectories of those expanding sections accurately enough to return them to
their original positions in this—this jigsaw puzzle—and the equipment needed to
reassemble it would be—”
“Captain Fletcher says it is possible,” Conway said firmly-“Piecing together the
remains of an extraterrestria] ship has
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been done before, and much valuable knowledge was gained in the process.
Admittedly, on previous occasions there were no living survivors to be pieced
together as well and the work was on a much smaller scale.”
“Much smaller,” O’Mara said dryly. “Captain Fletcher is a theoretician and
Rhabwar is his first operational command. Is he happy ordering three scoutship
flotillas around?”
The Chief Psychologist was considering the problem in the terms of his own
specialty, Conway knew, and as usual O’Mara was a jump ahead of everyone else.
“He seems to enjoy worrying about it,” Conway said carefully, “and there are no
overt signs of megalomania.”
O’Mara nodded and sat back in his chair.
But the Colonel could jump to correct conclusions as well, if not always as
quickly as the Chief Psychologist. He said, “Surely, O’Mara, you are not
suggesting that Rhabwar direct this operation? It’s too damned big, and
expensive. It has to be referred up to—”
“There isn’t time for committee decisions,” Conway began.
“—the Federation Council,” the Colonel finished. “And anyway, did Fletcher tell
you how he proposed fitting this puzzle together?”
Conway nodded. “Yes, sir. It is a matter of basic design philosophy,..” Captain
Fletcher was of the opinion—an opinion shared by the majority of the
Federation’s top designers— that any piece of machinery beyond a certain degree
of complexity, be it a simple groundcar or a spaceship one kilometer long,