Monitor Corps officer, but simply that while Conway was trying to reach Dermod,
the Fleet Commander was trying to contact the Doctor.
It was Dermod who spoke first, with the slight artificiality of tone which told
Conway that not only was the other in a hurry and under pressure but that there
were other people present beyond the range of the vision pickup. He said,
“Doctor, there is a serious problem regarding the final assembly phase and I
need your help. You are already concerned over the limited time remaining to us
and, frankly, I was unwilling to discuss the problem with you until I was able
to present it, and the solution, in its entirety. This can now be done, in
reverse order, preferably. My immediate requirement is for another capital ship.
Claudius is available and—”
“Why—” Conway began, shaking his head in momentary confusion. He had been about
to list his own problems and requirements and found himself suddenly on the
receiving end.
“Very well, Doctor, I’ll state the problem first,” The Fleet Commander said,
frowning as he nodded to someone out of sight. The screen blanked for a few
seconds, then it displayed a black field on which there was a thick, vertical
gray line. At the lower end of the line a fat red box appeared and on the
opposite end a blue circle. Dermod went on briskly, “We now
have a pretty accurate idea of the configuration of the alien ship, and I am
showing you a very simple representation because 1 haven’t time to do otherwise
right now.
“The ship had a central stem, the gray line,” Dermod explained, “with the power
plant and thrusters represented by the red box aft and the forward-mounted
sensors and navigation systems shown as a blue circle. Since the ship’s occupant
was unconscious, all of these systems were fully automatic. The stem also
provided the anchoring points for the structure which supported the inhabited
coil. You will see that the main supports are angled forward to compensate for
stresses encountered while the vessel was under power and during the landing
maneuver.”
A forest of branches grew suddenly from the stem, making it look like a squat,
cylindrical Christmas tree standing in its * red tub and with a bright-blue
fairy light at the top. Then the continuous spiral of linked hibernation
compartments was attached to the ends of the branches, followed by the spacing
members which separated each loop of the coil, and the picture lost all
resemblance to a tree.
“The coil diameter remains constant throughout at just under five hundred
meters,” the Fleet Commander’s voice continued. “Originally there were twelve
turns of the coil and, with each hibernation cylinder measuring twenty meters in
length, this means there were roughly eighty hibernating CRLTs in every loop of
the coil and close on one thousand of the beings on the complete ship.
“Every loop of the coil was separated by a distance of seventy meters, so that
the total height of the coilship was just over eight hundred meters. We were
puzzled by this separation since it would have been structurally much simpler
laying one on top of the other, but we now believe that the open coil
configuration was designed both to reduce and localize meteorite collision
damage and remove the majority of the hibernation compartments as far as
possible from radiation leakage from the reactor at the stern. While encased in
its rather unusual vessel we think the creature traveled tail-first so that its
thinking end was at the stern to initiate disembarkation following the landing.
Unfortunately, the stern section had to be heavier and more rigid than the
forward structure since it had to support the weight of the vessel during
deceleration and landing, and
so it was the stern which sustained most of the damage when the collision
occurred, and most of the CRLT casualties were from the sternmost loop of the
coil.”
According to Vespasian’s computer’s reconstruction, the vessel had been in
direct head-on collision with a large meteor, and the closing velocities
involved had been such that the whole central stem had been obliterated, as if
an old-time projectile hand weapon had been used to remove the core of an apple.