by working down the stern-facing wall until all
of it reaches the surface. The gravity and pressure sensors are linked to the
medication reservoirs, Doctor, so you have just reproduced the conditions for
resuscitation following a planetary landing.”
Conway nodded. He said, “Prilicla, can you detect anything?”
“Not yet, friend Conway.”
They moved closer so as to be able to look into the two opened cylinders,
dividing their attention between the occupants who were lying flaccidly with
their dorsal manipulators hanging limply along their sides. Then one of the
enormous, tubular bodies began to quiver, and suddenly they were both moving
ponderously toward each other.
“Move back,” Conway said. “Prilicla?”
“Consciousness is returning, friend Conway,” the empath replied, trembling with
its own as well as everyone else’s excitement. “But slowly; the movements are
instinctive, involuntary.”1
As the forward extremity of one CRLT approached the rear of the other, the
organic film which protected the raw areas on each creature softened, liquefied,
and trickled away. At the center of the forward face a blunt, conical shape
began to form surrounded by systems of muscles which twitched themselves into
mounds and hollows and deep, irregular fissures. The rear face of the other CRLT
had grown its own series of hollows and orifices which exactly corresponded with
the protuberances of the other, as well as four large, triangular flaps which
opened out like the fleshy petals of an alien flower. Then all at once there was
just one double-length creature with a join which was virtually invisible.
And I was worried about joining them together, Conway thought incredulously. The
problem might be to keep them apart!
“Are we observing a physical coupling for the purpose of reproduction?”
Murchison said to nobody in particular.
“Friend Murchison,” Prilicla said, “the emotional radiation of both creatures
suggests that this is not a conscious or involuntary sex act. A closer analogy
would be that of an infant seeking the physical reassurance of its parent.
However, both beings are seeking physical and mental reassurance, and have
feelings of confusion and loss, and these feelings are so closely matched that
the only explanation is shared mentation.”
“Tractor beamers,” Conway said urgently. “Pull them apart, gentlyl”
He had been delighted to find that the beings who made up the vast group entity
would link together naturally when the conditions were right, although that
might not be the case if too many intervening segments had been destroyed in the
accident, but he most certainly did not want a premature and permanent link-up
between these two at this stage. They would have to be returned to a state of
hibernation and resume their positions in the coil, otherwise they might find
themselves permanently separated, orphaned, from the group entity.
Even though the tractor beamers were no longer being gentle, the two CRLTs
stubbornly refused to separate. Instead they were becoming more physically
agitated, they were trying to emerge completely from their hibernation
cylinders, and their emotional radiation was seriously inconveniencing Prilicla.
“We must reverse the process—” Conway began.
“The sensors react to gravity and air pressure,” Fletcher broke in quickly. “We
can’t evacuate the hold without killing them, but if we cut the artificial
gravity only it might—”
“The endplate release mechanism was also linked to those sensors,” Conway said,
“and we can’t replace them in their slots without chopping the two beasties
apart, in the wrong place.”
“It might stop the flow of resuscitation medication,” Fletcher went on, “and
restart the hibernation sequence. The needles are still sited in both creatures
and the connecting tubing is flexible and still unbroken, although it won’t be
for long if we don’t stop them from leaving their cylinders. If we put a clamp
on the resuscitation line of each beastie, Doctor, I believe I could bypass the
endplate actuator and restart the hibernation medication.”
“But you will be working inside the cylinders,” Murchison said, “beside two very
massive and angry e-ts.”
“No, ma’am,” the Captain said. “1 am neither foolhardy nor a xenophobe, and I
shall work through an access panel in the outer skin. It should take about
twenty minutes.”
“Too long,” Conway said. “They will have disconnected
themselves from the tubing by then. We can calculate the dosage needed to put