“Don’t be afraid, friend Khone,” Prilicla broke in quickly. “Even a demented
Hudlar couldn’t break through the partition Cha Thrat put around you, and our
casualties will be unconscious anyway. Both of you will be quite safe.”
“Reassurance and gratitude are felt,” the Gogleskan said. With a visible effort
it added, more personally,”Thank you.”
“Friend Fletcher,” the empath said, returning its attention to the Captain, “can
you speculate further about this life-form, other than that it is large and
probably lacks digital dexterity?”
C.B.E.—-IO”I was about to,” the Captain said. “Analysis of internal atmosphere
leakage shows that—”
“Then the hull has been punctured!” Cha Thrat said excitedly. “From within or
without?”
“Technician,” said the ship ruler, reminding her of her position and her
insubordination with the single word. “For your information, it is extremely
difficult, expensive, and unnecessary to make a large, space-going structure
completely airtight. It is more practical to maintain the vessel at nominal
internal pressure and replace the negligible quantity of air that escapes. In
this case, had escaping air not been observed, it would almost certainly have
meant that the ship was open to space and airless.
“But there are no signs of collision or puncture damage,” Fletcher went on, “and
our sensor .data and analysis of the atmosphere leakage suggests that the crew
are warm-blooded oxygen-breathers with environmental temperature and pressure
requirements similar to our own.”
“Thank you, friend Fletcher,” Prilicla said, then joined the others who were
silently watching the repeater screen.
The image of the slowly rolling and spinning ship had grown until it was
brushing against the edges of the screen, when Murchison said, “The ship is
undamaged, uncontrolled, and, the sensors tell us, there is no abnormal escape
of radiation from its main reactor. That means their problem is likely to be
disease rather than traumatic injuries, a disabling or perhaps lethal illness
affecting the entire crew. Under illness I would include the inhalation of toxic
gas accidentally released from—”
“No, ma’am,” said Fletcher, who had maintained the communicator link with
Control. “Toxic contaminationof the air supply system on that scale would have
showed up in our leak analyses. There’s nothing wrong with theirair.”
“Or,” Murchison went on firmly, “the toxic materialmay have contaminated their
liquid or food supply, and been ingested. Either way, there may be no survivors
and nothing for us to do here except posthumously investigate, record the
physiology of a new life-form, and leave the rest to the Monitor Corps.”
The rest, Cha Thrat knew, would mean carrying out a detailed examination of the
vessel’s power, life-support, and navigation systems with the intention of
assessing the species’ level of technology. That might provide the information
that would enable them to reconstruct the elements of the ship’s course before
the disaster occurred and trace it back to its planet of origin. Simultaneously,
an even more careful evaluation of the nontechnical
environment—crew accommodation and furnishings, art or decorative objects,
personal effects, books, tapes, and self-entertainment systems—would be carried
out so that they would know what kind of people lived on the home planet when
they succeeded in finding it, as they ultimately would.
And eventually that world would be visited by the Cultural Contact specialists
of the Monitor Corps and, like her own Sommaradva, it would never be the same
again.
“If there are no survivors, ma’am,” Fletcher said regretfully, “then it isn’t a
job for Rhabwar. But we’ll only know when we go inside and check. Senior
Physician, do you wish to send any of your people with me? At this stage,
though, getting inside will be a mechanical rather than a medical problem.
Lieutenant Chen and Technician Cha Thrat, you will assist me with the entry—
Wait, something’s happening to the ship!”
Cha Thrat was very surprised that Fletcher wanted her to help with such
important work, badly worried in case she might not be able to perform to his
expectations, and more than a little frightened at the thought of what might
happen to them when they got inside the distressed ship. But the feelings were
temporarily submerged at the sight of what was happening on the screen.
The ship’s rate of spin and roll were increasing as they watched, and irregular