James White: Double Contact

Its two recessed, Earth-human eyes were fixed on Prilicla and it was radiating feelings characteristic of a mind that is concealing something as it continued. “More important matters may require your attention here. The chief medical officer’s position on Rhabwar is one for which you are overqualified. This would be a good time to nominate a replacement.”

Prilicla had been given a legitimate, face-saving excuse for refusing a potentially very dangerous mission, for which he was grateful; but he had also been asked a question which, in an emergency situation like this one, required an immediate answer.

He said, “My principal assistant, Pathologist Murchison, has much prior experience in ship rescue operations and is entirely capable of replacing me — but, if you will pardon me discussing your present emotional radiation in front of friend Fletcher here, you are feeling unusually high levels of concern over this mission. That being the case, I think that you would prefer me to accept it, which I do… Ah, I feel your relief, friend Braithwaite.”

The administrator exhaled slowly, showed its teeth again, pressed a stud on the desk’s communicator, and said briskly, “Thank you. Rhabwars crew members have now been alerted and are on their way to the ship, so I need detain you no longer. Good luck, gentlemen.”

Prilicla wasn’t sure that he liked being called a gentleman when he wasn’t even an Earth-human, but he knew that the term was intended as a courtesy and that friend Braithwaite’s feelings of concern for him were strong and sincere. He executed a steep, banking turn and flew rapidly towards the office entrance, knowing from long experience that no matter how fast he flew it would open in time to let him through.

He knew that the captain would not take offense at him using his natural advantages while traversing the six levels and intervening corridor network to reach the ambulance ship’s dock before it did, because by now all of Rhabwar’s personnel were engaged on a similar race against time rather than against each other. Fletcher had to use his large but nimble Earth-human feet and occasionally his voice and elbows to negotiate the crowded corridors, while Prilicla either flew above everyone’s head or scampered along the ceilings on his six sucker-tipped legs as he met, overtook, and passed above a constant succession of creatures who looked visually horrendous, beautiful, repugnant, or terrifying in their obvious physical strength and frightening variety of natural weapons which, being civilized members of the medical fraternity, they were rarely called on to use. Besides, all of them were his colleagues and, in most cases, his friends.

Not for the first time Prilicla asked himself why a fragile, delicately structured, insectile Cinrusskin empath had decided to spend his professional life in Sector General, surely one of the most dangerous working environments in the Galaxy for one of the GLNO classification, but the answer was always the same.

Despite the fact that his every waking moment was spent in a condition of perpetual vigilance verging on terror that would have driven the majority of his species mad, he had discovered that this was the only place and type of work that he wanted to be and do. Doubtless a Healer of the Mind would have talked learnedly about deeply buried death wishes, professional masochism, and the pathological need for constant danger, and would have pronounced him psychologically abnormal if not downright insane. But then, that diagnosis would have applied to the majority of beings who had aspired to permanent positions in the multispecies medical menagerie that was Sector Twelve General Hospital.

Considering his ability to fly unobstructed above everyone else’s heads, it was no surprise that he was the first to board Rhabwar, where he logged his presence before moving quickly to his tiny, deeply upholstered quarters, checking that both backup sets of his gravity nullifiers were in operation. His cabin closely resembled the cocoonlike living quarters of his home world, and its artificial gravity was already set to Cinruss normal, which was slightly less than one-quarter of a standard Earth G. He stretched his wings and limbs to full extension, then distributed them into their most comfortable position for sleeping. Cinrusskins, fragile but physically active, needed a lot of sleep; and he knew that nothing important would be said or done until they were many hours into hyperspace.

A few minutes later he heard the captain coming along the

boarding-tube and climbing the central well to the control deck, closely followed by the other three Monitor Corps officers and the members of the medical team who collected on the casualty deck. They were complaining loudly and bitterly at the sudden interruption to their work or recreation, but all of the emotional radiation they emitted was of controlled excitement rather than bitterness.

For a few moments he eavesdropped on the emotional radiation filtering through to him from the casualty and control decks. They all knew that he couldn’t help doing that because it was impossible to switch off his empathic faculty, so their emotional radiation was subdued, well-controlled, and, at this range, restful. They knew better than to radiate unpleasant feelings when their boss was trying to sleep.

The briefing tape provided by Administrator Braithwaite had been played but not yet discussed, and their feelings of curiosity, caution, and growing impatience filled the casualty deck around him like a thick, emotional fog.

Captain Fletcher was sitting on a padded Kelgian treatment frame, flanked by Lieutenants Dodds and Chen, the communications and engineering officers respectively, while the astrogator and current watch-keeping officer, Lieutenant Haslam, viewed the proceedings through the control deck’s vision link. Pathologist Murchison occupied the swivel seat of the diagnostic console with its back turned to the screen; Charge Nurse Naydrad had curled itself into a furry question mark on the nearest bed; and the polymorphic Dr. Danalta sat in the middle of the deck like a small green haystack from which it had extruded an ear and a single stalked eye. In order to avoid even the slightest risk of injury from sudden, unthinking movements of the others’ limbs, Prilicla maintained a stable hover close to the ceiling while they all stared at the wall screen below him.

“As we have just seen,” Prilicla said, “we will be entering what may be a unique situation for us, and we will have to be very careful…”

We’re always careful,” Naydrad broke in, its mobile fur

rippling into waves of impatience and anxiety. “How careful is Very'?”

Kelgians always said exactly what they felt — because their mobile fur made their feelings plain, at least to another member of their species — or they said nothing at all. He was aware of all of Naydrad’s feelings, spoken and otherwise, and ignored the question because he intended to answer it anyway.

He went on. “The information available is sparse and speculative. We will be faced with the possible recovery of survivors from two distressed ships. One should be a normal, straightforward rescue and should pose no problems because it is the Corps’ survey vessel Terragar, whose crew are Earth-human DBDGs. The second vessel has a crew whose physiological classification is as yet unknown. With survivors of two different species involved, one of which is…”

“We assess the position at the disaster site and rescue the casualties, of whichever species, who are in the most urgent need of attention first,” Pathologist Murchison broke in quietly, its mind radiating the emotions of expectation, curiosity, and confidence characteristic of one who is accustomed to meeting professional challenges. “I don’t see the problem, sir. This is what we do.”