James White - Double Contact

When he didn’t go on, the captain broke the silence. It said, “I’ve the feeling that you’re going to say ‘but.’”

But,” Prilicla went on obligingly, “every time you showed DBDG, the casualty also radiated deep suspicion and distrust.These feelings are better than the earlier ones of intense fear and

blind hatred, but only fractionally. I feel certain that the casualty still doesn’t want you DBDGs anywhere near it.”

For the first time in Prilicla’s long experience on ambulanceship operations, the captain used words that his translator had not been programmed to accept, and went on. “Then what the hell am I expected to do to change that?”

Before replying, Prilicla looked slowly around the compart ment, pointed at one of the transparent inspection covers, then moved close and began opening it. The robot drifted nearby but made no attempt to interfere, even when he reached inside and after hesitating and looking back as if to ask permission for what he was about to do, he gently touched one of the cable looms. When he replied, he knew that his vision pickup was showing the captain everything he had been doing.

“In very simple pictorial terms, we’ve been talking big,” he said, “by telling it about a few of the Federation’s species and the cooperation that exists between their worlds and in space, like assisting distressed ships and—”

“If you remember my advice,” the other broke in, stressing the last word, “it was to follow through on the ship-rescue sequence and show the casualties receiving medical treatment. That, Doctor, would have clearly demonstrated our good intentions.”

“And I did not take your advice,” Prilicla replied gently, “because of the possibility of a misunderstanding. In the present climate of fear and distrust, the emotional reaction of an alien— who would have been witnessing a multispecies medical team, which would certainly have included at least one DBDG, carrying out a surgical procedure on a casually — could not have been taken for granted. We know nothing about the alien’s physiology, environment, or medical practices, if it has any. It may have decided that we were simply torturing captured casualties.

“You, friend Fletcher,” he said, when the other remained silent, “can do nothing right now, apart from furnishing me with technical advice when needed. I’ve already mentioned this idea to you, and your lack of enthusiasm for it was understandable-But the time for showing pictures is over. As my Earth-human gambling friends keep telling me, I must put my money where my mouth is.

“So now,” he ended, “we — or rather, I — must try to reinforce those pictorial lessons with deeds.”

He withdrew his hand slowly, closed the transparent cover and pointed along the linking passageway in the direction of the identical compartment on the damaged side of the ship. Had the robot crew member been an organic life-form, he thought, it would have been breathing down his neck. But it made no move to hinder him.

In the darkened compartment he used his helmet light to open inspection panels and look and, if it didn’t look dangerous, to touch the scorched or ruptured cable looms and plumbing inside all of them in turn. Still there was no interference from the robot. He was beginning to feel less sure of himself and his ability to do this job when the captain, demonstrating the strange mixture of empathy and understanding possessed by Earth-humans, answered his question before it could be asked.

“You should start with an easy one,” said the captain. “High on the upper side of the first inspection compartment you opened there are two fairly thick wires — one has what seems to be pale blue insulation, and the other red. If you look carefully you can see where they make a right-angle turn and disappear through a grommet into what is presumably the ceiling of your corridor. The force of the explosion caused a wiring break in one If them at the angle bend. Do you see the ends of the bare wire Projecting from the torn insulation? Try to splice it, but be careful to touch any metal in the area while you’re working. Your gauntlets are thin and we don’t know how much current that they will be carrying. You’ll need insulating tape to hold the splice together.”

“My med satchel has surgical tape,” said Prilicla. “Will that do?”

“Yes, Doctor, but be careful.”

A few minutes later the splicing operation was complete, the join was insulated, and all the lighting fixtures in the corridor were on. The robot crew member was moving from one to the other and, Prilicla hoped, reporting on the completion of one small repair to the conscious survivor who was its chief. It wasn’t much, but he had done something.

“What next?” said Prilicla.

“Now comes the difficult part,” said the captain, “so don’t get cocky. The other wiring affected is finer and with more subtle color-codings. Some of the ruptured strands show heat discoloration, and you must trace these back to an unaffected area so as to positively identify each end before joining them. The complexity of the wiring makes me pretty sure that most of these breaks are in the hull-sensor and internal-communications networks, and if a join were to be mismatched, we could cause all kinds of trouble. It would be like short-circuiting your hearing sensors to your eyes. We’re in the strange position of making repairs to systems whose purposes are totally unknown to us. I wish I was there with the proper equipment to help you. This is going to be delicate, precise, painstaking, and exhausting work. Are you up to it, Doctor?”

Don’t worry,” said Prilicla, “it’s a little like brain surgery.”

Even though the captain was giving him the benefit of its wide-ranging technical expertise and guiding his hands at every stage, the work went very slowly. An early splicing problem was that some of the damaged fine-gauge wiring had burned away along several inches of its length and the missing pieces had to be replaced. There was suitable replacement material on Rhabwar and the captain offered to bring it himself, in the hope that he would be allowed to assist Prilicla directly and so speed up the process.

“Bring some food as well, friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla. I ve decided that it will also save time if I don’t have to return to the ship for meals. Or sleep.”

Prilicla waited politely until the expected objections were becoming repetitious, then said, “There are risks, of course, but I’m being neither foolish nor foolhardy. My spacesuit makes provision for the short-term elimination of body wastes, it has a small airlock attachment for the introduction of food, and in the weightless condition, padded rest furnishings are unnecessary for comfort. My thinking is that if we want the survivor to trust us,we must show that we trust it.”

I agree, reluctantly,” the other replied after a long pause.

“But if I can make it plain that I’m helping you help it, maybe it will begin to trust me, too.”

“That is the general idea, friend Fletcher,” he replied. “But at this delicate stage in the contact procedure we shouldn’t rush things.”

“Right,” said the captain. “I’ll bring the food, replacement wiring, and some simple, non-powered tools that I think will help in your work. They will be inside a transparent container so that the survivor and/or its robot will be able to see exactly what it is getting. I’m coming now.”

But when it was approaching the alien ship, the emotional radiation of the survivor became apprehensive and its robot left the compartment quickly on what was obviously an interception course. Prilicla followed it and, when it was plain that the captain was not to be allowed to enter the ship, he relieved the other of its package.