James White - Double Contact

But she was beginning to feel very cold, and Danalta was moving even faster and the water was slapping and tugging and bursting in clouds of spray over her head, arms, and shoulders. In spite of the warm, morning sunshine reflecting off the waves and spray, her body temperature was dropping rapidly and the hands holding her to Danalta were losing feeling. She realized suddenly that while her equipment belt had stayed firmly in Place, the swimsuit hadn’t.

The spider ships were disappearing behind the curve of the coastline, and the wreck of Terragar and the medical station were corning into sight. Within a few minutes they were in the shallows m front of the buildings and the shape-changer was already turning its fins into legs.

Murchison stamped about on the sand and swung her arms briefly to return some heat to her body, then, still shivering, she sprinted for the largest prefab structure that housed the recovery ward. It was occupied by Naydrad and the three Earth-human casualties. With her teeth chattering, she said, “Charge Nurse, please throw me a set of my whites and…”

“You look fine the way you are, ma’am.” said one of the Terragar officers, smiling broadly.

“The way I am,” she said, beginning to pull on the tight, white coveralls, “is bad for your blood pressure. Naydrad, where’s Prilicla?”

“In the comm room,” said the Kelgian.

A faint tremor of pleasure and relief shook Prilicla as the pathologist joined him before the communicator screen where the face of the captain was staring out at them. He said, “Friend Murchison, I’m glad to have you back with us, and I feel that you are well but worried. Ease your mind. Friend Fletcher and Rhabwar will be with us several minutes before the spider fleet arrives, so that we are in no immediate danger from them.”

“But, Doctor,” said Murchison grimly, “they are in danger, deadly danger, from us.”

“No, ma’am,” the captain joined in. “I’ve never held with the adage that attack is the best form of defense. We will keep them away from the medical station until you people are ready to transfer to Rhabwar. Minimum force, if any, will be used.”

Prilicla could feel the growing concern and impatience behind the words as Murchison went on. “Please listen, Captain. Unknown to me at the time, Danalta was making a record of my attempt at communication, but it didn’t include the other things I saw the spiders do earlier, the way they have to live with and use their technology, or their behavior towards me and the, well, consideration one of them showed. They are intelligent, brave, and resourceful people, but terribly vulnerable.”

“I understand,” said the captain. “We’ll try not to hurt them, but we do have to defend the station, remember?”

“You don’t understand!” said Murchison. “The spiders use technology that is partially organic, something we’ve never met before. All of their fabricated structures large and small, their ships, gliders, tools, and, presumably, their living accommodations, are partly woven of web strands from their own bodies. I don’t know how much they value this material, or how difficult or easy it would be to replace, but damaging anything they’ve made might mean damaging them, or a least a valuable piece of their personal property. You’re on very sensitive ground here, Captain.”

Before the other could reply, it went on quickly, “They use fire, but so far as I could see, only for heavily protected lighting, and they seem to be so afraid of it that their bodies as well as their structures must be highly flammable. And in spite of being sailors, they also have an intense aversion to contact with water. Their ships are designed so that the sails can be reconfigured to enclose the entire upperworks so as to shelter them from rain and spray.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” it went on, and Prilicla could feel the apology backing up its words, “for adding these complications to whatever defensive strategy you’ve worked out. But if we are ever to establish friendly relations with these people, which from personal contact I consider to be a strong probability, you must not use any weapons against them that will generate heat. I’m thinking of signal flares, normally non-harmful pyrotechnics, or any form of radiant energy that would cause an electrical discharge. As well, you must not allow any of their sea or airborne Personnel to fall in the water.”

The captain was silent for a moment and, thankfully, still well beyond Prilicla’s empathic range. When it spoke, its features and voice were calm and reflected none of what it must have been feeling.

“Thank you for the additional information, Pathologist Murchison,” it said, glancing aside at another screen. “We should be closing with the spider fleet approximately one hundred and fifty meters off your beach in seventeen minutes. In that time I shall try to modify my defensive strategy accordingly. However, you will understand that operationally I do not do my best work with both hands tied behind my back. Off.”

Murchison shook its head at the blank screen and moved to the room’s big direct-vision panel. Prilicla followed to hover above its shoulder as they watched the three spider vessels that had rounded the curve of the island and were beginning to foreshorten as they turned in to approach the station. All six of their gliders had been launched and were making slow, tight circles in the sky above them. Distance had reduced the chittering of their crews to a low, insect buzzing. The pathologist’s emotional radiation, he noted with approval, reflected wariness, concern, growing excitement, but no fear.

“Friend Murchison,” he said gently, indicating the big diagnostic screen on the other side of the room, “this is a good opportunity for us to review the latest clinical material on the two Trolanni. Patient Keet’s condition was not life-threatening and its treatment is progressing satisfactorily, but not so Patient Jasam’s.”

The pathologist dipped its head in affirmation and moved to the screen which was already displaying enlargements of the two patients’ scanner images. For several minutes it studied them, magnifying and changing the viewpoint several times, while in the direct-vision panel the spider ships drew closer. But unlike Prilicla, it had no attention to spare for them.

Finally it said, “Danalta told me there was a problem with Patient Jasam, and it was right. But Patient Keet’s condition, while not giving cause for immediate concern, is not good. There is a general impairment of blood flow, and organic degeneration in several areas that is not, I think, due to any recent trauma, and the indications would support a diagnosis of sterility caused by a long-term dietary deficiency. But Patient Jasam is in serious trouble. I advocate immediate surgical intervention. Would you agree, sir?”

“Fully, friend Murchison,” he replied, gesturing towards the screen. “But there are three main areas of trauma, deep puncture-wounding whose effect on nearby organs is unknown. We should go in at once, certainly, but how, where and in what order? This is an entirely new life-form to my experience.”

The Earth-human’s feelings were predominantly those of concern, apology, and, strangely, an underlying but slowly growing feeling of certainty.

“There is nothing entirely new,” it said, “under this or any other sun. Our Trolanni friend’s CHLI physiology has a similarity very slight I must admit — in its lack of supporting skeletal structure and the fine network of blood vessels and nerve linkages supplying the peripheral limbs and visual and aural sensors, to those found in the Kelgian DBLF classification. There are also similarities in its two fast-beating hearts to those of the light-gravity, LSVO and MSVK life-forms. The digestive system is very strange, but the waste-elimination process could belong to a scaled-down Melfan. If you believe the risk to be acceptable, I think I know what is going on, or what should be going on in there, but…”