James White: Double Contact

But there is a tendency for travelers to meet other travelers, often in distress and far from home. The advantage of meetings with other space travelers was that both species were already open to the idea that intelligent and possibly visually horrendous beings inhabited the stars — as opposed to contacting less advanced, planetbound cultures, who would be much more suspicious and fearful of the terrifying strangers who had dropped from their skies.

The trouble where the travelers were concerned was that there was only one known system for traveling in hyperspace, and one method — the nuclear-powered distress beacon — of calling for help if a catastrophe occurred that marooned the distressed ship between the stars. The result had been that many other highly intelligent and technologically advanced species had been discovered with whom they could not make contact because

they were nothing but dead or dying organic debris lying tangled inside the wreckage of their starships. With the rescue ships’ medical officers unable to provide the required assistance to completely alien life-forms, the casualties had been rushed to Sector General, where a few of them had been successfully treated, while the rest ended up in the pathology department as specimens whose worlds of origin were unknown.

That was the reason why the special ambulance ship Rhabwar had been constructed. Not only was it commanded by an officer skilled in unraveling the puzzles presented by unique alien technology, its crew included a medical team specialized both in ship-rescue techniques and multi-species alien physiology. The result had been that since their ship had been commissioned, seven new species had been contacted, and subsequently became members of the Federation.

In every case this had been accomplished — not by a slow, patient buildup and widening of communications until the exchange of complex philosophical and sociological concepts became possible, but by demonstrating the Federation’s goodwill towards newly discovered species by rescuing and giving medical or other assistance to ailing, injured, or space-wrecked aliens.

The memories and images were returning, sharp and clear. In many of them, unlike this time, he had not borne the clinical responsibility for rescue and treatment because the then-Senior Physician Conway had been in charge of the medical team, with himself assisting as a kind of empathic bloodhound whose job was to smell out and separate the dead from the barely living casualties. There had been the recovery of the utterly savage and non-sapient Protectors of the Unborn whose wombs contained their telepathic and highly intelligent offspring; and the Blind Ones, whose hearing and touch had been so sensitive that they had learned to build devices that enables them to feel the radiation that filtered down to their world from the stars they would never see, even though they had traveled between them; and there had been the Duwetti, the Dwerlans, the Gogleskans, and the others. All had presented their particular clinical problems and associated physical dangers, especially to a fragile life-form like himself who could literally be blown away by a strong wind.

He wondered how the present-day Diagnostician Conway would have handled the current situation, where its beloved special ambulance was in danger of becoming a ship of war. Certainly not by flying away to hide in its room.

It was four days later. Beyond the direct-vision panel and on the main screen that was relaying the control deck image, the flickering grey motion of hyperspace gave a final, eye-twisting heave before dissolving into a view of normal space. Within a few moments the relayed voice of Lieutenant Dodds on thesensors was telling them and the ship’s mission recorders what they were already seeing.

“We have emerged close to a planet, Captain,” it reported crisply. “The coloration and cloud cover suggests an atmosphere capable of sustaining warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing life and the vegetation to support it. Two ships are in close orbit around the planet within fifty miles of each other. One is Terragar; the other has a configuration that is new to us. Neither is showing serious structural damage.”

“Split the screen,” said the captain. “Give me maximum magnification on both. Haslam, contact Terragar.”

The casualty-deck screen blurred suddenly, then showed images of the two ships that expanded rapidly until they touched the edges of their display areas.

“Terragar is not obviously damaged,” said Dodds, contin-umg to describe what they were seeing. “But it is tumbling slowly a pronounced lateral spin, and there is no light from the

flight-deck canopy or the viewports. Sir, it looks like they have no power, certainly not for attitude control—”

“Or communication,” Haslam broke in. “They aren’t responding to our signal.”

“The other ship also appears to be unlit,” Dodds continued, straying, “although that could be explained by visual hypersen-sitivity on the part of the crew. The outer hull is intact apart from two areas amidships about three and four meters in diameter. They are deeply cratered, which suggests the recent presence of intense heat accompanied by explosions. There is no evidence of the fogging that would indicate escaping air or whatever it is that they breathe. Either their safety bulkhead seals worked very fast, or the hits they sustained were lethal and the ship is airless and probably lifeless.

“The outer hull,” it added, “shows no evidence of anything recognizable as external weapons launchers, or of the protective covers that would conceal such weapons. First indications, sir, are that this vessel was a victim rather than an attacker.”

Even though half the length of Rhabwar stretched between them and the emotional radiation was attenuated, Prilicla could feel the captain coming to a decision.

“Very well,” it said. “Move in. Continue trying to raise Ter-ragar. I want to know what happened here… Power room; Chen, we’re now too close to the planet to jump, so stand by for maximum thrust on the main drive. Haslam, be ready to pull out at the first sign of anything resembling a hostile action. I’ll need the fastest possible reaction time on this.”

“Understood,” said Haslam.

Around them the casualty deck gave an almost imperceptible lurch as the artificial-gravity system compensated for the sudden application of thrust. The repeater screen returned to showing a single, unmagnified picture of the two ships as they grew larger with diminishing distance.

Prilicla dropped lightly to the deck, where he folded his wings and legs tightly before pulling on his spacesuit. Murchison,

Naydrad, and Danalta were already climbing into theirs, all radiating minor levels of excitement, expectation, and caution. When he had checked his own air supply, antigravity system, and suit thrusters, he looked around at the others in turn.

“The medical team and powered litters are standing by, friend Fletcher,” he reported.

“Thank you, Doctor,” the other replied. “We are closing with Terragar now.”

Prilicla began to worry. Although it was completely without weaponry, in overall structure Rhabwar had been modeled on the Monitor Corps’ heavy cruiser, a class of vessel whose broad delta-wing configuration enabled it to be aerodynamically maneuvered within a planetary atmosphere. But he was afraid that it was much too massive for it to be capable of the small and precise movements in three dimensions that were needed to bring it to within two hundred meters of the distressed ship. Bearing in mind its tremendous mass and inertia, if Rhabwar were to collide with Terragar it would sustain only superficial damage, while the other vessel would have its hull caved in, with consequent disastrous injuries to its crew.