James White - The Galactic Gourmet

The recreation deck was empty because the rest of the crew were either dining or off-loading cargo. Lighting that was more subdued than that of the corridor outside made it just possible for him to see the details of exercise equipment, unlit reading and entertainment screens and hard, irregular masses of what might have been sculptures. There was no soft furniture or bedding because the Hudlars were too hard-skinned to require soft padding on which to relax. A tightly-stretched, circular membrane set into the ceiling was emitting whistling and moaning noises which he was told was relaxing Hudlar music, but it was fighting a losing battle against the howling and buffeting sounds of the artificial gale that was blowing around the room.

So strong were some of the gusts at times that they threatened to blow him off his six widely braced Tralthan feet.

“Small objects are striking my suit and visor,” said Gurronsevas. “Some of them appear to be alive.”

“They are wind-borne stinging and burrowing insects native to our home world,” said the Hudlar medic. “The tiny amounts of toxic material secreted by their stings affects our absorption organs briefly before being neutralized. To a species like your own, who have a well-developed sense of smell, the insects perform a function analogous to that of a sharp-tasting, aromatic vegetation. How many specimens will you require?”

“A few of each species, if there is more than one,” Gurronsevas replied. “Preferably living insects with their stings and poison sacs intact. Is this possible?”

“Of course,” said the medic. “Just open your specimen flask and reseal it when enough of them have been blown inside …”

He had been toying with the idea of sectioning off an area of the hospital’s main dining room for the exclusive use of Hudlars, and of introducing wind machines and a small swarm of native insects so as to make their dining environment more enjoyable, but now it would have to be discarded. The insects blowing against his suit were trying with great persistence to bite and sting him through the fabric, and the thought of the havoc they could create among the hospital’s unprotected diners should they escape from the Hudlar enclosure was too frightful to contemplate. He decided that the nutrient sprayers were a simple and well-tried method of feeding even though the food itself tasted like nothing on Hudlar.

While they were continuing to describe the sensations caused by native insects attacking the outer layers of their absorption organs, Gurronsevas noticed that a slight, intermittent tremor was affecting their limbs. He knew that the condition was not due to lack of food because both had recently been sprayed and, if it was a medical problem, then the intern would have made some mention of it. But was there another possibility?

Apart from the other-species and therefore sexually neutral presence of himself, they had been alone together in the empty recreation deck for nearly two hours. Gurronsevas did not know whether or not their species required privacy for what they might be intending to do, but he had no intention of waiting to find out.

“I am grateful to both of you,” he said quickly. “Your information has been interesting and may prove helpful in solving your problem, although at present I do not know how. But I must not impose on your kindness any longer and will leave you without delay.

“Please,” he went on as the Hudlar medic began moving towards the entrance, “I have a very good sense of direction so there is no need to accompany me.”

There was a moment’s silence as he turned to go, then the intern said, “Thank you.”

“You show great consideration,” said its friend.

Since joining Sector General the operation of Federation standard airlock controls had become a matter of routine, as had the checks on his protective envelope before changing environments. When the outer seal opened, his helmet indicators showed enough air in his tanks to last for half an hour. His thruster fuel was running low, too, but that was unimportant because he could make a weightless jump to the cargo lock and use thrust only for any minor course corrections.

During his visit the ship’s vast freight hold had been almost emptied, but when he switched on his communicator there was the same continuous flow of instructions to cargo handlers and tractor beamers. The composition of the freight streaming through the cargo lock had changed to double-layer, 200-pack bales of Hudlar sprayers interspersed with strings of the bright yellow-and-green tanks containing the poisonous, high-pressure, chlorine-based sludge required for the Illensan food synthesizers. As the seal closed behind him, Gurronsevas positioned his six feet carefully on the wall, waited until there was a break in the rapidly-flowing stream of freight going past, and jumped towards the cargo lock.

At once he knew that he had made two very serious mistakes.

For the past two hours Gurronsevas and his leg muscles had been accustoming themselves to the three Gs of the Hudlar ship rather than the nil-G of the loading bay, so he had used too much power in his jump. He was off-course and spinning slowly and moving much too fast …

“What the blazes are you doing?” said an angry voice in his earpiece. “Get back onto the deck!”

…And he had forgotten to tell the tractor-beamers, who could not see his jumping-off position because of the restricted view through the cargo lock, of his intention to return to the hospital. Quickly, he used his thrusters, but misjudged again and found himself tumbling towards one of the Illensan tanks.

“Beamer Three,” said the voice again, “pull that damn Tralthan out of there!”

Gurronsevas felt the sudden, invisible tug of the tractor beam, but it was off-center so that it pulled only on his forebody and sharply increased his rate of spin.

“Can’t,” said another voice. “It’s still using thrusters. Stop moving, dammit, so’s I can focus on you!”

He had no intention of stopping. Behind him an Illensan food tank, touched briefly by the tractor beam, was rushing towards him. He used the thrusters at full power, not caring which direction he took so long as it would avoid a collision with that hurtling chlorine bomb. An instant later he crashed into a 200-unit bale of Hudlar sprayers.

In spite of the gravity-free state of the freight hold, the mass and inertia of a spinning Tralthan body was considerable. So was that of the food sprayers, several of which burst open in a great, soft explosion of nutrient paint that drove the others apart and into the path of the Illensan tank. The jagged edge of a broken sprayer must have ruptured it because there was another and greater pressure explosion and, as the constituents of the Hudlar and Illensan food reacted chemically with each other, a rapidly expanding cloud of yellow-brown, hissing and boiling gas began drifting towards the open cargo lock.

“Cut all tractors to the ship,” said a voice urgently. “We can’t see through this muck …!”

The steady procession of freight items that were still moving past him into the opaque cloud around the cargo lock and continuing through it — but not all of them. Some were striking the rim and bursting open with enough force to knock subsequent items off-course. The sounds of collisions and pressure explosions were continuous and the toxic cloud was growing rapidly, shooting out fat, yellow-brown filaments and threatening to engulf the entire freight hold within minutes.

Hudlars could survive the environments of most of the Federation planets as well as the vacuum of space, but contact with chlorine was instantly lethal to them.

Somewhere a siren came suddenly to life, its short, urgent blasts reinforcing a new voice that was repeating, “Contamination alarm, major oxygen-chlorine incident Loading Bay Twelve. Decontamination squads Two through Five to Bay Twelve at once …”