James White - Code Blue Emergency

“If you have anything to do that involves two or more of you working closely together,” it said quickly, “do it now while the flyer is hiding you from view of the town. And when you move out, remain at least five meters apart. If these people see you moving closer together than that, or making actual bodily contact by touching limbs, it won’t precipitate a joining, but it will cause them to feel deeply shocked and intensely uncomfortable. You must also—”

“Thank you, friend Wainright,” Prilicla said gently. “We cannot be reminded too often to be careful.”

The Lieutenant’s features deepened in color, and it did not speak again until, walking i a well-separated line abreast, they were approaching the outskirts of the town.

“It doesn’t look like much to us,” Wainright said softly, the feelings behind its words making Prilicla tremble, “but they had to fight very hard every day of their lives to achieve it, and I think they’re losing.”

The town occupied a wide crescent of grass and stony outcroppings enclosing a small, natural harbor. There were several jetties projecting into deep water, and most of the craft tied up alongside had thin, high funnels andpaddle wheels as well as sails. One of the boats, clearly the legacy of a past joining, was smoke-blackened and sunk at its moorings. Hugging the water’s edge was a widely separated line of three- and four-story buildings, made of wood, stone, and dried clay. Ascending ramps running around all four walls gave access to the upper levels, so that from certain angles the buildings resembled thin pyramids.

These, according to the Goglesk tape, were the town’s manufacturing and food-processing facilities, and she thought that the smell of Gogleskan raw fish was just as unpleasant as that of their Sommaradvan counterparts. Perhaps that was the reason why the private dwellings, whose roofs and main structural supports were provided by the trees around the edge of the clearing, were so far away from the harbor.

As they moved over the top of a small hill, Wainright pointed out a low, partially roofed structure with a stream running under it. From their elevated position they could see into the maze of corridors and tiny rooms that was the town’s hospital and Rhone’s adjoiningdwelling.

The Lieutenant began speaking quietly into its suit mike, and she could hear the words of warning and reassurance being relayed at full volume from the speakers carried by the four Earth-humans who had precededthem.

“Please do not be afraid,” it was saying. “Despite the strange and frightening appearance of the beings you are seeing, they will not harm you. We are here to collect Healer Khone, at its own request, for treatment in our hospital. While we are transferring Khone to our vehicle we may have to come very close to the healer, and this may accidentally cause a call for joining to go out. A joining must not be allowed to happen, and so we urgeeveryone to move away from your homes, deep into th forest or far from the shore, so that a distress signal will not reach you. As an additional safeguard, we will place! around the healer’s home devices that will make a loud, and continuous sound. This sound will be as unpleasant to you as it is to us, but it will merge with and change the sound of any nearby distress signal so that it will no longer be a call for joining.”

Wainright looked toward Prilicla and when the empath signaled its approval, it changed to the personal suit frequency and went on. “Record and rerun that, please, until I either amend the message or tell you to stop.”

“Will they believe all that?” Naydrad called suddenly from its position along the line. “Do they really trust us off-planet monsters?”

The Lieutenant moved several paces down the hill before replying. “They trust the Monitor Corps because we have been able to help them in various ways. Khone trusts Conway for obvious reasons and as their trusted healer, it has been able to convince the townspeople that Conway’s horrifying friends are also worthy of trust. The trouble is, Gogleskans are a race of loners who don’t always do as they’re told.

“Some of them,” it went on, “could have good reasons for not wanting to leave their homes. Illness or infirmity, young children to be cared for, or for reasons that seem good only to a Gogleskan. That’s why we have to use the sound distorters.”

Naydrad seemed satisfied but Cha Thrat was not. Out of consideration for Prilicla, who would suffer everyone else’s feelings of anxiety as well as her own, she remained silent.

Like everyone else in Maintenance, she knew about those distorters. Suggested and designed by Ees-Tawn, the department’s head of Unique Technology, in re-sponse to one of Conway’s long-term Gogleskan requirements, the devices were still in the prototype stage. If successful they would go into mass production until they were in every Gogleskan home, factory, and seagoing vessel. It was not expected that the devices would eliminate joinings entirely, but withsensitive audio detectors coupled to automatic actuators, it was hoped that the link-ups that did occur would be limited to a few persons. That would mean that a joining’s destructive potential would be negligible, shorter in duration, and psychologically less damaging to the beings concerned.

Under laboratory conditions the distorters were effective against several FOKT distress call recordings provided by Conway, but the device had yet to be tested onGoglesk itself.

The stink of fish worsened, and the sound of the monitors broadcasting the Lieutenant’s message grew louder as they neared the hospital. Apart from a few glimpses she had of the Earth-humans moving between the houses at the edge of the clearing, there were no signs of life inthe town.

“Stop sending now,” Wainright briskly said. “Anyone who hasn’t acted on the message by now doesn’t intend to. Harmon, take up the flyer and give me an aerial view of this area. The rest of you place the distorters around the hospital, then stand by. Cha Thrat, Naydrad, ready with the litter?”

Quickly, Cha Thrat positioned the vehicle close to the entrance of Khone’s dwelling, ran out the rear ramp, and opened the canopy in readiness to receive the patient. They could not risk touching Khone within sight of other Gogleskans and were hoping that the little healer would come out and board the vehicle itself. In case it did not, Naydrad would send in its remote-controlled probe to find out why.

Because they would make conversation difficult— and so far nothing had happened that could cause any Gogleskan to emit a distress call — the distorters remained silent.

“Friend Khone,” Prilicla said, and the waves of sympathy, reassurance, and friendship emanating from it were almost palpable. “We have come to help you. Please come out.”

They waited for what seemed like a very long time, but there was neither sight nor sound of Khone.

“Naydrad …” Wainright began.

“I’m doing it,” the Kelgian snapped.

The tiny vehicle, bristling with sound, vision, and biosensors as well as a comprehensive array of handling devices, rolled across the uneven surface and into Rhone’s front entrance, pushing aside the curtain of woven vegetable fibers that hung there. The view all around it was projected onto the litter’s repeater screen.

Cha Thrat thought that the probe itself, to someone who did not know its purpose, was a frightening object. Then she reminded herself that Diagnostician Conway, and through it Khone, knew all about such mechanisms.

The probe revealed nothing but a deserted house.

“Perhaps friend Khone required special medication from the hospital and went to get it,” Prilicla said worriedly. “But I cannot feel its emotional radiation, which means that it is either far from here or unconscious. If the latter, then it may require urgent attention, so we cannot afford to waste time by searching every room and passageway in the hospital with the probe. It will be quicker if I search for it myself.”