James White - Code Blue Emergency

“I’m worried about this ship rescue, Cha Thrat,” it said, “and the effect on you of the casualties we may have to treat. Disaster injuries can be pretty bad, colli-sion fractures and explosive decompressions for the most part, and as a rule there are very few survivors. You don’t seem to be able to keep your Sommaradvan nose out of the medical area, but this time you must try, try really hard, not to get involved with our casualties.”

Before Cha Thrat could reply, it went on. “You did some very nice work with Khone, even though I’m still not sure what exactly was going on, but you were very lucky. If Khone or the infant or both of them had died, how would you have felt? More important, what would you have done to yourself?”

“Nothing,” Cha Thrat said, trying hard to tell herself that the expression on the pink face below her was one of friendly concern for an other-species subordinate and not something more personal. Quickly she went on. “I would have felt very bad, but I would not have injured myself again. The code of ethics of a warrior-surgeon is strict, and even on Sommaradva there were colleagues who did not observe it as I have done, and who envied and disliked me for my own strict observance. To me the code remains valid, but in Sector General and on Gog-lesk there are other and equally valid codes. My viewpoints have changed …”

She stopped herself, afraid that she had said too much, but the other had not noticed that she had used the plural.

“We call that broadening the mind,” Murchison said, “and I’m relieved and pleased for you, Cha Thrat. It’s a pity that … Well, I meant what I said about you being the Maintenance Department’s gain and our loss. Your superiors find you a bit hard to take at times, and after the Chalder and Hudlar incidents I can’t imagine you being accepted for ward training by anyone. But maybe if you waited until the fuss died down, and didn’t doanything else to get yourself noticed, I could speak to a few people about having you transfered back to the medical staff. How do you feel about that?”

“I feel grateful,” she replied, trying desperately to find a way of ending this conversation with a being who was not only sympathetic and understanding as a person, but whose physical aspect was arousing in her other feelings of the kindusually associated with the urge to procreate. Most definitely, she thought, this was a problem that could only be resolved by one of O’Mara’s spells. Quickly she added, “I also feel very hungry.”

“Hungry!” Murchison said. As the Earth-human turned to resume climbing to the dining area, it laughed suddenly and said, “You know, Cha Thrat, sometimes you remind me of my life-mate.”

She was able to rest after the meal but not sleep and, after three hours of trying, she made the excuse to herself that Rhone’s life-support and synthetic food delivery systems needed checking. She found the Gogleskan awake, as well, and they talked quietly while it fed the infant. Soon afterward they were both asleep and she was left to stare silently at the complex shapes of the casualty deck equipment, which looked like weird, mechanical phantasms in the night-level lighting, until the arrival of Prilicla.

“Have you been able to speak with friend Khone?” the Cinrusskin asked, hovering over the two Gogles-kans.

“Yes,” Cha Thrat replied. “It will do as you suggested, to avoid embarrassing us.”

“Thank you, friend Cha,” Prilicla said. “I feel the others awake and about to join us. We should be arrivingat any—”

It was interrupted by a double chime that announced their emergence into normal space, followed a few min-utes later by the voice of Lieutenant Haslam speaking! from Control.

“We have long-range sensor contact with a large] ship,” the communications officer said. “There are noj indications of abnormal radiation levels, no expanding cloud of debris, no sign of any catastrophic malfunction.! The vessel is rotating around its longtitudinal axis as well I as spinning slowly end over end. We are locking the tele-1 scope into the sensor bearing and putting the image onf your repeater screen.”

A narrow, fuzzy triangle appeared in the center of the screen, becoming more distinct as Haslam brought it into focus.

It went on. “Prepare for maximum thrust in ten minutes. Gravity compensators set for three Gs. We should close with it in less than two hours.”

Cha Thrat and Khone watched the screen with the rest of the medical team, who were making Prilicla tremble with the intensity of their impatience. They were as ready as it was possible to be, and the more detailed preparations would have to wait until they had some idea of the physiological classification of the people they were about to rescue. But it was possible for the ship ruler to draw conclusions, even at long range.

“According to our astrogation computer,” Fletcher said, “the nearest star is eleven light-years distant and without planets, so the ship did not come from there. Although large* it is still much too small to be a generation ship, so it is highly probable that it uses a form of hyperdrive similar to our own. It does not resemble any vessel, past, current, or under development, on the Federation’s fleet list.

“In spite of its large size,” the Captain went on, “it has the aerodynamically clean triangular configuration typical of a vessel required to maneuver in a planetaryatmosphere. Most of the star-traveling species that we know prefer, for technical and economic reasons, to keep their combined atmosphere-and-space vessels small and build the larger nonlanders in orbit where streamlining is unnecessary. The two exceptions that I know of build their space-atmosphere ships large because the crews needed to operate them are themselves physicallymassive.”

“Oh, great,” Naydrad said. “We’ll be rescuing abunch of giants.”

“This is only speculative at the moment,” the Captain said. “Your screen won’t show it, but we’re beginning to resolve some of the structural details. That ship was not put together by watchmakers. The overall design philosophy seems to have been one of simplicity and strength rather than sophistication. We are beginning to see small access and inspection panels, and two very large features that must be entry locks. While it is possible that these are cargo locks that double as entry ports for personnel who are physically small, the probability is that these people are a very large and massive life-form—”

“Don’t be afraid, friend Khone,” Prilicla broke in quickly. “Even a demented Hudlar couldn’t break through the partition Cha Thrat put around you, and our casualties will be unconscious anyway. Both of you will be quite safe.”

“Reassurance and gratitude are felt,” the Gogleskan said. With a visible effort it added, more personally,"Thank you.”

“Friend Fletcher,” the empath said, returning its attention to the Captain, “can you speculate further about this life-form, other than that it is large and probably lacks digital dexterity?”

“I was about to,” the Captain said. “Analysis of internal atmosphere leakage shows that—”

“Then the hull has been punctured!” Cha Thrat said excitedly. “From within or without?”

“Technician,” said the ship ruler, reminding her of her position and her insubordination with the single word. “For your information, it is extremely difficult, expensive, and unnecessary to make a large, space-going structure completely airtight. It is more practical to maintain the vessel at nominal internal pressure and replace the negligible quantity of air that escapes. Inthis case, had escaping air not been observed, it would almost certainly have meant that the ship was open to space and airless.