James White: Ambulance Ship

Conway rubbed his aching head and thought that difficult cases usually did not have this effect on him. Occasionally he had lost sleep over patients, or felt anxious or even seriously worried and tense when the time came to make a crucial decision in their case, but up until now it had never given him headaches. Was he growing old? But no, that was much too simple an explanation, because at the blind ones’ ship they had all had headaches.

“One way or another we will have to go after the survivors,” Conway said decisively. “And soon. But it would be criminal and stupid to endanger the life of a sentient being by wasting time on an experimental animal, even one that the ship’s crew consider as valuable as the FSOJ. Now, if we agree that the FSOJ is nonsentient—”

“We depressurize the ship, wait until Prilicla says the FSOJ is dead and cut our way in to the surviving blind one as quickly as possible,” the Captain finished for him, then added, “Dammit, my headache’s back.”

“A suggestion, friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla diffidently. “The blind one is small and could probably negotiate the corridor cage without being inconvenienced by the FSOJ training mechanisms. The emotional radiation from both beings is increasing to the point where I would say that they are almost fully recovered. One is radiating anger of the insensate, uncontrolled kind while the other is feeling increasing frustration and is straining hard to do something. And I, too, am having some cranial discomfort, friend Conway.”

The contagious headache again! thought Conway. This is too much of a coincidence …

Suddenly his mind was back in time and space to his early years in the hospital, when he was insufferably proud to be on the staff of a multienvironment hospital even though at the time he was little more than a medical messenger boy. But then he had been given the assignment of liaison with one Doctor Arretapec, a VUXG who was teleportive, telekinetic and telepathic, and who had received Federation funding for his project of engendering intelligence in a race of non-sentient Saurians.

Arretapec had given Conway a headache in more ways than one.

He was only half-listening while the Captain was making the arrangements to depressurize the other ship. His plan was, first, to reposition the portable airlock above the survivors in case the blind one could not make its way along the corridor when the FSOJ was dead and they had begun the slow job of cutting a way in. But the sudden incredulity and anger in Fletcher’s voice brought Conway’s mind back to present time with a rush.

… And why can’t you do it?” the Captain was demanding. “Start moving that lock at once. Haslam and I will be over to help you in a few minutes. What’s the matter with you, Chen?”

“I don’t feel well,” said Lieutenant Chen from his position beside the blind ones’ ship. “Can I be relieved, sir?”

Before the Captain could reply, Conway said, “Ask him if he has a headache of increasing severity, and is there a feeling of intense itching originating deep inside his ears. When he confirms this, tell him that the discomfort will diminish with distance from the blind ones’ ship.”

A few seconds later Chen was on his way back to the Rhabwar, having confirmed Conway’s description of his symptoms. Fletcher asked helplessly, “What is happening, Doctor?”

“I should have been expecting it,” Conway replied, “but it has been a long time since I had the experience. And I should have remembered that beings who, through physical damage or evolution, have been deprived of vital sensory equipment are compensated for the loss. I think-no, I know. We are experiencing telepathy.”

The Captain shook his head firmly. “You’re wrong, Doctor,” he said. “There are a few telephathic races in the Federation, but they tend to be philosophically rather than technologically inclined, so we don’t meet them very often. But even I know that their ability to communicate telepathically is confined to members of their own species. Their organic transmitter and receivers are tuned to that one frequency, and other species, even other telepathic species, cannot pick up the signals.”

“Correct,” said Conway. “Generally speaking, telepaths communicate only with other telepaths. But there have been a few rare exceptions recorded where non-telepaths have received their thoughts for a few seconds’ or minutes’ duration only, and more often than not the experimenters suffered great discomfort without making contact at all. The reason for their partial success is, according to the e-t neurologists, that many species have a latent telepathic faculty that became atrophied when they developed normal sensory equipment. But when my single, very brief experience took place I had been working closely with a very strong telepath on the same problem, seeing the same images, discussing the same symptoms and sharing the same feelings about our patient for days on end. We must have established a temporary bridge, and for a few minutes the telepath’s thoughts and feelings were able to cross it.”

Prilicla was shaking violently. “If the sentient survivor is trying to establish telepathic contact with us, friend Conway, it is trying very hard. It is feeling extreme desperation.”

“I can understand that,” said the Captain, “with a rapidly improving FSOJ nearby. Now what do we do, Doctor?”

Conway tried to make his aching head produce an answer before the surviving blind one suffered the same fate as its crew-mates. “If we could think hard about something we have in common with it. We could try thinking about the blind ones”—he waved his hand at the dissecting tables—”except that we might not have enough mental control to think of them whole and alive. If we thought about them as dissected specimens, however briefly, it would not be reassuring to the survivor. So look at and think about the FSOJ. As an experimental animal the blind one should not be bothered by seeing, feeling, experiencing or whatever, it in small pieces.

“I would like you all to concentrate on thinking about the FSOJ,” he went on, looking at each of them in turn. “Concentrate hard, and at the same time try to project the feeling that you want to help. There may be some discomfort but no harmful after effects. Now think, think, hard …!”

They stared at the partially dismembered FSOJ in silence, and thought. Prilicla began trembling violently and Naydrad’s fur was doing strange things indeed as it reflected the Kelgian’s feelings. Murchison’s face turned white and her lips were pressed together, and the Captain was sweating.

“Some discomfort, he said,” Fletcher muttered.

“Discomfort to a medic,” said Murchison, briefly unclenching her teeth, “can mean anything from the pain of a sprained ankle to being boiled in oil, Captain.”

“Stop talking,” Conway snapped. “Concentrate.”

His head felt as if it could no longer contain his aching brain and there was a raging itch growing inside his skull, a sensation he had felt just once before in his life. Conway glanced quickly at Fletcher as the Captain gave an agonized grunt and started poking at his ear with a finger. And suddenly there was contact. It was a weak, unspoken message that came from nowhere, but it was there in their minds as silent words that formed both a statement and a question.

“You are thinking of my Protector …”

They all looked at each other, all obviously wondering if each had heard, felt, experienced the same words. The Captain let out his breath in an explosive sigh of relief, and said, “A … a Protector?”

“With those natural weapons, Murchison said, gesturing towards the FSOJ’s horn-tipped tentacles and bony armor, “it certainly has the right equipment for the job.”