James White - Major Operation

Space suited Doctors Mannon and Prilicla, Lieutenant Harrison and Conway watched from the tender’s open airlock.

“It’s still leaking,” said Mannon. “That’s a good sign-there is still pressure inside …

“Unless it’s a fuel leak,” Harrison said.

“What do you feel?” asked Conway.

Prilicla’s fragile, eggshell body and six pipe-stem legs were beginning to quiver violently so it was obvious that it was feeling something.

“The vessel contains one living entity,” said Prilicla slowly. “Its emotional radiation is comprised chiefly of fear and feelings of pain and suffocation. I would say that these feelings have been with it for many days-the radiation is subdued and lacking in clarity due to developing unconsciousness. But the quality of that entity’s mentation leaves no doubt that it is intelligent and not simply an experimental animal …

“It’s nice to know,” said Mannon dryly, “that we’re not going to all this trouble for an instrument package or a Meatball space puppy …

“We haven’t much time,” said Conway.

He was thinking that their patient must be pretty far gone by now. It’s fear was understandable, of course, and its pain, suffocation and diminished consciousness were probably due to injury, intense hunger and foul breathing water. He tried to put himself in the Meatball astronaut’s position.

Even though the pilot had been badly confused by the apparently uncontrollable spinning, the being had deliberately sought to maintain the spin when Descartes tried to take it aboard because it must have been smart enough to realize that a tumbling ship could not be drawn into the cruiser’s hold. Possibly it could have checked its own spin with steering power if Descartes had not been so eager to rush to its aid-but that was simply a possibility, of course, and the spacecraft had been leaking badly as well. Now it was still leaking and spinning and, with its occupant barely conscious, Conway thought he could risk frightening it just a little more by checking the spin and moving the vehicle into the tender and the patient as quickly as possible into the water-filled compartment where they could work on it.

But as soon as the immaterial fingers of the tractor beams reached out an equally invisible force seemed to grip Prilicla’s fragile body and shake it furiously.

“Doctor,” said the empath, “the being is radiating extreme fear. It is forcing coherent thought from a mind which is close to panic. It is losing consciousness rapidly, perhaps dying … Look! It is using steering thrust!”

“Cut!” shouted Conway to the tractor beamers. The alien spacecraft, which had almost come to rest, began to spin slowly as vapor jetted from lateral vents in the nose and stern. After a few minutes the jets became irregular, weaker and finally ceased altogether, leaving the vehicle spinning at approximately half its original speed. Prilicla still looked as if its body was being shaken by a high wind.

“Doctor,” said Conway suddenly, “considering the kind of tools these people use I wonder if some kind of psionic force is being used against you-you are shaking like a leaf.”

When it replied Prilicla’s voice was, of course, devoid of all emotion. “It is not thinking directly at anyone, friend Conway,” said the empath. “Its emotional radiation is composed chiefly of fear and despair. Perceptions are diminishing and it seems to be struggling to avoid a final catastrophe …

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” said Mannon suddenly.

“If you mean am I thinking of setting the thing spinning at full speed again,” Conway replied. “The answer is yes. But there’s no logical reason for doing so, is there?”

A few seconds later the tractor beam men reversed polarity to increase the vessel’s spin. Almost immediately Prilicla’s trembling ceased and it said, “The being feels much better now-relatively, that is. Its vitality is still very low.”

Prilicla began to tremble again and this time Conway knew that his own feelings of angry frustration were affecting the little being. He tried to make his thinking cooler and more constructive, even though he knew that the situation was essentially the same as it had been when Descartes had first tried to aid the Meatball astronaut, that they were making no progress at all.

But there were a few things he could do which would help the patient, however indirectly.

The vapor escaping from the vehicle should be analyzed to see if it was fuel or simply water from the being’s life-support system. Much valuable data could be gained from a direct look at the patient-even if it was only possible to see it through the wrong end of a periscope, since the vessel did not possess a direct-vision port. They should also seek means of entering the vessel to examine and reassure the occupant before transferring it to the ambulance and the wards.

Closely followed by Lieutenant Harrison, Conway pulled himself along the towing cable toward the spinning ship. By the time they had gone a few yards both men were turning with the rotating cable so that when they reached the spacecraft it seemed steady while the rest of creation whirled around them in dizzying circles. Mannon stayed in the airlock, insisting that he was too old for such acrobatics, and Prilicla approached the vessel drifting free and using its spacesuit propulsors for maneuvering.

Now that the patient was almost unconscious the Cinrusskin had to be close to detect subtle changes in its emotional radiation. But the long, tubular hull was hurtling silently past the little being like the vanes of some tremendous windmill.

Conway did not voice his concern, however. With Prilicla one did not need to.

“I appreciate your feelings, friend Conway,” said Prilicla, “but I do not think that I was born, despite my physiological classification, to be swatted.”

At the hull they transferred from the towing cable and used wrist and boot magnets to cling to the spinning ship, noting that the magnetic grapple placed there by Descartes had seriously dented the hull plating and that the area was obscured by a fog of escaping vapor. Their own suit magnets left shallow grooves in the plating as well. The metal was not much thicker than paper, and Conway felt that if he made a too sudden movement he would kick a hole in it.

“It isn’t quite as bad as that, Doctor,” said the Lieutenant. “In our own early days of space flight — before gravity control, hyper spatial travel and atomic motors made considerations of weight of little or no importance — vehicles had to be built as light as possible. So much so that the fuel contents were sometimes used to help stiffen the structure.

“Nevertheless,” said Conway, “I feel as if I am lying on very thin ice-I can even hear water or fuel gurgling underneath. Will you check the stern, please. I’ll head forward.”

They took samples of the escaping vapor from several points and they tapped and sounded and listened carefully with sensitive microphones to the noises coming from inside the ship. There was no response from the occupant, and Prilicla told them that it was unaware of their presence. The only signs of life from the interior were mechanical. There seemed to be an unusually large amount of machinery, to judge from the sounds they could hear, in addition to the gurgling of liquid. And as they moved toward the extremities of the vessel, centrifugal force added another complication.

The closer they moved toward the bow or stern, the greater was the force tending to fling them off the spinning ship.

Conway’s head was pointing toward the ship’s bow so that the centrifugal force was imposing a negative G on his body. It was not really uncomfortable as yet, however-he felt a little pop-eyed but there was no redding out of vision. His greatest discomfort came from the sight of the ambulance ship, Prilicla and the vast, tubular Christmas tree which was Sector General sweeping around the apparently steady ship’s bows. When he closed his eyes the feeling of vertigo diminished, but then he could not see what he was doing.