Code Blue Emergency

CHAPTER 18

SHE did not know how long she spent watching the mindless struggling of the FGHJ on its couch, and its strong, blunt-fingered hands that had guided this great vessel between the stars before she left the control deck, feeling depressed and angry at her inability to produce a single constructive idea, to begin collecting food for the other, still-hungry crew members. But when she entered the nearest food storage compartment a few minutes later, she was startled to find Prilicla alreadythere.

“Friend Cha,” the empath said, “there has been achange of plan …”

The anesthetic that Murchison was producing would have to be tested, in minute but gradually increasing doses, initially on the FGHJ in Control. That process could take anything up to three days before the Pathologist could pronounce it safe for use. Prilicla felt sure that the survivor did not have three days and another method of pacifying the crew members, not as effective as anesthesia, must be tried. Adequate supplies of the crew’s own tranquilizers were available, and large doses of these would be added to the crew’s food and drink in the hope that, heavily tranquilized and with their hunger satisfied, the intensity of their emotional radiation would be245reduced to a level where the empath could isolate and locate the remaining and seriously ill or injured survivor.

“I would like all of the crew members to be fed and tranquilized as quickly as possible,” Prilicla went on. “Our friend’s emotional radiation is characteristic of a mind of high intelligence presently degraded by pain, rather than one in the condition of its crew-mates, but it grows steadily weaker. I fear for its life.”,At Prilicla’s direction she heavily dosed the liquid food and water, then distributed it quickly to the dormitories while the Cinrusskin moved from deck to deck, with its empathic faculty extended to its maximum range and sensitivity. With full stomachs and dulled minds— some, of them even went to sleep — the crew members’ emotional radiation became less obtrusive, but otherwise the results were negative.

“I still can’t get a fix,” Prilicla said, its body trembling to its own as well as Cha Thrat’s disappointment. “There is still too much interference from the conscious survivors. All we can do now is return to Rhabwar and try to assist friend Murchison. Your charges will not grow hungry again for some time. Coming?”

“No,” she said, “I would prefer to continue the normal, physical search for your dying survivor.”

“Friend Cha,” Prilicla said, “must I remind you again that I am not a telepath, and that your secret, inner thoughts remain your own property. But your feelings are very clear to me, and they are of low-intensity excitement, pleasure, and caution, with the excitement predominating and the caution barely detectable. This worries me. My guess is that you have had an idea or come to a conclusion of some kind, which will involve personal risk before it can be proved or disproved. Would you like to tell me about it?”

The simple answer would have been “No,” but shecould not bring herself to hurt the empath’s hypersensitive feelings with such a verbal discourtesy. Instead she said carefully, “It may be that the idea came as a result of my ignorance regarding your empathic faculty, hence my reticence in mentioning it until I was sure that it had some value and I would avoid embarrassment.”

Prilicla continued to hover silently in the center of the compartment, and Cha Thrat went on. “When we first searched the ship you were able to detect the presence of the unconscious survivor, but not locate it because of the conscious emoting of the others. Now that they are pacified into near-unconsciousness, the situation is the same because our survivor’s condition has worsened, and I fear that it will remain the same even when the anesthetic becomes available and the others, too, are deeply unconscious.”

“I share that fear,” the empath said quietly. “But go on.”

“In my ignorance of the finer workings of your empathic faculty,” she continued, “I assumed that a weak source of emotional radiation positioned nearby would be more easily detectable than a stronger source at a distance. If there had been any such variation in strength, I’m sure you would have mentioned it.”

“I would,” Prilicla said, “and you are right in many respects. In others, well, my emphathic faculty has limitations. It responds to the quality and intensity of feelings as well as their proximity. But detection is dependent on factors other than distance. There is the degree of intelligence and emotional sensitivity, the intensity of the emotions being felt, the physical size and strength of the emoting brain, and, of course, the level of consciousness. Normally these limitations can be ignored when I’m searching for just one source and my friends, usually the medical team, move away or controltheir emotions while I’m searching. That isn’t the case here. But you must have reached some conclusions. What are they?”

Choosing her words carefully, Cha Thrat replied, “That, because of its location, the unconscious survivor’s radiation is and will remain obscured, and that it is very close to, or surrounded by, the conscious sources. This narrows the volume to be searched to the dormitory deck and perhaps the levels above and below it, and I shall concentrate on that volume only. And you said just now that the physical size of the emoting brain is a factor. Could it be that the survivor is a very small, and young, FGHJ hiding close to the mindless parent?”

“Possibly,” Prilicla replied. “But regardless of age or size, it is in very bad shape.”

Controlling her growing excitement, she went on. ’There must be small storage cabinets, systems inspection centers, and odd holes and corners where a crew member or child would not normally go, but where a barely conscious entity whose injuries caused it to act irrationally might have hidden itself. I feel sure than I will find it soon.”

“I know,” Prilicla said. “But there is more.”

Cha Thrat hesitated, then said, “With respect, Cinrusskins are not a robust species, and for that reason are more sensitive to the risk of physical injury than beings like myself. I can assure you that I have no intention of placing myself at risk, for whatever reason. But if I was to tell you my plan in detail, the possibility exists that you would forbid me to carry it out.”

“Would you obey me if I did?” Prilicla asked.

She did not reply.

“Friend Cha,” Prilicla said gently, “you have many qualities that I find admirable, including that of moderate cowardice, but you worry me. You have shown yourselfreluctant to obey orders that you personally feel to be wrong or unjustified. You have been disobedient in Sector General, on this ship, and, I suspect, on your home world. This is not a quality that people find admirable in a person of subordinate rank. What are we going to do with you?”

Cha Thrat was about to tell the little empath how sorry she felt at causing it mental distress, then realized that it already knew exactly how she felt toward it. Instead she said, “With respect, you could allow me to proceed, and ask the Captain to concentrate the sensors on the reduced search area I have indicated, and report any changes to me at once.”

“You know that I was thinking in the longer term,” Prilicla said. “But yes, I shall do as you suggest. I share friend Murchison’s feelings about this situation. There is something very strange here, and possibly dangerous, but we cannot even guess where the threat, if there is a threat, will come from. Take great care, friend Cha, and guard your mind as well as your body.”

Cha Thrat began the search as soon as Prilicla left her, starting with the level above the dormitory deck, then moving to the one below it. But from the start her principal intention had been to enter and search those occupied dormitories, and, as soon as she did so, she knew that there would be a reaction from whoever was watching the sensor displays.

When it came, the voice in her earpiece was that of the Captain itself.

“Technician!” it said sharply. “The sensors show a body of your mass and temperature entering one of the dormitories. Get out of there at once!”

It was possible to argue politely and be circumspect with a gentle little entity like Prilicla, Cha Thrat thought sadly, but not with the Captain. She had just been givena direct order that she had no intention of obeying, so she spoke as if she had not heard it.

“I have entered a dormitory and am moving sideways around the room with my back to the wall,” she said calmly. “I am moving slowly so as not to disturb or frighten the occupants, who seem to be half asleep. Two of them have turned their heads to watch me but are making no threatening movements. There is a small door, tight-fitting and mounted flush with the wall, probably a recessed storage cabinet, that might be large enough for an FGHJ to force a way in to hide. I am opening the door now. Inside there are …”

“Switch on your vision pickup,” Fletcher said angrily, “and save your breath.”

“… shelves containing what appears to be cleaning materials for the waste-disposal facility,” she continued. “In case a fast retreat is necessary, I have left the heavier equipment outside and am wearing only a headset. Now I’m moving toward the wall facing the entrance where there is another small door.”

“So you can hear me,” Fletcher said coldly. “And you heard my order.”

“I’ve opened it,” she went on quickly, “and the missing survivor isn’t there. Beside the door at floor level there is a small, flat, rectangular flap. Possibly it conceals a recessed handle for an upward-opening door. I will have to lie flat on the floor, and try to avoid the body wastes, to examine it.”

She heard the Captain make an untranslatable but very unsympathetic sound, then she said, It is a tight-fitting flap, hinged on the top side, and free to move in or out with gentle pressure. There is a layer of sponge around the edges that suggests that it is nearly airtight. I can’t get my head close enough to the floor to see insidethe flap, but when I open it there is a strong smell that reminds me of the Sommaradvan glytt plant.

“I’m sorry,” she went on. “Quite apart from the fact that you don’t know what a glytt plant smells like, one wonders whether the seal is intended to keep the unpleasant smell of FGHJ wastes in or the other smell out. Or maybe it is just an inlet point for some kind of deodorant …”

“Friend Cha,” Prilicla broke in. “In the short time since you inhaled the odor, has there been any irritation of your breathing passages, nausea, impairment of vision, or dulling of sensation or intellect?”

“What intellect?” Fletcher murmured in a disparaging voice.

“No,” she replied. “I am opening the door of the last remaining storage closet to be searched. It is larger than the others, filled with racked tools and what looks like replacement parts for the dormitory furniture, but is otherwise empty. The crew members are still ignoring me. I’m leaving now to search the next dormitory.”

“Technician,” Fletcher said quietly. “If you can reply to Prilicla I know you can hear me. Now, I’m willing to consider your earlier disobedience as a temporary aberration, a fit of overenthusiasm, and a minor disciplinary matter. But if you continue the search in direct contravention of my orders you will be in major trouble. Neither the Monitor Corps nor the hospital has time for irresponsible subordinates.”

“But I take full responsiblity for my actions,” Cha Thrat protested, “including any credit or discredit that may result from them. I know that I lack the training to investigate an other-species ship properly, but I am simply opening and closing doors and being very careful while I’m doing it.”

The Captain did not reply and maintained its silenceeven when the sensors must have been showing Cha Thrat entering the second dormitory. It was Prilicia who spoke first.

“Friend Fletcher,” the empath said quietly, “I agree that there is a small element of risk in what the technician is doing. But it has discussed some of its ideas with me and is acting with my permission and, well, limited approval.”

Ignoring the tranquilized FGHJs and riot speaking at all, Cha Thrat was able search the dormitory much more quickly, but with the same negative result. None of the storage cabinets revealed the missing survivor, adult or child, and the.narrow, floor-level flap held nothing but the smell of glytt, which never had been one of her favorite aromas.

But the Cinrusskin’s attempts to divert the Captain’s anger from her aroused such a sudden emotional warmth in her that she hoped the empath would feel her gratitude. Without breaking into the conversation, and hoping that Prilicia could not feel her growing disappointment, she began searching the third and last dormitory.

“… In any case, friend Fletcher,” the empath was saying, “the responsibility for whatever happens on the distressed ship until the survivors are treated and evacuated is not yours, but mine.”

“I know, I know,” the Captain agreed irritably. “On the site of a disaster the medical team leader has the rank. In this situation you can tell a Monitor Corps ship commander like myself what to do, and be obeyed. You can even give orders to a Corps Maintenance Technician Grade Two called Cha Thrat, but I seriously doubt if they would be obeyed.”

There was another long silence, broken by the subject of the discussion. She said, “I’ve finished searching thedormitories. All three contain identical arrangements of fittings and storage compartments, none of which contains the FGHJ we’re looking for.

“But the first and second dormitories share a common wall,” she went on, trying to sound hopeful, “likewise the second and third. But the first and third are divided by a short corridor leading inboard toward what must be another, fairly large storage compartment whose sides are common to the inner walls of the three dormitories. The missing FGHJ could be there.”

“I don’t think so,” Fletcher said. “The sensors show it as an empty compartment, about half the size of a dormitory, with a lot of low-power circuitry and ducting, probably environmental control lines to the dormitories, mounted on or behind the wall surfaces. By empty we mean that there are no large metal objects in the room, although organic material could be present if it was stored in nonmetal containers. But a piece of organic material of the body mass and temperature of a living FGHJ, whether moving or at rest, would show very clearly.

“All the indications are that it is just another storeroom,” the Captain ended. “But no doubt you will search it, anyway.”

With difficulty, Cha Thrat ignored Fletcher’s tone as she said, “During my first search of this area I looked into this corridor and saw the blank end-wall containing what I mistakenly thought to be a section of badly fitted wail plating. My excuse for making this mistake is that there is no external handle or latch visible. On closer examination I see that it is not a badly fitted plate but an inward-opening door that is very slightly ajar, and the scanner shows that it fastens only from the inside.

“The vision pickup is on,” she added. “I’m pushing the door open now.”

The place was a mess, she thought, with weightlessness adding to the general disorder so that floating debris made it difficult to see any distance into the room. There was a very strong smell of glytt.

“We aren’t receiving a clear picture,” said Fletcher, “and something close to the lens is blocking most of the view. Have you attached the pickup correctly or are we seeing part of your shoulder?”

“No, sir,” she replied, trying to keep her tone properly subordinate. “The compartment is gravity-free and a large number of flat, roughly circular objects are floating about. They appear to be organic, fairly uniform in size, dark gray on one surface and with a paler, mottled appearance on the other. I suppose they could be cakes of preprepared food that escaped from a ruptured container, or they might be solid body waste, similar to that found in the dormitories, which has dried and become discolored. I’m trying to move some of it out of the way now.”

With a sudden feeling of distaste, she cleared the visual obstructions from the front of the pickup, using her medial hands because they were the only ones still covered by gloves. There was no response from Rhabwar.

“There are large, irregular clumps of spongelike or vegetable material attached to the walls and ceiling,” she went on, moving her body so that the pickup’s images would let the others see, however unclearly, what she was trying to describe. “So far as I can see, each clump is colored differently, although the colors are subdued, and under each one there is a short length of padded shelf.

“At floor level,” she continued, “I can see three narrow, rectangular flaps. Their size and positions correspond to those found in the dormitories. These pancakes, or whatever, are all over the place, but I cansee something large floating in a corner near the ceiling … It’s the FGHJ!”

“I don’t understand why it didn’t register on the sensors,” Fletcher said. It was the kind of Captain who insisted on the highest standards of efficiency from its crew and the equipment in its charge, and treated a malfunction in either as a personal affront.

“Good work, friend Cha,” Prilicla said, enthusiastically breaking in. “Quickly now, move it to the entrance for loading into the litter. We’ll be with you directly. What is the general clinical picture?”

Cha Thrat moved closer, swatting more obstructions from her path as she said, “I can’t see any physical injuries at all, not even minor bruising, or external evidence of an illness. But this FGHJ isn’t like the others. It seems to be a lot thinner and less well muscled. The skin appears darker, more wrinkled, and the hooves are discolored and cracked in several places. The body hair is gray. I … I think this is a much older FGHJ. It might be the ship ruler. Maybe it hid itself in here to avoid what happened to the rest of its crew …”

She broke off, and Prilicla called urgently, “Friend Cha, why are you feeling like that? What happened to you?”

“Nothing happened to me,” she replied, fighting to control her disappointment. “I am holding the FGHJ now. There is no need to hurry. It is dead.”

“That explains why my sensors didn’t register,” Fletcher said.

“Friend Cha,” Prilicla said, ignoring the interruption, “are you quite sure"! I can still feel the presence of a deeply unconscious mind.”

Cha Thrat drew the FGHJ toward her so that she could use her upper hands, then said, “The body temperature is very low. Its eyes are open and do not react tolight. The usual vital signs are absent. I’m sorry, it i dead and …” She broke off to look more closely at th creature’s head, then went on excitedly. “And I think know what killed it! The back of the neck. Can you s< it?”

“Not clearly,” Prilicla replied quickly, obviously feeling her own growing excitement, and fear. “One of those disklike objects is in the way.”

“But that’s it,” she said. “I thought at first that one of them had drifted against the cadaver and stuck to its head. But I was wrong. The thing attached itself deliberately to the FGHJ with those thick white tendrils you can see growing from the edge of the disk. Now that I’m looking for them, I can see that they all have the tendrils and, judging by their length, the penetration into the cadaver’s spinal column and rear cranium is very deep. That thing is, or was, alive, and could have been responsible for—”

“Technician,” Fletcher broke in harshly, “get out of there!”

“At once,” Prilicla said.

Very carefully Cha Thrat released her hold on the dead FGHJ, removed her vision pickup, and attached its magnetic clips to a clear area of wall. She knew that the medical team would want to study this strange and abhorrent life-form that was infesting the ship before deciding how to deal with it. Then she turned toward the entrance, which now seemed to be very far away.

The disks hung thickly like an alien minefield between the door and herself. Some of them were still moving slowly in the air eddies caused by her entry or by the blows with which she had so casually knocked them aside, or perhaps of their own volition. They presented views from every angle — the smooth surface of the mot-tied side, the gray and wrinkled reverse side, and the edges with their fringe of limp white tendrils.

She had been so busy searching for an FGHJ survivor that she had scarcely looked at the objects she had mistaken for cakes of food or dried wastes floating in the room. She still did not know what they were, only of what they were capable, which was the utter destruction of the highly trained and intelligent minds of their victims to leave them with nothing but the basic and purely instinctive responses of animals.

The thought of a predator who did not eat or physically harm its prey, but gorged itself on the intelligence of its victim, made her want to seek refuge in madness. She was desperately afraid of touching one of them again, but there were too many of them for her to avoid doing so. But if any of them got in her way, Cha Thrat decided grimly, she would touch it, hit it, very hard.

The gentle, reassuring voice of Prilicla sounded in her earpiece. It said, “You are controlling your fear well, friend Cha. Move slowly and carefully and don’t—”

She winced as a high-pitched, piercing sound erupted from the earpiece, signifying that too many people were talking to her at once and had overloaded her translator. But they realized immediately what was happening because the oscillation wavered and died to become one voice, the Captain’s.

“Technician, behind yourBy then it was too late.

All of her attention had been directed ahead and to the sides, where the greatest danger lay. When she felt the surprisingly light touch, followed by a sensation of numbness on the back of her neck, a cool, detached part of her mind thought that it was considerate of the thing to anesthetize the area before inserting its tendrils. She swung an eye to the rear to see what was happening, andinstinctively raised her upper hands to push away the disk that had left the dead FGHJ and was attaching itself to her. But the hands fumbled weakly, their digits suddenly powerless, and the arms fell limply away.

Other parts of her body ceased working, or began twitching and bending in the random, uncoordinated fashion of a person with serious brain damage. The calm, detached portion of her mind thought that her condition was not a pleasant sight for friends to see.

“Fight it, Cha Thrat!” Murchison’s voice shouted from her earpiece. “Whatever it’s doing, fight it! We’re on our way.”

She heard and appreciated the concern in the Patholo-gist’s voice, but her tongue was one of the organs that was not working just then because her jaw was clamped shut. Altogether, she was in a state of considerable physiological confusion as muscles continued to twitch uncontrollably, her body writhed in weightless contortions, and sensations of heat, cold, pain, and pleasure affected random areas of her skin. She knew that the creature was exploring her central nervous system, trying to find out how her Sommaradvan body worked so that it would be able to control her.

Gradually the twitchings and writhings and even her fear diminished and were gone, and her body was able to resume its interrupted journey. The lens of the vision pickup turned to follow her. When she reached the door, she slammed it closed and locked it with fastenings that had suddenly become familiar.

“Technician,” Fletcher said sharply, “what are you doingTIt was obvious that she was locking the door from the inside, Cha Thrat thought irritably. Probably the Captain meant why was she doing it. She tried to reply but her lips and tongue would not work. But surely her actionswould tell all of them that she, it, both of them, did not wish to be disturbed.