Double Contact

CHAPTER 17

This time Prilicla made the trip alone, with the pinnace being guided by Haslam to the entry point on remote control. If the robot crew member or, through its sensors, its superior noticed the miniature, eye-level repeater screen that had been added to the interior of Prilicla’s helmet, it was not considered a threat because nothing was done to impede his trip back to the control section. It wasn’t absolutely necessary that he have a picture of what would shortly be going on outside since Fletcher could have told him about it via his communicator, but words took time and good pictures were always faster, clearer, and less susceptible to misinterpretation.

When he was deep inside the control section he drifted as close as possible to the inner door that would give access to the least injured of the ship’s two organic survivors, a position where he could monitor the other’s emotional responses with optimum accuracy. The robot drifted passively less than a meter away. He knew that the tiny metal digits encircling its body were capable of ripping open his spacesuit in a matter of seconds, but he also knew or rather he felt fairly sure — that it would remain passive unless he tried to open the inner door. “Ready when you are, friend Fletcher,” he said.

A few seconds later an immediate change in the alien’s emotional radiation as well as the image on his helmet screen told him that, in the space between Rhabwar and the distressed alien ship, the show had begun.

“It sees the external image,” Prilicla reported excitedly “There are feelings of awareness, curiosity, and puzzlement.”

The captain didn’t reply but one of the other officers laughed softly and saidin a voice not meant to be overheard, “I would feel puzzled, too, if somebody projected the image of a star field onto another star field.”

The projected star field remained unaltered for a few seconds, then slowly it began to shrink and condense so that more and more stars moved in from the edges of the three-dimensional projection until it took on the glittering, unmistakable, spiral shape of the Galaxy itself.

The survivor’s concentration was now total.

Gradually the fine detail of the image coarsened, the wisps and streamers of interstellar gas were erased, and the number of stars was reduced to a few hundred which became large enough to have been counted individually. One of them was highlighted inside a circle of bright green and the circle increased rapidly in size until a stylized representation of the star and its system of planets filled the projection volume for a few seconds before the image changed again.

The viewpoint zoomed in on that solar system’s inhabited planet, showing the swirling, tattered cloud formations that could not quite hide the continental outlines. As it swooped closer and lower it slowed until the viewpoint was giving panoramic views of the planetary surface, seascapes, ice fields, mountains, tropical greenery, and great, sprawling cities with their interconnecting road systems. Then the image was reduced suddenly in size and moved to one side so that it filled only half of the projection.

The other half displayed an equally detailed representation of the world’s dominant intelligent life-form.

It was the picture of an enormous, incredibly fragile flying insect with a tubular, exoskeletal body that supported six sucker tipped pencil-thin legs, four even more delicately fashioned and precise manipulators, and two sets of wide, iridescent, and almost transparent wings. The head was a convoluted eggshell so finely structured that the sensory organs, particularly the two large, lowing eyes projecting from it, seemed ready to fall off at the first sudden movement. The head, manipulators — some of them holding tools — and legs were bent or rotated to demonstrate their limits of movement while the wings wafted slowly up and down as they broke up and reflected iridescent highlights like mobile rainbows. It was the picture of a Cinrusskin, one of the race generally held to be the most beautiful and delicate life-forms known to the explored reaches of the galaxy.

Then the limb motions ceased, the wings folded away, and the body was suddenly encased in a spacesuit identical to the one Prilicla wore.

“As well as the background discomfort, I detect feelings of surprise and growing curiosity,” Prilicla reported. “Go to the next stage.”

They had shown a picture of Prilicla’s race first because he had already been seen by the alien casualty and seemed to be trusted by it. But now its education and, hopefully, its ability to trust had to be widened.

Next was shown the solar system, planet, meteorology, rural and city environments of Kelgia, accompanied by a picture of a single member of its dominant species. The undulating, multi-Pedal, caterpillar-like body with its silver, continually mobile fur, the narrow cone of a head, and the tiny forward manipulators, aroused no feelings of antipathy in the casualty, nor did the similar Material on the crablike Melfan or the six-legged, elephantine Tralthan life-forms that followed it. But when the Hudlar planet species were shown, there was a subtle change. Hudla was a heavy-gravity world pulling four Earth Gs whose nearly opaque atmosphere resembled a thick, dense soup, it was rich in the suspended animal and vegetable nutrients on which the Hudlars lived. It was a world of constant storms that had forced its natives to build underground. Only a Hudlar could love it, Prilicla thought, and then, not very much.

He said, “Now there are feelings suggestive of fear and familiarity. It is as if the casualty is recognizing a habitual enemy To most people, Melfans and Tralthans are visually more horrendous than the smooth-bodied Hudlars, so it may well be that it is the planet Hudla itself rather that its native life-forms that is causing this reaction.”

“Is this a guess, Doctor,” said the captain, “or one of your feelings?”

“A strong feeling,” he replied.

“I see,” said the other. It cleared its throat and added, “If your casualty considers Hudla as something like home, I can feel a certain sympathy for it in spite of what it did to Terragar. Shall I proceed?”

“Please,” said Prilicla, and the lesson continued.

Showing the planets and living environments of the sixty-seven intelligent species that comprised the Galactic Federation had never been their intention because the process would have been unnecessarily long and this was, after all, a primary lesson. The widely different types like the storklike, tripedal Nallajims, the multicolored, animated Gogleskan haystacks, the slimy, chlorine-breathing Illensans, and the radiation-eating Telfi, among others, were included, but so also were the DBDG classifications from Earth, Nidia, and Orligia. Those three were there deliberately because the prime purpose of the lesson was to instill in the alien casualties a feeling of trust for their Earth-human rescuers.

“It isn’t working,” said Prilicla, disappointed. “Every time you showed a DBDG, regardless of its size or whether it was a large, hairy Orligian, an Earth-human, or a half-sized, red-furred Nidian, the reaction was the same — one of intense fear and hatred. It will be extremely difficult to make these people trust you.

“What on Earth,” said the captain, “could we ever have done to make them feel that way?”

“It was not done on Earth, friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla. “Rut the show isn’t over yet. Please continue.”

The format changed again. Instead of showing individual planets and subjects, two- and three-member groups comprising different species were shown meeting and talking, sometimes with their children present, or working together on various technical projects. In some of them they were encased in spacesuits while they rescued other-species casualties from damaged ships. The pictures’ application to the present situation, he hoped, was plain. Then the scene changed again to show all of the subjects, forming the rim of wheel and shown in scale, from the diminutive Nallajims and Cinrusskins, up to the massive Tralthans and Hudlars of more than ten times that body-weight. At the hub of the circle was shown a tiny, glittering representation of the galaxy, from which radiated misty spokes joining it to the individual species on the rim. Then the individual species were pictured again, this time with all of them displayed as being the same size, in order, it was again hoped, to illustrate equality of importance. Several seconds passed. At this extreme range Prilicla could not feel, but he could imagine the captain’s anxiety as it spoke. “Well, Doctor,” it said urgently, “was there a response?” “There was, friend Fletcher,” he replied, “but I’m still trying for an exact analysis of the emotional radiation. In conjunction with the background feelings of anxiety, which may be caused by worry over its companion who it can no longer contact, there are strong feelings of excitement, wonder, and, I feel sure, comprehension. I’d say that it understood our lesson.”

When he didn’t go on, the captain broke the silence. It said, “I’ve the feeling that you’re going to say ‘but.’”

But,” Prilicla went on obligingly, “every time you showed DBDG, the casualty also radiated deep suspicion and distrust.These feelings are better than the earlier ones of intense fear and

blind hatred, but only fractionally. I feel certain that the casualty still doesn’t want you DBDGs anywhere near it.”

For the first time in Prilicla’s long experience on ambulanceship operations, the captain used words that his translator had not been programmed to accept, and went on. “Then what the hell am I expected to do to change that?”

Before replying, Prilicla looked slowly around the compart ment, pointed at one of the transparent inspection covers, then moved close and began opening it. The robot drifted nearby but made no attempt to interfere, even when he reached inside and after hesitating and looking back as if to ask permission for what he was about to do, he gently touched one of the cable looms. When he replied, he knew that his vision pickup was showing the captain everything he had been doing.

“In very simple pictorial terms, we’ve been talking big,” he said, “by telling it about a few of the Federation’s species and the cooperation that exists between their worlds and in space, like assisting distressed ships and—”

“If you remember my advice,” the other broke in, stressing the last word, “it was to follow through on the ship-rescue sequence and show the casualties receiving medical treatment. That, Doctor, would have clearly demonstrated our good intentions.”

“And I did not take your advice,” Prilicla replied gently, “because of the possibility of a misunderstanding. In the present climate of fear and distrust, the emotional reaction of an alien— who would have been witnessing a multispecies medical team, which would certainly have included at least one DBDG, carrying out a surgical procedure on a casually — could not have been taken for granted. We know nothing about the alien’s physiology, environment, or medical practices, if it has any. It may have decided that we were simply torturing captured casualties.

“You, friend Fletcher,” he said, when the other remained silent, “can do nothing right now, apart from furnishing me with technical advice when needed. I’ve already mentioned this idea to you, and your lack of enthusiasm for it was understandable-But the time for showing pictures is over. As my Earth-human gambling friends keep telling me, I must put my money where my mouth is.

“So now,” he ended, “we — or rather, I — must try to reinforce those pictorial lessons with deeds.”

He withdrew his hand slowly, closed the transparent cover and pointed along the linking passageway in the direction of the identical compartment on the damaged side of the ship. Had the robot crew member been an organic life-form, he thought, it would have been breathing down his neck. But it made no move to hinder him.

In the darkened compartment he used his helmet light to open inspection panels and look and, if it didn’t look dangerous, to touch the scorched or ruptured cable looms and plumbing inside all of them in turn. Still there was no interference from the robot. He was beginning to feel less sure of himself and his ability to do this job when the captain, demonstrating the strange mixture of empathy and understanding possessed by Earth-humans, answered his question before it could be asked.

“You should start with an easy one,” said the captain. “High on the upper side of the first inspection compartment you opened there are two fairly thick wires — one has what seems to be pale blue insulation, and the other red. If you look carefully you can see where they make a right-angle turn and disappear through a grommet into what is presumably the ceiling of your corridor. The force of the explosion caused a wiring break in one If them at the angle bend. Do you see the ends of the bare wire Projecting from the torn insulation? Try to splice it, but be careful to touch any metal in the area while you’re working. Your gauntlets are thin and we don’t know how much current that they will be carrying. You’ll need insulating tape to hold the splice together.”

“My med satchel has surgical tape,” said Prilicla. “Will that do?”

“Yes, Doctor, but be careful.”

A few minutes later the splicing operation was complete, the join was insulated, and all the lighting fixtures in the corridor were on. The robot crew member was moving from one to the other and, Prilicla hoped, reporting on the completion of one small repair to the conscious survivor who was its chief. It wasn’t much, but he had done something.

“What next?” said Prilicla.

“Now comes the difficult part,” said the captain, “so don’t get cocky. The other wiring affected is finer and with more subtle color-codings. Some of the ruptured strands show heat discoloration, and you must trace these back to an unaffected area so as to positively identify each end before joining them. The complexity of the wiring makes me pretty sure that most of these breaks are in the hull-sensor and internal-communications networks, and if a join were to be mismatched, we could cause all kinds of trouble. It would be like short-circuiting your hearing sensors to your eyes. We’re in the strange position of making repairs to systems whose purposes are totally unknown to us. I wish I was there with the proper equipment to help you. This is going to be delicate, precise, painstaking, and exhausting work. Are you up to it, Doctor?”

Don’t worry,” said Prilicla, “it’s a little like brain surgery.”