Hospital Station

IX

They dropped another level into a ward in which four MSVKs-fragile, tn-pedal stork like beings-drifted lifeless among loose items of ward equipment. Movements of the bodies and objects in the room seemed a little unnatural, as if they had been recently disturbed. It was the first sign of the enigmatic survivor they were seeking. Then they were in a great, metal-walled compartment surrounded by a maze of plumbing and unshielded machinery. On the floor in a bulge it had created for itself, the ship’s massive hyper-drive generator lay with some shreds of control room equipment strewn around it. Underneath was the remains of a life form that was now unclassifiable. Beside the generator another hole had been torn in the severely weakened floor by some other piece of the ship’s heavy equipment.

Conway hurried over to it, looked down, then called excitedly, “There it is!”

They were looking into a vast room which could only be the grid control center. Rank upon rank of squat, metal cabinets covered the floor, walls and ceiling — this compartment was always kept airless and at zero gravity — with barely room for even Earth-human Engineers to move between them. But Engineers were seldom needed here because the devices in this all — important compartment were self-repairing. At the moment this ability was being put to a severe test.

A being which Conway classified tentatively as AACL sprawled across three of the delicate control cabinets. Nine other cabinets, all winking with red distress signals, were within range of its six, python-like tentacles which poked through seals in the cloudy plastic of its suit. The tentacles were at least twenty feet long and tipped with a horny substance which must have been steel-hard considering the damage the being had caused.

Conway had been prepared to feel pity for this hapless survivor, he had expected to find an entity injured, panic-stricken and crazed with pain. Instead there was a being who appeared unhurt and who was viciously smashing up gravity-grid controls as fast as the built-in self repairing robots tried to fix them.

Conway swore and began hunting for the frequency of the other’s suit radio. Suddenly there was a harsh, high-pitched cheeping sound in his ear-phones. “Got you!” Conway said grimly.

The cheeping sounds ceased abruptly as the other heard his voice and so did all movement of those highly destructive tentacles. Conway noted the wavelength, then switched back to the band used by the PVSJ and himself.

“It seems to me,” said the chlorine-breather when he had told it what he had heard, “that the being is deeply afraid, and the noises it made were of fear — otherwise your Translator would have made you receive them as words in your own language. The fact that these noises and its destructive activity stopped when it heard your voice is promising, but I think that we should approach slowly and reassure it constantly that we are bringing help. Its activity down there gives me the impression that it has been hitting out at anything which moves, so a certain amount of caution is indicated, I think.”

“Yes, Padre,” said Conway with great feeling.

“We do not know in what direction the being’s visual organs are directed,” the PVSJ went on, “so I suggest we approach from opposite sides.”

Conway nodded. They set their radios to the new band and climbed carefully down onto the ceiling of the compartment below. With just enough power in their gravity neutralizers to keep them pressing gently against the metal surface they moved away from each other onto opposite walls, down them, then onto the floor. With the being between them now, they moved slowly toward it.

The robot repair devices were busy making good the damage wrecked by those six anacondas it used for limbs but the being continued to lie quiescent. Neither did it speak. Conway kept thinking of the havoc this entity had caused with its senseless threshing about. The things he felt like saying to it were anything but reassuring, so he let the PSVJ padre do the talking.

“Do not be afraid,” the other was saying for the twentieth time. “If you are injured, tell us. We are here to help you …

But there was neither movement nor reply from the being.

On a sudden impulse Conway switched to Dr. Mannon’s band. He said quickly, “The survivor seems to be an AACL. Can you tell me what it’s here for, or any reason why it should refuse or be unable to talk to us?”

“I’ll check with Reception,” said Mannon after a short pause. “But are you sure of that classification? I can’t remember seeing an AACL here, sure it isn’t a Creppelian—”

“It isn’t a Creppelian octopoid,” Conway cut in. “There are six main appendages, and it is just lying here doing nothing …

Conway stopped suddenly, shocked into silence, because it was no longer true that the being under discussion was doing nothing. It had launched itself toward the ceiling, moving so fast that it seemed to land in the same instant that it had taken off. Above him now, Conway saw another control unit pulverized as the being struck and others torn from their mounts as its tentacles sought anchorage. In his phones Mannon was shouting about gravity fluctuations in a hitherto stable section of the hospital, and mounting casualty figures, but Conway was unable to reply.

He was watching helplessly as the AACL prepared to launch itself again.

… We are here to help you,” the PVSJ was saying as the being landed with a soundless crash four yards from the padre. Five great tentacles anchored themselves firmly, and a sixth lashed out in a great, curving blur of motion that caught the PVSJ and smashed it against the wall. Life-giving chlorine spurted from the PVSJ’s suit, momentarily hiding in mist the shapeless, pathetic thing which rebounded slowly into the middle of the room. The AACL began making cheeping noises again.

Conway heard himself babbling out a report to Mannon, then Mannon shouting for Lister. Finally the Director’s voice came in to him. It said thickly, “You’ve got to kill it, Conway.”

You’ve got to kill it, Conway!

It was those words which shocked Conway back to a state of normality as nothing else could have done. How very like a Monitor, he thought bitterly, to solve a problem with a murder. And to ask a doctor, a person dedicated to the preserving of life, to do the killing. It did not matter that the being was insane with fear, it had caused a lot of trouble in the hospital, so kill it.

Conway had been afraid, he still was. In his recent state of mind he might have been panicked into using this kill-or-be-killed law of the jungle. Not now, though. No matter what happened to him or the hospital he would not kill an intelligent fellow being, and Lister could shout himself blue in the face …

It was with a start of surprise that Conway realized that both Lister and Mannon were shouting at him, and trying to counter his arguments. He must have been doing his thinking aloud without knowing it. Angrily he tuned them out.

But there was still another voice gibbering at him, a slow, whispering, unutterably weary voice that frequently broke off to gasp in pain. For a wild moment Conway thought that the ghost of the dead PVSJ was continuing Lister’s arguments, then he caught sight of movement above him.

Drifting gently through the hole in the ceiling was the space suited figure of Williamson. How the badly injured Monitor had got there at all was beyond Conway’s understanding — his broken arms made control of his gravity pack impossible, so that he must have come all the way by kicking with his feet and trusting that a still-active gravity grid would not pull him in a second time. At the thought of how many times those multiple fractured members must have collided with obstacles on the way down, Conway cringed. And yet all the Monitor was concerned with was trying to coax Conway into killing the AACL below him.

Close below him, with the distance lessening every second …

Conway felt the cold sweat break out on his back. Helpless to stop himself, the injured Monitor had cleared the rent in the ceiling and was drifting slowly floorward, directly on top of the crouching AACL! As Conway stared fascinated one of the steel-hard tentacles began to uncurl preparatory to making a death-dealing swipe.

Instinctively Conway launched himself in the direction of the floating Monitor, there was no time for him to feel consciously brave — or stupid — about the action. He connected with a muffled crash and hung on, wrapping his legs around Williamson’s waist to leave his hands free for the gravity pack controls. They spun furiously around their common center of gravity, walls, ceilings and floor with its deadly occupant whirling around so fast that Conway could barely focus his eyes on the controls. It seemed years before he finally had the spin checked and he had them headed for the hole in the ceiling and safety. They had almost reached it when Conway saw the hawser-like tentacle come sweeping up at him …