Sector General

ACCIDENT

Retlin complex was Nidia’s largest air terminal, its only spaceport, and, MacEwan thought cynically, its most popular zoo. The main concourse was thronged with furry native airline passengers, sightseers, and ground personnel, but the thickest crowd was outside the transparent walls of the off-planet departure lounge where Nidians of all ages jostled each other in their eagerness to see the waiting space travelers.

But the crowd parted quickly before the Corpsmen escorting MacEwan and his companion — no native would risk giving offense to an offworlder by making even accidental bodily contact. From the departure lounge entrance, the two were directed to a small office whose transparent walls darkened into opacity at their approach.

The man facing them was a full Colonel and the ranking Monitor Corps officer on Nidia, but until they had seated themselves he remained standing, respectfully, as befitted one who was meeting for the first time the great Earth-human MacEwan and the equally legendary Orligian Grawlya-Ki. He remained on his feet for a moment longer while he looked with polite disapproval at their uniforms, torn and stained relics of an almost forgotten war, then he glanced toward the solidograph that occupied one corner of his desk and sat down.

Quietly he began, “The planetary assembly has decided that you are no longer welcome on Nidia, and you are requested to leave at once. My organization, which is the closest thing we have to a neutral extraplanetary police force, has been asked to implement this request. I would prefer that you leave without the use of physical coercion. I am sorry. This is not pleasant for me, either, but I have to say that I agree with the Nidians. Your peacemongering activities of late have become much too … warlike.”

Grawlya-Ki’s chest swelled suddenly, making its stiff, spi-key fur rasp dryly against the old battle harness, but the Orligian did not speak. MacEwan said tiredly, “We were just trying to make them understand that—”

“I know what you were trying to do,” the Colonel broke in, “but half wrecking a video studio during a rehearsal was not the way to do it. Besides, you know as well as I do that your supporters were much more interested in taking part in a riot than in promulgating your ideas. You simply gave them an excuse to—”

“The play glamorized war,” MacEwan said.

The Monitor’s eyes flickered toward the solidograph, then back to Grawlya-Ki and MacEwan again. His, tone softened. “I’m sorry, believe me, but you will have to leave. I cannot force it, but ideally you should return to your home planets where you could relax and live out your remaining years in peace. Your wounds must have left mental scars and you may require psychiatric assistance; and, well, I think both of you deserve some of the peace that you want-so desperately for everyone else.” When there was no response, the Colonel sighed and said, “Where do you want to go this time?” ' “Traltha,” MacEwan said. The Monitor looked surprised. “That is a hot, high-gravity, heavily industrialized world, peopled by lumbering, six-legged elephants who are hardworking, peaceloving, and culturally stable. There hasn’t been a war on Traltha for a thousand years. You would be wasting your time there, and feeling very uncomfortable while doing so, but it’s your choice.”

“On Traltha,” MacEwan said, “commercial warfare never stops. One kind of war can lead to another.”

The Colonel made no attempt to disguise his impatience. “You are frightening yourselves without reason and, in any case, maintaining the peace is our concern. We do it quietly, discreetly, by keeping potentially troublesome entities and situations under observation, and by making the minimum response early, before things can get out of control. We do a good job, if I do say so myself. But Traltha is not a danger, now or in the foreseeable future.” He smiled. “Another war between Orligia and Earth would be more likely.”

“That will not happen, Colonel,” Grawlya-Ki said, its modulated growling forming a vaguely threatening accompaniment to the accentless speech coming from its translator pack. “Former enemies who have beaten hell out of each other make the best friends. But there has to be an easier way of making friends.”

Before the officer could reply, MacEwan went on quickly, “I understand what the Monitor Corps is doing, Colonel, and I approve. Everybody does. It is rapidly becoming accepted as the Federation’s executive and law-enforcement arm. But it can never become a truly multispecies service. Its officers, of necessity, will be almost entirely Earth-human. With so much power entrusted to one species—”

“We are aware of the danger,” the Colonel broke in. Defensively he went on, “Our psychologists are working on the problems and our people are highly trained in e-t cultural contact procedures. And we have the authority to ensure that the members of every ship’s crew making other-species contacts are similarly-gained, Everyone is aware of the danger of uttering or commiting an unthinking word or action which could be construed as insulting and of what might ensue. We lean over backward in our efforts not to give offense. You know that.”

The Colonel was first and foremost a policeman, MacEwan thought, find like a good policeman he resented any criticism of his service. What was more, his irritation with the two aging war veterans was rapidly reaching the point where the interview would be terminated. Take it easy, he warned himself, this is not an enemy.

Aloud he said, “The point I’m trying to make is that leaning over backward is an inherently unstable position, and this hy-perpoliteness where extraterrestrials are concerned is artificial, even dishonest. The tensions generated must ultimately lead to trouble, even between the handpicked and highly intelligent entities who are the only people allowed to make off-planet contacts. This type of contact is too narrow, too limited. The member species of the Federation are not really getting to know and trust each other, and they never will until contact becomes more relaxed and natural. As things are it would be unthinkable to have even a friendly argument with an extraterrestrial.

“We must get to really know them, Colonel,” MacEwan went on quickly. “Well enough not to have to be so damnably polite all the time. If a Tralthan jostles a Nidian or an Earth; human, we must know the being well enough to tell it to watch where it’s going and to call it any names which seem appropriate to the occasion. We should expect the same treatment if the fault is ours. Ordinary people, not a carefully selected and trained star-traveling elite, must get to know offworlders well enough to be able to argue or even to quarrel nonviolently with them, without—”

“And that,” the Monitor said coldly, rising to his feet, “is the reason you are leaving Nidia. For disturbing the peace.”

Hopelessly, MacEwan tried again. “Colonel, we must find some common ground on which the ordinary citizens of the Federation can meet. Not just because of scientific and cultural exchanges or interstellar trade treaties. It must be something basic, something we all feel strongly about, an idea or a project that we can really get together on. In spite of our much-vaunted Federation and the vigilance of your Monitor Corps, perhaps because of that vigilance, we are not getting to know each other properly. Unless we do another war is inevitable. But nobody worries. You’ve all forgotten how terrible war is.”

He broke off as the Colonel pointed slowly to the solido-graph on his desk, then brought the hand back to his side again. “We have a constant reminder,” he said.

After that the Colonel would say no more, but remained standing stiffly at attention until Grawlya-Ki and MacEwan left the office.

The departure lounge was more than half filled with tight, exclusive little groups of Tralthans, Melfans, Kelgians, and Illensans. There was also a pair of squat, tentacular, heavy-gravity beings who were apparently engaged in spraying each other with paint, and which were a new life-form to MacEwan. A teddybearlike Nidian wearing the blue sash of the nontechnical ground staff moved from behind them to escape the spray, but otherwise ignored the creatures.

There was some excuse for the chlorine-breathing Illensans to keep to themselves: the loose, transparent material of their protective envelopes looked fragile. He did not know anything about the paint-spraying duo, but the others were all warmblooded, oxygen-breathing life-forms with similar pressure and gravity requirements and they should, at least, have been acknowledging each others’ presence even if they did not openly display the curiosity they must be feeling toward each other. Angrily, MacEwan turned away to examine the traffic movements display.

There was an lllensan factory ship in orbit, a great, ungainly nonlander whose shuttle had touched down a few minutes earlier, and a Nidian ground transporter fitted with the chlorine breathers’ life-support was on the way in to pick up passengers. Their Tralthan-built and crewed passenger ship was nearly ready to board and stood on its apron on the other side of the main aircraft runway. It was one of the new ships which boasted of providing comfortable accommodation for six different oxygen-breathing species, but degrees of comfort were relative and MacEwan, Grawlya-Ki, and the other non-Tralthans in the lounge would shortly be judging it for themselves.

Apart from the lllensan shuttle and the Tralthan vessel, the only traffic was the Nidian atmosphere craft which took off and landed every few minutes. They were not large aircraft, but they did not need to be to hold a thousand Nidians. As the aircraft differed only in their registration markings, it seemed that the same machine was endlessly taking off and landing.

Angry because there was nothing else in the room to engage his attention fully, and because it occupied such a prominent Position in the center of the lounge that all eyes were naturally drawn to it, MacEwan turned finally to look once again at that frightful and familiar tableau.

Grawlya-Ki had already done so and was whining softly to itself.

It was a life-sized replica of the old Orligian war memorial, one of the countless thousands of copies which occupied public places of honor or appeared in miniature on the desks or in the homes of responsible and concerned beings on every world-of the Federation. The original had stood within its protective shield in the central Plaza of Orligia’s capital city for more than two centuries, during which a great many native and visiting entities of sensitivity and intelligence had tried vainly to describe its effect upon them.

For that war memorial was no aesthetic marble poem in which godlike figures gestured defiance or lay dying nobly with limbs arranged to the best advantage. Instead it consisted of an Orligian and an Earthman, surrounded by the shattered, remnants of a Control Room belonging to a type of ship now long obsolete.

The Orligian was standing crouched forward, the fur of its chest and face matted with blood. A few yards away lay the Earth-human, very obviously dying. The front of his uniform was in shreds, revealing the ghastly injuries he had sustained. Abdominal organs normally concealed by skin, layers of subcutaneous tissue and muscle were clearly visible. Yet this man, who had no business being alive much less being capable of movement, was struggling toward the Orligian.

Two combatants amid the wreckage of a warship trying to continue their battle hand to-hand?

The dozens of plaques spaced around the base of the tableau described the incident in all the written languages of the Federation.

They told of the epic, single-ship duel between the Orligian and the Earth-human commanders. So evenly matched had they been that, their respective crew members dead, their ships shot to pieces, armaments depleted and power gone, they had crash-landed close together on a world unknown to both of them. The Orligian, anxious to learn all it could regarding enemy ship systems, and driven by a more personal curiosity about its opponent, had boarded the wrecked Earth ship. They met.

For them the war was over, because the terribly wounded Earth-human did not know when he was going to die and the Orligian did not know when, if ever, its distress signal would bring rescuers. The distant, impersonal hatred they had felt toward each other was gone, dissipated by the six-hour period of maximum effort that had been their duel, and was replaced by feelings of mutual respect for the degree of professional competence displayed. So they tried to communicate, and succeeded.

It had been a slow, difficult, and extraordinarily painful process for both of them, but when they did talk they held nothing back. The Orligian knew that any verbal insubordination it might utter would die with this Earth-human, who in turn sensed the other’s sympathy and was in too much pain to care about the things he said about his own superiors. And while they talked the Earth-human learned something of vital importance, an enemy’s-eye view of the simple, stupid, and jointly misunderstood incident which had been responsible for starting the war in the first place.

It had been during the closing stages of this conversation that an Orligian ship which chanced to be in the area had landed and, after assessing the situation, used its Stopper on the Earth wreck.

Even now the operating principles of the Orligian primary space weapon were unclear to MacEwan. The weapon was capable of enclosing a small ship, or vital sections of a large one, within a field of stasis in which all motion stopped. Neither the ships nor their crew were harmed physically, but if someone so much as scratched the surface of one of those Stopped hulls or tried to slip a needle into the skin of one of the Stopped personnel, the result was an explosion of near-nuclear proportions.

But the Orligian stasis field projector had peaceful as well as military applications.

With great difficulty the section of Control Room and the two Stopped bodies it contained had been moved to Orligia, to occupy the central square of the planetary capital as the most gruesomely effective war memorial ever known, for 236 years. During that time the shaky peace which the two frozen beings had brought about between Orligia and Earth ripened into friendship, and medical science progressed to the point where the terribly injured Earth-human could be saved. Although its injuries had not been fatal, Grawlya-Ki had insisted on being Stopped with its friend so that it could see MacEwan cured for itself.

And then the two greatest heroes of the war, heroes because they had ended it, were removed from stasis, rushed to a hospital, and cured. For the first time, it was said, the truly great of history would receive the reward they deserved from posterity — and that was the way it had happened, just over thirty years ago.

Since then the two heroes, the only two entities in the whole Federation with direct experience of war, had grown increasingly monomaniacal on the subject until the honor and respect accorded them had gradually changed to reactions of impatience and embarrassment.

“Sometimes, Ki,” MacEwan saidt turning away from the frozen figures of their former selves, “I wonder if we should give up and try to find peace of mind like the Colonel said. Nobody listens to us anymore, yet all we are trying to tell them is to relax, to take off their heavy, bureaucratic gauntlets when extending the hand of friendship, and to speak and react honestly so that—”

“I am aware of the arguments,” Grawlya-Ki broke in, “and the completely unnecessary restatement of them, especially to one who shares your feelings in this matter, is suggestive of approaching senility.”

“Listen, you mangy, overgrown baboon!” MacEwan began furiously, but the Orligian ignored him.

“And senility is a condition which cannot be successfully treated by the Colonel’s psychiatrists,” it went on. “Neither, I submit, can they give psychiatric assistance to minds which are otherwise sane. As for my localized loss of fur, you are so lacking in male hormones that you can only grow it on your head and—”

“And your females grow more fur than you do,” MacEwan snapped back, then stopped.

He had been conned again.

Since that first historic meeting in MacEwan’s wrecked Control Room they had grown to know each other very well. Grawlya-Ki had assessed the present situation, decided that MacEwan was-feeling far too depressed for his own good, and instituted curative treatment in the form of a therapuetic argument combined with subtle reassurance regarding their sanity. MacEwan smiled.

“This frank and honest exchange of views,” he said quietly, “is distressing the other travelers. They probably think the Earth — Orligian war is about to restart, because they would never dream of saying such things to each other.”

“But they do dream,” Grawlya-ki said, its mind going off at one of its peculiarly Orligian tangents. “All intelligent life-forms require periods of unconsciousness during which they dream. Or have nightmares.”

“The trouble is,” MacEwan said, “they don’t share our particular nightmare.”

Grawlya-Ki was silent. Through the transparent outer wall of the lounge it was watching the rapid approach of the ground transporter from the Illensan shuttle The vehicle was a great, multiwheeled silver bullet distinctively marked to show that it was filled with chlorine, and tipped with a transparent control module whose atmosphere was suited to its Nidian driver. MacEwan wondered why all of the smaller intelligent life-forms, regardless of species, had a compulsion to drive fast. Had he stumbled upon one of the great cosmic truths?

“Maybe we should try a different approach,” the Orligian said, still watching the transporter. “Instead of trying to frighten them with nightmares, we should find them a pleasant and inspiring dream to — What is that idiot doing?”

The vehicle was still approaching at speed, making no attempt to slow or turn so as to present its transfer lock to the lounge’s exit port for breathers of toxic atmospheres. All of the waiting travelers were watching it now, many of them making noises which did not translate.

The driver is showing off, MacEwan thought. Reflected sunlight from the canopy obscured the occupant. It was not until the transporter ran into the shadow of the terminal building that MacEwan saw the figure of the driver slumped face downward over its control console, but by then it was too late for anyone to do anything.

Built as it was from tough, laminated plastic nearly a foot thick, the transparent wall bulged inward but did not immediately shatter as the nose of the vehicle struck. The control module and its occupant were instantly flattened into a thin pancake of riven metal, tangled wiring, and bloody Nidian fur. Then the transporter broke through.

When the driver had collapsed and lost control, the automatic power cutoff and emergency braking systems must have been triggered. But in spite of its locked wheels the transporter skidded ponderously on, enlarging the original break in the transparent wall and losing sections of its own external plating in the process. It plowed through the neat rows of Tralthan, Melfan, Kelgian, and Illensan furniture. The heavy, complex structures were ripped from their floor mountings and hurled aside along with the beings unfortunate enough to still be occupying them. Finally the transporter ground to a halt against one of the building’s roof support pillars, which bent alarmingly but did not break. The shock brought down most of the lounge’s ceiling panels and with them a choking, blinding cloud of dust.

All around MacEwan extraterrestrials were coughing and floundering about and making untranslatable noises indicative of pain and distress, Grawlya-Ki included. He blinked dust out of his eyes and saw that the Orligian was crouched, apparently uninjured, beside the transporter. Both of its enormous, furry hands were covering its face and it looked as if it would shake itself apart with the violence of its coughing. MacEwan kicked loose debris out of the way and moved toward it. Then his eyes began to sting and, just in time, he covered his mouth and nose to keep from inhaling the contaminated air.

Chlorine!

With his free hand he grasped the Orligian’s battle harness and began dragging it away from the damaged vehicle, wondering angrily why he was wasting his time. If the internal pressure hull had been ruptured, the whole lounge would be rendered uninhabitable to oxygen breathers within a few minutes — the Ilknsans’ higher-pressure chlorine atmosphere would see to that. Then he stumbled against a low, sprawling, membraneous body which was hissing and twitching amid the debris and realized that it was not only the damaged vehicle which was responsible for the contamination.

The Illensan must have been hit by the transporter and flung against a Kelgian relaxer frame, which had collapsed. One of the support struts had snagged the chlorine breather’s pressure envelope, ripping it open along the entire length of the body. The oxygen-rich atmosphere was attacking the unprotected body, coating the skin with a powdery, sickly blue organic corrosion which was thickest around the two breathing orifices. All body movement ceased as MacEwan watched, but he could still hear a loud hissing sound.

Still keeping his mouth and nostrils sealed with one hand, he used the other to feel along the Illensan’s body and pressure envelope. His eyes were stinging even though they were now tightly shut.

The creature’s skin felt hot, slippery, and fibrous, with patterns of raised lines which made it seem that the whole body was covered by the leaves of some coarse-textured plant, and there were times when MacEwan did not know whether he was touching the skin or the ruptured pressure suit. The sound of the pulse in his head was incredible, like a constant, thudding explosion, and the constriction in his chest was fast reaching the stage where.he was ready to inhale even chlorine to stop that fiery, choking pain in his lungs. But he fought desperately not to breathe, pressing his hand so tightly against his face that his nose began to bleed.

After what seemed like a couple of hours later, he felt the shape of a large cylinder with a hose connection and strange-feeling bumps and projections at one end — the Illensan’s air tank. He pulled and twisted desperately at controls designed for the spatulate digits of an Illensan, and suddenly the hiss of escaping chlorine ceased.

He turned and staggered away, trying to get clear of the localized cloud of toxic gas so he could breathe again. But he had gone only a few yards when he tripped and fell into a piece of broken e-t furniture covered by a tangle of plastic drapery which had been used to decorate the lounge. His free arm kept him from injuring himself, but it was not enough to enable him to escape from the tangle of tubing and plastic which had somehow wrapped itself around his feet. He opened his eyes and shut them again hastily as the chlorine stung them. With such a high concentration of gas he could not risk opening his mouth to shout for help. The noise inside his head was unbelievable. He felt himself slipping into a roaring, pounding blackness, and there was a tight band gripping and squeezing his chest.

There was something gripping his chest. He felt it- lifting him, shaking him free of the debris entangling his arm and legs, and holding him aloft while it carried him for an unknown distance across the lounge. Suddenly he felt his feet touch the floor and he opened his eyes and mouth.

The smell of chlorine was still strong but he could breathe and see. Grawlya-Ki was standing a few feet away, looking concerned and pointing at the blood bubbling from his nose, and one of the two paint-spraying extraterrestrials was detaching one of its thick, iron-hard tentacles from around his chest. He was too busy just breathing again to be able to say anything. “I apologize most abjectly and sincerely,” his rescuer boomed over the sounds being made by the injured all around them, “if I have in any fashion hurt you, or subjected you to mental trauma or embarrassment by making such a gross and perhaps intimate physical contact with your body. I would not have dared touch you at all had not your Orligian friend insisted that you were in grave danger and requested that I lift you clear. But if I have given offense—”

“You have not given offense,” MacEwan broke in. “On the contrary, you have saved my life at great risk to your own. That chlorine is deadly stuff to all us oxygen breathers. Thank you.”

It was becoming difficult to speak without coughing because the cloud of gas from the dead Illensan’s suit was spreading, and Grawlya-Ki was already moving away. MacEwan was about to follow when the creature spoke again.

“I am in no immediate danger.” Its eyes glittered at him from behind their hard, organic shields as it went on. “I am a Hudlar, Earthperson. My species does not breathe, but absorbs sustenance directly from our atmosphere, which, near the planetary surface, is analogous to a thick, high-pressure, semigas-eous soup. Apart from requiring our body surface to be sprayed at frequent intervals with a nutrient paint, we are not inconvenienced by any but the most corrosive of atmospheres, and we can even work for lengthy periods in vacuum conditions on orbital construction projects.

“I am glad to have been of assistance, Earthperson,” the Hudlar ended, “but I am not a hero.”

“Nevertheless I am grateful,” MacEwan shouted, then stopped moving away. He waved his hand, indicating the lounge which resembled a battlefield rather than a luxurious departure point for the stars, and started coughing. Finally he was able to say, “Pardon me, please, if I am being presumptuous, but is it possible for you to similarly assist the other beings who have been immobilized by their injuries and are in danger of asphyxiation?”

The second Hudlar had joined them, but neither spoke. Grawlya-Ki was waving at him and pointing toward the transparent wall of the Colonel’s office where the Monitor Corps officer was also gesticulating urgently.

“Ki, will you find out what he wants?” MacEwan called to the Orligian. To the first Hudlar he went on, “You are understandably cautious in the matter of physically handling members of another species, lest you inadvertently give offense, and in normal circumstances this would be wholly admirable and the behavior of a being of sensitivity and intelligence. But this is not a normal situation, and it is my belief that any accidental physical intimacy committed on the injured would be forgiven when the intention is purely to give assistance. In these circumstances a great many beings could die who would otherwise—”

“Some of them will die of boredom or old age,” the second Hudlar said suddenly, “if we continue to waste time with unnecessary politeness. Plainly we Hudlars have a physical advantage here. What is it you wish us to do?”

“I apologize most abjectly for my lifemate’s ill-considered and hasty remarks, Earth-human,” the first Hudlar said quickly. “And for any offense they may have given.”

“No need. None taken,” MacEwan said, laughing in sheer relief until the chlorine turned it into a cough. He considered prefacing his instructions with advance apologies for any offense he might inadvertently give to the Hudlars, then decided that that would be wasting more time. He took a deep, careful breath and spoke.

“The chlorine level is still rising around that transporter. Would one of you remove heavy debris from casualties in the area affected and move them to the entrance to the boarding tunnel, where they can be moved into the tunnel itself if the level continues to rise. The other should concentrate on rescuing Illensans by lifting them into their transporter. There is a lock antechamber just inside the entry port, and hopefully some of the less seriously injured chlorine breathers will be able to get them through the lock and give them first aid inside. The Orligian and myself will try to move the casualties not immediately in danger from the chlorine, and open the boarding tunnel entrance. Ki, what have you got there?”

The Orligian had returned with more than, a dozen small cylinders, with breathing masks and straps attached, cradled in both arms. It said, “Fire-fighting equipment. The Colonel directed me to the emergency locker. But it’s Nidian equipment. The masks won’t fit very well, and with some of these beings they won’t fit at all. Maybe we can hold them in position and—”

“This aspect of the problem does not concern us,” the first Hudlar broke in. “Earthperson, what do we do with casualties whose injuries might be compounded by the assistance of well-meaning rescuers ignorant of the physiology of the being concerned?”

MacEwan was already tying a cylinder to his chest, passing the attachment over one shoulder and under the opposite armpit because the Nidian straps were too short to do otherwise. He said grimly, “We will have that problem, too.”

“Then we will use our best judgment,” the second Hudlar said, moving ponderously toward the transporter, followed closely by its lifemate.

“That isn’t the only problem,” Grawlya-Ki said as it, too, attached a cylinder to its harness. “The collision cut our communications and the Colonel can’t tell the terminal authorities about the situation in here, nor does he know what the emergency services are doing about it. He also says that the boarding tunnel entrance won’t open while there is atmospheric contamination in the lounge — it is part of the safety system designed to contain such contamination so that it won’t spread along the boarding tunnel to the waiting ship or into the main concourse. The system can be overridden at this end, but only by a special key carried by the Nidian senior ground staff member on duty in the lounge. Have you seen this being?”

“Yes,” MacEwan said grimly. “It was standing at the exit port just before the crash. I think it is somewhere underneath the transporter.”

Grawlya-Ki whined quietly, then went on, “The Colonel is using his personal radio to contact a docked Monitor Corps vessel to try to patch into the port network that way, but so far without effect. The Nidian rescue teams are doing all the talking and are not listening to outsiders. But if he gets through he wants to know what to tell them. The number and condition of the casualties, the degree of contamination, and optimum entry points for the rescue teams. He wants to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk to him,” MacEwan said. He did not know enough to be able to make a useful situation report, and until he did their time could be used to much better effect than worrying out loud to the Colonel. He pointed to an object which looked like a gray, bloodstained sack which twitched and made untranslatable sounds, and said, “That one first.”

The injured Kelgian was difficult to move, MacEwan found, especially when there was just one Orligian arm and two human ones to take the weight. Grawlya-Ki’s mask was such a bad fit that it had to hold it in position. The casualty was a caterpillar-like being with more than twenty legs and an overall covering of silvery fur now badly bloodstained. But the body, although no more massive than that of a human, was completely flaccid. There seerned to be no skeleton, no bony parts at all except possibly in the head section, but it felt as though there were wide, concentric bands of muscle running the length of the body just underneath the fur.

It rolled and flopped about so much that by the time he had raised it from the floor, supporting its head and midsection between his outstretched arms and chest — Grawlya-Ki had the toil gripped between its side and free arm — one of the wounds began bleeding. Because MacEwan was concentrating on holding the Kelgian’s body immobile as they moved it toward the boarding tunnel entrance, his mind was not on his feet; they became tangled in a piece of decorative curtain, and he fell to his knees. Immediately the Kelgian’s blood began to well out at an alarming rate.

“We should do something about that,” the Orligian said, its voice muffled by the too-small mask. “Any ideas?”

The Service had taught MacEwan only the rudiments of first aid because casualties in a space war tended to be explosive decompressions and rarely if ever treatable, and what little he had learned applied to beings of his own species. Serious bleeding was controlled by cutting off the supply of blood to the wound with a tourniquet or local pressure. The Kelgian’s circulatory system seemed to be very close to its skin, possibly because those great, circular bands of muscle required lots of blood. But the position of the veins were hidden by the being’s thick fur. He thought that a pad and tight bandages were the only treatment possible. He did not have a pad and there was no time to go looking for one, but there was a bandage of sorts still wrapped loosely around his ankle.

He kicked the length of plastic curtain off his foot, then pulled about two meters free of the pile of debris which had fallen with it. The stuff was tough and he needed all his strength to make a transverse tear in it, but it was wide enough to cover the wound with several inches to spare. With the Orligian’s help he held the plastic in position over the wound and passed the two ends around the cylindrical body, knotting them very tightly together.

Probably the makeshift bandage was too tight, and where it passed around the Kelgian’s underside it was pressing two sets of the being’s legs against the underbelly in a direction they were not, perhaps, designed to bend, and he hated to think of what the dust and dirt adhering to the plastic might be doing to that open wound.

The same thought must have been going through the Orligian’s head, because it said, “Maybe we’ll find another Kelgian who isn’t too badly hurt and knows what to do.”

But it was a long time before they found another Kelgian — at least, it felt like an hour even though the big and, strangely, still-functioning lounge clock, whose face was divided into concentric rings marked off in the time units of the major Federation worlds, insisted that it-was only ten minutes.

One of the Hudlars had lifted wreckage from two of the crablike Melfans, one of whom was coherent, seemingly uninjured but unable to see because of the chlorine or dust. Graw-lya-Ki spoke reassuringly to it and led it away by grasping a thick, fleshy projection, purpose unknown, growing from its head. The other Melfan made loud, untranslatable noises. Its carapace was cracked in several places and of the three legs which should have supported it on one side, two were limp and useless and one was missing altogether.

MacEwan bent down quickly and slipped his hands and lower arms under the edge of the carapace between the two useless legs and lifted until the body was at its normal walking height. Immediately the legs on the other side began moving slowly. MacEwan sidled along at the same pace, supporting the injured side andguiding the Melfan around intervening wreckage until he was able to leave it beside its blinded colleague.

He could think of nothing more to do for it, so he rejoined the Hudlar excavating among the heavier falls of debris.

They uncovered three more Melfans, injured but ambulatory, who were directed to the boarding tunnel entrance, and a pair of the elephantine, six-legged Tralthans who appeared to be uninjured but were badly affected by the gas which was still leaking steadily from the transporter. MacEwan and Graw-lya-Ki each held a Nidian breathing mask to one breathing orifice and yelled at them to close the other. Then they tried desperately not to be trampled underfoot as they guided the Tralthans to the casualty assembly point. Then they uncovered two more of the Kelgian caterpillars, one of whom had obviously bled to death from a deep tear in its flank. The other had five of its rearmost sets of legs damaged, rendering it immobile, but it was conscious and able to cooperate by holding its body rigid while they carried it back to the others.

When MacEwan asked the being if it could help the earlier Kelgian casualty he had tried to bandage, it said that it had no medical training and could think of nothing further to do.

There were more walking, wriggling, and crawling wounded released from the wreckage to join the growing crowd of casualties at the tunnel entrance. Some of them were talking but most were making loud, untranslatable noises which had to be of pain. The sounds made by the casualties still trapped by fallen wreckage were slight by comparison.

The Hudlars were working tirelessly and often invisibly in a cloud of self-created dust, but now they seemed to be uncovering only organic wreckage of which there was no hope of salvage. There was another Kelgian who had bled spectacularly to death; two, or it may have been three, Melfans with crushed and shattered carapaces and broken limbs, and a Tral-than who had been smashed flat by a collapsing roof beam and was still trying to move.

MacEwan was afraid to touch any of them in case they fell apart in his hands, but he could not be absolutely sure that they were beyond help. He had no idea of their ability to survive major injury, or whether specialized medical intervention could save them if taken in time. He felt angry and useless and the chlorine was beginning to penetrate his face mask.

“This being appears to be uninjured,” the Hudlar beside them said. It had lifted a heavy table from a Tralthan who was lying on its side, its six massive legs twitching feebly and its domelike brain casing, multiple eye-trunk, and thick, leathery hide free of any visible signs of damage. “Could it be that it is troubled only by the toxic gas?”

“You’re probably right,” MacEwan said. He and Grawlya-Ki pressed Nidian masks over the Tralthan’s breathing orifices. Several minutes passed with no sign of improvement in its condition. MacEwan’s eyes were stinging even though he, like the Orligian, was using one hand to press the mask tightly against his face. Angrily, he said, “Have you any other ideas?”

The anger was directed at his own helplessness, and he felt like kicking himself for taking it out on the Hudlar. He could not tell the two beings apart, only that one tended to sound worried, long-winded, and overly polite, while its lifemate was more forthright. This one, luckily, was the former.

“It is possible that its injuries are to the flank lying against the floor and are presently invisible to us,” the Hudlar said ponderously. “Or that the being, which is a squat, heavy-gravity creature with certain physical similarities to myself, is seriously inconvenienced by being laid on its side. While we Hudlars can work comfortably in weightless conditions, gravity if present must act downward or within a very short time serious and disabling organ displacement occurs. There is also the fact that all Tralthan ships use an artificial gravity system with multiple failsafe backup, which is just one of the reasons for the dependability and popularity of Tralthan-built ships. This suggests that a lateral gravity pull must be avoided by them at all costs, and that this particular being is—”

“Stop talking about it,” the second Hudlar said, joining them, “and lift the thing.”

The Hudlar extended its forward pair of tentacles and, bracing itself with the other four in front of the Tralthan’s weakly moving feet, slid them over the creature’s back and insinuated them between the floor and its other flank. MacEwan watched as the tentacles tightened, took the strain, and began to quiver. But the body did not move, and the other Hudlar positioned itself to assist.

MacEwan was surprised, and worried. He had seen those tentacles, which served both as ambulatory and manipulatory appendages, lifting beams, major structural members, and large masses of wreckage seemingly without effort. They were beautifully evolved limbs, immensely strong and with thick, hardened pads forming a knuckle on which the being walked while the remainder of the tentacle — the thinner, more flexible half tipped with a cluster of specialized digits — was carried curled inward against its underside. The Tralthan they were trying to move was roughly the mass of an Earthly baby elephant, and the combined efforts of both Hudlars were shifting it only slightly.

“Wait,” MacEwan said urgently. “Both of you have lifted much heavier weights. I think the Tralthan is caught, perhaps impaled on a structural projection, and you cannot move it because—”

“We cannot move it,” the polite Hudlar said, “because we have been expending large amounts of energy after insufficient sustenance. Absorption of our last meal, which was overdue in any case, was halted by the accident after the process was scarcely begun. We are as weak as infants, as are you and your Orligian friend. But if you would both go to the other side of the being and push, your strength, puny as it is, might make a difference.”

Perhaps it wasn’t the polite one, MacEwan thought as he and Grawlya-Ki did as suggested. He wanted to apologize to we Hudlars for assuming that they were simply organic pieces of heavy rescue machinery whose capabilities he had taken for. But he and Grawlya-Ki had their shoulders under the side of the Tralthan’s cranial dome, their puny efforts were making a difference, and, unlike Hudlars, MacEwan needed breath with which to speak.

The Tralthan came upright, rocked unsteadily on its six, widely spaced feet, then was guided toward the other casualties by the Orligian. Sweat as well as chlorine was in MacEwan’s eyes so he did not know which Hudlar spoke, but presumably it had been the one engaged in lifting injured Illensans into the damaged transporter.

“I am having difficulty with a chlorine breather, Earthper-son,” it said. “The being is abusive and will not allow me to touch it. The circumstances call for a very close decision, one I am unwilling to make. Will you speak to it?”

The area around the transporter had been cleared of casualties with the sole exception of this Illensan, who refused to be moved. The reason it gave MacEwan was that while its injuries were not serious, its pressure envelope had suffered two small ruptures. One of these it had sealed, after a fashion, by grasping the fabric of its envelope around the tear in both manipulators and holding it tightly closed, while the other one it had sealed by lying on it. These arrangements had forced it to increase the internal pressure of the envelope temporarily, so that it no longer had any clear idea of the duration of its chlorine tank and asphyxiation might be imminent. But it did not want to be moved to the relative safety of the transporter, which was also leaking, because that would allow the lethal atmosphere of the lounge to enter its envelope.

“I would prefer to die of chlorine starvation,” it ended forcefully, “than have my breathing passages and lungs instantly corroded by your oxygen. Stay away from me.”

MacEwan swore under his breath but did not approach the Illensan. Where were the emergency rescue teams? Surely they should have been there by now. The clock showed that it had been just over twenty-five Earth minutes since the accident. He could see that the sightseers had been cleared from the lounge’s inner wall, to be replaced by a Nidian television crew and some uninformed ground staff who did not appear to be doing anything at all. Outside there were heavy vehicles drawn up and Nidians with backpacks and helmets scurrying around, but his constantly watering eyes and the ever-present plastic hangings kept him from seeing details.

MacEwan pointed suddenly at the hangings and said to the Hudlars, “Will you tear down a large piece of that plastic material, please, and drape it over the Illensan. Pat it down flat around the being’s suit and smooth the folds out toward the edges so as to exclude our air as much as possible. I’ll be back in a minute.”

He hurried around the transporter to the first Illensan casualty, whose body had turned a livid, powdery blue and was beginning to disintegrate, and tried to look only at the fastenings of the chlorine tank. It took him several minutes to get the tank free of the body harness, and several times his bare hands touched the dead Illensan’s flesh, which crumbled like rotting wood. He knew that oxygen was vicious stuff where chlorine breathers were concerned, but now he could really sympathize with the other Illensan’s panic at the thought of being moved in a leaking suit.

When he relumed it was Grawlya-Ki who was smoothing out the plastic around the Illensan while the two Hudlars were standing clear. One of them said apologetically, “Our movements have become somewhat uncoordinated and the chlorine breather was worried lest we accidentally fall on it. If there is something else we can do—”

“Nothing,” MacEwan said firmly.

He turned on the tap of the chlorine tank and slipped it quickly under the plastic sheet and pushed it close to the Illensan. The extra seepage of the gas would make little difference, he thought, because the whole area around the transporter was fast becoming uninhabitable for oxygen breathers. He pressed the tiny mask hard against his face and took a long, careful breath through his nose, and used it to speak to the Hudlars.

“I have been thoughtless and seemingly ungrateful for the fine work you have been doing here,” he said. “There is nothing more that you can do. Please go at once and spray yourselves with the necessary nutrient. You have acted most unselfishly, and I am, as are we all, most grateful to you.”

The two Hudlars did not move. MacEwan began placing pieces of debris around the edges of the plastic and the Orligian, who was quick on the uptake, began doing the same. Soon the edges were held tightly against the floor, the gas escaping from the tank was beginning to inflate the plastic, and they had the Illensan in a crude chlorine tent. Still the Hudlars had not moved.

“The Colonel is waving at you again,” Grawlya-Ki said. “I would say with impatience.”

“We cannot use our sprayers here, Earthperson,” one of the Hudlars said before MacEwan could reply. “The absorption mechanism in our tegument would ingest the toxic gas with our food, and in our species trace amounts of chlorine are lethal. The food sprayers can only be used in a beneficent atmosphere or in airless conditions.”

“Bloody hell!” MacEwan said. When he thought of the way the Hudlars had worked to free the casualties, knowing that their time and available energy was severely limited and letting him assume that they had no problems, he should have had more to say — but that was all that came out. He looked helplessly at Ki, but the Orligian’s face was covered by its furry hand holding the ridiculously small mask.

“With us,” the other Hudlar added, “starvation is a rapid process, somewhat akin to asphyxiation in a gas breather. I estimate that we should lose consciousness and die in just under eight of our small time divisions.”

MacEwan’s eyes went to the concentric circles of the lounge clock. The Hudlar was talking about the equivalent of about twenty Earth minutes. Somehow they had to get that boarding tunnel open.

“Go to the tunnel entrance,” he said, “and try to conserve your strength. Wait beside the others until—” He broke off awkwardly, then said to the Orligian, “Ki, you’d better get over there as well. There’s enough chlorine in the air here to bleach your fur. Keep passing the masks around and—”

“The Colonel,” Grawlya-Ki reminded him as it turned to follow the Hudlars. MacEwan waved acknowledgment, but before he could leave the Illensan began speaking, its voice muffled by the fabric of the makeshift chlorine tent.

“That was an ingenious idea, Earthperson,” it said slowly—“There is now a beneficent atmosphere surrounding my sure envelope, which will enable me to repair the torn fabric and survive until Illensan assistance arrives. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” MacEwan said, and began picking his way over the debris toward the gesticulating figure of the Colonel. He was still several meters from the wall when the officer pointed to his ear, then rapped with a knuckle on the interior surface. MacEwan obediently unfastened his mask on one side and pressed an ear against the transparent wall. The other’s voice was low and indistinct, even though the color of the Colonel’s face showed that he was shouting.

“Listen, MacEwan, and don’t try to answer yet,” the Colonel shouted.

“We’ll have you out of there in fifteen, twenty minutes at most, and you’ll have fresh air in ten. Medical help for all of the casualty species is on the way. Everybody on the planet knows about the accident because the TV channels were covering your deportation as a news item, and now this is big news indeed. Their contact mikes and translators are bringing us every word said in there, and the authorities are insisting that every effort be made to speed up the rescue…”

Across the lounge Grawlya-Ki was waving a mask and air tank above his head. When the Orligian was sure that MacEwan had seen it; he threw it away. None of the other casualties were wearing masks so obviously they were useless, their air tanks empty. He wondered how long his own tank would last.

The equipment had been designed for the diminuitive Nidians, whose lungs were less than half the capacity of an Earth-Arson’s. A lot of air had been wasted during the continual Passing of masks between the casualties, and the furry face of the Orligian would have allowed air to leak past the edges of its mask, especially if Grawlya-Ki had increased the pressure to exclude the chlorine.

The Colonel had seen the Orligian’s action and must have leapt to the same conclusion.

“Tell them to hang on for just a few more minutes,” he went on. “We can’t cut a way in from the main concourse because there are too many unprotected people out there. That plastic wall is tough and needs special, high-temperature equipment to cut it. Anyway — accidents, with the plastic tproduce large quantities of highly toxic fumes, bad enough to make your chlorine problem seem like a bad smell.

“So they’re going in through the hole made by the transporter. There is only a few inches clearance around the vehicle’s hull now, but they’re going to pull the transporter out backward and you will be brought out through the hole it made and into the fresh air, where the medics will be standing by—”

MacEwan began banging with his fist and a foot against the plastic to attract the Colonel’s attention, and breathing as deeply as he could through the mask. He had some shouting to do himself.

“No.” MacEwan said loudly, putting his mouth as close to the wall as the mask would allow: “All but one of the injured Illensans are inside the transporter. The structure was damaged in the collision and is leaking chlorine from every seam. If you drag it out like that it is likely to fall apart and the air will get to the casualties. I’ve seen what exposure to oxygen did to one of them.”

“But if we don’t go in there fast the oxygen breathers will die,” the Colonel replied. His face was no longer red now, but a sickly white.

MacEwan could almost see the way the officer’s mind was working. If the transporter with the chlorine-breathing casualties on board was hauled out and it broke up, the Illensan authorities would not be amused. But neither would the governments of Traltha, Kelgia, Melf, Orligia, and Earth if they did not act quickly to save those people.

This was how an interstellar war could start.

With the media covering every incident as it occurred, with their contact mikes picking up every translated word as it was spoken, and with fellow beings of the casualties’ species on Nidia watching, judging, feeling, and reacting, there was no possibility of this incident being hushed up or diplomatically smoothed over. The decision to be taken was a simple one: Certain death for seven or eight chlorine-breathing Illensans to possibly save triple that number of Tralthans, Hudlars, Kel-gians, Melfans, many of whom were dying anyway. Or death by chlorine poisoning for the oxygen breathers.

MacEwan could not make the decision and neither, he saw, could the pale, sweating, and silent Colonel trapped inside his

office. He banged for attention again and shouted, “Open the boarding tunnel! Blast it open from the other side if you have to. Rig fans or pump in fresh air from the ship to raise the tunnel pressure and keep back this chlorine. Then send the emergency team to this end of the tunnel and open it from the inside. Surely the wiring of the safety system can be short-circuited and—”

While he was talking, MacEwan was thinking about the distance between the tunnel entrance and the take-off apron. It would take a long time to traverse the tunnel if the fast walkway was not operating. And explosives might not be quickly available in an air and space terminal. Maybe the Monitor Corps vessel in dock could provide some, given time, but the time they had was to be measured in minutes.

“The safety system is triggered from your end,” the Colonel broke in. “The other end of the tunnel is too close to the ship for explosives to be used. The vessel would have to take off first and that would waste more time. The system can only be overriden at your end by a special key, carried by the Nidian on lounge duty, which unlocks the cover of the tunnel controls. The cover is transparent and unbreakable. You see, contamination can be a killer in a big complex like this one, especially when you consider that chlorine is mild compared with the stuff some of the offworlders breathe—”

MacEwan thumped the wall again and said, “The Nidian with the key is buried under the transporter, which can’t be moved. And who says the cover is unbreakable? There is bar metal, furniture supports, among the wreckage. If I can’t unlock the cover then I’ll try levering or bashing it off. Find out what I’m supposed to do when it is off.”

But the Colonel was ahead of him. He had already asked the Nidians that same question. In order, to make accidental operation impossible for non-Nidian digits, the tunnel controls were in the form of six recessed buttons, which had to be Depressed in a certain sequence. MacEwan would have to use stylus or something similar to operate them because his Earthly fingers were too thick. He listened carefully, signaled that he understood, then returned to the casualties.

Grawlya-Ki had heard MacEwan’s half of the shouted con-versation and had found two lengths of metal. It was using one of them to attack the console when he arrived. The metal was a strong-enough alloy, but lacked the necessary weight and inertia. The metal bounced or skidded off the cover every time they swung at it, without leaving a mark.

Damn the Nidians and their superhard plastics! MacEwan raged. He tried to lever off the cover, but the join was almost invisible and the fastenings were flush with the console pedestal. He swore and tried again.

The Orligian did not speak because it was coughing all the time now, and the chlorine was affecting its eyes so badly that more often than not its blows missed the console altogether. MacEwan was beginning to feel an impairment in his own air supply, as if the tank were nearly empty and he was sucking at air which was not there, instead drawing in the contaminated air of the lounge through the edges of his mask.

Around them the casualties were still moving, but jerkily, as if they were struggling in the final stages of asphyxiation. The movements were not helping their injuries. Only the two Hudlars were motionless; their six tentacular limbs supported them just a few inches above the floor. MacEwan raised the metal bar high, stood on his toes, and brought it down-as hard as he could.

He grunted in pain as the shock jarred his arms from wrist to shoulders and the bar slipped out of his hands. He swore again and looked around helplessly.

The Colonel was watching him through his glass-walled office. Through the inner wall of the lounge MacEwan could see the cameras of the Nidian TV networks watching him, listening and recording every word and cough and groan of those inside. Beyond the outer wall, now that the dust had settled and most of the intervening draperies had been pulled down, he could see the crews of the heavy Nidian towing vehicles watching him. He had only to signal to the Colonel and the emergency team would drag out the damaged transporter and medics would be attending the casualties within a few minutes.

But how would the fllensans as a species react to that? They were highly advanced technologically, occupying scores of colony worlds which they had had to adapt to their environmental needs, and, despite being the most widely traveled race in the

Federation, they were a virtually unknown quantity because their worlds were so dangerous and unpleasant that few, indeed, were the visitors they received. Would they hold Nidia responsible for the accident and the deaths of their people? Or the worlds of the other warm-blooded, oxygen breathers whose people had survived at the expense of the Illensans?

And if everybody dithered and remained undecided until all but the Illensans had died, how would the world governments of Kelgia, Traltha, Melf, Orligia, and Earth react?

They would probably not gang up on Illensa, nor would the war start over this incident — not officially. But the seeds would have been planted no matter which races were saved or sacrificed, or even if all of them died. It would start, not because anyone wanted it, but because of a highly improbable accident with a number of contributing factors most of which could have been avoided.

Even the sudden collapse of the Nidian driver at the controls of the transporter could have been avoided by keeping closer medical checks on the ground staff. It had been sheer bad luck that the incident had happened when it did, and then the too rigidly designed safety system had done the rest. But most of the deaths would occur, MacEwan thought angrily, because of ignorance and fear — everyone was too frightened and over-polite to have asked the offworlders for a few basic lessons in first aid.

Beside him Grawlya-Ki was on its knees, coughing but still gripping its metal bar. At any moment the Colonel would make his decision because MacEwan, the Earth-being on the spot, was too much of a moral coward to make it. But whether the Colonel decided to save the Illensans or the others he would be wrong. MacEwan moved closer to one of the motionless Hudlars and waved a hand in front of one of its large, widely spaced eyes.

For several interminable seconds there was no response. He was beginning to wonder if the being was already dead when said, “What is it, Earthperson?”

MacEwan took a deep breath through his nose and found at his air had run out. For a moment he panicked and almost through his mouth, but stopped himself in time. Using the air remaining in his nearly empty lungs, he pointed to the console cover and said, “Are you able to break open the cover? Just the cover. I can … operate … controls …”

Desperately he fought the urge to suck the chlorine-laden air into his deflated lungs as the Hudlar slowly extended a tentacle and curled it around the cover. It slipped off the smooth, hemispheric surface. The Hudlar tried again without success, then it withdrew the tentacle slightly and jabbed at it with its sharp, steel-hard digits. A small scratch appeared on the cover but the material showed no sign of cracking. The tentacle withdrew, farther this time.

There was a roaring in MacEwan’s head which was the loudest sound he had ever heard, and big, throbbing patches of darkness obscured the Hudlar as it made another attempt to break through the cover. MacEwan shrugged off his tunic, bunched it tightly in his fist and pressed it against his mouth as a makeshift filter. With his other hand he pressed the Nidian mask against his face to protect his eyes, at least, from the chlorine. He inhaled carefully and tried not to cough as the Hudlar swung its tentacle back for another try.

This time it struck like a battering ram and the cover, console, and even the floor supports exploded into their component parts.

“I am sorry for my clumsiness,” the Hudlar said slowly. “Food deprivation impairs my judgment—”

It broke off as a loud, double chime sounded and the boarding tunnel doors slid open, bathing them suddenly in a wash of cool, pure air. A recorded voice was saying, “Will passengers please mount the moving way of the boarding tunnel and have their travel documents ready for inspection.”

The two Hudlars found enough strength between them to lift the heavier casualties onto the moving way before they got on themselves, after which they began spraying each other with nutrient and making untranslatable noises. By then members of the Nidian emergency services, followed by a couple of Illensan and other offworlder medics, were hurrying in the opposite direction along the static borders of the moving way.

The incident had placed a six-hour hold on the Tralthan ship’s departure, timefor the less severe casualties to be treated and taken on board while the others were moved to the various

offworlder accommodations in the city where they could be under the close supervision of medics of their own species. The transporter, empty of its Illensan casualties, had been withdrawn and a cold wind from the field blew through the gap in the transparent wall.

Grawlya-Ki, MacEwan, and the Colonel were standing beside the entrance to the boarding tunnel. The multichronometer above them indicated that take-off was less than half an Earth hour away.

The Colonel touched a piece of the demolished console with his boot and did not look at them when he spoke. “You were lucky. We were all lucky. I hate to think of the repercussions if you had failed to get all the casualties away. But you, both of you and the Hudlars, were instrumental in saving all but five of them, and they would have died in any case.”

He gave an embarrassed laugh and looked up. “The offworld medics say some of your ideas on first aid are horrendous in their simplicity, but you didn’t kill anybody and actually saved lives. You did it in full view of the media, with all of Nidia and its offworld visitors looking on, and you made your point about closer and more honest contact between species in a way that we are not going to forget. You are heroes again and I think — no, damn it, I’m sure — that you have only to ask and the Nidians will rescind their deportation order.”

“We’re going home,” MacEwan said firmly. “To Orligia and Earth.”

The Colonel looked even more embarrassed. He said, “I can understand your feelings about this sudden change in attitude. But now the authorities are grateful. Everybody, Nidians and offworlders alike, wants to interview you, and you can be sure that your ideas will be listened to. But if you require some form of public apology, I could arrange something.”

MacEwan shook his head. “We are leaving because we have |he answer to the problem. We have found the area of common interest to which ail offworlders will subscribe, a project in which they will gladly cooperate. The answer was obvious all along but until today we were too stupid to see it.

“Implementing the solution,” he went on, smiling, “is not a job for two tired old veterans who are beginning to bore People. It will take an organization like your Monitor Corps

to coordinate the project, the technical resources of half a dozen planets, more money than I can conceive of, and a very, very long time …”

As he continued, MacEwan was aware of excited movement among the members of the video team who had stayed behind hoping for an interview with Grawlya-Ki and himself. They would not get an interview but they were recording his final words to the Colonel. And when the Orligian and the Earth-person turned to leave they also got a not very interesting picture of the ranking Monitor Corps officer on Nidia standing very still, with one arm bent double so that the hand was held stiffly against the head. There was an odd brightness in the Earth-person’s eyes and an expression on the pink, furless face which they were, naturally, unable to read.

It took a very long time, much longer than the most generous estimates. The original and relatively modest plans had to be continually extended because scarcely a decade passed without several newly discovered intelligent species joining the Federation and these, too, had to be accommodated. So gigantic and complex was the structure required that in the end hundreds of worlds had each fabricated sections of it and transported them like pieces of a vast, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle to the assembly area.

The tremendous structure which had finally taken shape in Galactic Sector Twelve was a hospital, a hospital to end all hospitals. In its 384 levels were reproduced the environments of all the different life-forms who comprised the Galactic Federation — a biological spectrum ranging from the frigid, methane life-forms through the more normal oxygen and chlorine-breathing types, up to the exotic beings who existed by the direct conversion of hard radiation.

Sector Twelve General Hospital represented a twofold miracle of engineering and psychology. Its supply, maintenance, and administration were handled by the Monitor Corps, but the traditional friction between the military and civilian members of the staff did not occur. Neither were there any serious disagreements among its ten thousand-odd medical personnel, who were composed of over sixty differing life-forms with the same number of mannerisms, body odors, and life views.

Perhaps their only common denominator, regardless of size, shape, and number of legs, was their need to cure the sick.

And in the vast dining hall used by the hospital’s warmblooded, oxygen-breathing life-forms there was a small dedication plaque just inside the main entrance. The Kelgian, Ian, Melfan, Nidian, Etlan, Orligian, Dwerlan, Tralthan, and Earth-human medical and maintenance staff rarely had time to look at the names inscribed on it, because they were all too busy talking shop, exchanging other-species gossip, and eating at tables with utensils all too often designed for the needs of an entirely different life-form — it was a very busy place, after all, and one grabbed a seat where one could. But then that was the way Grawlya-Ki and MacEwan had wanted it.