Sector General

COMBINED OPERATION

They emerged into normal space at a point whose coordinates placed them far out on the galactic rim and where the brightest object to be seen was a nearby sun burning coldly against a faint powdering of stars. But as Conway stared through Control’s direct vision port, it became obvious that the emptiness was only apparent, because suddenly both the radar and long-range sensor displays were indicating two contacts, very close together and just under two thousand kilometers distant. For the next few minutes Conway expected to be ignored.

“Control, Power Room,” Captain Fletcher said briskly. “I Want maximum thrust in five minutes. Astrogator, give me the numbers to put us alongside that trace, and the ETA.”

Lieutenants Chen and Dodds, seven decks below and a few feet away respectively, acknowledged. Then Lieutenant Has-tam, from the Communications position, joined in.

“Sir,” he said without taking his attention from his displays, “the sensor readings suggest that the larger trace has the mass, ^nfiguration, and antennae deployment of a scoutship engaged °n survey duty. The other trace is currently unidentifiable, but relative positions might indicate a recent collision.”

“Very well,” the Captain said. He touched his transmit stud and, speaking slowly and distinctly, he went on, “This is the ambulance ship Rhabwar, operating out of Sector Twelve General Hospital, responding to your distress beacon released six plus hours ago. We will close with you in—”

“Fifty-three minutes,” Dodds supplied.

“—If you are able to communicate, please identify yourselves, specify the nature of your trouble, and list the type and number of casualties.”

In the supernumerary’s position Con way leaned forward intently, even though the difference of a few centimeters could not affect the clarity of any incoming message. But when the voice did come it sounded apologetic rather than distressed …

“The Monitor Corps scoutship Tyrell here, Major Nelson commanding,” it said. “It was our distress beacon, but we released it on behalf of the wreck you see beside us. Our medical officer isn’t sure, you understand, because its medical experience covers only three species, but it thinks that there may still be life on board.”

“Doctor—” the Captain began, looking across at Conway. But before he could go on, Haslam was reporting again.

“Sir! Another, no, two more traces. Similar mass and configuration as the distressed vessel. Also smaller, widely scattered pieces of metallic wreckage.”

“That’s the other reason why we released our beacon,” Nelson’s voice sounded from Tyrell. “We don’t have your long-range sensor equipment — our stuff is chiefly photooptical and computing gear associated with survey work — but this area seems to be littered with wreckage and, while I don’t entirely agree with my medic that some of it must contain survivors, the possibility does exist that—”

“You were quite right to call for help, Captain Nelson,” Conway said, breaking in. “We would much rather answer a dozen false alarms than risk missing one which might mean a rescue. Space accidents being what they are, most distress calls are answered too late in any case. However, Captain, as a matter of urgency we need the physiological classification of the wreck’s survivors and the nature and extent of their injuries so that we can begin making preparations for accommodating and treating them.

“I am Senior Physician Conway,” he enaea. may i apvan;to your medical officer?”

There was a long, hissing silence during which Haslam reported several more traces and added that, while the data were far from complete, the distribution of the wreckage was such that he was fairly certain that the accident had happened; to a very large ship which had been blown apart into uniform pieces, and that the wreckage alongside Tyrell and the — other similar pieces which were appearing all over his screens were lifeboats. Judging by the spread of the wreckage so far detected, the disaster had not been a recent occurrence.

Then the speaker came to life again with a flat, emotionless voice, robbed of all inflection by the process of translation. “I am Surgeon-Lieutenant Krach-Yul, Doctor Conway,” it said. “My knowledge of other-species physiology is small, since I have had medical experience with only the Earth-human, Ni-dian, and my own Orligian life-forms, all of which, as you know, fall within the DBDG warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing classification.”

The fact that the natives of Orligia and their planetary neighbor Nidia had a marked disparity in physical mass and one of them possessed an overall coat of tight, curly red fur was too small a difference to affect the four-letter classification coding, Conway thought as the other doctor was talking. Just like the small difference which had, in the early days of their stellar exploration, caused Orligia and Earth to fight the first, brief, and so far only interstellar war.

For this reason the Orligians and Earth-humans were more than friendly — nowadays they went out of their way to help each other — and it was a great pity that Krach-Yul was too professionally inexperienced to be really helpful. All Conway could hope for was that the Orligian medic had had sense enough to restrain its professional curiosity and not poke its friendly, furry nose into a situation which was completely beyond its experience.

“We did not enter the wreck,” the Orligian was saying, “because our crew members are not specialists in alien technology and there was the danger of them inadvertently contributing to the problem rather than its solution. I considered telling through die hull and withdrawing a sample of the wreck’s atmosphere, in the hope that the survivor was a warm-blooded oxygen breather like ourselves and we could pump in air. But I decided against this course in case their atmosphere was an exotic mixture which we could not supply and we would then have reduced their ship’s internal pressure to no purpose.

“We are not certain that there is a survivor, Doctor,” Krach-Yul went on. “Our sensors indicate pressure within the wreck, a small power source, and the presence of what appears to be one large mass of organic material which is incompletely visible through the viewports. We do not know if it is living.”

Conway sighed. Where extraterrestrial physiology and medicine were concerned this Krach-YuI was uneducated, but it certainly was not unintelligent. He could imagine the Orligian qualifying on its home planet, moving to the neighboring world of Nidia, and later joining the Monitor Corps to further increase its e-t experience and, while treating the minor ills and injuries of an Earth-human scoutship crew, hoping for something just like this to happen. The Orligian was probably one great, furry lump of curiosity regarding the organic contents of the wreck, but it knew its professional limitations. Conway was already developing a liking for the Orligian medic, sight unseen.

“Very good, Doctor,” Conway said warmly. “But I have a request. Your vessel has a portable airlock. To save time would you mind—”

“It has already been deployed, Doctor,” the Orligian broke in, “and attached to the wreck’s hull over the largest entry port we could find. We are assuming it is an entry port, but it could be a large access panel because we did not try to open it. The wreck was spinning about its lateral axis and this motion was checked by Tyrell’s tractor-beams, but otherwise the vessel is as we found it.”

Conway thanked the other and unstrapped himself from his couch. He could see several new traces on the radar display, but it was the picture of Tyrell and the wreck growing visibly larger on the forward screen which was his immediate concern.

“What are your intentions, Doctor?” the Captain asked.

Indicating the image of the wreck, Conway said, “It doesn’t seem to be too badly damaged and there isn’t much sharp metal in sight so, in the interests of a fast recovery, my people will wear lightweight suits. I shall take Pathologist Murchison and

Doctor Prilicla. Charge Nurse Naydrad will remain in the Casualty Deck lock with the litter, ready to pressurize it with the survivors’ atmosphere as soon as Murchison analyzes it. You, sir, will come along to pick the alien airlock?”

Rhabwar was the first of its kind. Designed as a special ambulance ship, it had the configuration and mass of a Federation light cruiser, which was the largest type of Monitor Corps vessel capable of aerodynamic maneuver within a planetary atmosphere. As he pulled himself aft along the gravity-free central well, Conway was visualizing its gleaming white hull and delta wings decorated with the Occluded Sun, the Brown Leaf, the Red Cross, and the many other symbols which represented the concept of aid freely given throughout the worlds of the Federation.

It was a Traltha-built ship with all the design and structural advantages which that implied, and named Rhabwar after one of the great figures of Tralthan medical history. The ship had been designed for operation by an Earth-human crew, whose quarters were immediately below Control on Deck Two. The medical team occupied similar accommodation on Three except in the matter of furniture and bedding for the Kelgian Charge Nurse and reduced artificial gravity for the Cinrusskin empath.

Deck Four was a compromise, Conway thought as he pulled himself past it, a combination Messdeck and recreation room where the people who worked together were expected, regardless of physiological classification, to play together — even though there was barely enough room to play a game of chess when everyone was present. The whole of Five was devoted to the ship’s consumables, which comprised not only the food required by six Earth-humans, a Kelgian, and a Cinrusskin of classifications DBDG, DBLF, and GLNO respectively, but the storage tanks whose contents were capable of reproducing or synthesizing the atmosphere breathed by any species known to the Galactic Federation.

Six and Seven, where Conway was headed, were the Casualty Deck and underlying lab and treatment ward. Here the gravity, atmospheric pressure, and composition could be varied to suit the life-support requirements of any survivors who might be brought in. Deck Eight was the Power Room, the province of Lieutenant Chen, who controlled the ship’s hyperdrive generators and normal space thrusters, the power supply for the artificial gravity grids, tractor and pressor beams, communications, sensors, and everything which made the energy-hungry ship live.

Conway was still thinking of the diminuitive Chen and the frightful powers available at the touch of one of his stubby fingers when he arrived on the Casualty Deck. He did not have to speak because his earlier conversation with the Captain had been relayed to Casualty, as were the more interesting and important displays on Control’s screens. There was nothing for him to do except climb into his spacesuit — he had a very good medical team who kept their equipment and themselves at instant readiness, and who tried constantly to make their leader feel redundant.

Murchison was bending and stretching to check the seals of her lightweight spacesuit, and Naydrad was inside the casualty entrance lock testing a pressure litter, its beautiful silver fur rippling in slow waves along its caterpillarlike body as it worked. The incredibly fragile Prilicla, aided by its gravity nullifiers and a double set of iridescent wings, was hovering close to the ceiling where it would not be endangered by an accidental collision with one of its more massive colleagues. Its eight, pipestem legs were twitching slowly in unison, indicating that it was being exposed to emotional radiation of a pleasurable kind.

Murchison looked from Prilicla to Conway and said, “Stop that.”

Conway knew that it was Murchison, albeit indirectly, and himself who were responsible for the Cinrusskin’s twitchings. Prilicla, like the other members of its intelligent and sensitive race, possessed a highly developed empathic faculty which caused it to react to the most minute changes and levels of feeling in those surrounding it. Pathologist Murchison possessed that combination of physical attributes which made it extremely difficult for any Earth-human male DBDG to regard her with anything like clinical detachment — and while she was Wearing a contour-hugging lightweight suit it was downright impossible.

“Sorry,” Conway said, laughing, and began climbing into his own suit.

The wreck looked like a long section of metal tree trunk with a few short, twisted branches sprouting from it, Conway thought as they launched themselves from Rhabwar’s casualty lock toward the distressed alien ship, but apart from those pieces of projecting metal the vessel seemed to have retained its structural integrity. He could see two small viewports reflecting the ambulance ship’s floodlights like two tiny suns. One of the ports was set about two meters back from the bows of the wreck and the other a similar distance from the stern, although it was impossible to say just then which was which, and he had learned that there were another two viewports in identical positions on the side hidden from him.

He could also see the loose, transparent folds of Tyrell’s portable airlock clinging to the hull like a wrinkled limpet and, beside it, the tiny figure of what could only be the scoutship’s Orligian medic, Krach-Yul.

Fletcher, Mufchison, and Conway landed beside the Orligian. They did not speak and they tried hard not to think so that Prilicla, who was slowly circling the distressed vessel, would be able to feel for survivors with the minimum of emotional interference. If anything lived inside that wreck, no matter how faintly the spark of life glowed, the little empath would detect it.

“This is very strange, friend Conway,” said Prilicla after nearly fifteen minutes had passed and they were all radiating feelings of impatience in spite of themselves. “There is life on board, one source only, and the emotional radiation is so very faint that I cannot locate it with accuracy. And contrary to what I would expect in these circumstances, there are no indications that the survivor is in a distressed condition.”

“Could the survivor be an infant?” Krach-Yul asked, “Left in a safe place by adults who perished, and too young to realize that there is danger?”

Prilicla, who never disagreed with anyone because to do so might give rise to unpleasant emotional radiation from the other party, said, “The possibility cannot be dismissed, friend Krach-Yul.”

“An embryo, then,” Murchison said, “who still lives within its dead parent?”

“That is not impossible, either, friend Murchison,” Prilicla replied.

“Which means,” the Pathologist said, laughing, “that you don’t think much of that idea, either.”

“But there is a survivor,” the Captain said impatiently, “so let’s go in and get it out.”

Fletcher wriggled through the double seal of the portable airlock and under the folds of tough, transparent plastic which, when inflated, would form a chamber large enough for them to work at extricating the survivor and, if necessary, provide emergency treatment. Murchison and Conway, meanwhile, spenf several minutes at each of the tiny viewports, which were so deeply recessed that their helmet lights showed only areas of featureless leathery tegument.

When they joined the Captain in the lock, Fletcher said, “There are only so many ways of opening a door. It can hinge inward or outward, unscrew in either direction, slide open, or dilate. The actuator for this one appears to be a simple recessed lever which — Oh!”

The large metal hatch was swinging open. Conway tensed, waiting to feel the outward rush of the ship’s air tugging at his suit and inflating the portable lock, but nothing else happened. The Captain grasped the edge with both hands, detached his foot magnets so that his legs swung away from the hull, and drew his head deep inside the opening. “This isn’t an airlock but a simple access hatch to mechanisms and systems situated between the inner and outer hulls. I can see cable runs, plumbing, and what looks like a—”

“I need an air sample,” Murchison said, “quickly.” “Sorry, ma’am,” Fletcher said. He let go with one hand and pointed carefully, then went on, “It seems obvious that only the inner hull is airtight. It should be safe enough for you if you site your drill in the angle between that support bracket and cable loom just there. I don’t know how efficient their insulation is, but that cable is too thin to carry much power. The color coding suggests that their visual range is similar to ours, wouldn’t you say?”

“I would,” Murchison agreed.

Conway said quickly, “If you use a Five drill it will be wide enough to take an Eye.”

“I intend doing that,” she said dryly.

The drill whirred briefly, the sound conducted through the metal of the hull and the fabric of Conway’s suit, and a sample of the ship’s atmosphere hissed through the hollow drill-head and into the analyzer.

“The pressure is a little low by our standards,” she reported quietly, “but that could be dangerously low or normal so far as the survivor is concerned. Composition, the proportion of oxygen to inert gases, makes it a warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing life-form. I shall now insert the Eye.”

Conway saw her detach the analyzer from the hollow drill and, so expertly that she could not have lost more than a few cubic centimeters of ship’s atmosphere in the process, replace it with the Eye. Very carefully she threaded in the transparent tube containing the lens, light source, and vision recorder through the hollow center of the drill, then attached the eyepiece and magnifier which_ would enable her to use the instrument while wearing a space helmet.

For what seemed like an hour but was probably only ten minutes she swiveled the lens and varied the light intensity, without speaking. Then she wriggled backward out of the opening to give Conway and the others a look.

“It’s big,” she said.

The interior of the wreck was a hollow cylinder completely free of compartment dividers or structural crossmembers and the floor — Conway was assuming it was the floor because it was flat and ran the length of the ship — had a double line of closely spaced holes three or four inches in diameter running down the middle. Seven or eight pairs of the survivor’s feet disappeared into the holes so they were probably part of the vessel’s system of safety restraints, as were the broad bands of torn webbing which floated loosely about its body.

The Eye was positioned close to floor level so that Conway could see the being’s flank along the section whose feet were held in the deck holes. Farther along, where the feet had been pulled free by the force of the accident to its ship, he could see in detail the double line of stubby, centipedal legs and the pale-gray underside. In the opposite direction — he could not tell whether it was toward the being’s head or tail — he could make out part of the upper surface of the creature and a single line of dorsal tentacular appendages. The long, cylindrical compartment did not give the being much room to maneuver arid the twists and curves of the weightless, flaccid body seriously hampered viewing, but at the limit of his vision Conway could just make out three lengths of tubing, pencil thin, transparent, and apparently flexible, which sprouted from a container attached to the wall to disappear into the body of the survivor.

Despite the multiplicity of the being’s arms and legs there seemed to be very little if anything for it to do. Apart from a large number of wall-mounted storage cabinets, the interior of the ship was bare of anything resembling control and indication systems or any obvious means by which the vessel could be guided by its occupant — unless, of course, there was a small control center forward in the area concealed by the survivor’s body.

Conway must have been thinking aloud because the Captain, who had just returnedfrom an external examination of the ship, said seriously, “There is nothing for it to do, Doctor. Except for a very unsophisticated power cell which, at present, is not being used to power anything, there is nothing. No propulsion unit, no attitude control jets, no recognizable external sensors or communications, no personnel lock. I’m beginning to wonder if this is a ship or some kind of survival pod. This would explain the odd configuration of the vessel, which is a cylinder of constant diameter with a perfectly flat face at each end. However, when I sighted along the hull in an effort to detect minor protrusions which could have housed sensor equipment, I observed that the cylinder was very slightly curved along its longitudinal axis. This opens up another possibility which—”

“What about power sources and comm equipment mounted outboard?” Conway broke in before the Captain’s observations could develop into a lecture on ship design philosophy. “We have matched hyperdrive generators on our wingtips and perhaps these people had a similar idea.”

“No, Doctor,” Fletcher said in the cool, formal tone he used when he thought someone was trying to tell him his business. “I examined those external spars, which have been broken off too short to give any indication of the type of structure they supported, but the wiring still attached to them is much too thin to carry power to a hyperspace generator. In fact, I seriously doubt if these people had either hyperdrive or artificial gravity, and the general level of technology displayed is pretty elementary for a star-traveling race. Then there is the apparent absence of an entry port. An airlock for this beastie would have to be almost as long as the vessel itself.”

“There are a few star-traveling species who do not use them,” Conway said. “For purely physiological reasons they do not indulge in extravehicular activity, entering and leaving their ships only at time of departure and arrival.”

“Suppose,” Murchison said, “this vehicle is the being’s spacesuit.”

“A nice idea, ma’am, but no,” Fletcher said apologetically. “Apart from the four viewports, whose angles of vision are severely limited because of their small size and the space between the outer and inner hulls, there is no sensory input of any kind known to me and, more important, no external manipulators. But there must be some easy way of getting that beastie into and out of that thing, whether it is a ship, a survival pod, or something else.”

There was a long silence, then Conway said, “I’m sorry, Captain. A few minutes ago you were about to mention a third possibility when I interrupted you.”

“I was,” Fletcher said in the tone of one graciously receiving an apology. “But you will understand, Doctor, that the theory is based on my initial visual observation only and not, as yet, supported by accurate measurements. Nevertheless, as I have already stated, this vessel is not a true cylinder but appears to be curved slightly along its longitudinal axis.

“Now, an explosion or collision sufficiently violent to warp the cylinder out of true,” he went on, slipping into his lecturing manner, “would buckle and open up seams in the hull plating, and leave evidence of heat discoloration and indentations from flying debris. There are no such indications. So if the longitudinal axis of the vessel is, in fact, a very flat curve rather than a straight line, then the curvature was deliberate, built in. This would explain the lack of power and control linkages and an artificial gravity system because they used—”

“Of course!” Conway broke in. “The hull beneath the flat deck was outward facing and free of structural projections, which means that they got their gravity the old-fashioned way by—”

“Will one of you,” Murchison said crossly, “kindly tell me what you are talking about?”

“Certainly,” Conway said. “The Captain has convinced me that this structure is not a ship or a lifeboat, but a section of a space station, an early Wheeltype of very large diameter, which suffered a collision.”

“A space station away out here?” Murchison sounded incredulous. Then she began to realize the implications and added feelingly, “In that case we could have an awful lot of work ahead of us.”

“Maybe not, ma’am,” Fletcher said. “Admittedly there is a strong possibility of finding many more space station segments, but the survivors may be very few.” His tone became suddenly forceful. “Transferring that creature to our Casualty Deck is out of the question. Instead I suggest we attach it to our hull, extend Rhabwar’s hyperspace envelope accordingly, and whisk it back to Sector General where their airlocks can easily handle a patient extraction problem of this size. I am not the e-t medical specialist, of course, but I think we should do this at once, leaving Tyrell to search for other survivors, and then return as soon as possible for the others.” “No,” Conway said firmly.

“I don’t understand you, Doctor.” Behind his helmet visor Fletcher’s face had gone red.

Conway ignored him for a moment while he addressed Murchison and Prilicla, who had drifted closer in spite of the strong emotional radiation being generated in the area. He said, “The survivor, so far as we are able to see, is linked to what appears to be some kind of life-support system by three separate sets of tubing. It is deeply unconscious but not physically distressed. There is also the fact that its vessel contains a reservoir of power which is not presently being used. Now, would either of you agree that the observed emotional radiation and apparent lack of physical injury could be the result of it being in a hibernation anesthesia condition?”

Before either of them could reply, Conway added, “Since there is no evidence of the presence of the power-hungry, complex refrigeration systems which we associate with suspended animation techniques, just three sets of tubing entering its body, would you also agree that the life-form is a natural hibernator?”

There was a short silence, then Murchison said, “We are familiar with the idea of long-term suspended animation being associated with star travel — that used to be the only way to do it, after all, and the cold-sleeping travelers would require neither air nor food during their trips. In the case of a life-form with the ability to go periodically into a state of hibernation for planetary environmental reasons, a minimal supply of food and air would be required. It is quite possible that the natural process of hibernation could be artificially initiated, extended, and counteracted by specific medication and the food supplied intravenously, as seems to be the case with our friend here.”

“Friend Conway,” Prilicla said, “the survivor’s emotional radiation pattern agrees in every particular with the hypothesis of hibernation anesthesia.”

Captain Fletcher was not slow on the uptake. He said, “Very well, Doctor. The survivor has been in this condition for a very long time, so there is no great urgency about moving it or the other survivors we might find to the hospital. But what are your immediate intentions?”

Conway was aware of a multiple, purely subjective silence as the party on the alien’s hull and the communications officers who were listening in on Rhabwar and Tyrell held their collective breath. He cleared his throat and said, “We will examine this section of space station, if that is what it is, as closely as possible without entering it, and simultaneously make as detailed a visual examination of the survivor as we can using the Eye, and then we will all try to think.”

He had the feeling, very strong and not at all pleasant to judge by the trembling of Prilicla’s spidery limbs, that this was not going to be an easy rescue.

For a little over three hours, the duration remaining to their lightweight suits, they did nothing but think as they examined the exterior of the wreck and what little they could see of its occupant, slowly adding data which might or might not be important. But they thought as individuals, increasingly baffled individuals, so that it was not until they met on Rhabwar’s Messdeck and recreation level that they were able to think as an equally baffled group.

Tyrett was represented by its Captain, Major Nelson, and Surgeon-Lieutenant Krach-Yul, while Major Fletcher and the astrogation officer, Lieutenant Dodds, furnished the required military balance for Rhabwar. Murchison, Prilicla, Naydrad, and Conway — who were, after all, mere civilians — filled the remainder of the deck space with the exception of the empath, who was clinging to the safety of the ceiling.

It was Prilicla, knowing that nobody else felt ready to contribute any useful ideas, who spoke first.

“I feel that we are all agreed,” it said in the musical trills and clicks of the Cinrusskin tongue, which emanated from their translator packs as faultless if somewhat toneless speech in the languages of Kelgia, Orligia, and Earth, “that the being is in a state of suspended animation, that there is a high probability that it is not a patient but a survivor who should be returned to its home world as soon as convenient if this planet can be found, and that the need to move it is not an urgent one.”

Lieutenant Dodds looked at Fletcher for permission to speak, then said, “It depends on what you mean by urgent, Doctor. I ran a vectors and velocities check on this and the other pieces of wreckage within detector range. These bits of alien vessel or space station occupied roughly the same volume of space approximately eighty-seven years ago, which is when the disaster must have occurred. If it was a ship I don’t think it was heading for the nearby sun since there are no planets, but a lot of the dispersed wreckage will either fall into the sun or pass closely enough to make no difference to any other survivors in hibernation. This will begin to occur in just over eleven weeks.”

They digested that for a moment, then Tyrell’s Captain said, “I still say a space station way out here is impossible, especially one traveling at such a clip that its wreckage will reach the sun, there, in eleven weeks. It is far more likely that the survivor is in a lifeboat with suspended animation extending the duration of its consumables.”

Fletcher glared at his fellow captain, then he noticed Prilicla beginning to tremble. He visibly calmed himself as he said.

“It is not impossible, Major Nelson, although it is unlikely. Let us suppose that the survivor’s race, which is at the interplanetary flight level of technology, was beginning to experiment with hyperspace generation on its space station and inadvertently performed a random Jump and found themselves very far indeed from home, and subsequently went into hibernation for the reason you have stated. Many such accidents have occurred during early experiments with hypertravel. In any case, I think we are drawing too many conclusions from what is, after all, only one small piece of a very large jigsaw.”

Conway decided to join in before this spirited exchange of technical views could devolve into a quarrel. He said placatingly, “But what conclusions, however few and tentative, can we draw from the piece you have examined, Captain? And what,however vaguely, can you see of the complete picture?”

“Very well,” said Fletcher. He quickly inserted his vision spool from the wreck into the Recreation Deck’s display unit and began to describe everything he had observed and deduced during his examination of the distressed vessel, which he preferred to think of as a simple, pressurized container rather than a ship. It was a cylinder just over twenty meters in length and approximately three meters in diameter, with ends which were flat except for a, set of eight couplings which would enable it to be connected at either end to other similar containers. The couplings had been designed to break open before any external shock or force applied to adjacent structures could damage or deform the container. If the dimensions of the other containers or space station sections were the same as the one examined, and if the longitudinal curvature was uniform in all of them, then approximately eighty of these sections would form a Wheel just under five hundred meters in diameter.

He paused, but Major Nelson still had his lips pressed tightly together, and the others, knowing that a reaction was expected of them, kept perversely silent.

The section had a double hull with only the inner one pressurized, Fletcher resumed, but it possessed no control, sensor, or power systems other than those associated with the suspended animation equipment. The level of technology displayed was advanced interplanetary rather than interstellar, so the station had no business being where it was in the first place.

But the most puzzling feature of the container was the method used to enter and leave it.

They had already seen that there were no openings on the hull large enough to allow entry or exit by the survivor, which meant that it had to enter and leave via the flat, circular plate at each end of the cylinder. In Fletcher’s opinion the creature went in one end and came out the other because physically it was too massive to turn itself around inside its container. But there was nothing resembling a door at either end of the cylinder, just the two large circular plates whose edges were set inside the thick rims which supported the couplings.

“So far as I can see there is no operating mechanism for these endplates,” Fletcher went on with the hint of an apology creeping into his tone. “There are only so many ways for a door to open, and there has to be a door into and out of that thing, but I can’t find one. I even considered explosive bolts, with the extraterrestrial sealed in until it arrived or was taken by its rescuers to an environmentally suitable position — either a planet or the hold of a rescue ship — whereupon it would blow the hatch fastenings and crawl out. But there are no hatch fastenings that I can see and the rim structure surrounding the hatches, if that is what they are, would not allow them to be blown open. Neither can they be opened inward because the diameter of the inner, pressurized hull is much smaller than that of the endplates.”

Fletcher shook his head in bafflement and ended, “I’m sorry, Doctor. Right now I can see no way for you to get to your survivor without cutting its ship apart. What I need is another piece of this jigsaw puzzle to examine, a broken piece which will let me see how the other undamaged pieces were put together.”

There was silence for a few seconds, during which Prilicla trembled in sympathy with the Captain’s embarrassment, then Murchison spoke.

“I would like to examine a broken piece as well,” she said quietly. “Specifically, a piece containing a nonsurvivor which would let me see how our survivor is put together.”

Con way turned to Dodds. “Are there many pieces which look as if they had been broken up?”

“A few,” replied the astrogator. “Most of the traces give sensor readings similar to the first piece. That is, a vehicle of similar mass retaining internal pressure and containing a small power source. All of the pieces, including the few damaged ones, are at extreme sensor range. It is a long way to go on impulse drive, but if we jumped through hyperspace we would probably overshoot.”

“How many pieces altogether?” asked Nelson.

“Twenty-three solid traces so far,” said Dodds, “plus a few masses of what appears to be loose, structural debris. There is also one largish mass, unpressurized and radioactive, which I’d guess was part of a power center.”

From its position on the ceiling, Prilicla said, “If I might make a suggestion, and if Major Nelson is willing to interrupt his survey mission …?”

Nelson laughed suddenly and the other Corps officers present smiled. With great feeling he went on, “There isn’t a scout-ship crew on survey duty anywhere in the Galaxy who would not rather be doing something, anything, else! You only have to ask and give me half an excuse for accepting, Doctor.”

“Thank you, friend Nelson,” said the empath with a slow tremor of pleasure. “My suggestion is that Rhabwar and Tyrell act independently to seek out other survivors and return them to this area, using tractor beams if the distance is short enough for impulse drive or by extending the hyperspace envelopes to include them if a Jump is necessary. My empathic faculty enables me to identify sections containing living occupants and, because of the large mass of these beings, Doctor Krach-Yul and Nurse Naydrad should accompany me to assist with treatment, should this be possible. Pathologist Murchison and you, friend Conway, are well able to identify living casualties by more orthodox means if the ship’s sensors are uncertain.

“This will halve the time needed to search for other survivors,” Prilicla ended apologetically, “even though the period will still be a lengthy one.”

Tyrell’s medical officer spoke for the first time, its whining and barking speech translating as “I always assumed that a space rescue by ambulance ship would be a fast, dramatic, and decisive operation. This one appears to be disappointingly slow.”

“I agree, Doctor,” said Conway. “We need help if this job is not to take months instead of a few days. Not one scoutship but a flotilla, or better yet a squadron of them to search the entire—”

Captain Nelson began to laugh, then broke off when he saw that Conway was serious. He said, “Doctor, I’m just a major in the Monitor Corps and so is Captain Fletcher. We haven’t got the rank to whistle up a flotilla of scoutships no matter how much you think we need them. All we can do is explain the situation and put in a very humble request.”

Fletcher looked at his fellow Captain and opened his mouth to speak, then changed his mind.

Conway smiled and said, “I am a civilian, Captain, with no rank at all. Or considered in another way, I, as a specialist member of the public, have ultimate authority over people like yourselves who are public servants—”

Clearing his throat noisily, Fletcher said, “Please spare us the political philosophy, Doctor. Do you wish me to get off a subspace signal to Sector base requesting massive assistance because of a large number of widely scattered potential survivors of a hitherto unknown life-form?”

“That’s it,” said Conway. “And would you also take charge of assigning search areas to the scoutships if and when they arrive? In the meantime we’ll do as Prilicla suggests, except that Murchison and I will go in Tyrell, if that is agreeable to you, Captain.”

“A pleasure,” said Nelson, looking at Murchison.

“Because your crew aren’t used to our fragile friend scampering about on their ceilings and there might be an accident,” he continued. “But right now we’ll need help to transfer some of our portable equipment to your ship.”

While their gear was being moved to the scoutship and Conway was trying hard to keep Murchison from transferring the Casualty Deck’s diagnostic and treatment equipment in toto, Tyrell’s portable airlock was detached from the alien vessel and restowed on board in case it would be needed on one of the other widely scattered sections. Several times as they worked, Rhabwar’s lighting and gravity control fluctuated in momentary overload, indicating that Conway’s subspace signal was going out.

He knew that Fletcher was keeping the signal as brief as possible because the power required to punch a message through the highly theoretical medium of subspace from a vessel of Rhabwar’s relatively small size would have Lieutenant Chen in the Power Room chewing his nails. Even so, that signal would be splattered with interstellar static and have audible holes blown through it by every intervening cloud of ionized gas, star, or quasistellar object, and for that reason the message had been speeded up many times and repeated so that the people at the receiving end would be able to piece together a normal-speed coherent message from the jumble reaching them.

But their response to the signal was an entirely different matter, Conway thought worriedly. Despite his seeming confidence before the others, he did not know what would happen because this was the first time he had made such a request.

Nelson had invited Murchison and Conway to Control so that they could observe Tyrell’s approach to the second section of alien space station to be investigated, and so that his crew could observe the pathologist. Since the subspace signal had gone out six hours earlier, the Captain had been regarding Conway with a mixture of anxiety and awe as if he did not know whether the Doctor was seriously self-deluded or a highly potent individual indeed.

The messages which erupted from his Control Room speaker shortly afterward, and which continued with only a few minutes’ break between them for the best part of the next hour, resolved his doubts but left him feeling even more confused.

“Scoutship Tedlin to Rhabwar. Instructions please.”

“Scoutship Tenelphi to Rhabwar, requesting reassignment instructions.”

“Scoutship Torrance, acting flotilla leader. I have seven units and eighteen more to follow presently. You have work for us, RhabwarT'

Finally Nelson muted the speaker and the sound of Captain Fletcher assigning search areas to the newly arrived scoutships, which were being ordered to search for sections of the alien space station and bring them to the vicinity of Rhabwar. With so much help available, Fletcher had decided that the ambulance ship would not itself join in the search but would instead remain by the first section to coordinate the operation and give medical assistance. Confident that the situation was under control, Conway relaxed and turned to face Captain Nelson, whose curiosity had become an almost palpable thing.

“You — you are just a doctor, Doctor?” he said.

“That’s right, Captain,” Murchison said before Conway could reply. She laughed and went on, “And stop looking at him like that, you’ll give him an inflated sense of his own importance.”

“My colleagues are constantly on guard against the possibility of that happening,” Conway said dryly. “But Pathologist Murchison is right. I am not important, nor are any of the Monitor Corps officers or the medical team on Rhabwar. It is our job which is important enough to command the reassignment of a few flotillas of scoutships to assist.”

“But it requires the rank of subfleet Commander or highej to order such a thing—” Nelson began, and broke off as Con-way shook his head.

“To explain it I must first fill in some background, Captain,” he said. “Some of this information is common knowledge. Much of it is not because the relevant decisions of the Federation Council and their effects on Monitor Corps operational priorities are too recent for it to have filtered down to you. And you’ll excuse me, I hope, if some of it is elementary, especially to a scoutship Captain on a survey mission …”

Only a tiny fraction of the Galaxy had been explored by the Earth-humans or by any of the sixty-odd other races who made up the Galactic Federation, so that the member races were in the peculiar position of people who had friends in far countries but had no idea who was living in the next street. The reason for this was that travelers tended to meet each other more often than the people who stayed at home, especially when the travelers exchanged addresses and visited each other regularly.

Visiting was comparatively easy. Providing there were no major distorting influences on the way and the exact coordinates of the destination were known, it was almost as easy to travel through hyperspace to a neighboring solar system as to one at the other side of the galaxy. But first one had to find a system containing a planet with intelligent life before its coordinates could be logged, and finding new inhabited systems was proving to be no easy task.

Very, very slowly a few of the blank areas in the star maps were being surveyed and explored, but with little success. When survey scoutship like Tyrell turned up a star with planets it was a rare find, even rarer if one of the planets harbored life. And if one of these life-forms was intelligent then jubilation, not unmixed with concern over what might possibly be a future threat to the Pax Galactica, swept the worlds of the Federation, and the cultural contact specialists of the Monitor Corps were assigned the tricky, time-consuming, and often dangerous job of establishing contact in depth.

The cultural contact people were the elite of the Monitor Corps, a small group of specialists in extraterrestrial communications, philosophy, and psychology. Although small, the group was not, regrettably, overworked.

“During the past twenty years,” Conway went on, “they have initiated first-contact procedure on three occasions, all of which were successful and resulted in the species concerned joining the Federation. There is no need to bore you with such details as the fantastically large number of survey missions mounted, the ships, personnel, and material involved, or shock you with the cost of it all. I mention the cultural contact group’s three successes simply to make the point that within the same period Sector Twelve General Hospital, our first multienviron-ment medical treatment center, became fully operational and initiated first contacts which resulted in seven new species joining the Federation.

“This was accomplished,” he explained, “not by a slow, patient buildup and widening of communications until the exchange of complex philosophical and sociological concepts became possible, but by giving medical assistance to a sick alien.”

This was something of an oversimplification, Conway admitted. There were the medical and surgical problems inherent in treating a hitherto unknown life-form. Sector General’s translation computer, the second largest in the Federation, was available, as was the assistance of the Monitor Corps’ hospital-based communications specialists, and the Corps had been responsible for rescuing and bringing in many of the extraterrestrial casualties in the first place. But the fact remained that the hospital, by giving medical assistance, demonstrated the Federation’s goodwill toward e-ts much more simply and directly than could have been done by any time-consuming exchange of concepts.

Because all Federation ships were required to file course and passenger or crew details before departure, the position of a distress signal was usually a good indication of the ship and therefore the physiological classification of the beings who had run into trouble, and an ambulance ship with matching crew and life-support equipment was sent from Sector General or from the ship’s home planet to assist it. But there had been instances, far more than was generally realized, when the disasters involved beings unknown to the Federation in urgent need of help, help which the would-be rescuers were powerless to give.

Only when the rescue ship concerned had the capability of extending its hyperspace envelope to include the distressed vessel, or the survivors could be extricated safely and a suitable environment provided for them within the Federation ship, could they be transported to Sector General for treatment. The result was that many hitherto unknown life-forms, entities of high intelligence and advanced technology, were lost except as interesting specimens for dissection and study.

But an answer to this problem had been sought and, hopefully, found.

“It was decided to build and equip a very special ambulance ship,” Conway continued, “which would give priority to answering distress signals whose positions did not agree with the flight plans filed by Federation vessels. The First Contact people consider Rhabwar to be the near-perfect answer in that we involve ourselves only with star^traveling species, beings who are expecting to encounter new and to them alien life-forms and who, should they get into trouble, would not be expected to display serious xenophobic reactions when we try to help them. Another reason why the cultural contact people prefer meeting star travelers to planetbound species is that they can never be sure whether they are helping or hindering the newly discovered culture’s natural development, giving them a technological leg up or a crushing inferiority complex.

“Anyway,” Conway said, smiling as he pointed at Nelson’s main display where the newly arrived scoutships covered the screen, “now you know that it is Rhabwar which has the rank and not any member of its crew.”

Nelson was looking only slightly less impressed, but before he could speak the voices of two scoutship commanders reporting to Rhabwar sounded in quick succession. Both vessels had emerged from hyperspace close to sections of alien space station and were already returning to the rendezvous point with them in tow on long-focus tractor beams. In both cases the sections gave sensor indications of life on board.

“The news isn’t all good, however,” Nelson said, pointing at his main display where an enlarged picture of the section toward which they were heading filled the screen. “That one has taken a beating and I don’t see how the occupant could have survived.”

Conway nodded, and as the wrecked section turned slowly to present an end view, Murchison added, “Obviously it didn’t.”

The, alien cylinder had been dented and punctured by multiple collisions with some of the structural members which had furnished the supporting framework of the original space station and which was still drifting nearby. Amid the loose tangle of debris was one of the section’s circular endplates, and from the open end of.the compartment the body of its occupant protruded like an enormous, dessicated caterpillar.

“Can you relay ihis picture to RhabwarT Conway asked.

“If I can get a word in edgewise,” Nelson replied, glancing at his speaker, which was carrying a continuous, muted conversation between, Fletcher and the scoutships.

Murchison had been staring intently at the screen. She said suddenly, “It would be a waste of time examining that cadaver out here. Can you put a tractor on it, Captain, and take us back to RhabwarT

“We’ll need to bring back the wreck for study as well,” Conway said. “The life-support and suspended animation systems will give us important information on the being’s physiology and—”

“Excuse me, Doctor,” Nelson said. For several seconds the voices from Rhabwar and the scoutships had been silent and the Captain had seized the chance to send a message of his own. He went on, “Tyrell here. Will you accept a visual relay, Rhabwarl Doctor Conway thinks it’s important.”

“Go ahead, Tyrell” Fletcher’s voice said. “All other traffic wait out.”

There was a long silence while Rhabwar’s Captain studied the image of the slowly rotating wreck and the attached cadaver, long enough for it to make three complete revolutions, then Fletcher spoke. The tone and words were so uncharacteristic that they scarcely recognized his voice. “I’m a fool, a stupid damned fool for not seeing it!”

It was Murchison who asked the obvious question. “For not seeing how that endplate opened,” Fletcher replied. He made several more self-derogatory remarks in an undertone, then went on, “It drops out, or there is probably a spring-loaded actuator which pushes it out through the slot which you can see behind the coupling collar. No doubt there is an internal air pressure sensor linked to the actuator to keep the endplate from popping out accidentally when the section is in space or the adjoining section is airless. Do you intend returning with this section and not just the cadaver?”

The tone of the question suggested that if such was not the Doctor’s intention, then forceful arguments would be forthcoming to make him change his mind.

“As quickly as possible,” Conway said dryly. “Pathologist Murchison is just as keen to look inside that alien as you are to look inside its ship. Please ask Naydrad to stand by the Casualty Lock.”

“Will do,” Fletcher said. He paused for a moment, then went on seriously, “You realize, Doctor, that the manner in which these cylinders open means that their occupants were sealed into their suspended animation compartments while in atmosphere, almost certainly on their home planet, and the cylinders were not meant to be opened until their arrival on the target world. These people are members of a-sublight colonization attempt.”

“Yes,” Conway said absently. He was thinking about the probable reaction of the hospital to receiving a bunch of outsize, hibernating e-ts who were not, strictly speaking, patients but the survivors of a failed colonization flight. Sector General was a hospital, not a refugee camp. It would insist, and rightly, that the colonists be transferred either to their planet of origin or destination. Since the surviving colonists were in no immediate danger there might be no need to involve the hospital at all — or the ambulance ship — except in an advisory capacity. He added, “We are going to need more help.”

“Yes,” Fletcher said with great feeling. It was obvious that his thinking had been parallelling Conway’s. “Rhabwar out.”

By the time Tyrell had returned to the assembly area, it was beginning to look congested. Twenty-eight hibernation compartments — all of which, according to Prilicla, contained living e-ts — hung in the darkness like a gigantic, three-dimensional picture showing the agglutinization of a strain of rod-shaped bacilli. Each section had been numbered for later identification and examination. There were no other scoutships in the area because they were busy retrieving more cylinders.

Even with the Casualty Deck’s artificial gravity switched off and tractor beams aiding the transfer, it took Murchison, Naydrad, and Conway more than an hour to extricate the cadaver from its wrecked compartment and bring it into Rhabwar.Once inside it flowed over the examination table on each side and on to intrument trolleys, beds, and whatever else could be found around the room to support its massive, coiling body.

Fletcher paid them a visit some hours later to see the cadaver at close range, but he had chosen a moment when Murchison’s investigation was moving from the visual examination to the dissection stage and his stay was brief. As he was leaving he said, “When you can be spared here, Doctor, would you mind coming upto Control?”

Conway nodded without looking up from his scanner examination of one of the alien’s breathing orifices and its tracheal connection. The Captain had left when he straightened up a few minutes later and said, “I just can’t make head or tail of this thing.”

“That is understandable, Doctor,” Naydrad said, who belonged to a very literal-minded species. “The being appears to have neither.”

Murchison looked up from her microscopic examination of a length of nerve ganglia and rubbed her eyes. She said, “Naydrad is quite right. Both head and tail sections are absent and may have been surgically removed, although I cannot be certain of that even though there are indications of minor surgery having taken place at one extremity. All that we know for sure is that it is a warm-blooded oxygen breather and probably an adult. I say 'probably' despite the fact that the creature in the first cylinder was relatively more massive. Genetic factors generally make for size differences among the adults of most species, so I cannot assume that it is an adolescent or younger. Of one thing I am sure — Thornnastor is going to enjoy itself with this one.”

“So are you,” Conway said.

She smiled tiredly and went on, “I don’t wish to give the impression that you are not helping, Doctor. You are. But I had the distinct feeling back there that the Captain was just being polite, and he wants to see you very urgently.”

Prilicla, who had been resting on the ceiling between trips outside to monitor the emotional radiation of newly arrived survivors, made trilling and clicking noises which translated as “For a nonempath, friend Murchison, your feeling was re^ markably accurate.”

When Conway entered Control a few mintues later, both captains were present and they looked relieved to see him. It was Nelson who spoke first.

“Doctor,” he said quickly, “I think this rescue mission is getting out of hand. So far thirty-eight contacts have been made and the sensors report the presence of life on all but two of them, and more cylinders are being reported every few minutes. They are all uniform in size and the present indications are that there are many more sections out there than would be necessary to complete one Wheel.”

“If, for technical or physiological reasons, the alien vessel had to have the configuration of a Wheel,” Conway said thoughtfully, “then it could have been built, as were some of our early space stations, in a series of concentric circles, as wheels within wheels.”

Nelson shook his head. “The longitudinal curvature on all sections is identical. Could there have been two Wheels, separate but identical vessels, which were in collision?”

“I disagree with the collision theory,” Fletcher said, joining in for the first time. “At least between two or more Wheels. There are far too many survivors and undamaged sections for that. Their vessel seems to have fallen apart. I think there was a high-velocity collision with a natural body, the shock of which shook the hub and central support structure apart.”

Conway was trying to visualize the finished shape of this alien jigsaw puzzle. He said, “But you still think there was more than one Wheel?”

“Not exactly,” Fletcher replied. “Two of them mounted side by side, with a different alien or set of aliens in each. Right now we don’t know whether we are retrieving single aliens who have been surgically modified for travel or pieces of much larger creatures, and we won’t know how many we are dealing with until the scoutships begin bringing back heads and tails. I’m assuming that all of the occupants were in suspended animation and their ship ran itself, accelerating or decelerating along its vertical axis. If I’m right then the hub wreckage should contain the remains of just one propulsion unit and one section which contained the automatic navigation and sensor equipment.”

Conway nodded. “A neat theory, Captain. Is it possible to prove it?”

Fletcher smiled and said, “All of the pieces are out there, even though some of them will be smashed into their component parts and difficult to identify, but given time and the necessary assistance we could fit them together.”

“You mean reconstruct it?”

“Perhaps,” Fletcher replied in an oddly neutral tone. “But is it really any of our business?”

Conway opened his mouth, intending to tell the other exactly what he thought of a damn fool question like that, then closed it again when he saw the expressions on both captains’ faces.

For the truth was that the situation which was developing here was no longer any of their business. Rhabwar was an ambulance ship, designed and provisioned for short-duration missions aimed at the rescue, emergency treatment, and transfer to the hospital of survivors of accident or disease in space. But these survivors did not require treatment or fast transport to the hospital. They had been in suspended animation for a long time and would be capable of remaining in that condition without harm for a long time to come. Reviving them and, more important, relocating them on a suitable planet would be a major project.

The sensible thing for Conway to do would be to bow out gracefully and dump the problem in the laps of the cultural contact specialists. Rhabwar could then return to its dock and the medical team could go back to treating the weird and wonderful variety of patients who turned up at Sector General while they waited for the next distress call for their special ambulance ship.

But the two men watching him so intently were a scoutship commander on survey duty, who would be lucky if he turned up one inhabited system in ten years of searching, and Major Fletcher, Rhabwar’s Captain and a recognized authority in the field of extraterrestrial comparative technology — and the rescue of this e-t sublight colonization transport could well be the biggest problem to face the Federation since the discovery and treatment of the continent-girdling strata creature of Drambo/

Conway looked from Nelson to Fletcher, then said quietly, “You’re right, Captain, this isn’t our responsibility. It is Cultural Contact’s problem, and they would not think any the less of us, in fact they would expect us to hand it over to them. But I get the impression that you don’t want me to do that.”

Fletcher shook his head firmly and Nelson said, “Doctor, if you have any friends in authority, tell them I would willingly give an arm or a leg to be allowed to stay on this one.”

A cool, logical portion of Conway’s mind was urging him to do the sensible thing, to think about what he was letting himself in for and to remember who would be blamed if things went wrong, but it never had any hope of winning that argument.

“Good,” Conway said, “that makes it unanimous.”

They were both grinning at him in a manner totally unbefitting their rank and responsibilities, as if he had bestowed some great favor instead of condemning them to months of unremitting mental and physical hard labor. He went on, “As the ship responsible for making the original find, Tyrell would be justified in remaining, and as the medical team in attendance, the same applies to Rhabwar. But we are going to need a lot of help, and if we are to have any hope of getting it you will have to give me detailed information on every aspect of this problem, not just the medical side, and answers to the questions which are going to be asked.

“To begin with, I shall need to know a great deal more about the physiology of the survivors, and you will have to find me a couple of additional cadavers for Thornnastor, the hospital’s Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology. It has six feet and weighs half a ton and if Murchison and I don’t come up with some sensible conclusions about this life-form, and specimens for Thorny to investigate independently, it will walk all over me. And what O’Mara and Skempton will do—”

“They’re public servants, Doctor,” Nelson said, grinning. “You have the rank.”

Conway got to his feet and said very seriously, “This is not simply a matter of whistling up another flotilla of scoutships, gentlemen, and something more than a hyperspace signal will be needed this time. To get the help we need I’ll have to go back to the hospital and argue and plead, and probably thump the table a bit.”

As he entered the gravity-free central well and began pulling himself toward the Casualty Deck he could hear Fletcher saying, “That wasn’t much of an inducement, Nelson. Most of his highly placed friends have more arms and legs than they know what to do with.”

Leaving Rhabwar and the rest of the medical team at the disaster site, Conway traveled to Sector General in Tyrell. He had requested an urgent meeting withthe hospital’s big three — Skempton, Thornnastor, and O’Mara — as soon as the scoutship had emerged into normal space. The request had been granted but Chief Psychologist O’Mara had told him curtly that there would be no point trying to start the meeting prematurely by worrying out loud over the communication channel, so Conway had to curb his impatience and try to marshal his arguments while Sector General slowly grew larger in the forward view-screen.

When Conway arrived in the Chief Psychologist’s office, Thornnastor, Skempton, and O’Mara were already waiting for him. Colonel Skempton, as the ranking Monitor Corps officer in the hospital, was occupying the only other chair, apart from O’Mara’s own, which was suitable for the use of Earth-humans; Thornnastor, like the other members of the Tralthan species, did everything including sleeping on its six, elephantine feet.

The Chief Psychologist waved a hand at the selection of e-t furniture ranged in front of his desk and said, “Take a seat if you can do so without injuring yourself, Doctor, and make your report.”

Conway arranged himself carefully in a Kelgian relaxer frame and began to describe briefly the events from the time Rhabwar had arrived in response to Tyrell’s distress beacon. He told of the investigation of the first section of the fragmented alien vessel which was the product of a race in the early stage of spaceship technology, possessing sublight drive and gravity furnished by rotating their ship. Every undamaged section found had contained an e-t in suspended animation. For this reason additional scoutships had been requested to help find and retrieve the remaining survivors as a matter of urgency because the majority of these widely scattered suspended animation' compartments would, in just under twelve weeks’ time, fall into or pass so close to a nearby sun that the beings inside them would perish.

While Conway was speaking, O’Mara stared at him with eyes which opened into a mind so perceptive and analytical that it gave the Chief Psychologist what amounted to a telepathic faculty. Thornnastor’s four eyes were focused equally on Conway and Colonel Skempton, who was staring down at his scratch pad where he was drawing a circle and going over it repeatedly without lifting his stylus. Conway found himself watching the pad as well, and abruptly he stopped talking.

Suddenly they were staring at him with all of their eyes, and Skempton said, “I’m sorry, Doctor, does my doodling distract you?”

“To the contrary, sir,” Conway said, smiling, “you have helped a lot.”

Ignoring the Colonel’s baffled expression, Conway went on, “Our original theory was that a sublight vessel with the configuration of a rotating wheeltype space station suffered a catastrophic malfunction or collision which carried away its hub-mounted propulsion and navigation systems, and jarred the rim structure apart; the subsequent dispersal of the suspended animation containers was aided by the centrifugal force which furnished their ship with artificial gravity. But the number of sections found just before I left the area were more than enough to form three complete Wheels and, because I have been bothered by the fact that no head segments have been found so far,

I have decided to discard the Wheel or multiple Wheel theory in favor of the more simple configuration suggested by the Colonel’s sketch of a continuous—”

“Doctor,” Thornnastor broke in firmly. As the Diagnosti-cian-in-Charge of Pathology it had a tendency toward single-mindedness where its specialty was concerned. “Kindly describe in detail and give me the physiological classification of this life-form and, of course, your assessment of the number of casualties we will be required to treat. And are specimens of this life-form available for study?”

Conway felt his face reddening as he made an admission no Senior Physician on the staff of Sector General should ever have to make. He said, “We cannot classify this life-form with complete certainty, sir. But I have brought you two cadavers in the hope that you may be able to do so. As I have already said, the survivors are still inside their suspended animation compartments and the relatively few who did not survive are in a badly damaged condition — in several pieces, in fact.”

Thornnastor made untranslatable noises which probably signified approval, then it said, “Had they not been in pieces, I would soon have rendered them so. But the fact that neither Murchison nor yourself are sure of their classification surprises and intrigues me, Doctor. Surely you are able to form a few tentative conclusions?”

Conway was suddenly glad that Prilicla was still on board Rhabwar because his embarrassment would have given the little empath a bad fit of the shakes. He said, “Yes, sir. The being we examined was a warm-blooded oxygen breather with the type of basic metabolism associated with that physiological grouping. The cadaver was massive, measuring approximately twenty meters in length and three meters in diameter, excluding projecting appendages. Physically it resembles the DBLF Kelgian life-form, but many times larger and possessing a leathery tegument rather than the silver fur of the Kelgians. Like the DBLFs it is multipedal, but the manipulatory appendages are positioned in a single row along the back.

“There were twenty-one of these dorsal limbs, all showing evidence of early evolutionary specialization. Six of them were long, heavy, and claw-tipped and were obviously evolved for defense since the being was a herbivore, and there were fifteen

in five groups of three spaced between the six heavier tentacles. Each of the thinner limbs terminated in four digits, two of which were opposable, and were manipulatory appendages originally evolved for gathering and transferring food to the mouths, of which there are three on each flank opening into three stomachs. Two additional orifices on each side open into a very large and complex lung. The structure inside these breathing orifices suggests that expelled air could be interrupted and modulated to produce intelligence-bearing sounds. On the underside were three openings used for the elimination of wastes.

“The mechanism of reproduction was unclear,” he continued, “and the specimen showed evidence of possessing both male and female genitalia on the forward and rear extremities, respectively. The brain, if it was the brain, took the form of a cable of nerve ganglia with localized swellings in three places, running longitudinally through the cadaver like a central core. There was another and much thinner nerve cable running parallel to the thicker core, but below it and about twenty-five centimeters from the underside. Positioned close to each extremity were two sets of three eyes, two of which were mounted dorsally and two on the forward and rear flanks. They were recessed but capable of limited extension and together gave the being complete and continuous vision vertically and horizontally. The type and positioning of the visual equipment and appendages suggest that it evolved on a very unfriendly world.

“Our tentative classification of the being,” Conway ended, “was an incomplete CRLT.”

“Incomplete?” Thornnastor said.

“Yes, sir,” Conway said. “The cadaver we examined had sustained minimum damage since it had died during a slow decompression while in suspended animation. We could be wrong, but there were signs of some kind of radical surgery having taken place, a double removal of what may have been the head and tail of the being. This was not a traumatic amputation caused by the disaster to their ship, but a deliberate procedure which may have been required to fit the being into its suspended animation container for the colonization attempt. The body tegument overall is thick and very tough, but at the extremities the only protection is a hard, transparent layer of organic material, and the underlying protrusions, fissures, orifices, and musculature look raw. This suggests—”

“Conway,” O’Mara said sharply, with a glance toward the suddenly paling Colonel. “With respect to Thornnastor, you have moved too quickly from the general to the particular. Please confine yourself at this stage to a simple statement of the problem and your proposed solution.”

Colonel Skempton was the man responsible for making Sector General function as an organization — but, as he was fond of telling his medical friends when they started to talk shop in grisly detail, he was a glorified bookkeeper, not a bloody surgeon! The trouble was that there was no way Conway could state his problem simply without offending the sensibilities of the overly squeamish Colonel.

“Simply,” Conway said, “the problem is a gigantic, worm-like entity, perhaps five kilometers or more in length, which has been chopped into many hundreds of pieces. The indicated treatment is to join the pieces together again, in the correct order.”

The Colonel’s stylus stopped in mid-doodle, Thornnastor made a loud, untranslatable sound, and O’Mara, normally a phlegmatic individual, said with considerable vehemence, “Conway, you are not considering bringing that — that Midgard Serpent to the hospital?”

Conway shook his head. “The hospital is much too small to handle it.”

“And so,” Skempton said, looking up for the first time, “is your ambulance ship.”

Before Conway could reply, Thornnastor said, “I find it difficult to believe that the entity you describe could survive such radical amputation. However, if Prilicla and yourself state that the separate sections so far recovered are alive, then I must accept it. But have you considered the possibility that it is a group entity, similar to the Telphi life-form which are stupid as individuals but highly intelligent as a gestalt? Physical fragmentation in those circumstances would be slightly more credible, Doctor.”

“Yes, sir, and we have not yet discarded that possibility—” Conway began.

“Very well, Doctor,” O’Mara broke in dryly. “You may restate the problem in less simple form.”

The problem … thought Conway.

He began by asking them to visualize the vast, alien ship as it had been before the disaster — not the multiple Wheel shape first discussed but a great, continuous, open coil of constant diameter and similar in configuration to the shape on the Colonel’s pad. The separate turns of the coil had been laced together by an open latticework of metal beams which held the vessel together as a rigid unit and provided the structural support needed along the thrust axis during take-off, acceleration, and landing. Assembled in orbit, the ship had been approximately five hundred meters in diameter and close on a mile long, with its power and propulsion system at one end of an axial support structure and the automatic guidance system and sensors at the other.

The exact nature of the accident or malfunction was not yet known, but judging by the observed effects it had been caused by a collision with a large natural object which, striking the vessel head-on, had taken out the guidance system forward, the axial structure, and the stern thrusters. The shock of the collision had shaken the great, rotating coil into its component suspended animation compartments, and centrifugal force had done the rest.

“This being — or beings — is so physiologically constituted,” Conway went on, “that to assist it we must first rebuild its ship and land it successfully. Fitting the pieces together again can be done most easily in weightless conditions. The fact that the twenty-meter sections of the coil have flown apart but retained their positions with respect to each other will greatly assist the reassembly operation—”

“Wait, wait,” the Colonel said. “I cannot see this operation being possible, Doctor. For one thing, you will need a very potent computer indeed to work out the trajectories of those expanding sections accurately enough to return them to their original positions in this — this jigsaw puzzle — and the equipment needed to reassemble it would be—”

“Captain Fletcher says it is possible,” Conway said firmly-"Piecing together the remains of an extraterrestria] ship has been done before, and much valuable knowledge was gained in the process. Admittedly, on previous occasions there were no living survivors to be pieced together as well and the work was on a much smaller scale.”

“Much smaller,” O’Mara said dryly. “Captain Fletcher is a theoretician and Rhabwar is his first operational command. Is he happy ordering three scoutship flotillas around?”

The Chief Psychologist was considering the problem in the terms of his own specialty, Conway knew, and as usual O’Mara was a jump ahead of everyone else.

“He seems to enjoy worrying about it,” Conway said carefully, “and there are no overt signs of megalomania.”

O’Mara nodded and sat back in his chair.

But the Colonel could jump to correct conclusions as well, if not always as quickly as the Chief Psychologist. He said, “Surely, O’Mara, you are not suggesting that Rhabwar direct this operation? It’s too damned big, and expensive. It has to be referred up to—”

“There isn’t time for committee decisions,” Conway began.

“—the Federation Council,” the Colonel finished. “And anyway, did Fletcher tell you how he proposed fitting this puzzle together?”

Conway nodded. “Yes, sir. It is a matter of basic design philosophy …” Captain Fletcher was of the opinion — an opinion shared by the majority of the Federation’s top designers — that any piece of machinery beyond a certain degree of complexity, be it a simple groundcar or a spaceship one kilometer long, required an enormous amount of prior design work, planning and tooling long before the first simple parts and subas-semblies could become three-dimensional metal on someone’s workbench. The number of detail and assembly drawings, wiring diagrams, and so on for even a small spaceship was mind-staggering, and the purpose of all this paperwork was simply to instruct beings of average intelligence how to manufacture and fit together the pieces of the jigsaw without knowing, or perhaps even caring, anything about the completed picture.

If normal Earth-human, Tralthan, Illensan, and Melfan practice was observed — and the engineers of those races and many others insisted that there was no easier way — then those drawings and the components they described must include instructions, identifying symbols, to guide the builders in the correct placing of these parts within the jigsaw.

Possibly there were extraterrestrial species which used more exotic methods of identifying components before assembly, such as tagging each part with an olfactory or tactile coding system, but this, considering the tremendous size of the coil ship and the number of parts to be identified and joined, would represent a totally unnecessary complication unless there were physiological reasons for doing things the hard way.

The cadaver had possessed eyes which operated within the normal visible spectrum, and Captain Fletcher was sure that the alien shipbuilders would do things the easy way by marking the surface of the components with identifying symbols which could be read at a glance. Following a detailed examination of a damaged suspended animation cylinder and the remains of its supporting framework, Fletcher found that the system of identification used was groups of symbols vibro-etched into the metal, and that adjoining components bore the same type and sequence of symbols except for the final letter or number. “Clearly they think, and put their spaceships together, much the same as we do,” Conway concluded.

“I see,” the Colonel said. He sat forward in his chair. “But decoding those symbols and fitting the parts.together will take a lot of time.”

“Or a lot of extra help,” Conway said. Skempton sat back, shaking his head. Thornnastor was silent also, but the slow, impatient thumping of its massive feet indicated that it was not likely to remain so for long. It was O’Mara who spoke first.

“What assistance will you need, Doctor?” Conway looked gratefully at the Chief Psychologist for getting straight to the point as well as for the implied support. But he knew that O’Mara would withdraw that support without hesitation if he had the slightest doubt about Conway’s ability to handle the problem. If Conway was to be confirmed in this assignment, he would have to convince O’Mara that he knew exactly what he was doing. He cleared his throat.

“First,” he said, “we should initiate an immediate search for the vessel’s home world so that we can learn as much as possible about this entity’s culture, environment, and food requirements, as well as having somewhere to put it when the rescue is complete. It is almost certain that the disaster caused a large deviation in the coilship’s course, and it is possible that the vessel suffered a guidance malfunction not associated with the accident which fragmented it, and it has already overshot the target world. This would complicate the search and increase the number of units conducting it.”

Before the Colonel could react, Conway went on quickly, “I also need a search of the Federation Archives. For many centuries before the Federation came into being there were species who possessed the startravel capability and did a lot of independent exploration. There is a slight chance that one of them may have encountered or heard reports of an entity resembling an intelligent Midgard Serpent—”

He broke off, then for Thornnastor’s benefit he explained that the Midgard Serpent was a creature of Earth-human mythology, an enormous snake which was supposed to have encircled the planet with its tail in its mouth. Thornnastor thanked him and expressed its relief that the being was mythological.

“Until now,” the Colonel said sourly.

“Second,” Conway went on, “comes the problem of rapid retrieval and placement of the scattered suspended animation cylinders. Many more scoutships will be required, supported by all of the available specialists in e-t languages and technical notation systems, and computer facilities capable of analyzing this material. A large, ship-borne translation computer should be able to handle the job—”

“That means Descartes'” Skempton protested.

“—In the time remaining to us,” Conway resumed, “and I hear Descartes recently completed its first contact program on Dwerla and is free. But the third and most technically difficult part of the problem is the reassembly. For this we need fleet auxiliaries with the engineering facilities and space construction personnel capable of rapidly rebuilding those parts of the alien vessel’s supporting framework which cannot be salvaged from the wreckage. Ideally the people concerned should be experienced Tralthan and Hudlar space construction teams.

“Four,” he continued, allowing no time for objections, “we need a ship capable of coordinating the reassembly operation and mounting a large number of tractor and pressor beam batteries with officers highly trained in their use. This will reduce the risk of collision in the assembly area between the retrieved sections and our own ships. The coordinating vessel will have its own computer capable of handling the logistic—”

“Vespasian, he wants,” Skempton said dully.

“Yes, its tactical computer would be ideal,” Conway replied. “It also has the necessary tractor and pressor batteries and, I believe, a very large cargo lock in case I have to withdraw some of the CRLTs from their suspended animation compartments. Remember, several segments of the entity were destroyed and surgery may be required in these areas to close the gaps. But until we know a great deal more about this entity’s, physiology and environment I have no clear idea of the type and quantity of medical assistance which will be needed.”

“At last,” Thornnastor growled through its translator, “you are about to discuss the needs of the patient.”

“The delay was intentional, sir,” Conway said, “since we must repair the ship before we can help the occupant. Regarding this entity, or entities, Pathologist Murchison and myself have examined one cadaver and we seek confirmation of our preliminary findings and as much additional physiological data as you can provide from the specimens brought back in Tyrell, and from the contents of the intravenous infusion equipment which is used, apparently, to induce, extend, and reverse the suspended animation process. Specifically, we require much more information on the nervous system, the linkages to the voluntary and involuntary musculature, the degree and rapidity of tissue regeneration we can expect if surgical intervention is necessary and additional data on the transparent material which covers and protects the raw areas at the forward and rear extremities. Naturally, sir, this information is required the day before yesterday.”

“Naturally,” Thornnastor growled. Its six elephantine feet, which had been silent while Conway was speaking, resumed their slow thumping. Clearly-the Tralthan was eager to go to work on those specimens of the completely new life-form.

O’Mara waited for precisely three seconds, then he scowled up at Conway and said, “And that is all you require. Doctor?”

Conway nodded. “For the present.”

Colonel Skempton leaned forward and said caustically, “'For the present he needs the services of a Sector subfleet, including Descartes and Vespasian. Before we can recommend the deployment of so many Service units we should refer the matter to the Federation Council for—” He broke off because the thumping of Thornnastor’s feet was making conversation difficult.

“Your pardon, Colonel,” the Tralthan said, “but it seems to me that if we refer this matter to the Council they will ponder on it at great length and then decide to make it the responsibility of the beings best able to understand and solve the problem, who are the entities comprising the technical and medical crew of Rhabwar. The special ambulance ship program was designed to deal with the unexpected, and the fact that this problem is unexpectedly large is beside the point.

“This is an entity, or entities, of a hitherto unknown species,” it went on, “and I recommend that Senior Physician Conway be given the assistance he requires to rescue and treat it. However, I have no objection to you recommending this course and referring the matter to the Council for discussion and ratification, and for amendment should they come up with a better idea. Well, Colonel?”

Skempton shook his head. He said doggedly, “It’s wrong, I know it’s wrong, for a newly appointed ship commander and a medic to be given so much authority. But the Rhabwar people are the only ones who know what they are doing at the moment. Reluctantly, I agree. O’Mara?”

All their eyes, the Colonel’s and Conway’s two and Thorn-nastor’s four, were on the Chief Psychologist, who kept his steadily on Conway. Finally he spoke.

“If you have nothing else to say, Doctor,” he said dryly, “I suggest you return to Rhabwar as quickly as possible before the area becomes so congested that you can’t find your own ship.”

The reaction time of the Monitor Corps to an emergency large or small was impressively fast. In Tyrell’s forward view-screen the area resembled a small, untidy star cluster in which Rhabwar’s beacon flashed at its center like a short-term variable. Apart from acknowledging their arrival and giving them permission to lock on, Fletcher did not speak to them because, he explained, fifteen more scoutships had arrived unexpectedly and he was busy fitting them into his retrieval program. For this reason Conway did not get an opportunity to tell him about the other unexpected things which were about to happen until he was back on board the ambulance ship, and by that time it was too late.

“Rkabwar,” a voice said from the wall speaker as Conway entered Control, “this is the survey and cultural contact vessel Descartes, Colonel Okaussie commanding. I’m told you have work for us, Major Fletcher.”

“Well, yes, sir,” the Captain said. He looked appealingly at Conway, then went on, “If 1 might respectfully suggest, sir, that your translation specialists—”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Colonel Okaussie broke in. “Respectfully suggest, I mean. When I know as much about this situation as you do I’ll accept suggestions, respectful or otherwise. But until then, Major, stop wasting time and tell me what you want us to do.”

“Yes, sir,” Fletcher said. Speaking quickly, concisely, and, out of habit, respectfully, he did just that. Then a few seconds after he broke contact the radar screen showed a new trace which was even larger than Descartes. It identified itself as the Hudlar-crewed depot ship Motann, a star-going engineering complex normally used to bring technical assistance to vessels whose hyperdrive generators had failed noncatastrophically leaving them stranded in normal space between the stars. Its captain, who was not a Monitor Corps officer, was also happy to take his instructions from Fletcher. But then ah even larger blip appeared on the screen, indicating that a very large ship indeed had just emerged from hyperspace. Automatically Lieutenant Haslam fed the bearing to the telescope and tapped for maximum magnification.

The tremendous, awe-inspiring sight of an Emperor-class battlecruiser filled the screen.

“Rhabwar, this is Vespasian.”

Fletcher paled visibly at the thought of giving instructions to the godlike entity who would be in command of that ship, whose communications officer was relaying the compliments of Fleet Commander Dermod and a request for full vision contact as soon as convenient. Conway, who had not had time to tell the Captain what to expect because it was already happening, got to his feet.

“I’ll be in the Casualty Deck lab,” he said. Grinning, he reached across to clap Fletcher reassuringly on the shoulder and added, “You’re doing fine, Captain. Just remember that, a long, long time ago, the Fleet Commander was a major, too.”

The conversation between Fletcher and the Fleet Commander, complete with visuals, was on the Casualty Deck’s repeater when he arrived, but the sound was muted because Prilicla was on another frequency giving instructions to one of the scoutship medical officers regarding a cadaver the other had found and which Murchison wanted brought in for examination. Murchison and Naydrad were still working on the first specimen, which had been reduced to what seemed to be its component parts.

Murchison nodded toward the repeater screen and said, “You seem to have been given everything you needed. Was O’Mara in a good mood?”

“His usual sarcastic, helpful self,” Conway said, moving to join her at the dissection table. “Do we know anything more about this outsize boa constrictor?”

“I don’t know what we know,” she said crossly, “but I know a little more and feel more than a little confused by the knowledge. For instance …”

The thick pencil of nerve ganglia with its localized bunch-ings and swellings which ran through the center of the cylindrical body was, almost certainly, the CRLT’s equivalent of a brain, and the idea of a missing head or tail was beginning to seem unlikely — especially since the transparent material which covered the raw areas fore and aft was, despite its appearance, equally as tough as the being’s leathery body tegument.

She had been successful in tracing the nerve connections between the core swellings and the eyes, mouths, and manipulatory appendages, and from both ends of the axial nerve bundle to the puzzling system of muscles which underlay the raw areas on the forward and rear faces of the creature.

The specimen appeared to be male — at least, the female genitalia at the other end were shrunken and seemed to be in a condition of early atrophy — and she had identified the male sperm generator and the method of transfer to a female.

“… There is evidence of unnatural organ displacement,” she went on, “which can only be caused by weightlessness. Gravity, real or artificial, is a physiological necessity for this life-form. During hibernation the absence of weight would not be fatal, but weightlessness while conscious would cause severe nausea, sensory impairment, and, I feel sure, intense mental and physical distress.”

Which meant that the being would have to be in position on the rim of its rotating vessel or affected by natural gravity, that of its target world, when it was revived. It isn’t a doctor this patient needed, Con way thought wryly, it’s a miracle worker!

“With the Captain’s help,” Murchison continued, “we have established that the medication which produces and or extends the hibernation anesthesia occupies the larger volume of a dispenser mechanism which also contains a smaller quantity of the complex organic secretion which can only be the reviver. Fletcher also traced the input to the automatic sensor and actuator which switches the mechanism from the hibernation to the resuscitation mode and found that it reacted to the combined presence of gravity and external pressure. The same actuator mechanism is also responsible for ejecting the endplates of its hibernation compartment which would enable the CRLT to disembark.

“Sooner or later we’re going to have to revive one of these things,” she ended worriedly, “and we’ll have to be very sure that we know what we are doing.”

Conway was already out of his spacesuit and climbing into his surgical coveralls. He said, “Anything in particular you’d like me to do?”

They worked on the cadaver while the hours flickered past on the time display to become days, then weeks. From time to time a terse, subspace message from Thornnastor would arrive confirming their findings or suggesting new avenues of investigation, but even so it seemed that their rate of progress was slow to nonexistent.

Occasionally they would look up at the Control Room repeater, but with decreasing frequency. Fletcher, a Hudlar space construction specialist, and variously qualified Monitor Corps officers were usually showing each other pieces of twisted metal via their vision channels, comparing identification symbols and talking endlessly about them. No doubt it was all vitally important stuff, but it made boring listening. Besides, they had their own organic jigsaw puzzle to worry about.

A pleasant break in the routine would occur when they had to go outside to look at one of the other cadavers which had been brought in and attached to the outer hull, there being room for only one CRLT at a time inside Rhabwar. On these occasions the investigations were conducted in airless conditions and only the organic material which was of special interest to them was excised for later study. As a result they found a bewildering variety of age and sex combinations which seemed to indicate that the older CRLTs were well-developed males whose raw areas at each extremity had a brownish coloration, while the younger beings were clearly female and the areas concerned were a livid pink under the transparent covering.

Once there was a break in the investigative routine which was not pleasant.' For several hours they had been studying a flaccid, purplish lump of something which might have been the organic trigger for the being’s hibernation phase, and making very little progress with it, when Prilicla broke into their angry, impatient silence.

“Friend Murchison,” the empath said, “is feeling tired.”

“I’m not,” the pathologist said, with a yawn which threatened to dislocate her firm but beautifully formed lower mandible. “At least, I wasn’t until you reminded me.”

“As are you, friend Conway—” Prilicla began, when there was an interruption. The furry features of Surgeon-Lieutenant Krach-Yul replaced the pieces of alien hardware which had been filling the repeater screen.

“Doctor Conway,” the Orligian medic said, “I have to report an accident. Two Earth-human DBDGs, simple fractures, no decompression damage—”

“Very well,” said Conway, clenching his teeth on a yawn. “Now’s your chance to get in some more other-species surgical experience.”

“—And a Hudlar engineer, physiological classification FROB,” Krach-Yul went on. “It has sustained a deep, incised, and lacerated wound which has been quickly but inadequately treated by the being itself. There has been a considerable loss of body fluid and associated internal pressure, diminished sen-soria, and—”

“Coming,” Conway said. To Murchison he muttered, “Don’t wait up for me.”

While Tyrell was taking him to the scene of the accident, an area where three of the coilship sections were being fitted together, Conway reviewed his necessarily scant surgical experience with the Hudlar life-form.

They were a species who rarely took sick, and then only during preadolescence, and they were fantastically resistant to physical injury, with eyes which were protected by a hardv transparent membrane, tegument like flexible armor, and no body orifices except for the temporary ones opened for mating and birth.

The FROBs were ideally suited to space construction projects. Their home planet, Hudlar, pulled four Earth gravities, and its atmospheric pressure — if that dense, soupy mixture of oxygen, inerts, and masses of microscopic animal and vegetable nutrient in suspension could be called an atmosphere — was seven times Earth-normal. At home they absorbed the food-laden air through their incredibly tough yet porous skin, while offplanet they sprayed themselves regularly and frequently with nutrient paint. Their six flexible and immensely strong limbs terminated in four-digited hands which, when the fingers were curled inward and the knuckles presented to the ground, served also as feet.

Environmentally, the Hudlars were a very adaptable species, because the physiological features which protected them against their own planet’s crushing gravity and pressure also enabled them to work comfortably in any noncorrosive atmosphere of lesser pressure right down to and including the vacuum of space. The only item of equipment a Hudlar space construction engineer needed, apart from its tools, was a communicator which took the form of a small, air-filled blister enclosing its speaking membrane and a two-way radio.

Conway had not bothered to ask if there was an FROB medic on the Hudlar ship. Curative surgery had been a completely alien concept to that virtually indestructible species until they had joined the Federation and learned about places like Sector General, so that medically trained Hudlars were about as rare outside the hospital as physically injured ones inside it.

Captain Nelson placed Tyrell within fifty meters of the scene of the accident. Conway headed for the injured Hudlar. Krach-Yul had already reached the Earth-human casualties, one of whom was blaming himself loudly and unprintably for causing the accident and tying up the suit frequency in the process.

Conway gathered that the two Earth-humans had been saved from certain death by being crushed between two slowly closing ship sections by the Hudlar interposing its enormously strong body, which would have escaped without injury if the jagged-edged stump of an external bracing member had not snagged one of the FROB’s limbs close to the point where it joined the body.

When Conway arrived, the Hudlar was gripping the injured limb with three of its hands, tourniquet fashion, while the two free hands remaining were trying to hold the edges of the wound together — unsuccessfully. Tiny, misshapen globules of blood were forming between its fingers to drift weightlessly away, steaming furiously. It could not talk because its air bag had been lost, leaving its speaking membranes to vibrate silently in the vacuum.

Conway withdrew a limb sleeve-piece, the largest size he carried, from his Hudlar medical kit and motioned for the casualty to bare the wound.

He could see that it was a deep wound by the way the dark red bubbles grew suddenly larger before they broke away, but he was able to snap the sleeve-piece in position before too much blood was lost. Even so there was a considerable leakage around both ends of the sleeve as the Hudlar’s high internal pressure tried to empty it of body fluids. Conway quickly attached circlips at each end of the sleeve and began to tighten one while the Hudlar itself tightened the other. Gradually the fluid loss slowed and then ceased, the casualty’s hands drifted away from the injured limb, and its speaking membrane ceased its silent vibrating. The Hudlar had lost consciousness.

Ten minutes later the Hudlar was inside Tyrell’s cargo lock and Conway was using his scanner to search for internal damage caused by the traumatic decompression. The longer he looked

the less he liked what he saw, and as he was concluding the examination Krach-Yul joined him.

“The Earth-humans are simple fracture cases, Doctor,” the Orligian reported. “Before setting the bones I wondered if you, as a member of their own species, would prefer to—”

“And rob you of the chance to increase your other-species experience?” Conway broke in. “No, Doctor, you treat them. They’re on antipain, I take it, and there is no great degree of urgency?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Krach-Yul said.

“Good,” Conway said, “because I have another job for you — looking after this Hudlar Until you can move it to Sector General. You will need a nutrient sprayer from the Hudlar ship, then arrange with Captain Nelson to increase the air pressure' and artificial gravity in this cargo lock to levels as close to Hudlar-normal as he can manage. Treatment will consist of spraying the casualty with nutrient at hourly intervals and checking on the cardiac activity, and periodically easing the tightness of the sleeve-piece if your scanner indicates a serious reduction of circulation to the injured limb. While you are doing these things you will wear two gravity neutralizers. If you were wearing one and it failed under four-G conditions there would be another seriously injured casualty, you.

“Normally I would travel with this patient,” he went on, stifling a yawn, “but I have to be available in case something urgent develops with the CRLT. Hudlar surgery can be tricky so I’ll tape some notes on this one for the operating team, including the suggestion that you be allowed to observe if you wish to do so.”

“Very much,” Krach-Yul said, “and thank you, Doctor.”

“And now I’ll leave you with your patients and return to Rhabwar” Conway said. Silently he added, to sleep.

“Tyrell was absent for eight days and was subsequently assigned to courier duty, taking specimens to Sector General and returning with information, advice, and detailed lists of questions regarding the progress of their work from Thomnas-tor. The great, spiral jigsaw puzzle which was the alien ship was beginning to take shape — or more accurately, to take a large number of semicircular and quarter-circular shapes — as the hibernation cylinders were identified, positioned, and coupled. Many of the cylinders were still missing because they had been so seriously damaged that their occupants had died or they had still to be found and retrieved by the scoutships.

Conway was worried because the incomplete coilship and the motley fleet of Monitor Corps vessels and auxiliaries were on a collision course with the nearby sun, which was growing perceptibly brighter every day. It was clearly evident that the growth rate of the alien vessel was much less perceptible. When he worried about it aloud to the Fleet Commander, Dermod told him politely to mind his own medical business.

Then a few days later Tyrell returned with information which made it very much his medical business.

Vespasian’s communications officer, who was usually a master of the diplomatic delaying tactic, put him through to the Fleet Commander in a matter of seconds instead of forcing him to climb slowly up the ship’s entire chain of command. This was not due to any sudden increase in Conway’s standing with the senior Monitor Corps officer, but simply that while Conway was trying to reach Dermod, the Fleet Commander was trying to contact the Doctor.

It was Dermod who spoke first, with the slight artificiality of tone which told Conway that not only was the other in a hurry and under pressure but that there were other people present beyond the range of the vision pickup. He said, “Doctor, there is a serious problem regarding the final assembly phase and I need your help. You are already concerned over the limited time remaining to us and, frankly, I was unwilling to discuss the problem with you until I was able to present it, and the solution, in its entirety. This can now be done, in reverse order, preferably. My immediate requirement is for another capital ship.Claudius is available and—”

“Why—” Conway began, shaking his head in momentary confusion. He had been about to list his own problems and requirements and found himself suddenly on the receiving end.

“Very well, Doctor, I’ll state the problem first,” The Fleet Commander said, frowning as he nodded to someone out of sight. The screen blanked for a few seconds, then it displayed a black field on which there was a thick, vertical gray line. At the lower end of the line a fat red box appeared and on the opposite end a blue circle. Dermod went on briskly, “We now have a pretty accurate idea of the configuration of the alien ship, and I am showing you a very simple representation because 1 haven’t time to do otherwise right now.

“The ship had a central stem, the gray line,” Dermod explained, “with the power plant and thrusters represented by the red box aft and the forward-mounted sensors and navigation systems shown as a blue circle. Since the ship’s occupant was unconscious, all of these systems were fully automatic. The stem also provided the anchoring points for the structure which supported the inhabited coil. You will see that the main supports are angled forward to compensate for stresses encountered while the vessel was under power and during the landing maneuver.”

A forest of branches grew suddenly from the stem, making it look like a squat, cylindrical Christmas tree standing in its red tub and with a bright-blue fairy light at the top. Then the continuous spiral of linked hibernation compartments was attached to the ends of the branches, followed by the spacing members which separated each loop of the coil, and the picture lost all resemblance to a tree.

“The coil diameter remains constant throughout at just under five hundred meters,” the Fleet Commander’s voice continued. “Originally there were twelve turns of the coil and, with each hibernation cylinder measuring twenty meters in length, this means there were roughly eighty hibernating CRLTs in every loop of the coil and close on one thousand of the beings on the complete ship.

“Every loop of the coil was separated by a distance of seventy meters, so that the total height of the coilship was just over eight hundred meters. We were puzzled by this separation since it would have been structurally much simpler laying one on top of the other, but we now believe that the open coil configuration was designed both to reduce and localize meteorite collision damage and remove the majority of the hibernation compartments as far as possible from radiation leakage from the reactor at the stern. While encased in its rather unusual vessel we think the creature traveled tail-first so that its thinking end was at the stern to initiate disembarkation following the landing. Unfortunately, the stern section had to be heavier and more rigid than the forward structure since it had to support the weight of the vessel during deceleration and landing, and so it was the stern which sustained most of the damage when the collision occurred, and most of the CRLT casualties were from the sternmost loop of the coil.”

According to Vespasian’s computer’s reconstruction, the vessel had been in direct head-on collision with a large meteor, and the closing velocities involved had been such that the whole central stem had been obliterated, as if an old-time projectile hand weapon had been used to remove the core of an apple. Only a few scraps of debris from the power unit and guidance system remained — enough for identification purposes but not for reconstruction — and the shock of the collision had shaken the overall coil structure apart.

On the screen the widely scattered hibernation compartments came together again into a not quite complete coil: There were several sections missing, particularly near the stern. Then the stem, its power and guidance systems, and the entire support structure disappeared from the display leaving only the incomplete coil.

“The central core of that vessel is a mass of pulverized wreckage many light-years away,” Dermod continued briskly, “and we have decided that trying to salvage and reconstruct it would be an unnecessary waste of time and materiel when there is a simpler solution available. This requires the presence of a second Emperor-class vessel to—”

“But why do you want—?” Conway began.

“I am in the process of explaining why, Doctor,” the Fleet Commander said sharply. The image on the screen changed again and he went on, “The two capital ships and Descartes will take up positions in close line-astern formation and lock onto each other with matched tractor and pressor beams. In effect this will convert the three ships into a single, rigid structure which will replace the alien vessel’s central stem, and the branching members which supported the coil will also be non-material but equally rigid tractors and pressors.

“In the landing configuration Vespasian will be bottom of the heap,” Dermod continued, with a tinge of pride creeping into his voice. “Our thrusters are capable of supporting the other two ships and the alien coilship during deceleration and landing, with Claudius and Descartes furnishing lateral stability and taking some of the load with surface-directed pressors.

After touchdown, the power reserves of all three vessels will be sufficient to hold everything together for at least twelve hours, which should be long enough, I hope, for the alien to leave its ship. If we can find somewhere to put it, that is.”

The image flicked off to be replaced by the face of the Fleet Commander. “So you see, Doctor, I need Claudius to complete this — this partly nonmaterial structure and to test its practicability in weightless conditions before working out the stresses it will have to undergo during the landing maneuver. Of equal urgency are the calculations needed to extend the combined hyperspace envelope of the three ships to enclose the coil and Jump with it out of here before this damn sun gets too close.”

Conway was silent for a moment, inwardly cringing at the thought of some of the things which could go catastrophically wrong when three linked ships performed a simultaneous Jump. But he could not voice his concern because ship maneuvers were most decidedly the Fleet Commander’s and not the Doctor’s business, and Dermod would tell him so with justification. Besides, Conway had his own problems and right now he needed help with them.

“Sir” he said awkwardly, “your proposed solution is ingenious, and thank you for the explanation. But my original question was not regarding the reason why you wanted Claudius, but why you needed my help in the matter.”

For a moment the Fleet Commander stared at him blankly, then his expression softened as he said, “My apologies, Doctor, if I seemed a trifle impatient with you. The position is this. Under the new Federation Council directive covering extraterrestrial rescue operations by Rhabwar, I am required in a large-scale combined medical and military operation of this kind to obtain your approval for additional personnel and materiel, specifically another capital ship. I assume it is forthcoming?”

“Of course,” Conway said.

Dermod nodded pleasantly despite his obvious embarrassment, but the lines of impatience were beginning to gather again around his mouth as he said, “It will be sufficient if you tape a few words as the physician-in-charge of the case to the effect that Claudius is urgently required to ensure the present safety and continued well-being of your patient. But you were calling me, Doctor. Can I help you?”

“Yes, sir,” Conway said, and went on quickly, “You have been concentrating on joining the coilship sections in proper sequence. Now I have to begin putting the patient together, with special emphasis on the joining of segments which are not in sequence. That is, the ones which were separated by the hibernation compartments whose occupants died. We are now sure that the being is a group entity whose individual members are independently intelligent and may be capable of linking up naturally to their adjoining group members when the conditions are right. This is the theory, sir, but it requires experimental verification.

“The entities who are out of sequence could pose serious problems,” Conway concluded. “They will have to be removed from their hibernation compartments and presented to each other so that I may determine the extent of the surgical work involved in reassembling the group entity.”

“Sooner you than me, Doctor,” Dermod said with a brief grimace of sympathy. “But what exactly do you need?”

He is like O’Mara, Conway thought, impatient with confused thinking. He said, “I need two small ships to bring in the CRLT segments I shall specify and to return them to their places in the coil. Also a large cargo hold which can accommodate two of the hibernation cylinders joined end to end and the two beings which will be withdrawn from them. The hold is to be fitted with artificial gravity grids and nonmaterial restraints in case the conscious CRLTs become confused and aggressive, and personnel to operate this equipment. I know this will mean using the cargo lock and hold in one of the largest ships, but I require only the hold; the vessel can go about its assigned duties.”

“Thank you,” the Fleet Commander said dryly, then paused while someone offscreen spoke quietly to him. He went on, “You may use the forward hold in Descartes, which will also provide the personnel and its two planetary landers for fetching and carrying your CRLTs. Is there anything else?”

Conway shook his head. “Only an item of news, sir. The Federation archivists think they have found the CRLTs home planet, although it is no longer habitable due to major orbital changes and associated large-scale seismic disturbances. The Department of Colonization has a new home for them in mind and will give us the coordinates as soon as they are absolutely sure that the environment and the CRLTs physiological classification are compatible. So we have somewhere to take Humpty-Dumpty when we’ve put it together again.

“However,” Conway ended very seriously, “all the indications are that this was not simply a colony ship which ran into trouble, but a planetary lifeboat carrying the last surviving members of the race.”

Conway stared anxiously around the enormous interior of Descartes’s forward hold and thought that if he had known there were going to be so many sightseers he would have asked for a much larger operating theater. Fortunately one-of them was the ship’s commanding officer, Colonel Okaussie, who kept the others from getting in the way and ensured that the area of deck containing the two joined hibernation cylinders was clear except for Murchison, Naydrad, Prilicla, Fletcher, and Okaussie himself. Conway was sure of one thing: Whether the initial CRLT link-up attempt was a success or a failure, there would be no chance at all of keeping the result a secret.

He wet his lips and said quietly, “Uncouple the cylinders and move the joined faces three meters apart. Bring the artificial gravity up to Earth-normal, slowly, and the atmosphere to normal pressure and composition for the life-form. You have the figures.”

The fabric of his lightweight spacesuit began to settle against Conway’s body and there was mounting pressure against the soles of his feet as he watched the facing ends of the two cylinders. Then abruptly the circular endplates jumped out of their slots to clank onto the deck and come to rest like enormous, spinning coins. The hibernation cylinders were now open at both ends, enabling the two CRLTs to move toward or away from each other, or from one compartment to the next.

“Neat!” Fletcher said. “When the coilship is spinning in its space-traveling mode, centrifugal force holds the being against the outboard surface of the cylinder, and when the spin ceases in the presence of real gravity and an atmosphere the airtight seals drop away, the individual compartments are opened to all of the others and the beastie, the complete group entity, that is, exits by working down the stern-facing wall until all

of it reaches the surface. The gravity and pressure sensors are linked to the medication reservoirs, Doctor, so you have just reproduced the conditions for resuscitation following a planetary landing.”

Conway nodded. He said, “Prilicla, can you detect anything?”

“Not yet, friend Conway.”

They moved closer so as to be able to look into the two opened cylinders, dividing their attention between the occupants who were lying flaccidly with their dorsal manipulators hanging limply along their sides. Then one of the enormous, tubular bodies began to quiver, and suddenly they were both moving ponderously toward each other.

“Move back,” Conway said. “Prilicla?”

“Consciousness is returning, friend Conway,” the empath replied, trembling with its own as well as everyone else’s excitement. “But slowly; the movements are instinctive, involuntary.”

As the forward extremity of one CRLT approached the rear of the other, the organic film which protected the raw areas on each creature softened, liquefied, and trickled away. At the center of the forward face a blunt, conical shape began to form surrounded by systems of muscles which twitched themselves into mounds and hollows and deep, irregular fissures. The rear face of the other CRLT had grown its own series of hollows and orifices which exactly corresponded with the protuberances of the other, as well as four large, triangular flaps which opened out like the fleshy petals of an alien flower. Then all at once there was just one double-length creature with a join which was virtually invisible.

And I was worried about joining them together, Conway thought incredulously. The problem might be to keep them apart!

“Are we observing a physical coupling for the purpose of reproduction?” Murchison said to nobody in particular.

“Friend Murchison,” Prilicla said, “the emotional radiation of both creatures suggests that this is not a conscious or involuntary sex act. A closer analogy would be that of an infant seeking the physical reassurance of its parent. However, both beings are seeking physical and mental reassurance, and have feelings of confusion and loss, and these feelings are so closely matched that the only explanation is shared mentation.”

“Tractor beamers,” Conway said urgently. “Pull them apart, gentlyl”

He had been delighted to find that the beings who made up the vast group entity would link together naturally when the conditions were right, although that might not be the case if too many intervening segments had been destroyed in the accident, but he most certainly did not want a premature and permanent link-up between these two at this stage. They would have to be returned to a state of hibernation and resume their positions in the coil, otherwise they might find themselves permanently separated, orphaned, from the group entity.

Even though the tractor beamers were no longer being gentle, the two CRLTs stubbornly refused to separate. Instead they were becoming more physically agitated, they were trying to emerge completely from their hibernation cylinders, and their emotional radiation was seriously inconveniencing Prilicla.

“We must reverse the process—” Conway began.

“The sensors react to gravity and air pressure,” Fletcher broke in quickly. “We can’t evacuate the hold without killing them, but if we cut the artificial gravity only it might—”

“The endplate release mechanism was also linked to those sensors,” Conway said, “and we can’t replace them in their slots without chopping the two beasties apart, in the wrong place.”

“It might stop the flow of resuscitation medication,” Fletcher went on, “and restart the hibernation sequence. The needles are still sited in both creatures and the connecting tubing is flexible and still unbroken, although it won’t be for long if we don’t stop them from leaving their cylinders. If we put a clamp on the resuscitation line of each beastie, Doctor, I believe I could bypass the endplate actuator and restart the hibernation medication.”

“But you will be working inside the cylinders,” Murchison said, “beside two very massive and angry e-ts.”

“No, ma’am,” the Captain said. “1 am neither foolhardy nor a xenophobe, and I shall work through an access panel in the outer skin. It should take about twenty minutes.”

“Too long,” Conway said. “They will have disconnected

themselves from the tubing by then. We can calculate the dosage needed to put them back to sleep. Can you drill through the wall of the container, ignoring the sensors and actuators, and withdraw the required quantity of medication directly?”

For a moment there was silence while Fletcher’s features fell into an angry, why-didn’t-I think-of-that? expression, then he said, “Of course, Doctor.”

But even when injections of the CRLTs own hibernation medication were ready their troubles were far from over. The pressor beam operators who were responsible for immobilizing the creatures could not hold down the two joined e-ts without also flattening the medics who were trying to work on them. Their best compromise was to leave a two-meters clearance on each side of the operative field wherein the medical team would not be inconvenienced by the pressors. But this meant that there was no restraint placed on the movements of the creature along a four-meter length of its body, which wriggled and humped and lashed out with its dorsal appendages and generally made it plain that it did not want strange beings climbing all over it and sticking it with needles.

Several times Conway was knocked away from the patient and once, if it had not been for a warning from Fletcher, he would have lost his helmet and probably the head inside it. Murchison observed crossly that the big advantage in dealing with cadavers was that, regardless of their physiological classifications, they did not assault the pathologist and leave her normally peachlike skin pigmentation black and blue. But with Naydrad’s long, caterpillarlike body wrapped around one appendage and both Fletcher and Colonel Okaussie hanging onto the other limb which threatened the operative field, and with Murchison steadying the scanner for him while he sat astride the creature like a bareback horserider, Conway was able to guide his hypo into the correct vein and discharge its contents before a particularly violent heave pulled the needle free.

Within a few seconds Prilicla, whose fragile body had no place in this violent muscular activity announced from its position on the ceiling that the being was going back to sleep. When they withdrew to turn their attention to its companion, its movements were already growing weaker.

By the time they had dealt similarly with the other CRLT, the two creatures had separated. The hollows and protuberances and flaps of muscle had collapsed and smoothed themselves out, and the raw interface areas began exuding the clear liquid which congealed into a thin, transparent film. Gently the tractor and pressor beam men lifted and pushed the two beings back into their respective hibernation cylinders. Conway signaled for the artificial gravity to be reduced to zero and, as expected, they were able to replace the cylinder endplates without trouble. The cargo hold’s air pressure was reduced gradually so that they could check whether the premature opening of the hibernation compartments had caused a leak. It had not.

“So far so good,” Conway said. “Return them to their positions in the coil and bring in the next two.”

The first two had been the occupants of adjoining cylinders and their linking up had been automatic, a natural process in all respects. But the second two had been separated by a compartment which had been ruptured by a piece of flying debris and its occupant killed. The affinity between these two might not be so strong, Conway thought.

However, they merged as enthusiastically and naturally as had the first two. The resuscitation process was reversed before they were fully conscious so as to eliminate the multispecies wrestling match needed to put them into hibernation again. Prilicla reported a minor variation in the emotional radiation associated with the initial body contact — a feeling, very faint and temporary … of disappointment. But the two segments of the group entity were compatible and that particular break in continuity in the coil could be closed up.

Conway felt uneasy. Too much good luck worried him. Something was bothering Prilicla, too, because he had long since learned to recognize the difference between the little empath’s reaction to its own feelings and those of the beings around it.

“Friend Conway,” Prilicia said, while they were awaiting the arrival of the third set of CRLTs. “The first two beings were relatively immature and taken from the forward section of the coil, that is, from the tail segments of this multiple creature, and the second two came from a position considerably aft of amidships. Our own deductions, supported by the information on the creatures’ probable planet of origin which arrived with Tyrell, suggest that the tail segments are immature beings, perhaps very young adults, and the head segments aft to be composed of the older, more experienced, and most highly intelligent of the beings since they are responsible for ship operations and disembarkation following a stern landing.”

“Agreed,” Conway said, wishing Prilicla would get to the point, no matter how unpleasant it was, instead of talking all around it.

“Aft of amidships, friend Conway,” Prilicla went on, “the CRLTs should be older. The two who have just left us, judging by their emotional radiation, were even less mature than the first set.”

Conway looked at Murchison, who said defensively, “I don’t know why that should be, I’m sorry. Do the data on their home planet, if it is their home planet, suggest an answer?”

“I’m pretty sure it was their home planet,” Conway replied thoughtfully, “because there couldn’t possibly be another like it. But the data are old and sparse and predate the assembly and launching from orbit of the coilship, and we’ve been too busy since Tyre’ll brought back the information to discuss it properly.”

“We have half an hour,” Murchison observed, “before the next two CRLTs arrive.”

Many centuries before the formation of the Galactic Federation, the Eurils had ranged interstellar space, driven by a curiosity so intense and at the same time hampered by a caution so extreme that even the Cinrusskin race to which Prilicla belonged was considered brave, even foolhardy, by comparison. Physiologically they were classification MSVK — a low-gravity, tripedal, and vaguely storklike life-form, whose wings had evolved into twin sets of multidigited manipulators. They had been and still were the galaxy’s prime observers, and they were content to look and learn and record through their long-range probes and sensors without making their presence known to the large and dangerously overmuscled specimens, intelligent or otherwise, who were under study.

During their travels the Eurils had come upon a system whose single, life-bearing planet pursued a highly eccentric orbit about its primary which forced its flora and fauna to adapt to environmental conditions ranging from steaming polar jungles in summer to an apparently lifeless winter world of ice. Seeing it for the first time in its frigid, winter mode, the Eurils had been about to dismiss it as being uninhabitable until their probes showed evidence of a highly technical culture encased in the winter ice. Closer investigation revealed that the civilization was current and was awaiting the spring, like every other animal and vegetable life-form on the planet, to come out of hibernation.

It was not until the polar spring was far advanced that the members of this hibernating culture were identified as the large, loglike objects which had been lying in and around the cities under the ice.

“It is clear from this that the overall being is a group entity* which, for reasons we do not yet understand, must separate into its individual parts before hibernation can take place,” Conway went on. “Since hibernation is natural to them, the problem of artificially extending it and reversing the process for the purpose of interstellar migration was, medically speaking, relatively easy to solve.

“The following year a number of the beings were observed by the Eurils in a fully conscious state,” he continued, “going about their business in small group gestalts inside heated domes under the winter ice, which indicates that they do not go into hibernation unless or until it is forced on them. It is unnecessary, therefore, to duplicate the extremes of temperature of their planet of origin on their new home since any world closely resembling their summer environment would suit them. Had this not been so, the near impossibility of finding another and identical planetary environment to the one they were trying to leave would have made the migration hopeless from the start. And the reasons for the CRLT life-form becoming a group entity, initially a small-group entity, are also becoming clear.” Even at the time of the Eurils’ visit the CRLTs, despite their advanced technology, were not having things all their own way. They lived on an incredibly savage world which had no clear division between its animal and vegetable predators. In order to have any chance of survival at all, the young CRLTs had to be born physically well developed and remain under the protection of the parent for as long as possible. In the CRLT’s case, parturition was delayed until the offspring was a young adult who had learned how to survive and how to aid the continued survival of its parent.

Separation took place every winter, when everything went to sleep and there was no physical threat, and the young one rejoined its parent in the spring to continue its lessons in survival. The young one, who at this stage was invariably female, reached physical maturity early and produced a child of its own. And so it went with the original adult, who had begun to change its sex to male, trailing a long tail of beings of diminishing degrees of masculinity and experience behind it as it moved up the chain of the group entity toward the head.

“The CRLT brain forms part of the central nerve core which during fusion is linked to the brains of the individuals ahead of and behind it via the interfaces at each end of the body,” Conway went on, “so that an individual segment learns not only by its own experience but from those of its predecessors farther up the line. This means that the larger the number of individuals in the group, the smarter will be its male head and forward segments. Should the head segment, who is the elder of the group and probably its decision maker, die from natural or other causes, the male next in line takes over.”

Murchison cleared her throat delicately and said, “If anyone wishes at this juncture to make a general observation regarding the superiority, physical or intellectual, of the male over the female, be advised that I shall spit in his, her, or its eye.”

Conway smiled and shook his head. He said seriously, “The male head will, naturally, fertilize a number of young female tail segments of other group entities, but there is a problem. Surely there would be serious psychological difficulties, sex-based frustrations, with so many of the intervening segments neither fully male or female and unable to—”

“There is no problem,” Murchison broke in, “if all mentation and, presumably, the pain and pleasure stimuli are shared by every individual in the group.”

“Of course, I’d forgotten that aspect,” Conway said. “But there is another. Think of the length of our survivor. If mentation and experience are shared, then this could be a very long-lived and highly intelligent group entity indeed—”

The discussion was cut short at that point by the lock cycling warning. The third pair of CRLTs had arrived, these two had been taken from the sternmost loops of the coilship where the casualties among the most senior and intelligent CRLTs had been heaviest. According to Vespasian’s tactical computer and the findings of Descartes’s specialists in e-t written languages and numerical systems, fifty-three of the CRLT hibernation cylinders — and their occupants — had been destroyed as a result of the collision, and between these two segments there had been seventeen members of the group entity who had not made it.

The other breaks in the coil were much smaller — the largest missing five segments and the rest only three or four each. Conway hoped that if the largest gap could be closed successfully, then the smaller ones should pose fewer problems.

As with the previous two CRLTs, the combination of artificial gravity and atmospheric pressure triggered the actuators which opened the cylinders and reversed the hibernation process. Conway had already sited the IV needles which would put them back to sleep again should they become disorderly, and Prilicla reported that they were reviving and their emotional radiation indicated that they were beings who were fully mature, healthy, and highly intelligent. As consciousness returned they began moving out of their cylinders and toward each other.

They touched, and jerked apart.

“What?” Conway began. But Prilicla was already answering the question.

“There are feelings of intense discomfort, friend Conway,” the empath said, trembling violently. “Also of confusion, disappointment, and rejection. There is background emotion, a combination of anxiety and curiosity, which is probably regarding their present surroundings.”

Because he could think of nothing to say, Conway moved to a position directly between the forward and rear interfaces of the two CRLTs. He did not consider the position dangerous because, if Prilicla’s emotional readings were correct, they were unlikely to come together. He began examining the two interfaces, both visually and with his x-ray scanner, and taking measurements. A few minutes later Murchison joined him, and

Prilicla dropped to hover cautiously a few meters above the area.

“Even with unaided vision you can see that the two interfaces are not compatible,” Conway said worriedly. “There are three areas which cannot be made to join without surgical intervention. But I am reluctant to start cutting without having a clearer idea of how to proceed. I wish I could obtain the consent and cooperation of the patients.”

“That might be difficult,” Colonel Okaussie said. “But I could have my men try to—”

“Lift them on tractor beams and force another contact,” Conway finished for him. “I need one more attempted joining, at least, with vision recorders catching it in close-up from the anterior, posterior, and lateral aspects. I also need Prilicla to monitor their emotional radiation closely during the attempt so that we will know which particular areas give the most discomfort and are, therefore, most in need of surgical attention. During surgery, instead of using an anesthetic, we can return them into hibernation. Yes, Doctor?”

“Have you considered, friend Conway—” began Prilicla, but Conway cut it short.

“Little friend,” he said, “I know of old your roundabout manner of expressing disagreement as well as your feelings regarding the causing of unnecessary discomfort to patients, and you know that I share those feelings. But much as I dislike causing pain, in this case it is necessary.”

“Doctor Con way,” Colonel Okaussie said, with an impatient edge to his tone, “a few moments ago I had been about to suggest that since the beings are fully conscious, intelligent, and their visual range is similar to our own, we should be able to obtain their cooperation by explaining the situation to them graphically. I think it is worth a try.”

“It most certainly is,” Conway said. He caught Fletcher’s eye and muttered, “Now why didn’t I think of that?”

Descartes’s commanding officer smiled and said, “I’ll have a projection screen set up as quickly as possible, Doctor.” Conway began assembling the instruments he would need while Murchison and Naydrad took over the job of measuring the interfaces and Prilicla hovered above them radiating reassurance to the patients.

It was a large screen, set between the angle of the*ceiling and the aft wall of the hold so that the dorsally mounted eyes of both CRLTs would be able to view it without distortion. Descartes’s officers were specialists in e-t communications and the presentation was short, simple, and very much to the point. The opening sequence was familiar since it was part of the material the Fleet Commander had used during his recent briefing to Conway. It showed a diagrammatic reconstruction of the CRLTs great, coillike interstellar transport complete with central stem, coil supporting structure, thrusters, and guidance system moving slowly against a starry backdrop. Suddenly a large meteor appeared at the edge of the screen, heading directly' for the coilship. It struck, moving along the inside of the coil and carrying away the thrusters, guidance system, and all of the central supporting structure for the continuous spiral of hibernation compartments. The impact shook the coil apart, and the individual hibernation cylinders, because of the vessel’s rotation, went flying off in all directions like shrapnel from a slow-motion explosion.

Because of the greater rigidity of the structure aft, the shock in this area was much more severe and the casualties among the hibernating CRLTs were heavy; the cylinders whose occupants had not survived were shown in red. Then there was a two-minute shot of the scene as it actually was, with Vespasian, Claudius and Descartes with a shoal of smaller vessels busy reassembling the coil followed by a longer sequence, displayed graphically, which showed a modified coilship coming in to land on a fresh, green world with the two capital ships and Descartes linked together so as to replace the missing support structure and thrusters.

The presentation ended by showing the coilship with the missing segments indicated in throbbing red, then with the red sections removed and the gaps closed up to make a slightly shorter coil, and the final scene showed the successful link-up of the first two CRLTs.

As a piece of visual communication it left very little room for misunderstanding, and Conway did not need Prilicla’s em-pathic faculty to tell him that the message had been understood — the two CRLTs were already moving cautiously toward each other.

“Recorders?” Conway said urgently.

“Running,” Murchison said.

Conway held his breath as once again the two massive creatures attempted fusion. The movements of their stubby, caterpillarlike legs were barely perceptible and their dorsal appendages were tensely still, making them resemble two enormous, alien logs being pushed together by the current of an invisible river. When they were separated by about six inches, the forward face of the rearmost creature had grown the pattern of bumps and fleshy projections which they had seen during the first two link-ups, and the rear interface of its companion had twitched itself into a pattern of fissures and a single deep recess. Around the periphery of the interface four wide, triangular flaps of muscle tipped with osseus material, features which had not appeared to be of any importance when examined on sleeping or dead CRLTs, had grown suddenly to nearly four times their size in the unconscious state and opened out like fleshy, horn-tipped petals. But with these two the interfaces did not correspond. They touched, held contact for perhaps three seconds, then jerked apart.

Before Conway could comment, they were coming together again. This time the forward creature remained still while the second twisted its forward interface into a slightly different position to try again, but with the same result.

It was obvious that the contacts were intensely uncomfortable, and the resultant pain had triggered off the involuntary movement which had jerked them apart. But the CRLTs were not giving up easily, although it appeared at first as if they had. They withdrew until their bodies were again inside their hibernation cylinders, then their stubby legs blurred into motion as they drove themselves at each other seeking, it seemed, by sheer brute force and bodily inertia to force a fusion. Conway winced as they came together with a sound like a loud, multiple slap.

But to no avail. They broke contact to lie a few feet from each other with their dorsal appendages twitching weakly and air hissing loudly as it rushed in and out of their breathing orifices. Then slowly they began to move together again.

“They are certainly trying,” Murchison said softly.

“Friend Conway,” Prilicla said, “the emotional radiation from both creatures has become more complex. There is deep anxiety but not, I would say, personal fear. Also a feeling of understanding and great determination, with the determination predominating. I would say that both entities fully understand the situation and are desperately anxious to cooperate. But these unsuccessful attempts at fusion are causing great pain, friend Conway.”

It was characteristic of the little empath that it did not mention its own pain, which was only fractionally less severe than that of the emoting CRLTs. But the uncontrollable trembling of its pipestem legs and fragile eggshell of a body spoke more eloquently than words.

“Put them to sleep again,” Conway said.

There was silence while the hibernation medication was taking effect, broken finally by Prilicla who said, “They are losing consciousness, but there is a marked change in the emotional radiation. They are feeling both anxiety and hope. I think they are expecting us to solve their problem, friend Conway.”

They were all looking at him, but it was Naydrad, whose mobile, silvery fur was registering its bafflement and concern, who put the question everyone else was too polite to ask.

“How?”

Conway did not reply at once. He was thinking that two highly intelligent elder CRLTs from the coilship’s stern, following their first abortive attempt at fusion, would have realized that a link-up was impossible for them. But they had made two further attempts — one when the rearmost creature had tried to twist itself and its interface into a new position, and again when it had tried to achieve fusion by sheer brute force. He was beginning to wonder whether the recent attempt at communicating with the aliens had been strictly one way. Until the Descartes linguists could be given the opportunity to learn the CRLTs language, an accurate exchange of ideas was impossible. But it had already been shown that pictures were very effective in putting across a message, and they were all forgetting that actions, like pictures, often spoke louder than words.

Recalling those three unsuccessful attempts at fusion. Con-way wondered if the two CRLTs had in fact been trying to demonstrate that the link-up was impossible for them without assistance, but that by changing the positions and perhaps the dimensions of some of the surface features on the interfaces and forcing things a little, then a join might be achieved.

“Friend Conway,” Prilicla announced, “is having feelings of optimism.”

“Perhaps,” Murchison said, “in his own good time, of course, he will explain to us nonempaths the reason for his optimism.”

Ignoring the sarcasm, Conway briefly outlined his recent thinking, although he personally would have described his feeling as one of forlorn hope rather than optimism. He went on, “So I believe that the CRLTs were trying to tell us that surgical intervention is necessary for them to achieve fusion, not brute force. And it has just occurred to me that there is a precedent for this procedure. One of the cadavers examined on Rhabwar showed evidence of surgery on its forward interface and this could mean—”

“But that was a very youthful, although physically mature CRLT,” Murchison broke in, “and the surgery was minor. We agreed that it had probably been performed for cosmetic reasons.”

“I think we were wrong,” Conway said. Excitedly he went on, “Consider the physical organization of this group entity. At the head is the most mature, male adult and at the tail the most recently born infant, although as we know the infant grows to physical maturity without separating from the parent. Between the head and the tail there is a gradual and steady progression from the most elderly and intelligent male entities down to the increasingly youthful and female segments which form the tail sections. But Prilicla has reported an anomaly in this progression. Young CRLTs positioned relatively close to the tail show evidence of greater physical age and brain development than entities in the midsections. Until now 1 could see no reason for this anomaly.

“But now let us suppose that this group entity,” he continued quickly, “forming as it does a complete colonization project, has been artificially lengthened. The extraordinarily large number of individuals in this group entity has always bothered me, and now there is a simple explanation for it. Let us assume that there is one head or. more accurately, a fairly large number of linked elders forming the leading segments, and several tails connected one behind the other. These would be very youthful tails because it must be much easier to carry out the surgical modifications on young CRLTs which enable them to link up. So we have this colonist group entity with intelligence and experience at its head and linked to a number of young and inexperienced subgroups forming an artificially lengthened tail. The joins between these subgroups are surgically assisted and, I feel sure, temporary, because once established on the target planet they would be able to separate again, and in time the young heads would grow to full adulthood and the dangers from inbreeding would be avoided.

“Perhaps the head on this group entity has also been artif-ically extended,” Conway added, “so as to include elder CRLTs with specialist experience relating to the colonization project who would be available initially to protect the younger group entities, and subsequently to teach and train them and pass on the knowledge of their race’s history and science.”

Prilicla had flown closer while Conway had been speaking and was hovering a few inches above the Doctor’s head. It said happily, “An ingenious theory, friend Conway. It fits both the facts as we know them and the type of emotional radiation received from the beings.”

“I agree,” Murchison said. “I, too, found difficulty in accepting the extreme length of this group entity, but the idea of a wise old head acting as guide and mentor to an as yet unknown number of young tails is much easier to believe. However, I can’t help remembering that it was the head segments which suffered most of the casualties. Perhaps the head is no longer as wise as it should have been and an awful lot of vital knowledge has been lost to this multiplegroup entity.”

Colonel Okaussie waited for a moment to see if anyone in the medical team would speak, then he cleared his throat and said, “Maybe not, ma’am. Most of the head segments who were killed in the collision were very close to the stern and to the ship’s control and propulsion centres. One could reasonably expect that these segments were the beings charged with the responsibility for operating the ship and carrying out the landing maneuvers, functions which are now the responsibility of the Monitor Corps. It is likely that the scientist and teacher segments were positioned a little farther back in the chain and the majority of the casualties were suffered by the vessel’s crew, whose specialist knowledge would no longer be of vital importance to the colonization project after the vessel had landed.” Before Murchison could reply Naydrad gave an impatient, modulated growl which translated as “Why don’t we stop talking and get on with the job?”

The screen which had been used to communicate with the CRLTs was continuously displaying distant and close-up views of spacesuited figures of various physiological classifications busily at work on the final stages of the coilship’s reassembly. Conway could not decide whether Descartes'^ commanding officer was screening the material to be helpful and informative or as a means of suggesting, very subtly, that the medical team display a similar degree of industry. The attempt was a failure in either event, Conway thought, because the Rhabwar medics were far too busy to look at Okaussie’s pictures. They were concentrating instead on measuring and remeasuring the features on the CRLT interfaces and charting with their scanners the paths of underlying blood vessels and the distribution of the nerve ganglia. And with great care and accuracy they were marking the areas where surgical intervention was possible without causing either a major hemorrhage or sensory impairment.

It was slow, tedious work and visually not very dramatic. Colonel Okaussie could be forgiven for thinking that the ambulance ship personnel had gone to sleep on the job.

“Friend Conway,” Prilicla said at one particularly awkward stage, “the physical differences between these two entities are so marked that I cannot help wondering if they belong to different subspecies.”

All of Con way’s attention at that moment was concentrated on what seemed to be the main sphinctor muscle on the rear interface of the forward CRLT, so that by the time he was ready to reply Murchison had done it for him.

“In a sense you are right, Doctor Prilicla,” she said. “It is a natural result of their method of reproduction. Think of this forward CRLT when it was the last and female link in its group-entity chain. In due time it grew to maturity and, still attached to its parent, it was fertilized by the male head of another group entity. Its own infant grew and became mature and in turn produced another, and the process continued with different male heads adding their individual sets of genes at every stage. 'The physical connection between any given CRLT and its offspring is perfect,” she continued, “and perfect fusion may even be possible between a parent and its grandchild or greatgrandchild. But the effect of different males fertilizing each new endlink in the chain would be cumulative. So it is understandable when you think about it, Doctor, that the differences between the fusion interfaces of these two, which were separated by seventeen intervening segments, are considerable.”

“Thank you, friend Murchison,” Prilicla said. “My brain seems not to be functioning properly.”

“Probably,” Murchison replied in a sympathetic tone, “because your brain is more than half asleep, like mine.” “And mine,” Naydrad joined in.

Con way, who had been trying not to think of how long it had been since he had last eaten or slept, decided that the best way to deal with an impending mutiny among his overworked medics was to ignore it. He indicated a small area on the rear interface of the first alien, midway between the central conical depression and the upper rim of the interface, then pointed to the corresponding area on the forward face of the second one. He said, “We can safely ignore these reproductive organs in both creatures, since this kind of link-up is temporary and physiologically independent of the parent-offspring fusion mechanism. As 1 see it the three areas we must concentrate on are the central conical projection and its corresponding recess, which are the connecting points for the central nerve core and our primary concern. Second is this narrow, semirigid tongue with the fleshy mushroom at its tip which locates with this slit in the other—”

“That connection is also of vital importance,” Murchison broke in, “since it links up the nerve networks controlling the voluntary and involuntary muscles which move each CRLTs legs and enable the group entity to walk in unison. There would be small advantage to the group entity if it could share mentation but a number of its segments were unable to walk.” “Friend Murchison,” Prilicla said timidly, “it seems to me that the original nerve impulse from the head segment, or whichever individual CRLT was responsible for initiating the movement, would not be sufficiently strong to trigger the ambulatory muscles throughout the enormous length of this group entity.”

“That is true,” the pathologist replied. “But there is an organic amplifier, consisting of a bunching of nerve ganglia situated just above the womb, or the position where the womb had been in the males, in an area where the surrounding tissue has a high mineral content and is particularly rich in copper salts. This biological booster ensures that the ambulatory muscles receive their signals with undiminished strength throughout the length of the chain.”

“Third,” Conway said, raising his voice slightly to discourage further interruptions, “there are these four flaps of muscle which terminate at their apexes in osseous hooks which locate in these four bone-reinforced orifices in the second creature. This is the primary mechanism by which the individual segments are held together nose to tail, and in this instance—”

“It is also the method by which the CRLT female at the end of the line held onto its developing offspring,” Murchison broke in again. “At that stage the offspring had no choice in the matter. But as it matured, produced its own offspring, and moved farther up the line I feel sure that voluntary separationbecame possible. In fact, separation would be necessary during activities which did not require the entire group entity for their performance.”

“That is most interesting, friend Murchison,” Prilicla said. “I should think that the first time such a voluntary separation took place a certain amount of psychological trauma would be present. It would be analogous to a coming-of-age ceremony, perhaps, even though the separation might not be permanent—”

Before Conway could speak, Prilicla fell silent and began trembling in reaction to the Doctor’s feelings of irritation and impatience. He said, “This is all very interesting, friends, but we do not have the time just now for a general discussion. In any case, following the type of temporary separation you mentioned, the young adult would rejoin its original parent segment and not a — I suppose you could describe it as an ancestor seventeen times removed, which is the problem currently facing us. And now, if you don’t mind, we will concentrate on this problem and on the surgical procedures necessary to solve it.

“Feel free to interrupt at any time,” he added dryly.

But the interruptions were few and pertinent, and very soon it became obvious even to the watching tractor beamers, Des-cartes’s commanding officer, and Fleet Commander Dermod, whose face appeared briefly but with increasing frequency on the overhead screen, that the medical team was also working hard.

Because Sector General was the Federation’s foremost emergency hospital, the kind of surgery performed there, whether the patient was Earth-human or extraterrestrial, tended to be curative rather than cosmetic. It felt very strange to Conway, and he knew that his feelings were being shared by the other members of the team, to be operating on a perfectly healthy e-t with the purpose of simply modifying the size and contours of certain physiological features. But the operation itself was far from simple.

The greater proportion of the surgical work had to be performed on the second alien whose forward nerve coupling cone was too wide at its base to be retained by the sphincter muscle surrounding the corresponding orifice in the first CRLT. With the semiflexible tongue and groove connection which joined the two beings’ locomotor nerve networks, the solution was much simpler. The deep recess in the first alien was surgically widened until measurement showed that it would accommodate the tongue comfortably, after which reinforcing sutures were inserted to prevent further accidental widening. But the four triangular flaps with their bony, hooklike extensions posed a completely different and more difficult problem.

Together the four members formed the principal organic coupling which held the considerable mass of the second e-t against the first, and they did not fit because the hooks did not quite reach the apertures meant to receive them.

Elongating the four triangular members was contraindicated since this would have entailed surgical interference and consequent serious weakening of the muscle systems concerned, and they could not foresee the effect on the network of blood vessels which became engorged and extended the members to quadruple their size when the being returned to consciousness.

Instead they made molds of the four hooks and made artificial ones using a hard, biologically neutral plastic at the tips and a wide band of thinner, more flexible material around the bases. The result was a set of hollow, hook-tipped gloves which, when a little of the original hooks were filed away to make them fit, were slipped over the original members and secured in position with rivets and sutures.

Suddenly there was nothing left to do, but hope.

Above the two unconscious CRLTs the vision screen was displaying an overall picture of their coilship, complete now except for the segments whose occupants were awaiting surgical attention, and the dense but orderly mass of shipping moving in and around it. The thought came to Conway, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it, that the tremendous fleet of Monitor Corps and other units, from the great capital ships and auxiliaries down to the swarms of scoutships and the army of specialists in engineering and communications they represented, were all wasting their time here if this particular operation was not a success.

For this responsibility he had argued long and eloquently with Thornnastor, O’Mara, and Skempton at Sector General. He must have been mad.

Harshly, he said, “Wake them up.”

They watched anxiously as once again the two CRLTs came out of hibernation and began moving toward each other. They touched once, a brief, exploratory contact, then they fused. Where there had been two massive, twenty-meter caterpillarlike creatures there was now one of twice that length.

The join was visible, of course, but one had to look very carefully to see it. Conway forced himself to wait for ten interminable seconds, and still they had not pulled away from each other.

“Prilicla?”

“They are feeling pain, friend Conway,” the empath replied, trembling slightly. “It is within bearable limits. There are also feelings of acceptance and gratitude.”

Conway gave a relieved sigh which ended in an enormous, eye-watering yawn. He rubbed his eyes and said, “Thank you, everyone. Put them back to sleep, check the sutures, and reseal them in their hibernation cylinders. They will not have to link up again until after the landing, by which time the wounds should have healed to a large extent so that the fusion will be more comfortable for them. As for ourselves, I prescribe eight hours solid sleep before—”

He broke off abruptly as the features of Fleet Commander Dermod appeared on the screen.

“You appear to have successfully repaired a major break in our alien chain, Doctor,” he said seriously, “but the time taken to do so was not short. There are many other breaks and we have three days during which a concerted Jump is possible, Doctor, after which the gravitational distortion effects caused by that rapidly approaching sun will make an accurate Jump out of the question even for single ships.

“Should we overrun the three-day deadline,” he went on grimly, “single-ship Jumping within operational safety limits will be possible for an additional twenty hours. During this twenty-hour period, if the coilship is not to be abandoned to fall into the sun, it will have to be dismantled into sections small enough to be accommodated by the hyperspheres of the units available in the area. This, you will understand, would of necessity be a very hurried operation and our own accident casualties as well as those of CRLTs would be heavy?

“What I am saying, Doctor,” he ended gravely, “is that if you cannot complete your organic link-ups within three days, tell me now so that we can begin dismantling the coilship in a safer and more orderly fashion.”

Con way rubbed his eyes and said, “There were seventeen missing segments between the join which we have just effected, and this makes it the most difficult job of the lot. The remaining breaks are of two, three, or at most five segments, so that those linking operations will be correspondingly easier. We know the drill now and three days should be ample time, barring an unforeseen catastrophe.”

“I cannot hold you responsible for one of those, Doctor,” the Fleet Commander said dryly. “Very well. What are your immediate intentions?”

“Right now,” Conway said firmly, “we intend to sleep.”

Dermod looked vaguely surprised, as if the very concept of sleep was one that had become alien to him over the past few days, then he nodded grudgingly and broke contact.

Feeling rested, alert, and much more human — and, of course, more Kelgian and Cinrusskin — they returned to Descartes’s cargo hold to find another two CRLTs already waiting for them and the remaining segments to be joined clamped to the outer hull. The Fleet Commander, it was clear, was a man who believed in maintaining the pressure.

But achieving fusion with these two was remarkably easy. Only two intervening segments were missing so that the surgery required was minor indeed. The next pair were more difficult, nevertheless a satisfactory link-up was achieved within two hours and, with their growing confidence and expertise, this was to become the average time required for the job. So well did they progress that they became almost angry with themselves when they were forced to break for meals or sleep.

Then suddenly they were finished and there was nothing to do but watch the screen while the last gap in the coil was being closed and hundreds of spacesuited figures swarmed all over it to give a final check to the sensor actuators on each hibernation cylinder which would expel their endplates and initiate resuscitation on landing.

With the exception of Rhabwar and one of Descartes’s planetary landers, the great fleet of scoutships and auxiliaries withdrew to a distance of one and a half thousand kilometers, which was far enough to relieve the traffic congestion in the area but close enough for them to return quickly should anything go wrong.

“I do not foresee anything going seriously wrong at this end,” the Fleet Commander said when the coilship was in one tremendous, spiral piece. “You have given us enough time, Doctor, to carry out all the necessary pre-Jump calculations and calibrations. This will be a time-consuming process since our three vessels, whose hyperspace envelopes will have to be extended to enclose the coilship, are Jumping in concert. Should a problem arise and we are unable to make this Jump, the units standing by will move in, dismantle the coilship as quickly as possible, and Jump away with the pieces and salvage what we can from this operation.

“There will be enough Monitor Corps medics on these ships to deal with the expected casualties,” he went on, “and for this reason I would like Rhabwar to leave at once and position itself close to the CRLTs new target planet. If trouble develops it is much more likely to be at that end.”

“I understand,” Conway said quietly.

The Fleet Commander nodded. “Thank you, Doctor. From now on this is purely a transport problem and my responsibility.”

Sooner yours than mine, Conway thought grimly as Dermod broke contact.

He was thinking about the Fleet Commander’s problem while they were wishing Colonel Okaussie and the Descartes’s tractor beam crew good-by and good luck, and it remained in his mind after the medical team boarded Rhabwar and the ambulance ship was heading out to Jump distance from the combined CRLT and Federation vessels.

Conway understood Dermod’s problem all too well and the strong but unspoken reason why the Fleet Commander wanted the ambulance ship positioned in the target system. They both knew that the majority of single-ship accidents occurred because of a premature emergence into normal space when one of the unfortunate vessel’s matched set of hyperdrive generators was out of synchronization. A single generator pod emerging into normal space while the rest of the vessel was in the hy-perdimension could tear the ship apart and leave wreckage strewn across millions of kilometers. Timing, therefore, was: ritical even on a single ship where only two or perhaps four generators had to be matched. The Fleet Commander’s problem was that Vespasian, Claudius, and Descartes together with the jnormous coilship of the CRLTs were linked together by tractor and pressor beams into a single rigid structure.

The Emperor-class cruisers were the largest ships operated by the Monitor Corps, and each required six generators to move its tremendous mass into and out of hyperspace, while the survey and cultural contact vessel Descartes needed only four. I" his meant that sixteen generators in all would be required to perform a simultaneous Jump and subsequent emergence into normal space. And the problem was further complicated by the Fact that all of the generators would be operating under controlled overload conditions because their coombined hyperspace envelope had to be extended to enclose the coilship.

As Rhabwar made its Jump into hyperspace Conway was overcome by such an intense, gnawing anxietty that even Prilicla could not reassure him out of it. He had the awful feeling that they were about to witness the worst spactdisasaster in Federation history.

The new home chosen for the CRLIs had been known to the Federation for nearly two centurie and was listed as a possible colony world for the Chalders.however, the denizens of Chalderescol Three — a water-breathing life-form resembling an outsize, tentacled crocodile which combined physical inaction with mental agility — were not very enthusiastic about it since they already possessed two colony worlds and their home planet was far from overcrowded So when they learned of the plight of the CRLT colonists they willlingly relinquished their claim to a planet which was of marginal interest to them anyway.

It was a warm, pleasant world with a continent, largely desert, encircling its equator like a wide, ragged belt and two relatively small bands of ocean separating the equatorial land-mass from the two large continents centred 3 at each pole; these were green, temperate, and free of icecaps …

Following exhaustive investigations of tthe cadavers available to them at Sector General both Murchison and Thornnastor were firmly of the opinion that this would be an ideal home for the CRLT life-form — moreover it was an environment which would not force them into periodic hibernation …

The landing area, a large clearing on the shore of a vast, inland sea, had already been marked with beacons. It awaited only the arrival of the CRLTs — as, vith mounting anxiety, did the personnel on board Rhabwar. On t the Casualty Deck Conway and the other members of the medical team each picked a direct visionport, hoping in some obscure fashion that by watching and worrying hard they might ensre the safe arrival of the coilship.

It was no surprise, considering the distances involved, that they learned of its emergence from the Control Room repeaters.

“Trace, sir!” Haslam’s voice sounded excitedly. “The bearing is—“

“Are you sure it’s them?”

“A single trace that size couldn’t be anything else, sir. And yes, the sensors confirm.”

“Very well,” the Captain’s voice replied, trying unsuccessfully to hide its relief. “Lock the scope on your radar bearing and give me full magnification. Dodds, contact astrogation on Vespasian and arrange a rendezvous. Power Room, stand by.”

The rest of the crewmen’s conversation was ignored as the medical team crowded around the Casualty Deck’s repeater screen. One look was enough to tell them that their preparations to receive large numbers of casualties from the expected emergence accident had been wasted effort, but they did not care because it was immediately obvious that the concerted Jump had been completely successful.

Centered on the repeater screen was a small, sharp image of the coilship with its three Monitor Corps vessels spaced along its axis, looking like an exercise in alien three-dimensional geometry. Vespasian, the stern component, was already applying thrust, and the three linked ships were beginning to turn around their longitudinal axes in order to reproduce the original rate of rotation and centrifugal force conditions ofthe coilship before its accident. Gradually a voice from Control made itself heard above the sound of the medics’ human and extraterrestrial jubilation.

“… Rendezvous in four hours thirteen minutes,” Haslam was saying. “No preliminary orbital maneuvering, sir. They intend going straight in.”

Rhabwar, in its hypersonic glider configuration, circled the descending coilship at a distance of three kilometers using its thrusters only when necessary to maintain the same rate of descent. Rotating slowly and illuminated to near- incandescent brightness by the system’s sun and noontime reflection from the planet’s cloud blanket, it seemed to Conway as if it were boring its way into the lower reaches of the atmosphere like some gigantic, alien drill. Inside the enormous, dazzling coil the three Federation ships in their drab service liveries were virtually invisible except for the flare of Vespasian’s thrusters, which were supporting the weight not only of the coilship but the two vessels stacked above it. The great alien and Monitor Corps composite continued its descent until, three kilometers from the surface, tangential thrust was applied to begin killing its spin.

Vespasian’s flare lengthened suddenly and brightened, slowing the descent until the ship was hovering a meter above the ground. Then simultaneously the coilship’s rotation ceased, Vespasian’s stabilizers came to rest on the fused and blackened soil, and the sternmost segment of the coilship touched down.

For perhaps five seconds nothing happened, then, reacting to the cessation of spin and the presence of a suitable atmosphere, the sensor-actuators on every hibernation cylinder performed their function. The endplates which kept the individual CRLTs apart were ejected to fall like a shower of giant coins to the ground, and resuscitation of the group entity was initiated. Conway could imagine the individual CRLTs awakening, stretching, and linking up, the occupants of close on nine hundred hibernation compartments which had survived the eighty-seven years past collision. Then he began to worry in case some of them could not link up and there was an organic log-jam somewhere inside the coil trapping CRLTs above it …

But within a surprisingly short time the great group entity was leaving its ship, the leading head segments walking carefully around the fused earth under Vespasian’s stern and toward the vegetation on the edge of the clearing. And, like an endless, leathery caterpillar the younger segments emerged carrying equipment and stores and following the tracks of their elders.

When at last the tail was clear of the coilship, the power to the supporting tractor and pressor beams was gradually reduced so that the towering, open spiral collapsed slowly onto itself to lie like a great, loose coil of metal rope on the ground. A few minutes later Vespasian, Claudius, and Descartes took off and separated, the two capital ships to go into orbit and Descartes to land again a few kilometers along the shoreline to await formal contact with the CRLT group entity. Contact would occur, they knew, because the individual CRLTs who had undergone surgery knew that the beings inside the Federation ships wished them well and, since the CRLT life-form had shared mentation, the whole group would be aware of these good intentions.

By this time Rhabwar’s lander had also touched down and its medics were on the surface standing as close as they possibly could to the being who was marching endlessly past them. Ostensibly they were there to furnish any medical assistance which might be required. Actually they were simply satisfying their curiosity regarding a being which must surely have been the strangest life-form yet encountered.

Conway, as was his wont, was indulging in a bout of postoperative worrying. He waved, indicating the endless line of dorsal appendages which were either gathering pieces of edible vegetation or waving back at him, and said, “I realize that one or more of the head segments must have tried the local vegetation with no ill effects, and now the whole group entity knows what is safe to eat, but the procedure seems a bit slapdash to me. And I haven’t been able to spot any of our surgical joins going past. There is bound to be a certain amount of muscular weakness in those areas, and perhaps an impairment in sensory communication and — What the blazes is that\”

That was a low, moaning and caterwauling sound which ran up and down the length of the kilometers-long entity, rising in volume suddenly until it became deafening. It sounded as if each and every CRLT was suffering intense physical or mental anguish. But strangely the outpouring of emotional radiation which must have accompanied it was not bothering Prilicla.

“Do not feel concern,” the little empath said. “It is an expression of group pleasure, gratitude, and relief. They are cheering, friend Conway.”