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  The administrator exhaled slowly, showed its teeth again, pressed a stud on the desk’s communicator, and said briskly, “Thank you. Rhabwar’s crew members have now been alerted and are on their way to the ship, so I need detain you no longer. Good luck, gentlemen.”

  Prilicla wasn’t sure that he liked being called a gentleman when he wasn’t even an Earth-human, but he knew that the term was intended as a courtesy and that friend Braithwaite’s feelings of concern for him were strong and sincere. He executed a steep, banking turn and flew rapidly towards the office entrance, knowing from long experience that no matter how fast he flew it would open in time to let him through.

  He knew that the captain would not take offense at him using his natural advantages while traversing the six levels and intervening corridor network to reach the ambulance ship’s dock before it did, because by now all of Rhabwar’s personnel were engaged on a similar race against time rather than against each other. Fletcher had to use his large but nimble Earth-human feet and occasionally his voice and elbows to negotiate the crowded corridors, while Prilicla either flew above everyone’s head or scampered along the ceilings on his six sucker-tipped legs as he met, overtook, and passed above a constant succession of creatures who looked visually horrendous, beautiful, repugnant, or terrifying in their obvious physical strength and frightening variety of natural weapons which, being civilized members of the medical fraternity, they were rarely called on to use. Besides, all of them were his colleagues and, in most cases, his friends.

  Not for the first time Prilicla asked himself why a fragile, delicately structured, insectile Cinrusskin empath had decided to spend his professional life in Sector General, surely one of the most dangerous working environments in the Galaxy for one of the GLNO classification, but the answer was always the same.

  Despite the fact that his every waking moment was spent in a condition of perpetual vigilance verging on terror that would have driven the majority of his species mad, he had discovered that this was the only place and type of work that he wanted to be and do. Doubtless a Healer of the Mind would have talked learnedly about deeply buried death wishes, professional masochism, and the pathological need for constant danger, and would have pronounced him psychologically abnormal if not downright insane. But then, that diagnosis would have applied to the majority of beings who had aspired to permanent positions in the multispecies medical menagerie that was Sector Twelve General Hospital.

  Considering his ability to fly unobstructed above everyone else’s heads, it was no surprise that he was the first to board Rhabwar, where he logged his presence before moving quickly to his tiny, deeply upholstered quarters, checking that both backup sets of his gravity nullifiers were in operation. His cabin closely resembled the cocoonlike living quarters of his home world, and its artificial gravity was already set to Cinruss normal, which was slightly less than one-quarter of a standard Earth G. He stretched his wings and limbs to full extension, then distributed them into their most comfortable position for sleeping. Cinrusskins, fragile but physically active, needed a lot of sleep; and he knew that nothing important would be said or done until they were many hours into hyperspace.

  A few minutes later he heard the captain coming along the boarding-tube and climbing the central well to the control deck, closely followed by the other three Monitor Corps officers and the members of the medical team who collected on the casualty deck. They were complaining loudly and bitterly at the sudden interruption to their work or recreation, but all of the emotional radiation they emitted was of controlled excitement rather than bitterness.

  For a few moments he eavesdropped on the emotional radiation filtering through to him from the casualty and control decks. They all knew that he couldn’t help doing that because it was impossible to switch off his empathic faculty, so their emotional radiation was subdued, well-controlled, and, at this range, restful. They knew better than to radiate unpleasant feelings when their boss was trying to sleep.

  CHAPTER 3

  The briefing tape provided by Administrator Braithwaite had been played but not yet discussed, and their feelings of curiosity, caution, and growing impatience filled the casualty deck around him like a thick, emotional fog.

  Captain Fletcher was sitting on a padded Kelgian treatment frame, flanked by Lieutenants Dodds and Chen, the communications and engineering officers respectively, while the astrogator and current watch-keeping officer, Lieutenant Haslam, viewed the proceedings through the control deck’s vision link. Pathologist Murchison occupied the swivel seat of the diagnostic console with its back turned to the screen; Charge Nurse Naydrad had curled itself into a furry question mark on the nearest bed; and the polymorphic Dr. Danalta sat in the middle of the deck like a small green haystack from which it had extruded an ear and a single stalked eye. In order to avoid even the slightest risk of injury from sudden, unthinking movements of the others’ limbs, Prilicla maintained a stable hover close to the ceiling while they all stared at the wall screen below him.

  “As we have just seen,” Prilicla said, “we will be entering what may be a unique situation for us, and we will have to be very careful…”

  “We’re always careful,” Naydrad broke in, its mobile fur rippling into waves of impatience and anxiety. “How careful is ‘very’?”

  Kelgians always said exactly what they felt—because their mobile fur made their feelings plain, at least to another member of their species—or they said nothing at all. He was aware of all of Naydrad’s feelings, spoken and otherwise, and ignored the question because he intended to answer it anyway.

  He went on. “The information available is sparse and speculative. We will be faced with the possible recovery of survivors from two distressed ships. One should be a normal, straightforward rescue and should pose no problems because it is the Corps’ survey vessel Terragar, whose crew are Earth-human DBDGs. The second vessel has a crew whose physiological classification is as yet unknown. With survivors of two different species involved, one of which is…”

  “We assess the position at the disaster site and rescue the casualties, of whichever species, who are in the most urgent need of attention first,” Pathologist Murchison broke in quietly, its mind radiating the emotions of expectation, curiosity, and confidence characteristic of one who is accustomed to meeting professional challenges. “I don’t see the problem, sir. This is what we do.”

  “… is possibly responsible for causing the casualties on the first ship,” Prilicla went on firmly. “Or perhaps another, undistressed vessel or vessels in the area have caused both sets of casualties. We must prepare and organize now for that eventuality, beginning with a clarification of the chain of command.”

  For several minutes nobody spoke. The level of their emotional radiation increased in strength and complexity, but not to a stage where it was affecting him physically. The three Monitor Corps officers were reacting with controlled restraint in the face of possible danger, the feelings characteristic of the military mind. Murchison’s radiation was complex and negative, as was Naydrad’s, but neither of them were feeling strongly enough to vocalize their objections. Unlike the others who were feeling minor nonspecific anxiety and uncertainty, Danalta projected the calm self-assurance of a shape-changer who felt itself to be impervious to all forms of physical injury.

  “Normally,” Prilicla went on, “friend Fletcher here is in operational command of Rhabwar until it arrives at a disaster site, after which it is the senior medical officer, myself, who has the rank. But on this mission it may well be that, initially at least, military tactics will be of more benefit to us than medical expertise. I feel your agreement, friend Fletcher, and also that you are wanting to speak. Please do so.”

  The captain nodded. “Have you and the other medics considered the full implications of what you are saying? I realize that at present all this is pure speculation, but in the event of our being faced with a situation of armed conflict, difficult—and to all you medics, disagreeable decisions will have
to be taken, and orders issued by myself. If I am called on to make those decisions, my orders will have to be obeyed without question or argument, no matter how objectionable they will seem. This must be fully understood and accepted by everyone right now—before, and not during or after, the event. Is it?”

  “At any space accident or surface disaster scene, that is how we obey Dr. Prilicla,” Naydrad said, its fur and feelings projecting puzzlement. “This is normal procedure for us. Why are you stressing the obvious? Or am I missing something?”

  “You are,” said the captain, its emotional radiation as well as its voice quiet and under control, as it spoke words it was feeling an intense reluctance to say. “This ship is unarmed, but not without weapons of defense and offense. Lieutenant Chen.”

  The engineering officer cleared its breathing passages noisily and said, “For a limited duration, no more than a few hours, our meteorite shield can be stiffened sufficiently to give protection against shrapnel from missiles tipped with chemical-explosive warheads. But if one was tipped with a nuclear device, we wouldn’t have a prayer.”

  Lieutenant Haslam, whose astrogation speciality included long- and short-range ship handling, joined in without being asked. It said, “My tractor-pressor beam array, which is normally used on wide focus for docking or pulling in space wreckage for closer examination, can be modified to serve as a weapon, although not a very destructive one. Providing we can control the distance of the object and precisely match its speed, the pressor focus can be narrowed to within a diameter of a few feet to punch a hole in the opposition’s hull plating. The catch is that it would increase the already heavy meteorite-shield drain on our power reserves, the shields would go down, and we’d be defenseless against whatever form of nastiness the opposition wanted to throw at us.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” said the captain. To the others it went on, “So you can see that we are poorly equipped for a military operation. The point I am making is that, should we encounter a situation of armed conflict or its aftermath, I shall assess the tactical picture and the decisions thereafter will be mine. These will include an immediate withdrawal to the safety of hyperspace if the action is still in progress. If not, and if there are damaged vessels in the area which I consider incapable of threatening our ship, I shall take, but not necessarily follow, the advice of the senior medical officer regarding the choice of which set of survivors, if any, is to be recovered first. These should be the Monitor Corps Earth-humans rather than the new, other-species casualties because—”

  “Captain Fletcher!” Murchison broke in, its words accompanied by an explosion of shock and outrage that made Prilicla feel as if he had flown into a solid wall, an effect reinforced by the emotional reactions of the other medics. “That is not what we do here!”

  The captain paused for a moment to order its own thoughts and feelings, which closely resembled those of its listeners, then continued quietly. “Normally, it is not, ma’am. I was about to say that there are sound tactical and psychological reasons for rescuing our own people first. They at least know who and what we represent and can furnish us with current intelligence regarding the situation, while the other people will be confused, frightened, and probably injured aliens who will take one look at us” —he glanced quickly at the medical menagerie around him—“and feel sure that we mean them harm. You must agree that it would be better to know something about the strangers, however little, before attempting to rescue and treat them.

  “In the event,” it went on, looking up at the hovering Prilicla, “the decision and choice may not be necessary. But if it is, the med team must be prepared to treat the casualties in the order I designate. Is this clearly understood?”

  It was, Prilicla knew, because there were no strong feelings of negation coming from anyone, and the surrounding emotional radiation was settling down to a level which enabled him to maintain a stable hover. It was Naydrad, their specialist in heavy rescue, who broke the lengthening silence.

  “If nobody has anything else to add,” it said with an impatient ripple of its fur, “I for one want to review the medical log and space-rescue techniques. After six months in the hospital where all the patients are neatly stretched out in beds or whatever, one gets a little rusty.”

  Without saying anything else, the captain left the casualty deck, closely followed by the two junior officers. Naydrad began running a visual summary of Rhabwar’s early missions and the often unorthodox rescue techniques involved while recovering casualties. Murchison and Danalta joined it before the screen, probably because it was the only thing that was moving, apart from Prilicla’s wings. Their emotional radiation was complex but firmly controlled as if they might be holding back the urge to say something. Prilicla excused himself and flew up the central well to his quarters so as to have the opportunity of thinking without the close proximity of outside emotional interference—and, of course, to give them the chance to relieve their feelings verbally.

  “This is not what we do here,” Murchison had said.

  He did not need Naydrad’s viewscreen to remind him of all the things they had done on Rhabwar, including the rules they had broken or seriously deformed, because the memories were returning as sharp, clear, and almost tactile overlays on the flickering grey blur of hyperspace outside his cabin’s viewport. Prilicla had an outstandingly good memory.

  He began with the briefing on operational philosophy before the first and supposedly routine shakedown cruise. It had been explained that over the past century the Monitor Corps, as the Federation’s executive and law-enforcement arm, had been charged with the maintenance of the Pax Galactica, but because the peace they guarded required minimum maintenance, they had been given additional responsibilities and an obscenely large budget for stellar survey and exploration. In the very rare event that they turned up a planet with intelligent life, they were also given responsibility for the delicate, complex, and lengthy first-contact procedures. Since its formation, the Corps’ other-species communications and cultural-contact specialists had found three such worlds and established successful relations with them, to the point where they had become member species of the Federation.

  But there is a tendency for travelers to meet other travelers, often in distress and far from home. The advantage of meetings with other space travelers was that both species were already open to the idea that intelligent and possibly visually horrendous beings inhabited the stars—as opposed to contacting less advanced, planetbound cultures, who would be much more suspicious and fearful of the terrifying strangers who had dropped from their skies.

  The trouble where the travelers were concerned was that there was only one known system for traveling in hyperspace, and one method—the nuclear-powered distress beacon—of calling for help if a catastrophe occurred that marooned the distressed ship between the stars. The result had been that many other highly intelligent and technologically advanced species had been discovered with whom they could not make contact because they were nothing but dead or dying organic debris lying tangled inside the wreckage of their starships. With the rescue ships’ medical officers unable to provide the required assistance to completely alien life-forms, the casualties had been rushed to Sector General, where a few of them had been successfully treated, while the rest ended up in the pathology department as specimens whose worlds of origin were unknown.

  That was the reason why the special ambulance ship Rhabwar had been constructed. Not only was it commanded by an officer skilled in unraveling the puzzles presented by unique alien technology, its crew included a medical team specialized both in ship-rescue techniques and multispecies alien physiology. The result had been that since their ship had been commissioned, seven new species had been contacted, and subsequently became members of the Federation.

  In every case this had been accomplished—not by a slow, patient buildup and widening of communications until the exchange of complex philosophical and sociological concepts became possible, but by demonstrating the Fede
ration’s goodwill towards newly discovered species by rescuing and giving medical or other assistance to ailing, injured, or space-wrecked aliens.

  The memories and images were returning, sharp and clear. In many of them, unlike this time, he had not borne the clinical responsibility for rescue and treatment because the then–Senior Physician Conway had been in charge of the medical team, with himself assisting as a kind of empathic bloodhound whose job was to smell out and separate the dead from the barely living casualties. There had been the recovery of the utterly savage and non-sapient Protectors of the Unborn whose wombs contained their telepathic and highly intelligent offspring; and the Blind Ones, whose hearing and touch had been so sensitive that they had learned to build devices that enabled them to feel the radiation that filtered down to their world from the stars they would never see, even though they had traveled between them; and there had been the Duwetti, the Dwerlans, the Gogleskans, and the others. All had presented their particular clinical problems and associated physical dangers, especially to a fragile life-form like himself who could literally be blown away by a strong wind.

  He wondered how the present-day Diagnostician Conway would have handled the current situation, where its beloved special ambulance was in danger of becoming a ship of war. Certainly not by flying away to hide in its room.

  CHAPTER 4

  It was four days later. Beyond the direct-vision panel and on the main screen that was relaying the control deck image, the flickering gray motion of hyperspace gave a final, eye-twisting heave before dissolving into a view of normal space. Within a few moments the relayed voice of Lieutenant Dodds on the sensors was telling them and the ship’s mission recorders what they were already seeing.