Sector General sg-5 Read online

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Nothing,” MacEwan said firmly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  This was how an interstellar war could start.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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