Alien Emergencies - James White [122]
“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 Earthperson’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 arrived at 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, and it won’t be available soon enough. Anyway, it reacts with the plastic to produce 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, Kelgians, 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