Alien Emergencies - James White [127]
The Captain was visibly controlling his impatience as he replied, “You were too busy getting the survivor out before the compartment lost any more air and decompression was added to its other problems, Doctor, to have time for structural observations. The compartment was a separate unit, purpose unknown, which was mounted outboard of the main hull and joined by a short access tube and airlock, and it simply broke away in one piece. That beastie was very lucky.” He gestured toward the long-range sensor displays. “But now we know that the remaining pieces of wreckage are too small to contain survivors and frankly, Doctor, we are wasting time here.”
“I agree,” Conway said absently.
“Right,” Fletcher said briskly. “Power Room, prepare to Jump in five—”
“Hold, Captain,” Conway broke in quietly. “I hadn’t finished. I want a scoutship out here, more than one if they can be spared, to search the wreckage for personal effects, photographs, solid and pictorial art, anything which will assist in reconstructing the survivor’s environment and culture. And request Federation Archives for any information on an intelligent life-form of physiological classification EGCL. Since this is a new species to us, the cultural contact people will want this information as soon as possible, and if our survivor continues to survive, the hospital will need it the day before yesterday.
“Tag the signals with Sector General medical first-contact priority coding,” he went on, “then head for home. I’ll be on the Casualty Deck.”
Rhabwar’s communications officer, Haslam, was already preparing for the transmission when Conway stepped into the gravity-free central well and began pulling himself toward the Casualty Deck amidships. He broke his journey briefly to visit his cabin and get out of the heavy-duty spacesuit he had been wearing since the rescue. He felt as though every bone and muscle in his body was aching. The rescue and transfer of the survivor to Rhabwar had required intense muscular activity, followed by a three-hour emergency op, and another hour sitting still in Control. No wonder he felt stiff.
Try to think about something else, Conway told himself firmly. He exercised briefly to ease his cramped muscles but the dull, unlocalized aching persisted. Angrily he wondered if he was becoming a hypochondriac.
“Subspace radio transmission in five seconds,” the muted voice of Lieutenant Haslam said from the cabin speaker. “Expect the usual fluctuations in the lighting and artificial gravity systems.”
As the cabin lights flickered and the deck seemed to twitch under his feet, Conway was forced to think of something else—specifically, the problems encountered in transmitting intelligence over interstellar distances compared with the relative simplicity of sending a distress signal.
Just as there was only one known method of traveling faster than light, there was only one way of calling for help when an accident left a ship stranded between the stars. Tight-beam subspace radio could rarely be used in emergency conditions since it was subject to interference from intervening stellar material and required inordinate amounts of a vessel’s power—power which a distressed ship was unlikely to have available. But a distress beacon did not have to carry intelligence. It was simply a nuclear-powered device which broadcast its location, a subspace scream for help which ran up and down the usable frequencies until it died, in a matter of a few hours. And on this occasion it had died amid a cloud of wreckage containing one survivor who was very lucky indeed to be alive.
But considering the extent of the being’s injuries, Conway thought, it could not really be described as lucky. Mentally shaking himself loose of these uncharacteristically morbid