Alien Emergencies - James White [155]
Aft of the compartment occupied by the medics there was another cargo deck, and beyond that the unmistakable shapes of the hyperdrive generators. Further aft the reactor and thrusters were sealed from him and heavily shielded, but the sensor indications were that there had been a complete power shutdown—probably an automatic safety measure built into the design—when the ship had toppled. But he could detect a residue of power in some of the corridor lines which he thought might be associated with an emergency lighting circuit, and he thought he had identified a light switch.
It was a light switch, he confirmed a few seconds later. A large stretch of the corridor was illuminated. The lighting was uncomfortably bright but his eyes were adjusting to it. He was moving amidships.
They heard him pause outside their cargo hold, and suddenly the lights came on all over the ceiling beside them. Conway switched off his now-unnecessary helmet light.
“Thank you, Captain,” he said, then continuing the discussion he had been having with Murchison, went on, “There is capacity for a large brain in the cranium, but we cannot assume that all of the available volume is used for cerebration. I don’t see how a beastie with four feet and two manipulators which are little more than claws could be a tool user, much less a crew member of a starship. And those teeth bother me. They are certainly not those of a predator. In the distant past they might have been fearsome natural weapons, but now their condition shows that they have not much to do.”
Murchison nodded. “The stomach system is overlarge in relation to the mass of the being,” she said, “yet there is no evidence of adipose or excess edible tissue which would be present if it was an animal bred for food. And the stomach resembles that of an Earth-type ruminant. The digestive system is odd, too, but I’d have to work out the whole intake to elimination cycle to make any sense out of it, and I can’t do that down here. I’d love to know what these things ate before their food ran out.”
“I’m passing a storage deck of some kind,” Fletcher said at that point. “It is divided into large racks with passages between them. The racks are filled with containers of different colors and sizes with funnellike dispensers at one end. There are wastebins holding empties, and some of the full and empty containers have spilled out into the corridor.”
“May I have samples, please,” Murchison said quickly, “of both.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the Captain replied. “Considering the starved condition of the survivors they are more likely to contain paint or lubricant than food. But I expect you have to eliminate all possibilities, like me. I am moving toward the next—Oh!”
Conway opened his mouth to ask what was happening but the Captain forestalled him.
“I switched on the lighting for this section and found two more casualties,” he reported. “One is a DCMH, one of the medium-sized ones, which was crushed by a buckled structural member and certainly dead. The other is the small, DCLG life-form, with one amputation wound, not moving. I’m fairly sure that it’s dead, too. This is the section of the ship which fell across the outcropping when she tipped over.
“The internal structure is badly deformed,” he went on, “with sprung deck and wall plating all over the place. There are also two large, wall-mounted cylinders which seem to have been the reservoir for a hydraulic actuator system. Both have been ruptured and their connecting lines fractured, and there is a faint fog surrounding them as if some of the content remains and is evaporating.
“Ahead the corridor is partly blocked by wreckage,” he continued. “I can move it but there will be a lot of noise, so don’t—”
“Captain,” Conway broke in. “Can you please bring us the DCLG and a sample of the hydraulic fluid with the other samples as soon as you can.” To Murchison he added, “I’d like to know if the lung damage