Alien Emergencies - James White [159]
“That’s unusual,” he said aloud. “This one has what seems to be a small quantity of partially digested food in its stomach.”
“You think that’s unusual,” Murchison said in a baffled tone. “The sample containers from the storage deck contain food. Liquid, a powdery solid, and some fibrous material, but all high-grade nutrient suited to the metabolisms of all three life-forms. What was the excuse for cannibalism? And why the blazes was everybody starving? The whole deck is packed with food!”
“Are you sure—?” began Conway, when he was cut off by a voice in his phones which was so distorted that he could not tell who was speaking.
“What is that thing?”
“Captain?” he said doubtfully.
“Yes, Doctor.” The voice was still distorted, but recognizable.
“You—you’ve found the criminal?”
“No, Doctor,” Fletcher replied harshly. “Another victim. Definitely another victim—”
“It’s moving, sir!” Dodds voice broke in.
“Doctor,” the Captain went on, “can you come at once. You too, ma’am.”
Fletcher was crouched inside the entrance of what had to be the ship’s Control Deck, using the cutting torch on the tangle of wreckage which almost filled the space between the ceiling and floor. The place was a shambles, Conway saw by the light coming through the open hatch above them and the few strips of emergency lighting which were still operating. Practically all of the ceiling-mounted equipment had torn free in the fall; ruptured piping and twisted, jagged-edged supporting brackets projected into the space above the control couches on the deck opposite.
The control couches had been solidly mounted and had remained in position, but they were empty, their restraining webbing hanging loose—except for one. This was a very large, deep cupola around which the other couches were closely grouped, and it was occupied.
Conway began to climb toward it, but the foothold he had been using gave way suddenly and a stub of broken-off piping dug him painfully in the side without, fortunately, rupturing his suit.
“Careful, damn it!” Fletcher snapped. “We don’t need another casualty.”
“Don’t bite my head off, Captain,” Conway said, then laughed nervously at his unfortunate choice of words.
He cringed inwardly as he climbed toward the central cupola in the wake of the Captain, thinking that the crew on duty and those in the Dormitory Deck had had to find a way through this mess, and in great haste because of the toxic vapor flooding through the ship. They were much smaller than Earth-humans, of course, but even so they must have been badly cut by that tangle of metal. In fact, they had been badly cut, with the exceptions of the DCMH in the dormitory and the new life-form above them, neither of whom had attempted to escape.
“Careful, Doctor,” the Captain said.
An idea which had been taking shape at the back of his mind dissolved. Irritably, Conway said, “What can it do except look at me and twitch its stumps?”
The casualty hung sideways in its webbing against the lower lip of the cupola, a great fleshy, elongated pear shape perhaps four times the mass of an adult human. The narrow end terminated in a large, bulbous head mounted on a walrus neck which was arched downward so that the two big, widely spaced eyes could regard the rescuers. Conway could count seven of the feebly twitching stumps projecting through gaps in the webbing, and there were probably others he could not see.
He braced himself against a control console which had remained in place and took out his scanner, but delayed beginning the examination until Murchison, who had just arrived, could climb up beside him. Then he said firmly, “We will have to remain with this casualty overnight, Captain. Please instruct Lieutenant Haslam to evacuate all the other casualties on the next trip, and to bring down the litter stripped of nonessential life-support equipment so that it will accommodate this new casualty. We also need extra air tanks for ourselves and oxygen for the casualty, heaters, lifting gear, and webbing, and anything else you think we need.”
For a long moment the