Alien Emergencies - James White [168]
“Fifty-three minutes,” Dodds supplied.
“—If you are able to communicate, please identify yourselves, specify the nature of your trouble, and list the type and number of casualties.”
In the supernumerary’s position Conway leaned forward intently, even though the difference of a few centimeters could not affect the clarity of any incoming message. But when the voice did come it sounded apologetic rather than distressed.
“The Monitor Corps scoutship Tyrell here, Major Nelson commanding,” it said. “It was our distress beacon, but we released it on behalf of the wreck you see beside us. Our medical officer isn’t sure, you understand, because its medical experience covers only three species, but it thinks that there may still be life on board.”
“Doctor—” the Captain began, looking across at Conway. But before he could go on, Haslam was reporting again.
“Sir! Another, no, two more traces. Similar mass and configuration as the distressed vessel. Also smaller, widely scattered pieces of metallic wreckage.”
“That’s the other reason why we released our beacon,” Nelson’s voice sounded from Tyrell. “We don’t have your long-range sensor equipment—our stuff is chiefly photooptical and computing gear associated with survey work—but this area seems to be littered with wreckage and, while I don’t entirely agree with my medic that some of it must contain survivors, the possibility does exist that—”
“You were quite right to call for help, Captain Nelson,” Conway said, breaking in. “We would much rather answer a dozen false alarms than risk missing one which might mean a rescue. Space accidents being what they are, most distress calls are answered too late in any case. However, Captain, as a matter of urgency we need the physiological classification of the wreck’s survivors and the nature and extent of their injuries so that we can begin making preparations for accommodating and treating them.
“I am Senior Physician Conway,” he ended. “May I speak to your medical officer?”
There was a long, hissing silence during which Haslam reported several more traces and added that, while the data were far from complete, the distribution of the wreckage was such that he was fairly certain that the accident had happened to a very large ship which had been blown apart into uniform pieces, and that the wreckage alongside Tyrell and the other similar pieces which were appearing all over his screens were lifeboats. Judging by the spread of the wreckage so far detected, the disaster had not been a recent occurrence.
Then the speaker came to life again with a flat, emotionless voice, robbed of all inflection by the process of translation. “I am Surgeon-Lieutenant Krach-Yul, Doctor Conway,” it said. “My knowledge of other-species physiology is small, since I have had medical experience with only the Earth-human, Nidian, and my own Orligian life-forms, all of which, as you know, fall within the DBDG warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing classification.”
The fact that the natives of Orligia and their planetary neighbor Nidia had a marked disparity in physical mass and one of them possessed an overall coat of tight, curly red fur was too small a difference to affect the four-letter classification coding, Conway thought as the other Doctor was talking. Just like the small difference which had, in the early days of their stellar exploration, caused Orligia and Earth to fight the first, brief, and so far only interstellar war.
For this reason the Orligians and Earth-humans were more than friendly—nowadays they went out of their way to help each other—and it was a great pity that Krach-Yul was too professionally inexperienced to be really helpful. All Conway could hope for was that the Orligian medic had had sense enough to restrain its professional curiosity and not poke its friendly, furry nose into a situation which was completely