Alien Emergencies - James White [201]
The opening sequence was familiar since it was part of the material the Fleet Commander had used during his recent briefing to Conway. It showed a diagrammatic reconstruction of the CRLTs great, coillike interstellar transport complete with central stem, coil supporting structure, thrusters, and guidance system moving slowly against a starry backdrop. Suddenly a large meteor appeared at the edge of the screen, heading directly for the coilship. It struck, moving along the inside of the coil and carrying away the thrusters, guidance system, and all of the central supporting structure for the continuous spiral of hibernation compartments. The impact shook the coil apart, and the individual hibernation cylinders, because of the vessel’s rotation, went flying off in all directions like shrapnel from a slow-motion explosion.
Because of the greater rigidity of the structure aft, the shock in this area was much more severe and the casualties among the hibernating CRLTs were heavy; the cylinders whose occupants had not survived were shown in red. Then there was a two-minute shot of the scene as it actually was, with Vespasian, Claudius and Descartes with a shoal of smaller vessels busy reassembling the coil followed by a longer sequence, displayed graphically, which showed a modified coilship coming in to land on a fresh, green world with the two capital ships and Descartes linked together so as to replace the missing support structure and thrusters.
The presentation ended by showing the coilship with the missing segments indicated in throbbing red, then with the red sections removed and the gaps closed up to make a slightly shorter coil, and the final scene showed the successful link-up of the first two CRLTs.
As a piece of visual communication it left very little room for misunderstanding, and Conway did not need Prilicla’s empathic faculty to tell him that the message had been understood—the two CRLTs were already moving cautiously toward each other.
“Recorders?” Conway said urgently.
“Running,” Murchison said.
Conway held his breath as once again the two massive creatures attempted fusion. The movements of their stubby, caterpillarlike legs were barely perceptible and their dorsal appendages were tensely still, making them resemble two enormous, alien logs being pushed together by the current of an invisible river. When they were separated by about six inches, the forward face of the rearmost creature had grown the pattern of bumps and fleshy projections which they had seen during the first two link-ups, and the rear interface of its companion had twitched itself into a pattern of fissures and a single deep recess. Around the periphery of the interface four wide, triangular flaps of muscle tipped with osseous material, features which had not appeared to be of any importance when examined on sleeping or dead CRLTs, had grown suddenly to nearly four times their size in the unconscious state and opened out like fleshy, horn-tipped petals. But with these two the interfaces did not correspond. They touched, held contact for perhaps three seconds, then jerked apart.
Before Conway could comment, they were coming together again. This time the forward creature remained still while the second twisted its forward interface into a slightly different position to try again, but with the same result.
It was obvious that the contacts were intensely uncomfortable, and the resultant pain had triggered off the involuntary movement which had jerked them apart. But the CRLTs were not giving up easily, although it appeared at first as if they had. They withdrew until their bodies were again inside their hibernation cylinders, then their stubby legs blurred into motion as they drove themselves at each other seeking, it seemed, by sheer brute force and bodily inertia to force a fusion. Conway winced as they came together with a sound like a loud, multiple slap.
But to no avail. They broke contact to lie a few feet from each other with their dorsal appendages twitching weakly