Alien Emergencies - James White [65]
What happened next was utterly impossible.
Thornnastor began to sway alarmingly on its six stubby legs, legs which normally gave the Tralthan species such a stable base that they frequently went to sleep standing up; then it toppled onto its side with a crash that overloaded the sound pickup on Conway’s suit. A few yards away from the treatment table the Melfan Edanelt, who had been assisting Thornnastor, collapsed slowly to the floor, its six multijointed legs becoming progressively more limp until the underside of its exoskeletal body hit the floor with a loud click. The Kelgian theater nurse had also slipped to the floor, the silvery fur on its long, cylindrical body undulating and puckering as if being affected by a tiny whirlwind. A member of the transfer team standing beside Conway dropped loosely to his hands and knees, crawled for a short distance along the floor and then rolled onto his side. Too many e-ts began speaking at once, and Earth-humans trying to outshout them, for Conway’s translator to produce anything intelligible.
“This can’t be happening…” he began incredulously.
Murchison’s voice sounded in his helmet phones, speaking on the ship frequency. “Three extraterrestrial life-forms and one Earth-human DBDG, with four radically different metabolisms and inherent species-immunity…it’s quadruply impossible! As far as I see, no indications of the other unprotected life-forms being affected.”
Even when observing the impossible, Murchison remained clinical.
“…But it is happening,” Conway went on. He turned up the volume of his suit external speaker. “This is Senior Physician Conway. Instructions. All transfer team-members, seal your helmets. Team leader, sound the alarm for Contamination One. Everyone else, move away from the patient…” They were doing so already, Conway could see, with a degree of haste that verged on panic. “Beings already wearing protective suits stand clear, unprotected oxygen-breathers go to the pressure litter and as many as possible seal yourselves inside. Everyone else should use the breathing masks and oxygen supplies for the ward ventilators. We seem to be affected by some kind of airborne infection—”
He broke off as the observation ward’s main screen flicked on to show the features of the irate Chief Psychologist. As O’Mara spoke Conway could hear in the background the repeated long and two short blasts on the emergency siren, which gave added urgency to the words.
“Conway, why the blazes are you reporting lethal contamination down there? Dammit, there can’t be a lethal contamination of air and water unless the place is flooded and you’re all drowning, and I see no evidence of that!”
“Wait,” said Conway. He was kneeling by the fallen transfer team-member, his hand inside the open visor, feeling for a pulse at the temporal artery. He found it, a fast, irregular beat that he did not like at all. Then he sealed the man’s visor quickly and went on speaking to the ward: “Remember to close any breathing orifices not covered by your masks, nostrils, Melfan gills, the Kelgian speaking mouth. And you, the protected Illensan doctor, will you check Thornnastor and the Melfan Edanelt, quickly please. Prilicla, how is the original patient?”
The chlorine-breather waddled rapidly towards the fallen Thornnastor, its transparent suit rustling. “My name is Gilvesh, Conway. But all DBDGs look the same to me, so I suppose I should not feel insulted.”
“Sorry, Gilvesh,” said Conway. The chlorine-breathing Illensans were generally held to be the most visually repulsive species in the Federation as well as the most vain regarding their own physical appearance. “A snap diagnosis, please. There isn’t time for anything else. What happened to it, and what are the immediate physiological effects?”
“Friend Conway,” said Prilicla, still trembling violently, “the DBPK patient is feeling much better. It is radiating confusion and worry, but no fear and minimum physical discomfort. The condition of the other