Alien Emergencies - James White [84]
The Casualty Deck’s screen remained blank, but Fletcher’s voice came from the speaker a few seconds later. “Control here. We have returned to normal space close to the position signaled by the beacon, but there is as yet no sign of a distressed ship or wreckage. However, since it is impossible to achieve pinpoint accuracy with a hyperspatial Jump, the distressed vessel could be many millions of miles away…”
“He’s lecturing again,” Murchison sighed.
“…but the impulses from our sensors travel at the velocity of light and are reflected back at the same speed. This means that if ten minutes elapsed before we registered a contact, the distance of the object would be half that time in seconds multiplied by the—”
“Contact, sir!”
“I stand corrected, not too many millions of miles. Very well. Astrogation, give me the distance and course constants, please. Power Room, stand by for maximum thrust in ten minutes. Charge Nurse Naydrad, cancel your EVA immediately. Casualty Deck, you will be kept informed. Control out.”
Conway returned his attention to the pressure litter, evacuating the chlorine atmosphere and replacing it with the high-pressure superheated steam breathed by the TLTU life-forms. He had begun to check the litter’s thrusters and attitude controls when Naydrad slithered through the inner lock seal, its suit beaded with condensation and still radiating the cold of outside. The charge nurse watched them for a few moments, then said that if it was needed it would be in its cabin thinking beautiful thoughts.
They checked the compartment’s restraints with great care. From experience Conway knew that extraterrestrial casualties were not always cooperative, and some of them could be downright aggressive when strange, to them, beings began probing them with equally strange devices of unknown purpose. For that reason the compartment was fitted with a variety of material and immaterial restraints in the forms of straps, webbing, and tractor- and pressor-beam projectors sufficient to immobilize anything up to the mass and muscle power of a Tralthan in the final stages of its premating dance. Conway devoutly hoped that the restraints would never be needed, but they were available and had to be checked.
Two hours passed before any news was forthcoming from the Captain. Then it was brief and to the point.
“Control here. We have established that the contact is not a naturally occurring interstellar body. We will close with it in seventy-three minutes.”
“Time enough,” said Conway, “to check the ward medication.”
A section of the floor of the Casualty Deck opened downwards onto the deck below, which was divided into a ward and a combination laboratory-pharmacy. The ward was capable of accommodating ten casualties of reasonably normal mass—Earth-human size and below—and of producing a wide range of environmental life-support. In the laboratory section, which was separated from the ward by a double airlock, were stored the constituent gases and liquids used by every known life-form in the Galactic Federation and with the capability, it was hoped, of reproducing atmospheres of those yet unknown. The lab also contained sets of specialized surgical instruments capable of penetrating the tegument of and performing curative surgery on the majority of the Federation’s physiological types.
The pharmacy section was stocked with the known specifics against the more common e-t diseases and abnormal conditions—in small quantities because of limitations of space—together with the basic analysis equipment common to any e-t pathology lab. All this meant that there was very little space for two people to work, but then Conway had never complained about working closely with Murchison and vice versa.
They had barely finished checking the e-t instruments when Fletcher’s voice returned, and before the Captain had finished speaking they were joined by Prilicla and Naydrad.
“Control here. We have visual acquisition of the distressed vessel, and the telescope is locked on with full magnification.