Alien Emergencies - James White [96]
“Obviously a food dispenser of some kind,” she observed. “An analysis of this stuff will tell us a lot about the large one’s metabolism. But those bars and pistons are not, to my mind, a means of restraining the FSOJ. Not unless restraint includes clubbing it unconscious.”
“With a physiological classification of FSOJ,” said Conway thoughtfully, “that might be the only way to do it, short of using a heavy-duty pressor beam.”
“All the same,” Murchison went on, “I am feeling a slight attenuation of sympathy for the blind ones. That corridor looks more like a torture chamber than a cage.”
Conway had been thinking the same thing and so, judging by his shocked and sickened expression, had the Captain. They had all been taught, and were themselves convinced, that there was no such thing as a completely evil and inimical intelligent race, and even the suggestion that they believed such a thing possible would have led to their dismissal from the Monitor Corps or from the Federation’s largest multienvironment hospital. Extraterrestrials were different, sometimes wildly and weirdly different, and during the early stages of contact a great deal of caution was necessary until a full understanding of their physiological, psychological and cultural background was available. But there was no such thing as an evil race. Evil or antisocial individuals, perhaps, but not an evil species.
Any species that had evolved to the point of social and technological cooperation necessary for them to travel between the stars had to be civilized. This was the considered opinion of the Federation’s most advanced minds, which were housed inside some sixty-odd different life-forms. Conway had never been the slightest bit xenophobic, but neither was he completely convinced that somewhere there wasn’t an exception that would prove the rule.
“I’m going back with the specimens now,” Murchison said. “I may be able to find some answers. The trouble is finding the right questions to ask.”
Fletcher was stretched out on the deck again with one hand inside the control area. “I’ll have to shut off that… whatever it is. But I don’t know where exactly my hand was when I switched it on, or if I switched on anything else at the same time.” He tripped his suit radio toggle. “Haslam, Chen. Will you chart the extent of the noise and vibrations, please, and is there evidence of any other unusual activity within the ship?” He turned to Conway. “Doctor, while I’m trying to find the right button to push, would you do something for me? Use my cutting torch on the corridor wall midway between the L-bend here and the airlock—”
He broke off as they were suddenly plunged into absolute darkness, which seemed to augment the clanging and metallic screeching sounds to such an extent that Conway fumbled for his helmet light switch in near panic. But before he could reach it the ship’s lighting came on again.
“That wasn’t it,” said the Captain, then he continued: “The reason I want you to do this, Doctor, is to find an easier path to the survivors than the one along the corridor. You probably noticed that the majority of the cable runs originating in the control pods go inboard towards the power generation area of the ship, with very few leading out to the periphery. From this I assume that the area of the vessel outboard of the corridor cage and control center is the storage or cargo sections, which should, if the blind ones follow basic design philosophy where their spaceships are concerned, be comprised of large compartments connected by simple doors rather than pressurized bulkheads and airlocks. If this is so, and the sensor readings seem to confirm it, we should have to move only some cargo or stores out of the way to be able to bypass the control pods and get to the survivors fairly quickly. We would not have to risk running through that corridor, or worry about accidentally depressurizing the ship by cutting in from topside…”
Before the Captain had finished speaking, Conway began cutting a narrow