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emotional radiation is composed chiefly of fear and despair. Perceptions are
diminishing and it seems to be struggling to avoid a final catastrophe . .
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" said Mannon suddenly.
"If you mean am I thinking of setting the thing spinning at full speed again,"
Conway replied. "The answer is yes. But there's no logical reason for doing
so, is there?"
A few seconds later the tractor beam men reversed polarity to increase the
vessel's spin.
Almost immediately Prilicla's trembling ceased and it said, "The being feels
much better now-
relatively, that is. Its vitality is still very low."
Prilicla began to tremble again and this time Conway knew that his own
feelings of angry frustration were affecting the little being. He tried to
make his thinking cooler and more constructive, even though he knew that the
situation was essentially the same as it had been when
Descartes had first tried to aid the Meatball astronaut, that they were making
no progress at all.
But there were a few things he could do which would help the patient, however
indirectly.
The vapor escaping from the vehicle should be analyzed to see if it was fuel
or simply water from the being's life-support system. Much valuable data could
be gained from a direct look at the patient-even if it was only possible to
see it through the wrong end of a periscope, since the vessel did not possess
a direct-vision port. They should also seek means of entering the vessel to
examine and reassure the occupant before transferring it to the ambulance and
the wards.
Closely followed by Lieutenant Harrison, Conway pulled himself along the
towing cable toward the spinning ship. By the time they had gone a few yards
both men were turning with the rotating cable so that when they reached the
spacecraft it seemed steady while the rest of creation whirled around them in
dizzying circles. Mannon stayed in the airlock, insisting that he was too old
for such acrobatics, and Prilicla approached the vessel drifting free and
using its spacesuit propulsors for maneuvering.
Now that the patient was almost unconscious the Cinrusskin had to be close to
detect subtle changes in its emotional radiation. But the long, tubular hull
was hurtling silently past the little being like the vanes of some tremendous
windmill.
Conway did not voice his concern, however. With Prilicla one did not need to.
"I appreciate your feelings, friend Conway," said Prilicla, "but I do not
think that I was born, despite my physiological classification, to be
swatted."
At the hull they transferred from the towing cable and used wrist and boot
magnets to cling to the spinning ship, noting that the magnetic grapple placed
there by Descartes had seriously dented the hull plating and that the area was
obscured by a fog of escaping vapor. Their own suit magnets left shallow
grooves in the plating as well. The metal was not much thicker than paper, and
Conway felt that if he made a too sudden movement he would kick a hole in it.
"It isn't quite as bad as that, Doctor," said the Lieutenant. "In our own
early days of space flight-before gravity control, hyper spatial travel and
atomic motors made considerations of
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Major%20Operation.txt weight of little or no importance-vehicles had to be
built as light as possible. So much so that the fuel contents were sometimes
used to help stiffen the structure.
"Nevertheless," said Conway, "I feel as if I am lying on very thin ice-I can
even hear water or fuel gurgling underneath. Will you check the stern, please.
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I'll head forward."
They took samples of the escaping vapor from several points and they tapped
and sounded and listened carefully with sensitive microphones to the noises
coming from inside the ship. There was no response from the occupant, and
Prilicla told them that it was unaware of their presence.
The only signs of life from the interior were mechanical. There seemed to be
an unusually large amount of machinery, to judge from the sounds they could
hear, in addition to the gurgling of liquid. And as they moved toward the
extremities of the vessel, centrifugal force added another complication.
The closer they moved toward the bow or stern, the greater was the force
tending to fling them off the spinning ship.
Conway's head was pointing toward the ship's bow so that the centrifugal force
was imposing a negative G on his body. It was not really uncomfortable as yet,
however-he felt a little pop-eyed but there was no redding out of vision. His
greatest discomfort came from the sight of the ambulance ship, Prilicla and
the vast, tubular Christmas tree which was Sector
General sweeping around the apparently steady ship's bows. When he closed his
eyes the feeling of vertigo diminished, but then he could not see what he was
doing.
The farther forward he went the more power his suit magnets needed to hold him
against the smooth metal of the ship's hull, but he could not increase the
power too much because the thin plating was beginning to ripple under the
magnets and he was afraid of tearing open the hull. But a few feet ahead there
was a stubby, projecting pipe which was possibly some kind of periscope and he
began to slide himself carefully toward it. Suddenly he began to slip forward
and grabbed instinctively for the pipe as he slithered past.
The projection bent alarmingly in his hand and he let go hurriedly, noticing
the cloud of vapor which had formed around it, and he felt himself being flung
away like a stone from a slingshot.
"Where the blazes are you, Doctor?" said Mannon. "Last time around you were
there, now you aren't .
"I don't know, Doctor," Conway replied angrily. He lit one of his suit's
distress flares and added, "Can you see me now?"
As he felt the tractor beams focus on him and begin to draw him back to the
tender, Conway went on, "This is ridiculous! We're taking far too long over
what should be a simple rescue job.
Lieutenant Harrison and Doctor Prilicla, go back to the tender, please. We'll
try another approach."
While they were discussing it Conway had the spacecraft photographed from
every angle and had the tender's lab begin a detailed analysis of the samples
Harrison and himself had gathered.
They were still trying to find another approach when the prints and completed
analyzes reached them several hours later.
It had been established that all the leaks in the alien spacecraft were of
water rather than fuel, that the water was for breathing purposes only since
it did not contain the usual animal and vegetable matter found in the Meatball
ocean samples and that, compared with these local samples, its CO2 content was
rather high-the water was, in brief, dangerously stale.
A close study of the photographs by Harrison, who was quite an authority on
early space flight, suggested that the flared-out stern of the ship contained
a heat shield to which was mounted a solid fuel retro pack. It was now plain
that, rather than an unignited final stage, the long cylindrical vehicle
contained little more than the life-support equipment which, judging by its
size, must be pretty crude. Having made this statement the Lieutenant promptly
had second, more charitable thoughts and added that while air-breathing
astronauts could carry compressed air with them a water breather could not
very well compress its water. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]