“But the first and second dormitories share a common wall,” she
went on, trying to sound hopeful, “likewise the second and third. But the first and third are divided by a short corridor leading inboard toward what must be another, fairly large storage compartment whose sides are common to the inner walls of the three dormitories. The missing FGHJ could be there.”
“I don’t think so,” Fletcher said. “The sensors show it as an empty compartment, about half the size of a dormitory, with a lot of lowpower circuitry and ducting, probably environmental control lines to the dormitories, mounted on or behind the wall surfaces. By empty we mean that there are no large metal objects in the room, although organic material could be present if it was stored in nonmetal containers. But a piece of organic material of the body mass and temperature of a living FGHJ, whether moving or at rest, would show very clearly.
“All the indications are that it is just another storeroom,” the Captain ended. “But no doubt you will search it, anyway.”
With difficulty, Cha Thrat ignored Fletcher’s tone as she said, “During my first search of this area I looked into this corridor and saw the blank end-wall containing what I mistakenly thought to be a section of badly fitted wall plating. My excuse for making this mistake is that there is no external handle or latch visible. On closer examination I see that it is not a badly fitted plate but an inward-opening door that is very slightly ajar, and the scanner shows that it fastens only from the inside.
“The vision pickup is on,” she added. “I’m pushing the door open now.”
The place was a mess, she thought, with weightlessness adding to the general disorder so that floating debris made it difficult to see any distance into the room. There was a very strong smell of
glytt
.
“We aren’t receiving a clear picture,” said Fletcher, “and something close to the lens is blocking most of the view. Have you attached the pickup correctly or are we seeing part of your shoulder?”
“No, sir,” she replied, trying to keep her tone properly subordinate. “The compartment is gravity-free and a large number of flat, roughly circular objects are floating about. They appear to be organic, fairly
uniform in size, dark gray on one surface and with a paler, mottled appearance on the other. I suppose they could be cakes of preprepared food that escaped from a ruptured container, or they might be solid body waste, similar to that found in the dormitories, which has dried and become discolored. I’m trying to move some of it out of the way now.”
With a sudden feeling of distaste, she cleared the visual obstructions from the front of the pickup, using her medial hands because they were the only ones still covered by gloves. There was no response from
Rhabwar
.
“There are large, irregular clumps of spongelike or vegetable material attached to the walls and ceiling,” she went on, moving her body so that the pickup’s images would let the others see, however unclearly, what she was trying to describe. “So far as I can see, each clump is colored differently, although the colors are subdued, and under each one there is a short length of padded shelf.
“At floor level,” she continued, “I can see three narrow, rectangular flaps. Their size and positions correspond to those found in the dormitories. These pancakes, or whatever, are all over the place, but I can see something large floating in a corner near the ceiling … It’s the FGHJ!”
“I don’t understand why it didn’t register on the sensors,” Fletcher said. It was the kind of Captain who insisted on the highest standards of efficiency from its crew and the equipment in its charge, and treated a mal-function in either as a personal affront.
“Good work, friend Cha,” Prilicla said, enthusiastically breaking in. “Quickly now, move it to the entrance for loading into the litter. We’ll be with you directly. What is the general clinical picture?”
Cha Thrat moved closer, swatting more obstructions from her path as she said, “I can’t see any physical injuries at all, not even minor bruising, or external evidence of an illness. But this FGHJ isn’t like the others. It seems to be a lot thinner and less well muscled. The skin appears darker, more wrinkled, and the hooves are discolored and
cracked in several places. The body hair is gray. I … I think this is a much older FGHJ. It might be the ship ruler. Maybe it hid itself in here to avoid what happened to the rest of its crew …”
She broke off, and Prilicla called urgently, “Friend Cha, why are you feeling like that? What happened to you?”
“Nothing happened to me,” she replied, fighting to control her disappointment. “I am holding the FGHJ now. There is no need to hurry. It is dead.”
“That explains why my sensors didn’t register,” Fletcher said.
“Friend Cha,” Prilicla said, ignoring the interruption, “are you quite
sure?
I can still feel the presence of a deeply unconscious mind.”
Cha Thrat drew the FGHJ toward her so that she could use her upper hands, then said, “The body temperature is very low. Its eyes are open and do not react to light. The usual vital signs are absent. I’m sorry, it is dead and …” She broke off to look more closely at the creature’s head, then went on excitedly. “And I think I know what killed it! The back of the neck. Can you see it?”
“Not clearly,” Prilicla replied quickly, obviously feeling her own growing excitement, and fear. “One of those disklike objects is in the way.”
“But that’s
it
,” she said. “I thought at first that one of them had drifted against the cadaver and stuck to its head. But I was wrong. The thing attached itself deliberately to the FGHJ with those thick white tendrils you can see growing from the edge of the disk. Now that I’m looking for them, I can see that they all have the tendrils and, judging by their length, the penetration into the cadaver’s spinal column and rear cranium is very deep. That thing is, or was, alive, and could have been responsible for—”
“Technician,” Fletcher broke in harshly, “get out of there!”
“At once,” Prilicla said.
Very carefully Cha Thrat released her hold on the dead FGHJ, removed her vision pickup, and attached its magnetic clips to a clear area of wall. She knew that the medical team would want to study this strange and abhorrent life-form that was infesting the ship before deciding how
to deal with it. Then she turned toward the entrance, which now seemed to be very far away.
The disks hung thickly like an alien minefield between the door and herself. Some of them were still moving slowly in the air eddies caused by her entry or by the blows with which she had so casually knocked them aside, or perhaps of their own volition. They presented views from every angle—the smooth surface of the mottled side, the gray and wrinkled reverse side, and the edges with their fringe of limp white tendrils.
She had been so busy searching for an FGHJ survivor that she had scarcely looked at the objects she had mistaken for cakes of food or dried wastes floating in the room. She still did not know what they were, only of what they were capable, which was the utter destruction of the highly trained and intelligent minds of their victims to leave them with nothing but the basic and purely instinctive responses of animals.
The thought of a predator who did not eat or physically harm its prey, but gorged itself on the
intelligence
of its victim, made her want to seek refuge in madness. She was desperately afraid of touching one of them again, but there were too many of them for her to avoid doing so. But if any of them got in her way, Cha Thrat decided grimly, she would touch it, hit it, very hard.
The gentle, reassuring voice of Prilicla sounded in her earpiece. It said, “You are controlling your fear well, friend Cha. Move slowly and carefully and don’t—”
She winced as a high-pitched, piercing sound erupted from the earpiece, signifying that too many people were talking to her at once and had overloaded her translator. But they realized immediately what was happening because the oscillation wavered and died to become one voice, the Captain’s.
“Technician,
behind you!
”
By then it was too late.
All of her attention had been directed ahead and to the sides, where the greatest danger lay. When she felt the surprisingly light touch, followed by a sensation of numbness on the back of her neck, a cool, detached part of her mind thought that it was considerate of the thing
to anesthetize the area before inserting its tendrils. She swung an eye to the rear to see what was happening, and instinctively raised her upper hands to push away the disk that had left the dead FGHJ and was attaching itself to her. But the hands fumbled weakly, their digits suddenly powerless, and the arms fell limply away.
Other parts of her body ceased working, or began twitching and bending in the random, uncoordinated fashion of a person with serious brain damage. The calm, detached portion of her mind thought that her condition was not a pleasant sight for friends to see.
“
Fight
it, Cha Thrat!” Murchison’s voice shouted from her earpiece. “Whatever it’s doing, fight it! We’re on our way.”
She heard and appreciated the concern in the Pathologist’s voice, but her tongue was one of the organs that was not working just then because her jaw was clamped shut. Altogether, she was in a state of considerable physiological confusion as muscles continued to twitch uncontrollably, her body writhed in weightless contortions, and sensations of heat, cold, pain, and pleasure affected random areas of her skin. She knew that the creature was exploring her central nervous system, trying to find out how her Sommaradvan body worked so that it would be able to control her.
Gradually the twitchings and writhings and even her fear diminished and were gone, and her body was able to resume its interrupted journey. The lens of the vision pickup turned to follow her. When she reached the door, she slammed it closed and locked it with fastenings that had suddenly become familiar.
“Technician,” Fletcher said sharply, “what are you
doing
?”
It was obvious that she was locking the door from the inside, Cha Thrat thought irritably. Probably the Captain meant why was she doing it. She tried to reply but her lips and tongue would not work. But surely her actions would tell all of them that she, it, both of them, did not wish to be disturbed.
T
hey were all talking at once again. She had to bend the earpiece back to reduce the sudden howl of translator oscillation that was making it difficult to think. The vision pickup was still following her and they must have realized the significance of her action because the babble died quickly and became one voice.
“Friend Cha,” Prilicla said, “listen to me carefully. Some kind of parasitic life-form has attached itself to you and the quality of your emotional radiation is changing. Try, try hard to pull it off and get out of there before your condition worsens.”
“I’m all right,” Cha Thrat protested. “Honestly, I feel fine. Just leave me alone until I can—”
“But your thoughts and feelings aren’t your own anymore,” Murchison broke in. “
Fight
, dammit! Try to keep control of your mind. At least try to open that door again so we won’t waste time burning through it when we get to you.”
“No,” the Captain said firmly. “I’m very sorry, Technician, they aren’t leaving this ship …”
The argument that ensued immediately overloaded Cha Thrat’s translator again, which made it impossible for her to talk to any of them. But there were parts of it, particularly when Fletcher was speaking in its ruler’s voice, that she heard clearly.
The Captain was reminding them, and calling on Prilicla to support it, that the strictest possible rules of quarantine governed this situation. They had encountered a life-form that absorbed the memory, personality, and intelligence of its victims and left them like mindless animals. Moreover, judging by their recent observations of Technician Cha Thrat, the things were capable of adapting to and quickly controlling any life-form.
By then nobody was trying to interrupt Fletcher as it went on. “This could mean that they are not native to the planet of the FGHJs, that they may have come aboard anywhere, and are capable of doing this to the members of every intelligent species in the Federation! I don’t know what drives them, why they’re content to suck out the intelligence of their victims instead of feeding on the bodies, and I don’t even want to think about it. Or about how, or how rapidly, they can reproduce themselves. There are dozens of them in the room with Cha Thrat, and they’re so small that more of them could be hidden in odd corners all over the ship.
“Until we get a properly equipped and protected decontamination squad in there,” Fletcher went on, “I have no choice but to seal and place a guard on the boarding tube. This is something completely new to our experience, and it may well be that the hospital will advise the complete destruction of the ship, and its contents.
“If you will all think about it for a moment,” the Captain ended, sounding very unhappy with itself, “you will realize that we cannot take the slightest risk of that life-form getting onto this ship, or running loose in Sector General.”
There was silence for several moments while they thought about it, and Cha Thrat thought about the strange thing that had happened, and was still happening, to her.
While trying to help Khone she had experienced a joining, and with it the shock and disorientation and excitement of having her mind invaded, but not taken over, by a personality that was completely alien to her. The effect had been rendered even stranger and more frightening by the fact that the Gogleskan’s mind had also contained material from
a previous joining with a mind whose memories were even more confusing, those of the Earth-human Conway. But this sensation was entirely different. The approach and entry was gentle, reassuring, and even pleasant, giving her the feeling that it was a process perfected after a lifetime of experience. But like herself, this invader seemed to be badly confused by the contents of her part-Sommaradvan, part-Gogleskan, and part Earth-human mind and, because of that confusion, it was having trouble controlling her body. She was still not sure of its intentions, but quite certain that she was still herself and that she was learning more and more about it with every passing second.
Murchison was the first to break the silence. It said, “We have protective suits and cutting torches. Why don’t we decontaminate that compartment ourselves and burn them all, including the one on the technician’s neck, and get Cha Thrat back here for treatment while it still has some of its mind left? The hospital people can finish the decontamination when we—”
“No,” the Captain said firmly. “If any of you medics go onto that ship, you won’t be allowed back here.”
Cha Thrat did not want to join in because speaking would involve a minor mental effort and consequent disruption in an area of her mind that she wished to remain receptive. Instead, she moved her lower arms in the Sign of Waiting, then realizing that it meant nothing to non-Sommaradvans, held up one hand palm forward in the Earth-human equivalent.
“I am confused,” Prilicla said suddenly. “Friend Cha is not feeling pain or mental distress. It is wanting something very badly, but the emotional radiation is characteristic of a source trying very hard to maintain calm and to control its other feelings …”
“But it isn’t in control,” Murchison broke in. “Look at the way it was moving its arms about. You’re forgetting that its feelings and emotions aren’t its own.”
“You, friend Murchison, are not the emotion-sensitive here,” Prilicla said in the gentlest possible of reproofs. “Friend Cha, try to speak. What do you want us to do?”
She wanted to tell them to stop talking and leave her alone, but she desperately needed their help and that reply would have given rise to more questions, interruptions, and mental dislocations. Her mind was a bubbling stew of thoughts, impressions, experiences, and memories that concerned not only her own past on Sommaradva and Sector General, but those of Healer Khone and Diagnostician Conway. The new occupant was blundering about like an intruder lost in a large, richly furnished but imperfectly lit household, examining some items and shying away from others. This, Cha Thrat knew, was not the time to leave it alone.
But if she answered a few of their questions, said just enough to keep them quiet and make them do what she wanted, that might be the best course.
“I am not in danger,” Cha Thrat said carefully, “or in any physical or emotional distress. I can regain full control of my mind and body any time I wish it, but choose not to because I don’t want to risk breaking mental contact by talking for too long. As quickly as possible I want Senior Physician Prilicla and Pathologist Murchison to join me. The FGHJs are not important right now. Neither is the anesthetic or the search for the other survivor because—”
“No!”
Fletcher broke in, sounding as if it was about to be physically nauseous. “Those things are intelligent. Do you see the insidious way they are trying to get the technician to reassure us and then entice us over to them? No doubt when you two are taken over there will be even better reasons for the rest of us to join you, or you to return here and leave
Rhabwar
’s crew in the same condition as the FGHJs. No, there will be no more victims.”
Cha Thrat tried not to listen to the interruption because it set off trains of thought in her mind that were unsettling the new occupant and kept it from communicating properly with her. Very carefully she lifted her rear medial arm and bent it so that the large digit was pointing at the thing clinging to the back of her neck.
“This is the survivor,” she said, “the only survivor.”
Suddenly the stranger in her mind was feeling a measure of satisfaction
and reassurance, as if it had at last succeeded in making its need understood, and she found that she could speak without the fear of it going away, fading, and perhaps dying on her.
“It is very ill,” she went on, “but it was able to regain mobility and consciousness for a short time when I entered the compartment. That was when it decided to make a last, desperate try to obtain help for its friends and the host creatures in their charge. The first, fumbled attempts to make contact were the reason for my uncoordinated limb movements. Only within the past few minutes has it realized that it is the only survivor.”
None of them, not even the Captain, was saying a word now. She continued. “That is why I need Prilicla to monitor its emotional radiation at close range, and Murchison to investigate its dead friends, in the hope of finding out what killed them and finding a cure before its own condition becomes terminal—”
“No,” the Captain said again. “It sounds like a good story, and especially intriguing to a bunch of e-t medics, but it could still be a ruse to get mental control of more of our people. I’m sorry, Technician, we can’t risk it.”
Prilicla said gently, “Friend Fletcher makes a good point. And you yourself know that the Captain’s arguments are valid because you observed the mindless condition of the FGHJs after these creatures left them. Friend Cha, I, too, am sorry.”
It was Cha Thrat’s turn to be silent as she tried to find a solution that would satisfy them. Somehow she had not expected the gentle little empath to be so tough.
Finally she said, “Physically the creature is extremely debilitated and I could quite easily remove it to demonstrate its lack of physical control over me, but such a course might kill it. However, if I was to demonstrate my normal physical coordination by leaving this compartment and descending four levels, where we would be clear of the emotional interference from the FGHJs, and if I were to urge the creature to remain conscious until then, would the Cinrusskin empathic faculty be able to detect whether its emotional radiation was that of a highly intelligent
and civilized being, or the kind of mental predator that seems to be
scaring
you out of your wits?”
“Four levels down is just one deck above the boarding tube …” began the Captain, but Prilicla cut it short.
“I could detect the difference, friend Cha,” it said, “if I was close enough to the life-form concerned. I’ll meet you there directly.”
There was another howl of oscillation from her translator. When it faded Prilicla was saying “Friend Fletcher, as the senior medical officer present it is my responsibility to make sure whether the life-form attached to Cha Thrat is the patient and not the disease. However, my species prides itself in being the most timid and cowardly in the Federation, and all possible precautions will be taken. Friend Cha, set the vision pickup to show if any of those life-forms try to leave the compartment and follow you. If any of them do, I shall return at once to
Rhabwar
and seal the boarding tube. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Senior Physician,” said Cha Thrat.
“If anything suspicious occurs while I am with you,” it went on, “even if I am able to avoid capture and still appear to be my own self, friend Fletcher will seal the tube and put the quarantine procedure into immediate effect.
“We need as much information on this life-form as you can give us,” it ended. “Please continue, friend Cha, we are recording. I’m leaving now.”
“And I’m going with you,” Murchison said firmly. “If this is the ship’s only survivor, one of a newly discovered intelligent species and possible future member of the Federation, Thorny will walk on me with all six of its feet if I let it die. Danalta and Naydrad can stay here in case we have need of special equipment and to watch the vision pickup. And in case the little beastie isn’t as friendly as Cha Thrat insists it is, I’ll add a heavy-duty cutting torch to my instruments so that I can protect your back.”
“Thank you, friend Murchison,” Prilicla said, “but no.”
“But yes, Senior Physician,” the Pathologist replied. “With respect, you have the rank but not the muscles to stop me.”
Impatiently Cha Thrat said, “if you want to be able to detect any conscious emotional radiation, please hurry. The patient needs urgent attention …”
There was an immediate objection from Fletcher regarding her unjustified use of the word “patient.” She ignored it and, trying her best to describe the thoughts and images that had been placed with so much effort in her mind, went on to outline the case history of the survivor and the history of its species.
They came from a world that even the Sommaradvan, Gogleskan, and Earth-human components of her mind considered beautiful, a planet so bountiful that the larger species of fauna did not have to struggle for survival and did not, for that reason, develop intelligence. But from the earliest times, when all life was in the oceans, a species evolved capable of attaching itself to a variety of native life-forms. They formed a symbiotic partnership in which the host creature was directed to the best sources of food while the weak and relatively tiny parasite had the protection of its larger mount as well as the mobility that enabled it to seek out its own, less readily available food supply. By the time the host creatures left the oceans to become large and unintelligent land animals, the mutually profitable arrangement continued and the parasite had become very intelligent indeed.
The earliest recorded history told of vain attempts to nurture intelligence in many different species of host creature. The native, six-limbed FGHJ life-form with its ability to work in a wide variety of materials, when a parasite was directing its hands, was favored above all the others.
But more and more they had wished for mind-partners they could not control, beings who would argue and debate and contribute new ideas and viewpoints, rather than creatures who were little more than general-purpose, self-replenishing organic tools with the ability to see, hear, and manipulate to order.