All Judgment Fled (12 page)

 

 

"We will have to move into the corridor while you are leaving," Morrison
ended, launching himself slowly toward the inner seal, "so don't waste time."

 

 

"It might be better if I stayed," said McCullough awkwardly. "None of you
are completely fit, and if they attacked again while you were in the
corridor . . ."

 

 

"I can't risk losing another spacesuit," said the colonel as he checked
his slow light with his feet and good arm. "Drew will organize our defenses.
He's very good at that sort of thing."

 

 

"And the first thing we do," said Drew savagely, "is take the guards off
these stickers! Anything that comes at us again will get six or eight inches
of metal in its guts instead of a harmless little jab. Cold steel has a
very demoralizing effect on human beings -- that's why bayonet charges
have retained their popularity through the ages -- and maybe . . ."

 

 

"No!" McCullough protested. "We've killed one of them already -- by accident,
of course -- and we can't even imagine the trouble that will cause.
But if we start killing them deliberately -- I mean, we must all think very
carefully about this before we make another move which might be
misunderstood."

 

 

"And
I
think we've been thinking too much!" Drew said, his voice
rising almost to a shout. More quietly he went on, "If a person acts
like a wild animal, then that is how he should be treated! And I think
we should dump that -- that carcass. The damn thing gives me the creeps!"

 

 

"While quietly bleeding to death," said Berryman hastily, in an obvious
attempt to restore peace, "I have given serious thought to this problem.
It seems to me that there are just three things we can do. The first
is to return the body to its friends by leaving it in the corridor --
a course which might very well anger them even more. The same applies
if we keep it in here where they may be able to see it through the lock
window. Or lastly, we can hide it from them, with little probability of
them ever finding it, by having the doctor and Hollis take it away.

 

 

"I favor the last alternative," Berryman concluded, "because, while
the aliens may feel fairly certain that it is dead, they cannot be
absolutely sure of this -- they may assume, or hope, that their friend
is a prisoner. If they do not actually see the dead body there might
be enough doubt in their minds to make them proceed more cautiously
against us."

 

 

"My thinking exactly," said the colonel. "Take it to P-Two, Doctor,
and find out what makes it tick."

 

 

"You have to know your enemy," said Drew viciously, "inside and out."

 

 

"Surely you are not suggesting -- " began McCullough aghast, then stopped.
He was trying hard to think as they must be thinking.
He
had not
had his arm and shoulder gored by an alien's horn or had his leg torn by
alien claws.
He
was not aware, not as personally and subjectively
aware as they were, that his spacesuit was useless with everything
which that fact implied. McCullough's skin, and his even more precious
spacesuit, was still in one piece. He had been exposed to, but had not
suffered, violence.

 

 

But violence was a chain reaction with a positive K-factor -- once begun
it quickly became self-sustaining. From the outset it had been the aliens
who had acted violently, or reacted violently, toward the humans. Now
the situation had deteriorated to the point where it was becoming
uncontrollable because both sides were using violence.

 

 

If the aliens reacted violently to the venial sin of trespass, how might
they react to one of their people being murdered, and dissected?

 

 

 

 

chapter twelve

 

 

In the general confusion of the past few hours McCullough had forgotten
one very important fact, and that was the effect of explosive decompression
on an unprotected human or unhuman body. As soon as it was exposed to space,
the soft, almost flat underside of the e-t swelled like a great, lumpy
football and burst wetly. Nothing he could have done in the way of a
post-mortem could have made the alien look worse than it did just then,
and by the time he reached P-Two with it he was looking forward to
investigating this completely strange life-form.

 

 

But there were more urgent matters to be attended to first.

 

 

It was not until they had processed the film, and the pictures taken in
the blister were on their way, pulse by pulse to Earth, that they were
fully able to satisfy Walters' curiosity about the fight in the Ship,
and then it was only by having him listen while McCullough made his
report to Prometheus Control. The physicist, meanwhile, had returned to
the Ship with a supply of food and water for Morrison and the others.

 

 

Before leaving, Hollis reminded them that the water he was taking would
be permanently lost to them, for without the P-ship's reclamation system
there was no chance of them being able to use it again. He apologized
for mentioning this fact but thought that somebody should bear it in
mind in case they were contemplating a lengthy stay.

 

 

McCullough agreed and added yet another unpleasant datum to his report.

 

 

". . . That is the situation in detail," McCullough said a few minutes
later. "Our most urgent need is for spacesuits to evacuate the injured men
or, if they cannot be evacuated, food and water to extend our staying time
on the Ship until evacuation is possible. There is also the possibility
that their wounds may become infected with alien bacteria, against which
their bodies may have no defense, and they will die. However, it seems
to me that the chances are about even of the alien pathogens running
rampant throughout their systems and killing them in a matter of hours,
or alternately, of them having no effect whatsoever because the human
body is too strange and alien an environment for the e-t pathogens to
survive in it. There is also the possibility that our antibiotics will
be as effective against e-t infections as they are against . . ."

 

 

"Brady here,"
a voice from Control broke in. It was a gruff,
impatient, yet concerned voice belonging to the person on whose shoulders
the responsibility for the Prometheus Project and the combined weight
of eight stars did not rest lightly. It went on,
"You are in a mess,
Doctor, I agree. Have you considered moving one of the P-ships into the
lock, taking the men on board in shirt-sleeve conditions, leaving one
man with a suit to operate the lock mechanism?"

 

 

"The lock is too small to take a complete P-ship without wrecking it!"
McCullough broke in. "Berryman had that idea, too. But I've already told
about it at the beginning of my report."

 

 

"If this idea isn't workable," the general was continuing, "Your only
hope is to elicit the aid of the alien Ship's crew in getting them out.
Are you sure they are as aggressive as you say?"

 

 

"But I've already
told
you -- " began McCullough, then stopped.
It occurred to him that the distant general was reacting only to the first
few sentences of the report, and, as McCullough remembered them, they had
not been particularly coherent.

 

 

"Stop talking, McCullough, while I'm trying to -- "
said the general
irritably, then in an aside to someone,
"Yes, yes, I'd forgotten the time
lag. Now let's see . . . McCullough!"

 

 

"Yes, sir," said McCullough, out of sheer force of habit. Holding
conversation with a half-hour delay between each line of dialogue took
some getting used to.

 

 

Walters, who was tuned to Berryman's suit frequency, said quietly, "The
aliens have gone. Both corridor and interhull space are empty. Berryman
says their wounds are painful but so far are not unduly inflamed."

 

 

"Since the material in your report is urgent and may require a quick
decision at any time,"
the general went on briskly,
"I propose
listening with one ear to your report as it comes in while at the same
time filling you in on the rather delicate political situation which is
developing here. Colonel Morrison is aware of the position as of last
night, fifteen hours ago, to you, but it has changed since then. It
changes every time you open your mouth, Doctor, and I wish you would
remember that and speak accordingly.
"Briefly, the position is this . . ."

 

 

Every transmission made from the area of the alien Ship had been relayed
in its entirety by all the major networks. The same applied to the pictures
taken during the approach and examination of the first airlock and the
shots McCullough had taken of the aliens. The reason for such widespread
coverage was simple. Public support and interest in space flight was
on the wane because of the tremendously expensive hardware needed --
especially when pushing out beyond the orbit of Mars -- and a blow-by-blow
illustrated account of the first meeting between humanity and an
extraterrestrial culture should revive it, if anything could. But now
that the meeting had degenerated into violence, had become literally a
blow-by-blow affair, the idea had backfired.

 

 

People were no longer just interested, they were choosing sides and
becoming fanatical.

 

 

At first, Prometheus had tried to wrap a security blanket around the
whole incident, but they realized the uselessness of this when they
were reminded that the P-ships' signals could be received by relatively
unsophisticated equipment, and the stills, although a little more
difficult, required only a moderately sized radio telescope coupled to
the resources of any large newspaper office.

 

 

That was why McCullough was being urged to choose his words carefully when
reporting to Control. If at all possible, he was advised to play down the
seriousness of any given event or development -- the people at Control
would realize the true gravity of the situation and act accordingly,
he was assured -- and at all costs avoid displays of fear or anger. It
would be an even better practice if McCullough could rehearse his report
briefly before transmitting it so as to remove all emotionally loaded
words and phrases.

 

 

"But
sir
-- " began McCullough, then stopped. A picture of Brady
sitting in Control drifted in front of his mind's eye to be replaced by
one of Berryman, Morrison and Drew, frightened and injured and hiding from
an alien threat fifty-odd million miles from home, and the thought came to
him that Brady must be stupid or he, McCullough, was supposed to be that
way. He did not see how their situation could be described in anything but
emotionally loaded language without making it sound farcical. If someone
was to die, or if the three men in the Ship were to succumb to an alien
infection, how was he supposed to report that? As a spot of trouble,
perhaps? Or a Bad Show? If the general was really serious in what he
had said, McCullough might not be allowed to report a death at all!

 

 

". . . One good point is that the eavesdropping is strictly one-way.
They can hear every word you say but they can't pick up our messages
to you. However, I cannot at the moment give you detailed instructions
regarding your present situation. Since you are on the spot you must
use your own judgment. Just be careful not to . . ."

 

 

While the general was talking, McCullough became aware of another voice
in the background -- a tiny, harsh, nervous-sounding voice which fought
against a constant rattle of interference. He realized suddenly that
the voice was his own, speaking the words he had spoken thirty minutes
earlier. He could even hear Brady interrupting him again, so that for a
few seconds there was one McCullough and two General Bradys talking. It
struck him as being wildly funny and he began to laugh.

 

 

Walters looked worriedly at him but remained silent. Not so the general.

 

 

". . . With the whole world listening to every word you say, you
must realize that political capital can be made out of the lightest,
unconsidered word. So don't even say Good morning without thinking about
it first . . ."

 

 

The general went on to say that as the next officer in line of seniority
to Colonel Morrison, Lieutenant Colonel McCullough should be prepared at
any time to take full control of the expedition. Should casualties occur,
should McCullough be forced to assume command, he must be very careful
in the matter of wording his reports. The general was not suggesting
that he
conceal
the fact that casualties had occurred -- he must
use his own discretion in this, or perhaps a simple verbal code could be
worked out which would allow the communication of sensitive material. The
next of kin had the right to know, naturally -- but McCullough had no
idea how each simple incident at the Ship was being blown up out of all
proportion by the news media.

 

 

". . . While I don't approve of the emotional frenzy they are whipping
up over this, one good point about it is that the supplies you need will
be forthcoming. I don't mean to suggest that we would not have sent them
anyway even if you did not have the support and sympathy of billions of
people, but if you stop to consider how much it will cost to send you just
one extra spacesuit, or the price of even a few sips of water . . ."

 

 

"If you're
really
worried," said McCullough sarcastically, "we might
be able to steal water from the Ship! This would mean us forcing ourselves
to overcome a certain -- repugnance, shall we say. But have you forgotten
that we have an aversion to using even a fellow astronaut's reclaimed water,
and for that reason the psychologists insist that our waste fluids are
individually recycled . . ."