Sector General Omnibus 2 - Alien Emergencies (30 page)

This did not mean that they were unaware of their deficiency. Practically every non-sentient creature on their world had the strange ability to navigate accurately over short or long distances without the need of feeling the wind direction or the disturbances caused by vibrations bouncing off distant objects, but they had no real understanding of what the sense of sight could be. At the same time, the increasing sophistication of their long-range touching systems was making them aware that many and complex vibrations were reaching them from beyond their world, that there were sentient and probably more knowledgeable beings producing these faint
touchings, and that these beings might be able to help them attain the sense that was possessed, seemingly, by all creatures except themselves.

Many, many more of the Blind Ones perished while feeling their way into space to their sister planets, but they learned eventually to travel between the stars they could not see. They sought with great difficulty and increasing hopelessness for intelligent life, feeling out world after world in vain, until finally they found the planet on which the Protectors of the Unborn lived.

The Protectors…

They had evolved on a world of shallow, steaming seas and swamps and jungles, where the line of demarcation between animal and vegetable life, so far as physical mobility and aggression were concerned, was unclear. To survive at all, a life-form had to move fast, and the dominant species on that world earned its place by fighting and moving and reproducing generations with a greater potential for survival than any of the others.

At a very early stage in their evolution the utter savagery of their environment had forced them into a physiological form that gave maximum protection to their vital organs—brain, heart, lungs, womb, all were deep inside the fantastically well muscled and armored body, and compressed into a relatively small volume. During gestation, the organic displacement was considerable because the embryo had to grow virtually to maturity before birth. It was rare that they were able to survive the reproduction of more than three of their kind; an aging parent was usually too weak to defend itself against attack by its last born.

But the principal reason why the Protectors rose to dominance on their world was because their young were well educated and already experienced in the techniques of survival before they were born. In the dawn of their evolution the process had begun simply as a transmission of a complex set of survival instincts at the genetic level, but the close juxtaposition of the brains of the parent and its developing embryo led to an effect analogous to induction of the electrochemical activity associated with thought. The embryos became short-range telepaths, receiving everything the parent saw or felt. And even before the growth of the embryo was complete, there was another embryo beginning to form within it that was also in
creasingly aware of the world outside its self-fertilizing grandparent. Then, gradually, the telepathic range increased, and communication became possible between embryos whose parents were close enough to see each other.

To minimize damage to the parent’s internal organs, the growing embryo was paralyzed while in the womb, and the prebirth deparalyzing process also caused loss of sentience and the telepathic faculty. A newborn Protector would not last very long in its incredibly savage world if it was hampered by the ability to think.

With nothing to do but receive impressions from the outside world, exchange thoughts and try to widen their telepathic range by making contact with various forms of non-sentient life around them, the embryos developed minds of great power and intelligence. But they could not build anything, or engage in any form of technical research, or do anything at all that would influence the activities of their parents and protectors, who had to fight and kill and eat unceasingly to maintain their unsleeping bodies and the unborn within them.

This was the situation when the first ship of the Blind Ones landed on the planet of the Protectors and made joyful mental and savage physical contact.

Immediately it became obvious that the two life-forms needed each other—the Blind Ones, technically advanced despite their sensory deprivation, and the highly intelligent race with two-way telepathy who were trapped inside the mindless organic killing machines that were their parents. A species who had just one sensory channel open, hyperdeveloped though it was, and with the capability of traveling between the stars; and another that was capable of experiencing all sensory impressions and of relaying those experiences, who had been confined to within a few square miles of its planetary surface.

Following the initial euphoria and heavy casualties among the Blind Ones, the short- and long-term plans were made for assimilating the Protectors into their culture. To begin with, the Blind Ones did not possess many starships, but a construction program for hyperships capable of transporting Protectors to the world of the Blind Ones was begun. There, although the environment was not as savage as that of their home planet, the surface was still
untamed, because the Blind Ones preferred to live underground. There they would be positioned above the Blind Ones’ subsurface cities, hunting and killing the native animals while their telepathic embryos absorbed the knowledge of the citizens below them, showing the Blind Ones what it was like to
see
, for the first time, the animals and vegetation, the sky with its sun, stars and constantly changing meteorological effects.

Much later, if the Protectors bred true on the Blind Ones’ planet, small numbers would be used on the hyperships to help extend the range of their exploration and search for other sentient beings. But to begin with, the Protectors were needed as the eyes of the Blind Ones on their home world, and they were brought there by specially designed transports two at a time.

It was an extremely hazardous proceeding and many ships had been lost, almost certainly because of the escape of the Protectors from confinement and the subsequent death of the Blind Ones of the crew. But the greatest loss was that of the Protectors concerned and their precious telepathic Unborn.

On the present occasion one of the Protectors had broken out of the corridor cage and had been slow to lose consciousness when the beating and pummeling of its environmental support system had been withdrawn. It had killed one of the crew whose fellow crew-member had also been killed while going to its mate’s assistance, then it had died accidentally on the second Blind One’s sting. But before the Blind One died, it had released the distress beacon and deactivated the corridor cage mechanisms so as to render the surviving Protector unconscious, thus avoiding danger to any would-be rescuers until the telepathic embryo could explain matters.

But the Blind One had made two mistakes, neither of which were its fault. It had assumed that all races would be capable of making telepathic contact with the embryo as easily as had the Blind Ones, and it had also assumed that the embryo would remain conscious after its Protector became unconscious…

The great flood of data pouring into their minds had slowed gradually. It became specific rather than general, a clear, narrow conversational stream.

…The Protector life-form is under constant attack from the moment of its birth until it dies
, the silent voice in their minds went
on,
and the continuous physical assault plays an important part in maintaining the physiological system at optimum. To withdraw this violent stimulation causes an effect analogous to strangulation, if I read the entity Conway’s mind correctly, including greatly reduced blood pressure, diminished sensoria and loss of voluntary muscle activity. The entity Murchison is also thinking, correctly, that the embryo concerned is similarly affected
.

When the entity Fletcher accidentally reactivated the corridor mechanisms, the return to consciousness of my Protector and myself was begun, then checked again when they were switched off, only to be turned on again at the insistence of the entity whom you call Prilicla, whose mind I cannot contact although it is more sensitive to my feelings than my thoughts. Those feelings were of urgency and frustration because I had to explain the situation to you before I died
.

While there is still time I would like to thank you with all the remaining strength of my mind for making contact, and for showing me in your minds the marvels which exist not only on my planet and the world of the Blind Ones, but throughout your Federation. And I apologize for the pain caused while establishing this contact, and for the injury to the entity Fletcher’s limb. As you now know, I have no control over the actions of my Protector…

“Wait,” said Conway suddenly. “There is no reason why you should die. The life-support systems, your corridor mechanisms and food dispensers are still operative and will remain so until we can move your ship to Sector General. We can take care of you. Our resources are much greater than those of the Blind Ones…”

Conway fell silent, feeling helpless despite his confident offer of help. The Protector’s tentacles were lashing out weakly and in haphazard fashion as it drifted weightless and obviously dying in the center of the corridor, and each time one of them struck the wall or deck the reaction sent it spinning slowly. There was, therefore, a good if intermittent view of the whole birth process as first the head and then the four tentacles appeared. As yet, the Unborn’s limbs were limp and unmoving because the secretions that would release the prebirth paralysis, and at the same time obliterate all cerebral activity not associated with survival, had not taken effect. Then, abruptly, the tentacles twitched, threshed about and began pulling
the recently Unborn out of its parent’s birth canal.

The soundless voice in their minds returned, but this time it was no longer sharp and clear. There was a feeling of pain and confusion and deep anxiety muddying up the clear stream of communication, but fortunately the message was simple:

To be born is to die, friends. My mind and my telephatic faculty are being destroyed, and I am becoming a Protector with my own Unborn to protect while it grows and thinks and makes contact with you. Please cherish it…

There had been some crepitation associated with the Captain’s fractured tibia, and Conway had administered a strong painkiller to make him comfortable during the trip back to the ambulance ship. Fletcher remained fully conscious, and because of the relaxing of inhibitions that was a side effect of the medication, he talked continuously and anxiously about the Unborn telepaths and the Blind Ones.

“Don’t worry about them, Captain,” Murchison told him. They had moved Fletcher to the Casualty Deck, and she was helping Naydrad remove his spacesuit while Conway and Prilicla assembled the tools necessary for a piece of minor structural repair work. She went on: “The hospital will treat them with tender, loving care, never fear, although I can just imagine O’Mara’s face when he learns that they have to be accommodated in what amounts to a torture chamber. And no doubt your Cultural Contact people will be there, too, hoping to obtain the services of a wide-range telepath…”

“But the Blind Ones need them most of all,” Fletcher went on worriedly. “Just think of it. After millions of years in darkness they’ve found a way of seeing, even if their eyes can turn and quite literally kill them.”

“Given a little time,” Murchison said reassuringly, “the hospital will turn up the answer to that, too. Thornnastor just loves puzzles like this one. The continuous conception business, for instance, the embryo within an embryo. If we were able to isolate and inhibit the effects of the secretion that destroys the sentient portion of the Unborn’s brain prior to birth, we would have telepathic Protectors as well as Unborn. And if the environmental beating they take all their
lives was toned down gradually and eventually eliminated, they might get out of the habit of trying to kill and eat everything they see. The Blind Ones would have the telepathic eyes they need without danger to themselves, and they could roam all over the Galaxy if they wanted to.”

She paused to help Naydrad cut away the trouser leg of the Captain’s uniform, then addressed Conway. “He’s ready for you now, Doctor.”

Murchison and Naydrad were in position, and Prilicla was hovering above them, radiating feelings of reassurance. Conway said, “Relax, Captain. Forget about the Blind Ones and the Protectors. They will be all right. And so will you. After all, I’m a senior physician in the Federation’s most advanced multienvironment hospital. But if you really feel the need to worry about something, think about my present problem.” He smiled suddenly, and added, “It must be ten years since I last set a fractured DBDG tibia.”

Retlin complex was Nidia’s largest air terminal, its only spaceport, and, MacEwan thought cynically, its most popular zoo. The main concourse was thronged with furry native airline passengers, sightseers, and ground personnel, but the thickest crowd was outside the transparent walls of the off-planet departure lounge where Nidians of all ages jostled each other in their eagerness to see the waiting space travelers.

But the crowd parted quickly before the Corpsmen escorting MacEwan and his companion—no native would risk giving offense to an offworlder by making even accidental bodily contact. From the departure lounge entrance, the two were directed to a small office whose transparent walls darkened into opacity at their approach.

The man facing them was a full Colonel and the ranking Monitor Corps officer on Nidia, but until they had seated themselves he remained standing, respectfully, as befitted one who was meeting for the first time the great Earth-human MacEwan and the equally legendary Orligian Grawlya-Ki. He remained on his feet for a moment longer while he looked with polite disapproval at their uniforms, torn and stained relics of an almost forgotten war, then he glanced toward the solidograph that occupied one corner of his desk and sat down.

Quietly he began, “The planetary assembly has decided that you are no longer welcome on Nidia, and you are requested to leave at once. My organization, which is the closest thing we have to a neutral extraplanetary police force, has been asked to implement this
request. I would prefer that you leave without the use of physical coercion. I am sorry. This is not pleasant for me, either, but I have to say that I agree with the Nidians. Your peacemongering activities of late have become much too…warlike.”

Grawlya-Ki’s chest swelled suddenly, making its stiff, spikey fur rasp dryly against the old battle harness, but the Orligian did not speak. MacEwan said tiredly, “We were just trying to make them understand that—”

“I know what you were trying to do,” the Colonel broke in, “but half wrecking a video studio during a rehearsal was not the way to do it. Besides, you know as well as I do that your supporters were much more interested in taking part in a riot than in promulgating your ideas. You simply gave them an excuse to—”

“The play glamorized war,” MacEwan said.

The Monitor’s eyes flickered toward the solidograph, then back to Grawlya-Ki and MacEwan again. His tone softened. “I’m sorry, believe me, but you will have to leave. I cannot force it, but ideally you should return to your home planets where you could relax and live out your remaining years in peace. Your wounds must have left mental scars and you may require psychiatric assistance; and, well, I think both of you deserve some of the peace that you want so desperately for everyone else.”

When there was no response, the Colonel sighed and said, “Where do you want to go this time?”

“Traltha,” MacEwan said.

The Monitor looked surprised. “That is a hot, high-gravity, heavily industrialized world, people by lumbering, six-legged elephants who are hardworking, peaceloving, and culturally stable. There hasn’t been a war on Traltha for a thousand years. You would be wasting your time there, and feeling very uncomfortable while doing so, but it’s your choice.”

“On Traltha,” MacEwan said, “commerical warfare never stops. One kind of war can lead to another.”

The Colonel made no attempt to disguise his impatience. “You are frightening yourselves without reason and, in any case, maintaining the peace is our concern. We do it quietly, discreetly, by keeping potentially troublesome entities and situations under observation, and by making the minimum response early, before things
can get out of control. We do a good job, if I do say so myself. But Traltha is not a danger, now or in the foreseeable future.” He smiled. “Another war between Orligia and Earth would be more likely.”

“That will not happen, Colonel,” Grawlya-Ki said, its modulated growling forming a vaguely threatening accompaniment to the accentless speech coming from its translator pack. “Former enemies who have beaten hell out of each other make the best friends. But there has to be an easier way of making friends.”

Before the officer could reply, MacEwan went on quickly, “I understand what the Monitor Corps is doing, Colonel, and I approve. Everybody does. It is rapidly becoming accepted as the Federation’s executive and law-enforcement arm. But it can never become a truly multispecies service. Its officers, of necessity, will be almost entirely Earth-human. With so much power entrusted to one species—”

“We are aware of the danger,” the Colonel broke in. Defensively he went on, “Our psychologists are working on the problems and our people are highly trained in e-t cultural contact procedures. And we have the authority to ensure that the members of every ship’s crew making other-species contacts are similarly trained. Everyone is aware of the danger of uttering or committing an unthinking word or action which could be construed as hostile, and of what might ensue. We lean over backward in our efforts not to give offense. You know that.”

The Colonel was first and foremost a policeman, MacEwan thought, and like a good policeman he resented any criticism of his service. What was more, his irritation with the two aging war veterans was rapidly reaching the point where the interview would be terminated.
Take it easy
, he warned himself,
this man is not an enemy
.

Aloud he said, “The point I’m trying to make is that leaning over backward is an inherently unstable position, and this hyper-politeness where extraterrestrials are concerned is artificial, even dishonest. The tensions generated must ultimately lead to trouble, even between the handpicked and highly intelligent entities who are the only people allowed to make off-planet contacts. This type of contact is too narrow, too limited. The member species of the Federation are not really getting to know and trust each other, and they never will until contact becomes more relaxed and natural. As things
are it would be unthinkable to have even a friendly argument with an extraterrestrial.

“We must get to really know them, Colonel,” MacEwan went on quickly. “Well enough not to have to be so damnably polite all the time. If a Tralthan jostles a Nidian or an Earth-human, we must know the being well enough to tell it to watch where it’s going and to call it any names which seem appropriate to the occasion. We should expect the same treatment if the fault is ours. Ordinary people, not a carefully selected and trained star-traveling elite, must get to know offworlders well enough to be able to argue or even to quarrel nonviolently with them, without—”

“And that,” the Monitor said coldly, rising to his feet, “is the reason you are leaving Nidia. For disturbing the peace.”

Hopelessly, MacEwan tried again. “Colonel, we must find some common ground on which the ordinary citizens of the Federation can meet. Not just because of scientific and cultural exchanges or interstellar trade treaties. It must be something basic, something we all feel strongly about, an idea or a project that we can really get together on. In spite of our much-vaunted Federation and the vigilance of your Monitor Corps, perhaps because of that vigilance, we are
not
getting to know each other properly. Unless we do another war is inevitable. But nobody worries. You’ve all forgotten how terrible war is.”

He broke off as the Colonel pointed slowly to the solidograph on his desk, then brought the hand back to his side again. “We have a constant reminder,” he said.

After that the Colonel would say no more, but remained standing stiffly at attention until Grawlya-Ki and MacEwan left the office.

The departure lounge was more than half filled with tight, exclusive little groups of Tralthans, Melfans, Kelgians, and Illensans. There was also a pair of squat, tentacular, heavy-gravity beings who were apparently engaged in spraying each other with paint, and which were a new life-form to MacEwan. A teddybearlike Nidian wearing the blue sash of the nontechnical ground staff moved from behind them to escape the spray, but otherwise ignored the creatures.

There was some excuse for the chlorine-breathing Illensans to keep to themselves: the loose, transparent material of their protective
envelopes looked fragile. He did not know anything about the paint-spraying duo, but the others were all warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing life-forms with similar pressure and gravity requirements and they should, at least, have been acknowledging each others’ presence even if they did not openly display the curiosity they must be feeling toward each other. Angrily, MacEwan turned away to examine the traffic movements display.

There was an Illensan factory ship in orbit, a great, ungainly nonlander whose shuttle had touched down a few minutes earlier, and a Nidian ground transporter fitted with the chlorine breathers’ life-support was on the way in to pick up passengers. Their Tralthan-built and crewed passenger ship was nearly ready to board and stood on its apron on the other side of the main aircraft runway. It was one of the new ships which boasted of providing comfortable accommodation for six different oxygen-breathing species, but degrees of comfort were relative and MacEwan, Grawlya-Ki, and the other non-Tralthans in the lounge would shortly be judging it for themselves.

Apart from the Illensan shuttle and the Tralthan vessel, the only traffic was the Nidian atmosphere craft which took off and landed every few minutes. They were not large aircraft, but they did not need to be to hold a thousand Nidians. As the aircraft differed only in their registration markings, it seemed that the same machine was endlessly taking off and landing.

Angry because there was nothing else in the room to engage his attention fully, and because it occupied such a prominent position in the center of the lounge that all eyes were naturally drawn to it, MacEwan turned finally to look once again at that frightful and familiar tableau.

Grawlya-Ki had already done so and was whining softly to itself.

It was a life-sized replica of the old Orligian war memorial, one of the countless thousands of copies which occupied public places of honor or appeared in miniature on the desks or in the homes of responsible and concerned beings on every world of the Federation. The original had stood within its protective shield in the central Plaza of Orligia’s capital city for more than two centuries, during which a great many native and visiting entities of sensitivity and intelligence had tried vainly to describe its effect upon them.

For that war memorial was no aesthetic marble poem in which godlike figures gestured defiance or lay dying nobly with limbs arranged to the best advantage. Instead it consisted of an Orligian and an Earthman, surrounded by the shattered remnants of a Control Room belonging to a type of ship now long obsolete.

The Orligian was standing crouched forward, the fur of its chest and face matted with blood. A few yards away lay the Earth-human, very obviously dying. The front of his uniform was in shreds, revealing the ghastly injuries he had sustained. Abdominal organs normally concealed by skin, layers of subcutaneous tissue and muscle were clearly visible. Yet this man, who had no business being alive much less being capable of movement, was struggling toward the Orligian.

Two combatants amid the wreckage of a warship trying to continue their battle hand-to-hand?

The dozens of plaques spaced around the base of the tableau described the incident in all the written languages of the Federation.

They told of the epic, single-ship duel between the Orligian and the Earth-human commanders. So evenly matched had they been that, their respective crew members dead, their ships shot to pieces, armaments depleted and power gone, they had crash-landed close together on a world unknown to both of them. The Orligian, anxious to learn all it could regarding enemy ship systems, and driven by a more personal curiosity about its opponent, had boarded the wrecked Earth ship. They met.

For them the war was over, because the terribly wounded Earth-human did not know when he was going to die and the Orligian did not know when, if ever, its distress signal would bring rescuers. The distant, impersonal hatred they had felt toward each other was gone, dissipated by the six-hour period of maximum effort that had been their duel, and was replaced by feelings of mutual respect for the degree of professional competence displayed. So they tried to communicate, and succeeded.

It had been a slow, difficult, and extraordinarily painful process for both of them, but when they did talk they held nothing back. The Orligian knew that any verbal insubordination it might utter would die with this Earth-human, who in turn sensed the other’s sympathy and was in too much pain to care about the things he
said about his own superiors. And while they talked the Earth-human learned something of vital importance, an enemy’s-eye view of the simple, stupid, and jointly misunderstood incident which had been responsible for starting the war in the first place.

It had been during the closing stages of this conversation that an Orligian ship which chanced to be in the area had landed and, after assessing the situation, used its Stopper on the Earth wreck.

Even now the operating principles of the Orligian primary space weapon were unclear to MacEwan. The weapon was capable of enclosing a small ship, or vital sections of a large one, within a field of stasis in which all motion stopped. Neither the ships nor their crew were harmed physically, but if someone so much as scratched the surface of one of those Stopped hulls or tried to slip a needle into the skin of one of the Stopped personnel, the result was an explosion of near-nuclear proportions.

But the Orligian stasis field projector had peaceful as well as military applications.

With great difficulty the section of Control Room and the two Stopped bodies it contained had been moved to Orligia, to occupy the central square of the planetary capital as the most gruesomely effective war memorial ever known, for two hundred and thirty-six years. During that time the shaky peace which the two frozen beings had brought about between Orligia and Earth ripened into friendship, and medical science progressed to the point where the terribly injured Earth-human could be saved. Although its injuries had not been fatal, Grawlya-Ki had insisted on being Stopped with its friend so that it could see MacEwan cured for itself.