was.â
He felt the sudden burst of surprise and curiosity from the medical team, but it was on a low level because their attention was being concentrated on their Earth-human casualties. The captainâs emotional radiation was accompanied by words.
âWait, Doctor,â it said. âDo I understand you correctly? Are you saying that the subject is a robot of unique and advanced design, and, and that it may be a casualty of war?â
âIâm unwilling to speculate on the available evidence, friend Fletcher,â Prilicla replied, âbut judging by the sophistication of design and construction in this mechanism, it may even be possible that we have discovered a nonorganic form of intelligent life. But I advise extreme caution during any subsequent examination, because the actions of this creature or others like it may be the reason why Terragar was trying so hard to avoid contact with us. We wonât know more until or unless the shipâs officers are able to talk to us.
âFriend Murchison,â he added, âIâll be with you in five minutes.â
âThe sooner the better,â he heard Naydrad say. In spite of Murchisonâs earlier, reassuring situation report, he could feel that it was speaking for all of them.
The field medical station was a prefabricated, modular structure designed for use at the scene of space construction accidents or planetary disaster-relief operations. It comprised a self-contained, multiple-species operating room to which recovery wards, medical-staff accommodation, and ancillary equipment could be added as required. The OR was already in use and Rhabwar âs pressor beams had lifted in the less urgently required sections together with a couple of general-purpose robots that were busily attaching them as he approached.
As if it were an unconscious emotional preparation for the serious clinical problems ahead, a childhood memory of his home world, like a waking dream, came flooding back to calm his mind. In those days it had been himself who had been assembling brightly colored structures out of building-blocks on the sand, and peopling them with legendary creatures out of his imagination who had strange and varied capabilities for performing great deeds of good or evil on those in their powerâshort of ending their lives, that was, because violent death was something that even an adult Cinrusskin did not willingly think about. This stretch of golden beach could have been the same, as was the green fringe of vegetation inland that was too indistinct to appear alien and therefore different. But there all similarity ended.
The steep, low-gravity waves of Cinruss had been replaced by the low, smooth rollers that peaked and foamed only as they broke in the shallows; and here the people inhabiting the bright building blocks were more varied and wonderful than anything he could ever have imagined as a child, and death was something that they thought about, faced, and, in the majority of their cases, conquered every day of their lives.
But not today.
From Murchison and the other team members he felt the sudden burst of sorrow, self-criticism, and near anger characteristic of healers who had just lost a patient.
CHAPTER 8
When he joined them a few minutes later, Naydrad was moving the deceased casualty to an adjoining compartment on a litter with a closed, opaque cover. The features of Captain Fletcher looked silently down from the wall communicator screen, the fleshy edges of its mouth pressed tightly together and its strong feelings tenuous with distance. Two other casualties had been given preliminary treatment and were floating above an enclosed, air-cushioned bed while Murchison and Danalta were working on the remaining one. They were concentrating all of their attention on excising the areas of charred tissue while covering the less severely affected sections of the body surface with the thick, creamlike, clinging medication that had
He felt the sudden burst of surprise and curiosity from the medical team, but it was on a low level because their attention was being concentrated on their Earth-human casualties. The captainâs emotional radiation was accompanied by words.
âWait, Doctor,â it said. âDo I understand you correctly? Are you saying that the subject is a robot of unique and advanced design, and, and that it may be a casualty of war?â
âIâm unwilling to speculate on the available evidence, friend Fletcher,â Prilicla replied, âbut judging by the sophistication of design and construction in this mechanism, it may even be possible that we have discovered a nonorganic form of intelligent life. But I advise extreme caution during any subsequent examination, because the actions of this creature or others like it may be the reason why Terragar was trying so hard to avoid contact with us. We wonât know more until or unless the shipâs officers are able to talk to us.
âFriend Murchison,â he added, âIâll be with you in five minutes.â
âThe sooner the better,â he heard Naydrad say. In spite of Murchisonâs earlier, reassuring situation report, he could feel that it was speaking for all of them.
The field medical station was a prefabricated, modular structure designed for use at the scene of space construction accidents or planetary disaster-relief operations. It comprised a self-contained, multiple-species operating room to which recovery wards, medical-staff accommodation, and ancillary equipment could be added as required. The OR was already in use and Rhabwar âs pressor beams had lifted in the less urgently required sections together with a couple of general-purpose robots that were busily attaching them as he approached.
As if it were an unconscious emotional preparation for the serious clinical problems ahead, a childhood memory of his home world, like a waking dream, came flooding back to calm his mind. In those days it had been himself who had been assembling brightly colored structures out of building-blocks on the sand, and peopling them with legendary creatures out of his imagination who had strange and varied capabilities for performing great deeds of good or evil on those in their powerâshort of ending their lives, that was, because violent death was something that even an adult Cinrusskin did not willingly think about. This stretch of golden beach could have been the same, as was the green fringe of vegetation inland that was too indistinct to appear alien and therefore different. But there all similarity ended.
The steep, low-gravity waves of Cinruss had been replaced by the low, smooth rollers that peaked and foamed only as they broke in the shallows; and here the people inhabiting the bright building blocks were more varied and wonderful than anything he could ever have imagined as a child, and death was something that they thought about, faced, and, in the majority of their cases, conquered every day of their lives.
But not today.
From Murchison and the other team members he felt the sudden burst of sorrow, self-criticism, and near anger characteristic of healers who had just lost a patient.
CHAPTER 8
When he joined them a few minutes later, Naydrad was moving the deceased casualty to an adjoining compartment on a litter with a closed, opaque cover. The features of Captain Fletcher looked silently down from the wall communicator screen, the fleshy edges of its mouth pressed tightly together and its strong feelings tenuous with distance. Two other casualties had been given preliminary treatment and were floating above an enclosed, air-cushioned bed while Murchison and Danalta were working on the remaining one. They were concentrating all of their attention on excising the areas of charred tissue while covering the less severely affected sections of the body surface with the thick, creamlike, clinging medication that had
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