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Authors: Frank Herbert
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to an identity called Lewis Orne. His picture in the attached folder showed a blocky, heavy-muscled redhead with off-center features and the hard flesh of a heavy planet native. The flesh in the pod bore little resemblance to the photo, but even in the flaccid repose of demideath, Orne's unguent-smeared body radiated a bizarre aura.
Whenever he moved close to the pod, Stetson sensed power within it and cursed himself for going soft and metaphysical. He had no theory system to explain the feeling, thus dismissed it with a notation in his mind to consult the Psi Branch of the I-A just in case. Likely nothing in it . . . but just in case.
There'd be a Psi officer at the medical center.
A crew from the medical center took delivery on the crechepod and Orne as soon as they got port clearance.
Stetson, moving in his own shock and grief, resented the way the medical crew worked with such casual and cold efficiency. They obviously accepted the patient more as a curiosity than anything else. The crew chief, signing the manifest, noted that Orne had lost one eye, all the hair on that side of his head -- the left side as noted in the pod manifest -- had suffered complete loss of lung function, kidney function, five inches of the right femur, three fingers of "the left hand, about one hundred square centimeters of skin on back and thigh, the entire left kneecap and a section of jawbone and teeth on the left side.
The pod instruments showed that Orne had been in terminal shock for a bit over one hundred and ninety elapsed hours.
"Why'd you bother with the pod?" a medic asked.
"Because he's alive!"
The medic pointed to an indicator on the pod. "This patient's vital tone is too low to permit operative replacement of damaged organs or the energy drain for regrowth. He'll live for a while because of the pod, but . . ." And the medic shrugged.
"But he is alive," Stetson insisted.
"And we can always pray for a miracle," the medic said.
Stetson glared at the man, wondering if that had been a sneering remark, but the medic was staring into the pod through the tiny observation port.
The medic straightened presently, shook his head. "We'll do what we can, of course," he said.
They shifted the pod to a hospital flitter then and skimmed off toward one of the gray monoliths which ringed the field.
Stetson returned to his cruiser's office, an added droop to his shoulders that accentuated his usual slouching stance. His overlarge features were drawn into ridges of sorrow. He slumped into his desk chair, looked out the open port beside him. Some four hundred meters below, the scurrying beetlelike activity of the main port sent up discordant roarings and clatterings. Two rows of other scout cruisers stood in lines just outside the medical receiving area -- gleaming red and black needles. Part of the buzzing activity down there would be ground control getting ready to shift his cruiser into that waiting array of ships.
How many of them stopped first in this area to offload casualties? Stetson wondered.
It bothered him that he didn't possess this information. He stared at the other ships without really seeing them, seeing only the dangling flesh, the red gaps in Orne's body as it had been when they'd transferred him from Sheleb's battered soil to the crechepod.
He thought: It always happens on some routine assignment. We had nothing but a casual suspicion about Sheleb -- the fact that only women held high office.
A simple, unexplained fact and I lose one of my best agents.
He sighed, turned to his desk and began composing the report:
"The militant core on the Planet Sheleb has been eliminated. (Bloody mess, that!) Occupation force on the ground. (Orne's right about occupation forces: For every good they do, they create an evil!) No further danger to Galactic peace expected from this source. (What can a shattered and demoralized population do?)
"Reason for Operation: (bloody stupidity!) R&R -- after two months of contact with Sheleb --
Whenever he moved close to the pod, Stetson sensed power within it and cursed himself for going soft and metaphysical. He had no theory system to explain the feeling, thus dismissed it with a notation in his mind to consult the Psi Branch of the I-A just in case. Likely nothing in it . . . but just in case.
There'd be a Psi officer at the medical center.
A crew from the medical center took delivery on the crechepod and Orne as soon as they got port clearance.
Stetson, moving in his own shock and grief, resented the way the medical crew worked with such casual and cold efficiency. They obviously accepted the patient more as a curiosity than anything else. The crew chief, signing the manifest, noted that Orne had lost one eye, all the hair on that side of his head -- the left side as noted in the pod manifest -- had suffered complete loss of lung function, kidney function, five inches of the right femur, three fingers of "the left hand, about one hundred square centimeters of skin on back and thigh, the entire left kneecap and a section of jawbone and teeth on the left side.
The pod instruments showed that Orne had been in terminal shock for a bit over one hundred and ninety elapsed hours.
"Why'd you bother with the pod?" a medic asked.
"Because he's alive!"
The medic pointed to an indicator on the pod. "This patient's vital tone is too low to permit operative replacement of damaged organs or the energy drain for regrowth. He'll live for a while because of the pod, but . . ." And the medic shrugged.
"But he is alive," Stetson insisted.
"And we can always pray for a miracle," the medic said.
Stetson glared at the man, wondering if that had been a sneering remark, but the medic was staring into the pod through the tiny observation port.
The medic straightened presently, shook his head. "We'll do what we can, of course," he said.
They shifted the pod to a hospital flitter then and skimmed off toward one of the gray monoliths which ringed the field.
Stetson returned to his cruiser's office, an added droop to his shoulders that accentuated his usual slouching stance. His overlarge features were drawn into ridges of sorrow. He slumped into his desk chair, looked out the open port beside him. Some four hundred meters below, the scurrying beetlelike activity of the main port sent up discordant roarings and clatterings. Two rows of other scout cruisers stood in lines just outside the medical receiving area -- gleaming red and black needles. Part of the buzzing activity down there would be ground control getting ready to shift his cruiser into that waiting array of ships.
How many of them stopped first in this area to offload casualties? Stetson wondered.
It bothered him that he didn't possess this information. He stared at the other ships without really seeing them, seeing only the dangling flesh, the red gaps in Orne's body as it had been when they'd transferred him from Sheleb's battered soil to the crechepod.
He thought: It always happens on some routine assignment. We had nothing but a casual suspicion about Sheleb -- the fact that only women held high office.
A simple, unexplained fact and I lose one of my best agents.
He sighed, turned to his desk and began composing the report:
"The militant core on the Planet Sheleb has been eliminated. (Bloody mess, that!) Occupation force on the ground. (Orne's right about occupation forces: For every good they do, they create an evil!) No further danger to Galactic peace expected from this source. (What can a shattered and demoralized population do?)
"Reason for Operation: (bloody stupidity!) R&R -- after two months of contact with Sheleb --
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