"Somehow," said Conway, "I don't think it will be as simple as that."

            He had barely finished speaking when a high-pressure jet-white vapor filled the room with fog. Kursedd jerked back instinctively, pulling the flame away from the holed pipe, and the vapor changed to a clear liquid which bubbled out to hang as shrinking, furiously steaming globes all around them. They looked and acted like water, Conway thought, as he collected another sample.

            With the third puncture the cutting flame, held momentarily in the jet of escaping gas, swelled and brightened visibly. That reaction was unmistakable.

            "Oxygen," said Kursedd, putting Conway's thoughts into words, "or a high oxygen content.~~

            "The water doesn't bother me," Hendricks put in, "but chlorine and oxy is a pretty unbreathable mixture."

            "I agree," said Conway. "Any being who breathes chlorine finds oxygen lethal in a matter of seconds, and vice versa. But one of the gases might form a very small percentage of the whole, a mere trace. It is also possible that both gases are trace constituents and the main component hasn't turned up yet."

            The four remaining lines were pierced and samples taken within a few minutes, during which Kursedd had obviously been pondering over Conway's statement. Just before it left for the tender and the analysis equipment therein the nurse paused.

            "If these gases are in trace quantity only," it said in its toneless, Translated voice, "why are not all the trace and inert elements, even the oxidizer or its equivalent, pre-mixed and pumped in together as we and most other races do it? They all leave by one pipe."

            Conway harrumphed. Precisely the same question had been bothering him, and he couldn't even begin to answer it. He said sharply, "Right now I want those samples analyzed, get moving on that. Lieutenant Hendricks and I will try to work out the physical size and pressure requirements of the being. And don't worry," he ended dryly, "all things will eventually become plain."

            "Let us hope the answers come during curative surgery," Kursedd gave out as a parting shot, "and not at the post-mortem."

            Without further urging Hendricks began lifting aside the buckled floor plating to get at the artificial gravity grids. Conway thought that he looked like a man who knew exactly what he was doing, so he left him to it and went looking for furniture.

III

The disaster had not been as other shipwrecks, where all movable objects together with a large number normally supposed to be immovable were lifted and hurled toward the point of impact. Here, instead, there had been a brief, savage shock which had disrupted the binding powers of practically every bolt, rivet and weld in the ship. Furniture, which was about the most easily damaged item in any ship, had suffered worst.

            From a chair or bed could be told the shape, carriage and number of limbs of its user with fair accuracy, or if it possessed a hard tegument or required artificial padding for comfort. And a study of materials and design could give the gravity-pull which the being considered normal. But Conway was dead out of luck.

            Some of the bits and pieces floating weightless in every compartment were almost certainly furniture, but they were so thoroughly mixed together that it was like trying to make sense of the scrambled parts of sixteen jigsaw puzzles. He thought of calling O'Mara, then decided against it. The Major would not be interested in how well he wasn't getting on.

            He was searching the ruins of what might have been a row of lockers, hoping wistfully to strike a bonanza in the shape of clothing or an e-t pin-up picture, when Kursedd called.

            "The analysis is complete," the nurse reported. "There is nothing unusual about the samples when considered separately. As a mixture they would be lethal to any species possessing a respiratory system. Mix them any way you want the result is a sludgy, poisonous mess.

            "Be more explicit," said Conway sharply. "I want data, not opinions."

            "As well as the gases already identified," Kursedd replied, "there is ammonia, CO2, and two inerts. Together, and in any combination of which I can conceive, they form an atmosphere which is heavy, poisonous and highly opaque...

            "It can't be!" Conway snapped back. "You saw their interior paintwork, they used pastels a lot. Races living in an opaque atmosphere would not be sensitive to subtle variations of color-"

            "Doctor Conway," Hendricks' voice broke in apologetically, "I've finished checking that grid. So far as I can tell it's rigged to pull five Gs."

            A pull of five times Earth-normal gravity meant a proportionately high atmospheric pressure. The being must breathe a thick, poisonous soup-but a clear soup, he added hastily to himself. And there were other more immediate, and perhaps deadly, implications as well.

            To Hendricks he said quickly, "Tell the rescue team to watch their step-without slowing down, if possible. Any beastie living under five Gs is apt to have muscles, and people in the survivor's position have been known to run amuck."

            "I see what you mean," said Hendricks worriedly, and signed off. Conway returned to Kursedd.

            "You heard the Lieutenant's report," he resumed in a quieter voice. "Try combinations under high pressure. And remember, we want a clear atmosphere!"

            There was a long pause, then: "Very well. But I must add that I dislike wasting time, even when I am ordered to do so."

            For several seconds Conway practiced savage self-restraint until a click in his phones told him that the DBLF had broken contact. Then he said a few words which, even had they been subjected to the emotion filtering process of Translation, would have left no doubt in any e-t's mind that he was angry.

            But slowly his rage toward this stupid, conceited, downright impertinent nurse he had been given began to fade. Perhaps Kursedd wasn't stupid, no matter what else it might be. Suppose it was right about the opacity of that atmosphere, where did that leave them? The answer was with yet another piece of contradictory evidence.

            The whole wreck was stuffed with contradictions, Conway thought wearily. The design and construction did not suggest a high-G species, yet the artificial gravity grids could produce up to five Gs. And the interior color schemes pointed to a race possessing a visual range close to Conway's own. But the air they lived in, according to Kursedd, would need radar to see through. Not to mention a needlessly complex air-supply system and a bright orange outer hull...

            For the twentieth time Conway tried to form a meaningful picture from the data at his disposal, in vain. Maybe if he attacked the' problem from a different direction..

            Abruptly he snapped on his radio's transmit switch and said, "Lieutenant Hendricks, will you connect me with the hospital, please. I want to talk to O'Mara. And I would like Captain Summerfield, yourself and Kursedd in on it, too. Can you arrange that?"

            Hendricks made an affirmative noise and said, "Hang on a minute."

Interspersed by clicks, buzzes and bleeps, Conway heard the chopped-up voices of Hendricks, a Monitor radio officer on Sheldon calling up the hospital and requesting Summerfield to come to the radio room, and the flat, Translated tones of an e-t operator in the hospital itself. In a little under the stipulated minute the babble subsided and the stern, familiar voice of O'Mara barked, "Chief Psychologist here. Go ahead."

            As briefly as possible Conway outlined the situation at the wreck, his lack of progress to date and the contradictory data they had uncovered. Then he went on, ..... The rescue team is working toward the center of the wreck because that is the most likely place for the survivor to be. But it may be in a pocket off to one side somewhere and we may have to search every compartment in the ship to be sure of finding it. This could take many days. The survivor," he went on grimly, "if not already dead must be in a very bad way. We don't have that much time."

            "You have a problem, Doctor. What are you going to do about it?"

            "Well," Conway replied evasively, "a more general picture of the situation might help. If Captain Summerfield could tell me about the finding of the wreck-its position, course, or any personal impressions he can remember. For instance, would the extension each way of its direction of flight help us find its planet of origin? That would solve-"

            "I'm afraid not, Doctor," Summerfield's voice came in. "Sighting backward we found that its course passed through a not-too-distant solar system. But this system had been mapped by us over a century previous and listed as a future possibility for colonization, which as you know means that it was devoid of intelligent life. No race can rise from nothing to a spaceship technology in one hundred years, so the wreck could not have originated in that system. Extending the line forward led nowhere- into intergalactic space, to be exact. In my opinion, the accident must have caused a violent change in course, so that the wreck's position and course when found will tell you nothing.

            "So much for that idea," said Conway sadly, then in a more determined voice he went on, "But the other half of the wreck is out there somewhere. If we could find that, especially if it contained the body or bodies of other members of its crew, that would solve everything! I admit that it's a roundabout way to do it, but judging by our present rate of progress it might be the fastest way. I want a search made for the other half of the wreck," Conway ended, and waited for the storm to break.

            Captain Summerfield demonstrated that he had the fastest reaction time by getting in the first blast.

            "Impossible! You don't know what you're asking! It would take two hundred units or more-a whole Sector sub-fleet!-to cover that area in the time necessary to do you any good. And all this is just to find a dead specimen so you can analyze it and maybe help another specimen, which by that time might be dead as well. I know that life is more valuable in your book than any material considerations," Summerfield continued in a somewhat quieter voice, "but this verges on the ridiculous. Besides, I haven't the authority to order, or even suggest, such an operation-"

            "The Hospital has," O'Mara broke in gruffly, then to Conway: "You're sticking your neck out, Doctor. If as a result of the search the survivor is saved, I don't think much will be said regarding the fuss and expense caused. The Corps might even give you a pat on the back for putting them on to another intelligent species. But if this alien dies, or it turns out that it was already dead before the search was begun, you, Doctor, are for it."

            Looking at the thing honestly, Conway could not say that he was more than normally concerned about his patient, and definitely not enough to want to throw away his career in the faint hope of saving the being. It was more an angry curiosity which drove him, and a vague feeling that the conflicting data they possessed formed part of a picture which included much more than just a wreck and its lone survivor. Aliens did not build ships for the sole purpose of bewildering Earth-human doctors, so the apparently contradictory evidence had to mean something.

            For a moment Conway thought he had the answer. Growing at the fringes of his mind was a dim, still-formless picture. . . which was obliterated, violently and completely, by the excited voice of Hendricks in his phones:

            "Doctor, we've found the alien!"

I

            When Conway joined him a few minutes later he found a portable airlock in position. Hendricks and the men of the rescue team had their helmets together talking, so as not to tie up the radio circuit. But the most wonderful sight of all to Conway was the tightly-stretched fabric of the lock.

            There was pressure inside.

            Hendricks switched suddenly to radio and said, "You can go in, Doctor. Now that we've found it we can open the door instead of melting through." He indicated the taut fabric beside him and added, "Pressure in there is about twelve pounds."

            That wasn't a lot, thought Conway soberly, considering that the survivor's normal environment was supposed to be five-Gs, with the tremendous air-pressure which went with such a killing gravity. He hoped that it was enough to sustain life. There must have been a slow leakage of air since the accident, he thought. Maybe the being's internal pressure had equalized sufficiently to save it.

            "Get an air sample to Kursedd, quickly!" Conway said. Once they knew the composition it used it would be a simple matter to increase pressure when they had the being in the tender. He added quickly, "And I want four men to stand by at the tender. We'll need special equipment to get the survivor out of here and I might need it in a hurry."

With Hendricks he entered the tiny lock. The Lieutenant checked the seals, worked the manual control beside the door, and straightened up. A creaking in Conway's suit told of mounting pressure as air from the compartment beyond rushed in. It was clear air, he noted with some satisfaction, and not the super-thick fog which Kursedd had predicted. The air-tight door slid aside, hesitated as the still-hot section moved into its recess, then came fully open with a rush.

            "Don't come in unless I call you," Conway said quietly, and stepped through. In his phones there was a grunt of assent from Hendricks, followed closely by the voice of Kursedd announcing that it was recording.

            The first glimpse of the new physiological type was always a confused blur to Conway. His mind insisted on trying to relate its physical features to others in his experience, and whether it was successful or not in this the process took a little time.

            "Conway!" O'Mara's voice came sharply. "Have you gone to sleep?"

            Conway had forgotten about O'Mara, Summerfield and the assorted radio operators who were still linked up with him. He cleared his throat and hastily began to talk:

            "The being is ring-shaped, rather like a large balloon tire. Overall diameter of the ring is about nine feet, with the thickness between two and three feet. Mass appears to be about four times my own. I can see no movements, nor indications of gross physical injury."

            He took a deep breath and went on, "Tegument is smooth, shiny and gray in color where it is not covered with a thick, brownish encrustation. The brown stuff, which covers more than half of the total skin area, looks cancerous but may be some type of natural camouflage. Or it might be the result of severe decompression.

            "The outer surface of the ring contains a double row of short, tentacular limbs at present folded flat against the body. There are five pairs, and no evidence of specialization. Neither can I see any visual organs or means of ingestion. I'm going to have a closer look."

            There was no visible reaction as he approached the creature, and he began to wonder if they had reached it too late. There was still no sign of eyes or mouth, but he could see small gill-like openings and something which looked like an ear. He reached out and gently touched one of the tightly-folded limbs.

            The being seemed to explode.

Conway was sent spinning backward against the floor, his whole right arm numb from the blow which, had he not been wearing a heavy-duty suit, would have smashed his wrist. Frantically he worked the G-belt controls to hold him against the deck, then began inching backward toward the door. The babble of questions in his phones gradually sorted itself into two main ones: Why had he shouted, and what were the banging noises currently going on?

            Conway said shakily, "Uh. . . I have established that the survivor is alive . .

            The watching Hendricks made a choking sound. "I don't believe," said the Lieutenant in an awed voice, "that I have ever seen anything more so.

            "Talk sense, you two!" O'Mara snapped. "What is happening?"

            That was a difficult question to answer, Conway thought as he watched the tire-like being half-rolling, half-bouncing about the compartment. Physical contact with the survivor had triggered off a panic reaction, and while Conway had without doubt been the cause the first time, now contact with anything-walls, floor, or loose debris floating about the room-had the same result. Five pairs of strong, flexible limbs lashed out in a vicious, two-foot radius arc, the force of which sent the being skidding across the room again. And no matter which part of the massive ring body it was it struck out blindly in all directions at once.

            Conway made it to the shelter of the portable lock just as a fortunate combination of circumstances left the alien floating helpless in the middle of the compartment, spinning slowly and bearing a remarkable resemblance to one of the old-time space stations. But it was drifting toward one of the walls again, and he had to get things organized before it started bouncing around a second time.

            Ignoring O'Mara for the moment, Conway said quickly, "We'll need a fine-mesh net, size five, a plastic envelope to go over it, and a set of pumps. In its present state we can expect no cooperation from the being. When it is under restraint and encased in the envelope we can pump in its own air, which should keep it going until it reaches the tender. By that time Kursedd should be ready for it. But hurry with that net!"

            How a high-pressure life-form could display such violent activity in what must be to it extremely rarified air was something Conway could not understand.

            "Kursedd, how is the analysis going?" he asked suddenly.

            The answer was so long in coming that Conway had almost decided that the nurse had broken contact, but eventually the slow, necessarily emotionless voice replied, "It is complete. The composition of the air in the survivor's compartment is such that, if you were to take off your helmet, Doctor, you could breathe it yourself."

            And that, thought Conway, stunned, was the wildest contradiction of all. Kursedd must be equally flabbergasted, he knew. Suddenly he laughed, thinking of what the nurse's fur must be doing now...

IV

Six hours later, after struggling furiously for every minute of the way, the survivor had been transferred to Ward 31 OB, a small observation room with theater off the main DBLF Surgical ward. By now Conway wasn't sure whether he wanted to restore the alien to health or murder it, and judging by the comments, during the transfer, of Kursedd and the Corpsmen, they were similarly confused. Conway made a preliminary examination as thorough as possible considering the restraining net-and finished off by taking blood and skin samples. These he sent to Pathology, plastered with red Most Urgent labels. Kursedd took them up personally rather than commit them to the pneumo tube, because the pathological staff were notoriously color blind where priority labels were concerned. Finally he ordered X rays to be taken, left Kursedd to keep the patient under observation, then went to see O'Mara.

            When he had finished, O'Mara said, "The hardest part is over now. But I expect you want to follow through on this case?"

            "I. . . I don't think so," Conway replied.

            O'Mara frowned heavily. "If you don't want to go on with it, say so. I don't approve of dithering."

            Conway breathed through his nose, then slowly and with exaggerated distinctness said, "I want to continue with the case. The doubt which I expressed was not due to an inability to make up my mind on this point, but was with regard to your mistaken assumption that the hardest part is over. It isn't. I have made a preliminary examination and when the results of the tests are in I intend making a more detailed one tomorrow. When I do so, I would like to have present, if it is possible, Doctors Mannon and Prilicla, Colonel Skempton and yourself."

            O'Mara's eyebrows went up. He said, "An odd selection of talent, Doctor. Mind telling me what you need us for?"

            Conway shook his head. "I'd rather not, just yet."

            "Very well, we'll be there," O'Mara said with forced gentleness. "And I apologize for suggesting that you were a ditherer, when all you did was mumble and yawn in my face so much that I could only make out one word in three. Now go away and get some sleep, Doctor, before I brain you with something."

            It was only then that Conway realized how tired he was. His gait on the way to his room must be closer to a weary shuffle, he thought, than an unhurried, confident tread.

Next morning Conway spent two hours with his patient before calling for the consultation he had requested from O'Mara. Everything which he had discovered, and that wasn't a great deal, made it plain that nothing constructive could be done for the being without bringing in some highly specialized help.

            Dr. Prilicla, the spidery, low-gravity and extremely fragile being of physiological classification GLNO, arrived first. O'Mara and Colonel Skempton, the hospital's senior engineering officer, came together. Dr. Mannon, because of a job in the DBLF theater, arrived late at a near run, braked, then walked slowly around the patient twice.

            "Looks like a doughnut," he said, "with barnacles."

            Everyone looked at him.

            "They aren't anything so simple and harmless," Conway said, wheeling the X-ray scanner forward, "but a growth which the pathological boys say shows every indication of being malignant. And if you'll look through here you'll see that it isn't a doughnut, but possesses a fairly normal anatomy of the DBLF type-a cylindrical, lightly-boned body with heavy musculature. The being is not ring-shaped, but gives that impression because for some reason known best to itself it has been trying to swallow its tail."

            Mannon stared intently into the scanner, gave an incredulous grunt, then straightened up. "A vicious circle if ever I saw one," he muttered, then added: "Is this why O'Mara is here? You suspect marbles missing?"

            Conway did not think the question serious, and ignored it. He went on, "The growth is thickest where the mouth and tail of the patient come together, in fact it is so widespread in that area that it is nearly impossible to see the joint. Presumably this growth is painful or at least highly irritant, and an intolerable itch might explain why it is apparently biting its own tail. Alternatively, its present physical posture might be due to an involuntary muscular contraction brought about by the growth, a type of epileptic spasm..

            "I like the second idea best," Mannon broke in. "For the condition to spread from mouth to tail, or vice-versa, the jaws must have locked in that position for a considerable time."

            Conway nodded. He said, "Despite the artificial gravity equipment in the wreck I've established that the patient's air, pressure and gravity requirements are very similar to our own. Those gill openings back of the head and not yet reached by the growth are breathing orifices. The smaller openings, partly covered by flaps of muscle, are ears. So the patient can hear and breathe, but not eat. You all agree that freeing the mouth would be the first step?"

            Mannon and O'Mara nodded. Prilicla spread four manipulators in a gesture which meant the same thing, and Colonel Skempton stared woodenly at the ceiling, very obviously wondering what he was doing here? Without further delay, Conway began to tell him.

            While Mannon and he decided on the operative procedure, the Colonel and Dr. Prilicla were to handle the communications angle. By using its empathic faculty the GLNO could listen for a reaction while a couple of Skempton's Translator technicians ran sound tests. Once the patient's audio range was known a Translator could be modified to suit it, and the being would be able to help them in the diagnosis and treatment of its complaint.

            "This place is crowded enough already," the Colonel said stiffly. "I'll handle this myself." He strode across to the intercom to order the equipment he needed. Conway turned to O'Mara.

            "Don't tell me, let me guess," the psychologist began before Conway could speak. "I'm to have the easiest bit-that of reassuring the patient once we're able to talk to it, and convincing it that your pair of butchers mean it no harm."

            "That's it exactly," Conway said, grinning, and returned all his attention to the patient.

            Prilicla reported that the survivor was unaware of them and that the emotional radiation was so slight that it suggested the being was both unconscious and close to physical exhaustion. Despite this, Conway warned them all against touching the patient.

            Conway had seen malignant growths in his time, both terrestrial and otherwise, but this one took a lot of beating.

            Like a tough, fibrous bark of a tree it completely covered the joint between the patient's mouth and tail. And to add to their trouble the bone structure of the jaw, with which they would be chiefly concerned during the operation, could not be seen plainly with the scanner because of the fact that the growth itself was nearly opaque to X rays. The being's eyes were also somewhere under the thick, obscuring shell, which was another reason for going carefully.

            Mannon indicated the blurred picture in the scanner and said vehemently, "It wasn't scratching to relieve an itch. Those teeth are really locked on, it has practically bitten its tail off! Definitely an epileptic condition, I'd say. Or such self-inflicted punishment could mean mental unbalance

            "Oh, great!" said O'Mara disgustedly from behind them.

            Skempton's equipment arrived then, and Prilicla and the Colonel began calibrating a Translator for the patient. Being practically unconscious, the test sounds had to be of a mind-wrecking intensity to get through to it, and Mannon and Conway were driven out to the main ward to finish their discussion.

            Half an hour later Prilicla came out to tell them that they could talk to the patient, but that the being's mind still seemed to be only partly conscious. They hurried in.

            O'Mara was saying that they were all friends, that they liked and felt sympathy for the patient, and that they would do everything in their power to help it. He spoke quietly into his own Translator, and a series of alien clicks and gobbles roared out from the other which had been placed near the patient's head. In the pauses between sentences Prilicla reported on the being's mental state.

            "Confusion, anger, great fear," the GLNO's voice came tonelessly through its own Translator. And for several minutes the intensity and type of emotional radiation remained constant. Conway decided to take the next step.

            "Tell it I am going to make physical contact," he said to O'Mara. "That I apologize for any discomfort this may cause, but that I intend no harm."

            He took a long, needle-pointed probe and gently touched the area where the growth was thickest. The GLNO reported no reaction. Apparently it was only on an area unaffected by the growth where a touch could send the patient wild. Conway felt that at least he was beginning to get somewhere.

            Switching off the patient's Translator, he said, "I was hoping for this. If the affected areas are dead to pain we should be able, with the patient's cooperation, to cut the mouth free without using an anesthetic. As yet we don't know enough about its metabolism to anesthetize without risk of killing the patient. Are you sure," he asked Prilicla suddenly, "that it hears and understands what we're saying?"

            "Yes, Doctor," the GLNO replied, "so long as you speak slowly and without ambiguity."

            Conway switched the Translator on again and said quietly. "We are going to help you. First we will enable you to resume your natural posture by freeing your mouth, and then we will remove this growth..."

            Abruptly the restraining net bulged as five pairs of tentacles whipped furiously back and forward. Conway jumped away cursing, angry with the patient and angrier with himself for having rushed things too much.

            "Fear and anger," said Prilicla, and added: "The being.., it seems to have reasons for these emotions."

            "But why? I'm trying to help it. . .

            The patient's struggles increased to a violence that was incredible. Prilicla's fragile, pipe stem body trembled under the impact of the emotional gale from the survivor's mind. One of its tentacles, a member which projected from the growth area, became entangled in a fold of net and was torn off.

            Such blind, unreasoning panic, Conway thought sickly. But Prilicla had said that there were reasons for this reaction on the alien's part. Conway swore: even the workings of the survivor's mind were contradictory.

            "Well!" said Mannon explosively, when the patient had quietened down again.

            "Fear, anger, hatred," the GLNO reported. "I would say, most definitely, that it does not want your help."

            "We have here," O'Mara put in grimly, "a very sick beastie indeed."

            The words seemed to echo back and forth in Conway's brain, growing louder and more insistent every time. They had significance. O'Mara had, of course, been alluding to the mental condition of the patient, but that didn't matter. A very sick beastie-that was the key-piece of the puzzle, and the picture was beginning to fall into place around it. As yet it was incomplete, but there was enough of it there to make Conway feel more horribly afraid than he had ever been before in his life.

            When he spoke he hardly recognized his own voice.

            "Thank you, gentlemen. I'll have to think of another approach. When I do I'll let you know...

            Conway wished that they would all go away and let him think this thing out. He also wanted to run away and hide somewhere, except that there was probably nowhere in the whole Galaxy safe from what he was afraid.

            They were all staring at him now, their expressions reflecting a mixture of surprise, concern and embarrassment. Lots of patients resisted treatment aimed at helping them, but that didn't mean the doctor ceased treating such a case at the first sign of resistance. Obviously they thought he had taken cold feet over what promised to be a highly unpleasant and technically strenuous operation, and in their various ways they tried to reassure him. Even Skempton was offering suggestions.

            If a safe anesthetic is your chief problem," the Colonel was saying, "isn't it possible for Pathology to develop one, from a dead or damaged, er, specimen. I have in mind the search you requested earlier. It seems to me you have ample reason to order it now. Shall I-"

            "No!"

They were really staring at him now. O'Mara in particular wore a decidedly clinical expression. Conway said hurriedly, "I forgot to tell you that Summerfield contacted me again. He says that current investigations now show that the wreck, instead of being the most nearly intact half of the original ship, is the half which came off worst in the accident. The other part, he says, instead of being scattered all over space, was probably in good enough shape to make it home under its own steam. So you can see that the search would be pointless."

            Conway hoped desperately that Skempton was not going to be difficult about this, or insist on checking the information himself. Summerfield had reported again from the wreck, but the Captain's findings had not been nearly so definite as Conway had just made out. The thought of a Monitor search force blundering about in that area of space, in the light of what he knew now, made Conway break into a cold sweat.

            But the Colonel merely nodded and dropped the subject. Conway relaxed, a little, and said quickly, "Dr. Prilicla, I would like a discussion with you on the patient's emotional state during the past few minutes, but later. Thank you again, gentlemen, for your advice and assistance. .

            He was practically kicking them out, and their expressions told him that they knew it-there was going to be some very searching questions asked about his behavior in this affair by O'Mara, but at the moment Conway didn't care. When they had gone he told Kursedd to make a visual check on the patient's condition every half-hour, and to call him if there was any change. Then he headed for his room.

V

Conway often groused at the tininess of the place where he slept, kept his few personal possessions, and infrequently entertained colleagues, but now its very smallness was comforting. He sat down as there was no room to pace about. He began to extend and fill in the picture which had come in a single flash of insight back in the ward.

            Really, the thing had been staring him in the face from the very beginning. First there had been the wreck's artificial gravity grids- Conway had stupidly overlooked the fact that they did not have to be operated at full power, but could be turned to any point between zero and five-Gs. Then there had been the air-supply layout-confusing only because he had not realized that it had been designed to many different forms of life instead of only one. And there had been the physical condition of the survivor, and the color of the outer hull-a nice, urgent, dramatic orange. Earth ships of that type, even surface vessels, were traditionally painted white.

            The wreck was an ambulance ship.

            But interstellar vessels of any kind were products of an advanced technical culture which must cover, or shortly hope to cover, many solar systems. And when a culture progressed to the point where such ships reached the stage of simplification and specialization which had been reached here, then that race was highly advanced indeed. In the Galactic Federation only the cultures of Illensa, Traltha and Earth had reached that stage, and their spheres of influence were tremendous. How could a culture of that size have remained hidden for so long?

            Conway squirmed uneasily in his couch: he had the answer to that question, too.

            Summerfield had said that the wreck was the worst damaged section of a ship, the other half of which could be presumed to have continued under its own power to the nearest repair base. So the section containing the survivor had been torn from the ship during the original accident, which meant that the course constants of this unpowered fragment had to be the same as that of the ship as a whole before the disaster.

            The ship had been coming, then, from a planet which was listed as uninhabited. But in a hundred years someone could have set up a base there, or even a colony. And the ambulance ship had been heading away from that world and into intergalactic space...

            A culture which had crossed from one Galaxy to plant a colony on the fringes of this one, Conway thought grimly, had to be treated with great respect. And caution. Especially since its only representative so far could not, by any stretch of toleration or semantic work-juggling, be considered nice. And the survivor's race, probably highly advanced medically might not take kindly to news that someone was botching the treatment of one of their sick. On the present evidence Conway thought that they would not take kindly to anything or anybody.

            Interstellar wars of conquest were logistically impossible, Conway knew. But the same did not apply to simple wars of annihilation, where planetary atmospheres were exploded or otherwise rendered useless forever with no thought of eventual occupation or assimilation. Remembering his last contact with the patient, Conway wondered if at last they had encountered a completely vicious and inimical race.

            The communicator buzzed suddenly. It was Kursedd reporting that the patient had been quiet for the last hour, but that the growth seemed to be spreading rapidly and threatened to cover one of the being's breathing openings. Conway said he would be along presently. He put out a call for Dr. Prilicla, then sat down again.

            He dare not tell anyone of his discovery, Conway told himself as he resumed his interrupted thought. To do so would mean a force of Monitors swarming out there to make premature contact-premature, that was, so far as Conway was concerned. For he was afraid that that first meeting between cultures would be in the nature of an ideological head-on collision, and the only possibility of cushioning the shock would be if the Federation could show that they had rescued, taken care of, and cured one of the intergalactic colonists.

            Of course there was the possibility that the patient was atypical of its race, that it was mentally ill as O'Mara had suggested. But Conway doubted if the aliens would consider that an excuse for not curing it. And against that idea was the fact that the patient had had logical-to it-reasons for being afraid and hating the person trying to help it. For a moment Conway wondered wildly if there was such a thing as a contra terrene mind, a mentality wherein assistance produced feelings of hate instead of gratitude. Even the fact of its being found in an ambulance was no reassurance. To people like himself the concept of an ambulance had altruistic implications, errands of mercy, and so on. But many races, even within the Federation, tended to look upon illness as mere physical inefficiency and corrected it as such.

            As he left his room Conway did not have the faintest idea of how to go about curing his patient. Neither, he knew, did he have much time to do it in. At the moment, Captain Summerfield, Hendricks and the others investigating the wreck were too dazzled by a multiplicity of puzzles to think about anything else. But it was only a matter of time before they got around to it, a matter of days or even hours, and then they would come to the same conclusions as had Conway.

            Shortly thereafter the Monitor Corps would make contact with the aliens, who would naturally want to know about their ailing brother, who by that time would have to be either cured or well on the way to recovery.

            Or else.

            The thought which Conway tried desperately to keep from thinking was: What if the patient died.. .

Before beginning the next examination he questioned Prilicla regarding the patient's emotional state, but learned nothing new. The being was now motionless and practically unconscious. When Conway spoke to it via the Translator it emoted fear, even when Prilicla assured him that it understood what he was saying.

            "I will not harm you," Conway said slowly and distinctly into the Translator, moving closer as he spoke, "but it is necessary that I touch you. Please believe me, I mean no harm. . ." He looked enquiringly at Prilicla.

            The GLNO said, "Fear and. . . and helplessness. Also acceptance mixed with threats.. . no, warnings. Apparently it believes what you say, but is trying to warn you about something."

            This was more promising, Conway thought. It was warning him, but it didn't mind him touching it. He moved closer and gently touched the being with his gloved hand on one of the unaffected areas of tegument.

            He grunted with the violence of the blow which knocked his arm aside. He backed away hurriedly, rubbing his arm, then switched off the Translator so as to give vent to his feelings.

            After a respectful pause, the GLNO said, "We have obtained a very important datum, Dr. Conway. Despite the physical reaction, the patient's feelings toward you are exactly the same as they were before you touched it."

            "So what?" said Conway irritably.

            "So that the reaction must be involuntary."

            Conway digested that for a moment, then said disgustedly, "It also means we can't risk a general anesthetic, even if we had one, because the heart and lungs use involuntary muscles, too. That's another complication. We can't knock it out and it won't cooperate..." He moved to the ward control panel and pushed buttons. The clamps holding the net opened and the net itself was whisked away by a grab. He went on, "It keeps injuring itself on that net, you can see where it has nearly lost another appendage."

            Prilicla objected to the removal of the net, saying that if the patient was free to move about it was more likely than ever to injure itself. Conway pointed out that in its present posture-head to tail and underbelly, which contained its five sets of tentacles, facing outward-it could do little moving about. And now that he thought of it, that position looked like the perfect defensive stance for the creature. It reminded him of the way an Earth cat lies on its side during a fight, so as to bring all four of its claws to bear. This was a ten-legged cat who could defend itself from all directions at once.

            Built-in involuntary reactions of that order were the product of evolution. But why should the being adopt this defensive position and make itself completely unapproachable at the time when it needed help the most...?

            Suddenly, like a great light bursting in his mind, Conway knew the answer. Or, he amended with cautious excitement, he was near ninety percent sure that he did.

They had all been making wrong assumptions about this case from the start. His new theory hinged on the fact that they had made a further wrong assumption, single, simple and basic. Given that then the patient's hostility, physical posture and mental state could all be explained. It even indicated the only possible line of treatment to be taken. Best of all, it gave Conway reason for thinking that the patient might not belong to the type of vicious and implacably hostile race which its behavior had led him to believe.

            The only trouble with the new theory was that it, also, might be wrong.

            His first wild enthusiasm waned and his degree of certainty dropped to the mid-eighties. Another trouble was that he could not possibly discuss his intended line of treatment with anyone. To do so might mean demotion, and to insist on carrying through with it would mean his dismissal from the hospital should the patient die. What he contemplated was as serious as that.

            Conway approached the patient again and switched on the Translator. He knew before he spoke what the reaction would be so it was probably an act of wanton cruelty to say the words, but he had to test this theory once more for his own reassurance. He said, "Don't worry, young fellow, we'll have you back the way you were in no time...

            The reaction was so violent that Dr. Prilicla, whose empathic faculty made it feel everything which the patient felt at full intensity, had to leave the ward.

            It was only then that Conway finally made his decision.

During the three days which followed, Conway visited the ward regularly. He took careful notes on the rate of growth of the thick, fibrous encrustation which now covered two thirds of the patient's body. There could be no doubt that it was both accelerating and growing thicker. He sent specimens to Pathology, which reported that the patient appeared to be suffering from a peculiar and particularly virulent form of skin cancer and asked if curative radiation or surgery was possible. Conway replied that in this opinion neither were possible without grave danger to the patient.

            About the most constructive thing he did during that time was to post instructions that anyone contacting the patient via Translator was to avoid trying to reassure it at all costs. The being had suffered too much already from that form of well-meaning stupidity. If Conway could have forbidden entrance to the ward to everyone but Kursedd, Prilicla and himself he would have done so.

            But the greater part of his time was spent in trying to convince himself that he was doing the right thing.

            Conway had been deliberately avoiding Dr. Mannon since the original examination. He did not want his old friend discussing the case with him, because Mannon was too smart to be foisted off with double talk, and Conway could not tell even him the truth. He thought longingly that the ideal situation would be for Captain Summerfield to be kept too busy at the wreck to put two and two together, for O'Mara and Skempton to forget his existence, and for Mannon to keep his nose completely out of the affair.

            But that was not to be.

Dr. Mannon was waiting for him in the ward when he made his second morning visit on the fifth day. Properly he requested Conway's permission to look at the patient. Then with this polite formality over he said,

            Listen, you young squirt, I'm getting fed up with you gazing abstractedly at your boots or the ceiling every time I come near you-if I hadn't got the hide of a Tralthan I'd feel slighted. I know, of course, that newly-appointed Seniors take their responsibilities very heavily for the first few weeks, but your recent behavior has been downright rude."

            He held up his hand before Conway could speak, and went on, "I accept your apology, and now to business. I've been talking to Prilicla and the people up in Pathology. They tell me that the growth now completely covers the body, that it is opaque to X rays of safe intensities and that the replacement and workings of the patient's internal organs can now only be guessed at. You can't cut the stuff away under anesthetic because paralyzing the appendages might knock out the heart, too. Yet an operation is impossible with those limbs whipping about. At the same time the patient is weakening and will continue to do so unless given food, which can't be done unless its mouth is freed. To complicate matters further your later specimens show that the growth is extending inward rapidly as well, and there are indications that if the operation isn't done quickly the mouth and tail will have fused together. Is that, in a rather large nutshell, it?"

            Conway nodded.

            Mannon took a deep breath, then plunged on, "Suppose you amputate the limbs and remove the covering growth from head and tail, replacing the tegument with a suitable synthetic. With the patient able to take nourishment it would shortly be strong enough for the process to be repeated over the rest of its body. It is a drastic procedure, I admit. But in the circumstances it seems to be the only one which could save the patient's life. And there is always the possibility of successful grafting or artificial members-"

            "No!" said Conway violently, and he knew from the way Mannon looked at him that he had gone pale. If his theory concerning the patient was correct, then any sort of operation at this stage would prove fatal. And if not, and the patient was the type of entity which it appeared to be-vicious, warped, and implacably hostile-and its friends came looking for it..

In a quieter voice Conway said, "Suppose a friend of yours with a bad skin condition was picked up by an e-t doctor, and the only thing it could think of doing was to skin him alive and lop his arms and legs off. If or when you found him you would be annoyed. Even taking into account the fact that you are civilized, tolerant and prepared to make allowances- qualities which we cannot safely ascribe to the patient as yet-I would venture to suggest that there would be merry hell to play."

            "That's not a true analogy and you know it!" Mannon said heatedly. "Sometimes you have to take chances. This is one of those times."

            "No," said Conway again.

            "Maybe you have a better suggestion?"

            Conway was silent for a moment, then he said carefully, "I do have an idea which I'm trying out, but I don't want to discuss it just yet. If it works out you'll be the first to know, and if it doesn't you'll know anyhow. Everybody will."

            Mannon shrugged and turned away. At the door he paused to say awkwardly, "Whatever you're doing it must be pretty hair-brained for you to be so secretive about it. But remember that if you call me in and the thing goes sour on us, the blame gets halved. .

            And there speaks a true friend, thought Conway. He was tempted to unburden himself completely to Mannon then. But Dr. Mannon was a nosy, kindly and very able Senior Physician who always had, and always would, take his profession as a healer very seriously, despite the cracks he often made about it. He might not be able to do what Conway would ask, or keep his mouth shut while Conway was doing it.

            Regretfully, Conway shook his head.

When Mannon had gone, Conway returned to his patient. Visually it still resembled a doughnut, he thought, but a doughnut which had become wrinkled and fossilized with the passage of eons. He had to remind himself that only a week had passed since the patient had been admitted. The five pairs of limbs, all beginning to show signs of being affected by the growth, projected stiffly and at odd angles from the body, like petrified twigs on a rotten tree. Realizing that the growth would cover the breathing openings, Conway had inserted tubes to keep the respiratory passages clear. The tubes were having the desired effect, but despite this the respiration had slowed and become shallow. The stethoscope indicated that the heartbeats were fainter but had increased in frequency.

            Sheer indecision made Conway sweat.

            If only it was an ordinary patient, Conway thought angrily; one that could be treated openly and its treatment discussed freely. But this one was complicated by the fact that it was a member of a highly advanced and possibly inimical race, and he could not confide in anyone lest he be pulled off the case before his theory was proven. And the trouble was that the theory might be all wrong. It was quite possible that he was engaged in slowly killing his patient.

            Noting the heart and respiration rates on the chart, Conway decided that it was time he increased the periodicity of his visits, and also arranged the times so that Prilicla, who was busy these days in the Nursery, could accompany him.

            Kursedd was watching him intently as he left the ward, and its fur was doing peculiar things. Conway did not waste his breath telling the nurse to keep quiet about what he was doing to his patient because that would have made the being gossip even more. It was he who was being talked about already by the nursing staff, and he had begun to detect a certain coldness toward him from some of the senior nurses in this section. But with any luck, word of what he was doing would not filter up to his seniors for several days.

            Three hours later he was back in 31 OB with Dr. Prilicla. He checked heart and respiration again while the GLNO probed for emotional radiation.

            "It is very weak," Prilicla reported slowly. "Life is present, but so faintly that it is not even conscious of itself. Considering the almost nonexistent respiration and weak, rapid pulse-rate.. ." The thought of death was particularly distressing to an empath, and the sensitive little being could not bring itself to finish the sentence.

            "All these scares we gave it, trying to reassure it, didn't help," Conway said, half to himself. "It hadn't been able to eat and we caused it to use up reserves of energy which it badly needed to keep. But it had to protect itself. .

            "But why? We were helping the patient."

            "Of course we were," Conway said in a bitingly sarcastic tone which he knew would not carry through the other's Translator. He was about to continue with the examination when there was a sudden interruption.

The being whose vast bulk scraped both sides and the top of the ward door on its way in was a Tralthan, physiological classification FGLI. To Conway the natives of Traltha were as hard to tell apart as sheep, but he knew this one. This was no less than Thornnastor, Diagnostician-in Charge of Pathology.

            The Diagnostician curled two of its eyes in Prilicla's direction and boomed, "Get out of here, please. You too, Nurse." Then it turned all four of them on Conway.

            "I am speaking to you alone," Thornnastor said when they had gone,

"because some of my remarks have bearing on your professional conduct during this case, and I have no wish to increase your discomfort by public censure. However, I will begin by giving you the good news that we have produced a specific against this growth. Not only does it inhibit the condition spreading but it softens up the areas already affected and regenerates the tissues and blood-supply network involved."

            Oh, blast! thought Conway. Aloud he said, "A splendid accomplishment." Because it really was.

            "It would not have been possible had we not sent out a doctor to the wreck with instructions to send us anything which might throw light on the patient's metabolism," the Diagnostician continued. "Apparently you overlooked this source of data completely, Doctor, because the only specimens you furnished were those taken from the wreck during the time you were there, a very small fraction indeed of the quantity which was available. This was sheer negligence, Doctor, and only your previous good record has kept you from being demoted and taken off this case...

            "But our success was due mainly to the finding of what appears to be a very well-equipped medical chest," Thornnastor continued. "Study of the contents together with other information regarding the fittings in the wreck led to the conclusion that it must have been some kind of ambulance ship. The Monitor Corps officers were very excited when we told them-"

            "When?" said Conway sharply. The bottom had dropped out of everything and he felt so cold that he might have been in shock. But there might be a chance to make Skempton delay making contact. "When did you tell them about it being an ambulance ship?"

            "That information can be only of secondary interest to you," said Thornnastor, removing a large, padded flask from its satchel. "Your primary concern is, or should be, the patient. You will need a lot of this stuff, and we are synthesizing it as quickly as we can, but there is enough here to free the head and mouth area. Inject according to instructions. It takes about an hour to show effect."

Conway lifted the flask carefully. Stalling for time, he said, "'What about long-term effects? I wouldn't like to risk-"

            "Doctor," Thornnastor interrupted, "it seems to me that you are taking caution to foolish, even criminal lengths." The Diagnostician's voice in Conway's Translator was emotionless, but he did not have to be an empath to know that the other was extremely angry. The way Thornnastor charged out the door made that more than plain.

            Conway swore luridly. The Monitors were about to contact the alien colony, if they had not done so already, and very soon the aliens would be swarming all over the hospital demanding to know what he was doing for the patient. If it wasn't doing well by that time there would be trouble, no matter what sort of people they were. And much sooner than that would come trouble from inside the hospital, because he had not impressed Thornnastor with his professional ability at all.

            In his hand was the flask whose contents would certainly do all that the Head Pathologist claimed-in short, cure what seemed to ail the patient. Conway dithered for a moment, then stuck grimly to the decision which he had made several days back. He managed to hide the flask before Prilicla returned.

            "Listen to me carefully," Conway said savagely, "before you say anything at all. I don't want any arguments regarding the conduct of this case, Doctor. I think I know what I'm doing, but if I should be wrong and you were in on it, your professional reputation would suffer. Understand?"

            Prilicla's six, pipe-stem legs had been quivering as he talked, but it was not the words which were affecting the little creature, it was the feelings behind them. Conway knew that his emotional radiation just then was not a pleasant thing.

            "I understand," said Prilicla.

            "Very well," Conway said. "Now we'll get back to work. I want you to check me with the pulse and respiration, as well as the emotional radiation. There should be a variation soon and I don't want to miss it."

For two hours they listened and observed closely with no detectable change in the patient. At one point Conway left the being with Prilicla and Kursedd while he tried to contact Colonel Skempton. But he was told that the Colonel had left the hospital hurriedly three days ago, that he had given the spatial coordinates of his destination, but that it was impossible to contact a ship over interstellar distances while it was in motion. They were sorry but the Doctor's message would have to wait until the Colonel got where he was going.

            So it was too late to stop the Corps making contact with the aliens. The only course now was for him to "cure" the patient.

            If he was allowed.

            The wall annunciator clicked, coughed and said, "Dr. Conway, report to Major O'Mara's office immediately." He was thinking bitterly that Thornnastor had lost no time in registering a complaint when Prilicla said, "Respiration almost gone. Irregular heartbeat."

            Conway snatched up the ward intercom mike and yelled, "Conway, here. Tell O'Mara I'm busy!" Then to Prilicla he said, "I caught it, too. How about emotion?"

            "Stronger during the erratic pulse, but both back to normal now. Registration is still fading."

            "Right. Keep your ears and mind open.

            Conway took a sample of expelled air from one of the breathing orifices and ran it through the analyzer. Even considering the shallowness of the being's respiration this result, like the others he had taken during the past twelve hours, left no possibility for doubt. Conway began to feel a little more confident.

            "Respiration almost gone," said Prilicla.

            Before Conway could reply, O'Mara burst through the door. Stopping about six inches from Conway he said in a dangerously quiet voice. "Just what are you busy at, Doctor?"

            Conway was practically dancing with impatience. He asked pleadingly, "Can't this wait?"

            He would not be able to get rid of the psychologist without some sort of explanation for his recent conduct, Conway knew, and he desperately wanted to have the next hour free from interference. He moved quickly to the patient and over his shoulder gave O'Mara a hasty r‚sum‚ of his deductions regarding the alien ambulance ship and the colony from which it had come. He ended by urging the psychologist to call Skempton to delay the first contact until something more definite was known about the patient's condition.

            "So you knew all this a week ago and didn't tell us," O'Mara said thoughtfully, "and I can understand your reasons for keeping quiet. But the Corps had made a great many first contacts and managed them very well, thank you. We have people specially trained for this sort of thing. You, however, have been reacting like an ostrich-doing nothing and hoping that the problem would go away. This problem, involving a culture advanced enough to have crossed intergalactic space, is too big to be dodged. It has to be solved quickly and positively. Ideally it would involve us showing proof of good feeling by producing the survivor alive and well..

            O'Mara's voice hardened suddenly into an angry rasp, and he was so close behind Conway that the doctor could feel his breath on his neck.

            .... Which brings us back to the patient here, the being which you are supposed to be treating.

            "Look at me, Conway!"

            Conway turned around, but only after ensuring that Prilicla was still keeping a close watch. Angrily he wondered why everything had come to the boil at once instead of happening in a nice, consecutive fashion.

            "At the first examination," O'Mara resumed quietly, "you fled to your room before we could make any headway. This looked like professional cold feet to me, but I was inclined to make allowances. Later, Dr. Mannon suggested a line of treatment which although drastic was not only allowable but definitely indicated in the patient's condition. You refused to move. Then Pathology developed a specific which could have cured the patient in a matter of hours, and you balked at using even that!

            "Ordinarily I discount rumors and gossip in this place," O'Mara continued, his voice rising again, "but when they become both widespread and insistent, especially among the nursing staff who generally know what they're talking about medically, I have to take notice. It has become plain that despite the constant watch you have kept on the patient, the frequent examinations and the numerous samples you have sent to Pathology, you have done absolutely nothing for the being.

            "It has been dying while you pretended to treat it. You've been so afraid of the consequences of failure that you were incapable of making the simplest decision-"

            "No!" Conway protested. That had stung even though O'Mara's accusation was based on incomplete information. And much worse than the words was the look on the Major's face, an expression of anger and scorn and a deep hurt that someone he had trusted both professionally and as a friend could have failed him so horribly. O'Mara was blaming himself almost as much as Conway for his business.

            "Caution can be taken to extremes, Doctor," O'Mara said almost sadly. "You have to be bold, sometimes. If a close decision is necessary you should make it, and stick to it no matter what..

            "And what the blazes," asked Conway furiously, "do you think I'm doing?"

            "Nothing!" shouted O'Mara. "Absolutely nothing!"

            "That's right!" Conway yelled back.

            "Respiration has ceased," Prilicla said quietly.

            Conway swung around and thumbed the buzzer for Kursedd. He said, "Heart action? Mind?"

            "Pulse faster. Emoting a little more strongly."

Kursedd arrived then and Conway began rattling out instructions. He needed instruments from the adjoining DBLF theater and detailed his requirements. Aseptic procedure was unnecessary, likewise anesthetics- he wanted only a large selection of cutting instruments. The nurse disappeared and Conway called Pathology, asking if they could suggest a safe coagulant for the patient should extensive surgery be necessary. They could and said he would have it within minutes. As he was turning from the intercom, O'Mara spoke:

            "All this frantic activity, this window-dressing, proves nothing. The patient has stopped breathing. If it isn't dead it is as near to it as makes no difference, and you're to blame. Heaven help you, Doctor, because nobody here will."

            Conway shook his head distractedly. "Unfortunately you may be right, but I'm hoping that it won't die," he said. "I can't explain just now, but you could help me by contacting Skempton and telling him to go easy on that alien colony. I need time, just how much of it I still don't know."

            "You don't know when to give up," said O'Mara angrily, but went to the intercom nevertheless. While he was arranging a link-up, Kursedd undulated in with an instrument trolley. Conway placed it convenient to the patient, then said over his shoulder to O'Mara, "Here is something you might think about. For the past twelve hours the air expelled from the patient's lungs has been free from impurities. It has been breathing but apparently not using its breath. .

            He bent quickly, adjusted his stethoscope and listened. The heartbeats were a little faster, he thought, and stronger. But there was a jarring irregularity to them. Through the thick, almost solid growth which enclosed it the sounds were both magnified and distorted. Conway could not tell if the heart alone was responsible for the noise or if other organic movements were contributing. This worried him because he didn't know what was normal for a patient like this. The survivor had, after all, been in an ambulance ship, which meant that there might have been something wrong with it in addition to its present condition...

            "What are you raving about?" O'Mara broke in roughly, making Conway realize that he had been thinking aloud. "Are you saying now that the patient isn't sick. . .

            Absently, Conway said, "An expectant mother can be suffering, yet not be technically ill."

He wished that he knew more of what was going on inside his patient. If the being's ears had not been completely covered by the growth he would have tried the Translator again. The sucking, bumping, gurgling noises could mean anything.

            "Conway... !" began O'Mara, and took a breath which could be heard all over the ward. Then he forced his voice down to a conversational level and went on, "I'm in touch with Skempton's ship. Apparently they made good time and have already contacted the aliens. They're fetching the Colonel now He broke off, then added, "I'll turn up the volume so you can hear what he says."

            "Not too loud," said Conway, then to Prilicla, "How is it emoting?"

            "Much stronger. I detect separate emotions again. Feelings of urgency, distress and fear-probably claustrophobic-approaching the point of panic.

            Conway gave the patient a long, careful appraisal. There was no visible movement. Abruptly he said, "I can't risk waiting any longer. It must be too weak to help itself. Screens, Nurse."

            The screens were meant only to exclude O'Mara. Had the psychologist seen what was to come without fully knowing what was going on he would doubtless have jumped to more wrong conclusions, probably to the extent of forcibly restraining Conway.

            "Its distress is increasing," Prilicla said suddenly. "There is no actual pain, but there are intense feelings of constriction...

            Conway nodded. He motioned for a scalpel and began cutting into the growth, trying to establish its depth. It was now like soft, crumbling cork which offered little resistance to the knife. At a depth of eight inches he bared what looked like a grayish, oily and faintly iridescent membrane, but there was no rush of body fluid into the operative field. Conway heaved a sigh of relief, withdrew, then repeated the process in another area. This time the membrane revealed had a greenish tinge and was twitching slightly. He moved on again.

            Apparently the average depth of the growth was eight inches. Working with furious 'speed Conway opened the covering growth in a total of nine places, spaced out at roughly equal intervals around the ring-like body, then he looked a question at Prilicla.

            "Much worse now," said the GLNO. "Extreme mental distress fear, feelings of. . . of strangulation. Pulse is up, and irregular-there is considerable strain on the heart. Also it is losing consciousness again...

            Before the empath had finished speaking Conway was hacking away. With long, sawing, savage strokes he linked together the openings already made with deep, jagged incisions. Everything was sacrificed for speed. By no stretch of the imagination could what he was doing be called surgery, because a lumberjack with a blunt axe could have performed neater work.

Finished, he stood looking at the patient for three whole seconds, but there was still no sign of movement. Conway dropped the scalpel and began tearing at the growth with his hands.

            Suddenly the voice of Skempton filled the ward, excitedly describing his landing on the alien colony and the opening of communications with them. He went on, ". . . And O'Mara, the sociological set-up is weird, I've never heard of anything like it, or them! There are two distinct life forms-"

            "But belonging to the same species," Conway put in loudly as he worked. The patient was showing definite signs of life and was beginning to help itself. He felt like yelling with sheer exultation, but instead he went on, "One form is the ten-legged type of our friend here, but without their tails sticking in their mouths. That is a transition-stage position only.

            "The other form is.. . is ~. ." Conway paused to give the being now revealed before him a searching, analytical stare. The remains of the growth which had covered it lay about the floor, some thrown there by Conway and the rest which it had shaken off itself. He continued, "Let's see, oxygen-breathing, of course. Oviparous. Long, rod-like but flexible body possessing four insectile legs, manipulators, the usual sense organs, and three sets of wings. Classification GKNM. Visual aspect something like a dragonfly.

            "I would say that the first form, judging by the crudely-developed appendages we noticed, performed most of the hard labor. Not until it passed the 'Chrysalis' stage to become the more dexterous, and beautiful, dragonfly form would it be considered mature and capable of doing responsible work. This would, I suppose, make for a complicated society..

            "I had been about to say," Colonel Skempton broke in, his voice reflecting the chagrin of one whose thunder has just been stolen, "that a couple of the beings are on their way to take care of the survivor. They urge that nothing whatever be done to the patient...

            At that point O'Mara pushed through the screen. He stood gaping at the patient who was now engaged in shaking out its wings, then with a visible effort pulled himself together. He said, "I suppose apologies are in order, Doctor. But why didn't you tell someone...

            "I had no clear proof that my theory was right," Conway said seriously. "When the patient went into a panic several times when I suggested helping it, I suspected that the growth might be normal. A caterpillar could be expected to object to anyone trying to remove its chrysalis prematurely, for the good reason that such a course would kill it. And there were other pointers. The lack of food intake, the ring-like position with the appendages facing outward-obviously a defense mechanism from a time when natural enemies threatened the new being inside the slowly hardening shell of the old, and finally the fact that its expelled breath during the later stages showed no impurities, proving that the lungs and heart we were listening to had no longer a direct connection.

Conway went on to explain that in the early stages of the treatment he had been unsure of his theory, but still not doubtful enough in his mind to allow Mannon or Thornnastor to have their way. He had made the decision that the patient's condition was normal, or fairly normal, and the best course would be to do absolutely nothing. Which was what he had done.

            ..... But this is a hospital which believes in doing everything possible for a patient," Conway went on, "and I can't imagine Dr. Mannon, yourself or any of the other people I know just standing by and doing nothing while their patient was apparently dying on them. Maybe someone would have accepted my theory and agreed to act on it, but I couldn't be sure. And we just had to cure this patient, because its friends at that time were rather an unknown quantity. .

            "All right, all right," O'Mara broke in, holding up his hands. "You're a genius, Doctor, or something. Now what?"

            Conway rubbed his chin, then said thoughtfully, "We must remember that the patient was in a hospital ship, so there must have been something wrong with it in addition to its condition. It was too weak to break out of its own chrysalis and had to have help. Maybe this weakness was its only trouble. But if it was something else, Thornnastor and his crowd will be able to cure it now that we can communicate and get its cooperation."

            "Unless," he said, suddenly worried, "our earlier and misguided attempts to reassure it have caused mental damage." He switched on the Translator, chewed at his lips for a moment, then addressed the patient;

            "How do you feel?"

            The reply was short and to the point, but in it were contained all the implications which gladden a worried doctor's heart.

            "I'm hungry," said the patient.

NOTES

THE SECTOR GENERAL SERIES

Hospital Station (1962)

Star Surgeon (1963)

Major Operation (1971)

Ambulance Ship (1979)

Sector General (1983)

Star Healer (1985)

Code Blue-Emergency (1987)

The Genocidal Healer (1992)

The Galactic Gourmet (Tor, 1996)

Final Diagnosis (Tor, 1997)

Mind Changer (br, 1998)

Double Contact (br, 1999)

Species Classification

The Classification System

by Gary Louie

James White's Sector General stories used a unique four letter

classification system that helped describe the species quickly and

effectivly, as one would require when the hospitol is a multi species

enviroment.

Gary Louie was working on a James White concordance. As part of that he

completed a classification system, for the sector general series which

covers all characters up to Final Diagnosis.

This article appeared in the White Papers. Unfortunatly Gary Louie passed

away, before the concordance was completed.

Classification:AACL

Planet:Unknown

Species:Crepellian Pet No Individual Names Known

A non-intelligent pet kept by AMSOs. It has six python-like

ten-tacles which poke though seals in the cloudy plastic of its

suit. The tentacles are each at least twenty feet long and tipped

with a horny substance which must be steel-hard.

Classification:AACP

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name Unknown No Individual Names Known

A race whose remote ancestors were a species of mobile vegetable.

They are slow moving, but the carbon dioxide tanks which they wear

seem to be the only protection they need. AACPs do not eat in the

normal manner but plant themselves in specially prepared soil during

their sleep period, and absorb nutriment in that way.

Classification:AMSL

Planet:Unknown

Species:Creppelian, Crepellian

Individuals:Nurse Towan, Diagnostician Vosan

A species of water breathing octopoids.

Classification:AMSO

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name Unknown

No Individual Names Known

A larger life-form, in the habit of keeping non-intelligent

AACL-type creatures as pets.

Classification:AUGL

Planet:Chalderescol IT

Species:Chaldor, Chalder

Individuals:Patient AUGL-1 13, Patient AUGL-1 16, Patient AUGL-122,

Patient AUGL-126, Patient AUGL-187, Patient AUGL-193, Patient

AUGL-211, Patient AUGL-218, Patient AUGL-22 1, Patient AUGL-233,

Muromeshomon

The denizens of Chalderescol, an armored fish-like species are

water-breathers who can not live in any other medium for more than a

few seconds. A heavily plated and scaled being, slightly re-sembling

a forty-foot long armour-plated crocodile, except that instead of

legs there is an apparently haphazard arrangement of stubby fins,

and a heavy knife-edged tail. A fringe of ribbon-like tentacles

encircles its middle, projecting through some of the only openings

visible in its organic armor. Chaldors have six rows of teeth in an

over-large mouth. The Chalders are one of the frw in-telligent

species whose personal names are used only between mates, members of

the immediate family, or very special friends.

Classification:BLSU

Planet:Groalter

Species:Groalterri

Individual:Hellishomar the Cutter

The Groalterri overall body configuration is that of a squat

octopoid with short, thick tentacular limbs. Its central torso and

head seem disproportionately large. The eight limbs terminate

alternately in four sets of claws (that will with maturity evolve

into manipula-tory digits) and four flat, sharp-edged, osseous

blades. The organ of speech and hearing is centered above the four

heavily lidded eye that are equally spaced around the cranium. A

macrospecies, there is an element of risk involved to any life-form

of more or less nor-mal body mass which approaches it too closely.

Classification:BRLH

Planet:Tarla

Species:Tarlan

Individuals:Surgeon-Captain/Trainee/Padre Lioren, Sedith and

Wrethrin the Healers

Tarlans are an erect quadrupedal life-form with its for short-legs

supporting a tapering, cone-shaped body. Four long, multi-jointed,

medial arms for heavy lifting and handling sprout from waist-level.

Another four that are suited for more delicate work encircle the

base of the neck. Equally spaced around the head are four eyes whose

stalks are capable of independent motion. Tarlans have very large

teeth. An adult Tarlan stands eight feet tall.

Classification:CLCH

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name Unknown

No Individual Names Known

Apparent typographical error for Classification CLHG.

Classification:CLHG

Planet:Drambo

Species:Roller

Individuals:Camsaug, Surreshun

The Rollers resemble animated donuts rolling on their outer edge,

with manipulatory appendages in the form of a fringe ofshort

ten-tacles sprouting from the inner circumference between the series

of gill mouths and eyes. Its visual equipment must operate like a

coeleostat since the contents of its field of vision are constantly

rotating. The Rollers must roll to stay alive-there is an ingenious

method of shifting its center of gravity while keeping itself

upright by partially inflating the section of its body which is on

top at any given moment. The continual rolling causes blood to

circulate-it uses a form of gravity feed system instead of a

muscular pump. The species reproduce hermaphroditically. Each parent

after mating grows twin offspring, one on each side of its bodies

like continu-ous blisters encircling the side walls of a tire.

Injury, disease or the mental confusion immediately following birth

could cause the parent to lose balance, roll on to its side, stop

and die. The points where the children eventually detach themselves

from their par-ents remain very sensitive areas to both generations

and their posi-tions are governed by hereditary factors. The result

is that any close blood relation trying to make mating contact

causes itself and the other being considerable pain. The rollers

really do hate their fa-thers and every other relative. The species

is water-breathing with a warm-blooded oxygen-based metabolism. The

life-support mechanism for the species is physically complicated, to

allow the occupant to roll naturally within it. The concept of

modesty is com-pletely alien to this race. This species does not

know the meaning of sleep. There is no such thing as sleeping,

pretending to be dead or unconsciousness. A Roller is either moving

and alive or still and dead.

Classification:CLSR

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name Unknown

No Individual Names Known

Apparent typographical error for Classification CPSD.

Classification:CPSD

Planet:Unknown

Species:The Blind Ones

No Individual Names Known

These beings are roughly circular, just over a meter in diameter

and, in cross section, a slim oval flattened slightly on the

under-side. In shape they very much resemble their ship, except that

the ship does not have a long, thin horn or sting projecting aft or

a wide, narrow slit on the opposite side which is obviously a mouth.

The upper lip of the mouth is wider and thicker than the lower, and

can be curled over the lower lip, apparently sealing the mout shut.

The beings are covered, on their upper and lower surfaces and around

the rim, by some kind of organic stubble which varies in thickness

from pin-size to the width of a small finger. The stubble on the

underside is much coarser than that on the upper surface, and it is

plain that parts of it are designed for ambulation. The Blind Ones

evolved underground, and have no organs for sight. They formed an

alliance with the Protectors of the Unborn, each species providing

something that other lacked.

Classification:CRLT

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name Unknown

No Individual Names Known

Senior Physician Conway was unable to classi~ this life-form with

complete certainty. The initial analysis was performed on a cadaver,

an independent portion of a larger composite being. The compos-ite

is a warm-blooded oxygen breather with the type of basic me-tabolism

associated with the physiological grouping CRLT. Even a segment is

massive, measuring approximately twenty meters in length and three

meters in diameter, excluding projecting append-ages. Physically it

resembles the DBLF Kelgian life-form, but it is many times larger

and possesses a leathery tegument rather than the silver fur of the

Kelgians. Like the DBLF's it is multipedal, but the manipulatory

appendages are positioned in a single row along the back. There are

twenty-one of these dorsal limbs, all showing evidence of early

evolutionary specialization. Six of them are long, heavy, and

claw-tipped and are obviously evolved for defense since the being is

a herbivore. The other fifteen are in five groups of three, spaced

between the six heavier tentacles, which terminate in four digits,

two of which are opposable. These thinner limbs are ma-nipulatory

appendages originally evolved for gathering and trans-ferring food

to the mouths-three on each flank opening into three stomachs. Two

additional orifices on each side open into a very large and complex

lung. The structure inside these breathing ori-fices suggests that

expelled air could be interrupted and modulated to produce

intelligence-bearing sounds. On the underside are three openings

used for the elimination of wastes. The mechanism of reproduction is

unclear and the specimen shows evidence of p05-sessing both male and

female genitalia on the forward and rear extremities respectively

The brain, if it is a brain, takes the form of a cable of nerve

ganglia with localized swellings in three places, running

longitudinally through the cadaver like a central core. There is

another and much thinner nerve cable running parallel to the thicker

core, but below it and about twenty-five centimeters from the

underside. Positioned close to each extremity are two sets of three

eyes. Two are mounted dorsally and two on each of the forward and

rear flanks. They are recessed but capable of limited extension;

together they give the being complete and continuous vision

vertically and horizontally. The type and positioning of the visual

equipment and appendages suggest that it evolved on a very

unfriendly world. The tentative Classification is an incomplete CRLT

Classification:DBDG

Planets:Earth, Gregory (Colony)

Species:Earth-human, Gregorian

Individuals:Theologian Augustine, Lieutenant Braithwaite,

Sur-geon-Lieutenant Brenner, Corpsman Briggs, Lieutenant Briggs,

Captain Chaplain Bryson, Lieutenant Carrington, Lieutenant Chen,

Major Chiang, Clarke, Lieutenant Clifton, Junior Intern/Senior

PhysicianlDiagnostician-in-Charge of Surgery Peter Conway, Sergeant

Davis, Major/Colonel Jonathan Dermod, Fleet Commander Dermod,

Lieutenant Dodds, Lieutenant Dowling, Major-Captain Fletcher, Fox,

Trainee Hadley, Harmon, Lieuten-ant Haslam, Patient Hewlitt, Tailor

George L Hewlitt, Mrs. George L Hewlitt, Captain Hokasuri, Major

Holyrod, OR Nurse Hudson, Lieutenant-General Lister, MacEwan, Major

Madden, Captain Mallon, Senior Physician/Diagnostician/Patient

Mannen/Man non, Nurse/Pathologist Murchison, Major Nelson,

Mister/Major/Chief Psychologist O'Mara, Captain Sigvard Nyberg,

Doctor Pelling, General Prentiss, Reviora, Lieutenant-Colonel

Simmons, Colonel Skempton, Surgeon-Lieutenant/Major Stillman,

Lieutenant-Sur-geon Sutherland, Corpsman Timmins, Lieutenant

Wainright, Waring, Corpsman/Colonel-Captain Williamson

Probable Individuals:Lieutenant Carmody, Lieutenant Carson, Section

Chief Caxton, Major Colinson, Major Craythorne, Major Edwards,

Doctor Hamilton, Dietician-in-ChiefKW Hardin, Lieu-tenant Harrison,

Lieutenant Hendricks, Kellerman, Colonel Okaussie, Captain Stillson,

Captain Summerfield, TrooperTeirnan, Surgeon-Captain Telford

This species shows their teeth in a silent snarl when displaying

amusement or friendship and make an unpleasant barking sound that

denotes amusement. The sound, called laughing, in most cases a

psychophysical mechanism for the release of minor degrees of

tension. An Earth-human laughs because of sudden relief from worry

or fear, or to express scorn or disbelief or sarcasm, or in

re-sponse to words or a situation that is ridiculous, illogical or

funny, or out of politeness when the situation or words are not

funny but the person responsible is of high rank. The Earth-human

voice is reputed to be one of the most versatile instruments in the

Galaxy. The Earth-human DBDGs are the only race in the Galactic

Fed-eration with a nudity taboo, and one of the very few member

spe-cies with an aversion to making love in public. The Earth-human

DBDGs make up the majority of the Monitor Corps forces.

Classification:DBDG

Planets:Etlan Empire, Central World (Capital), Imperial Etla

(Capital), Etla, Etla the Sick (Colony)

Species:Etlan, Imperial

Individuals:Heraltnor, Imperial Representative Teltrenn

The physiology of the citizens of the Empire is the same as the

population of their colony Etla. The physiological resemblance is so

close to Earth-human DBDGs that no other disguise other than native

language and dress is needed. There are theories about a prehistoric

colonization program by common, star-travelling an-cestors. Attempts

at procreation between Earth-human DBDGs and Etlans have been

unsuccessful.

Classification:DBDG

Planet:Nidia

Species:Nidian

Individuals:Chief of Procurement Creon-Emesh, Senior Physi-cian and

Tutor Cresk-Sar, Surgeon-Lieutenant Dracht-Yur, Lieu-tenant-Colonel

Dragh-Nin, Senior Physician Lesk-Murog, Senior Food Technician

Sarnyagh-Sa, Yoragh-Kar

Probable Individual:Surgeon-Lieutenant Krack-Yar

The Nidians have seven-fingered hands, stand only four feet tall.

They have a thick red fur coat, and look like a very cuddly

teddy-bear.

Classification:DBDG

Planet:Orligia

Species:Orlig, Orligian

Individuals:Grawlya-Ki/Grulyaw~Ki, Surgeon-Lieutenant Krach-Yul,

Major Sachan-Li, Colonel Shech-Rar, Surgeon-Lieutenant Turragh-Mar

Like the neighboring Nidians, Orligians resemble an Earth-hu-man

child's first non-adult friend's teddy bear.

Classification:DBLF

Planet:Ia

Species:Ian (pre-adolescent)

No Individual Narnes Known

The being appears ring-shaped, rather like a large balloon tire.

Overall diameter of the ring is about nine feet, with the thickness

between two and three feet. The tegument is smooth, shiny and grey

in color where it is not covered with a thick, brownish

incrus-tation. The brown stuff, which covers more than half of the

total skin area, looks cancerous, but may be some type of natural

cam-ouflage. There are five pairs of limbs, and no evidence

ofspecial-ization. No visual organs or means of ingestion can be

seen. The being isn't a doughnut, but possesses a fairly normal

anatomy of the DBLF type~a cylindrical, lightly-boned body with

heavy musculature. The being is not ring-shaped, but gives that

impres-sion because for some reason, known best to itself, it has

been try-ing to swallow its tail. Senior Physician Conway, convinced

all along that the patient is undergoing a natural metamorphosis,

observes that the new patient, after the process is complete, is of

classifica-tion GKNM.

Classification:DBLF

Planet:Kelgia

Species:Kelgian

Individuals:Patient Henredth, Senior Physician Karthad, Charge Nurse

Kursedd, Diagnostician Kursedth, Patient Morredeth, Charge Nurse

Naydrad, Fleet Commander Roonardth, Charge Nurse Segroth,

Diagnostician Suggrod, Student Nurse Tarsedth, Diagnostician Towan,

Senior Physician Yarrence

Probable Individual:Charge Nurse Kursenneth

Kelgians are warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing, multipedal, and with a

long, flexible cylindrical body covered overall by highly mobile,

silvery fur. The Kelgian forelimbs have three digits. There are

twenty sets of short, thin, and not heavily muscled walking limbs.

The feet, which have no toe-nails or other terminations, are like

small, hard sponges.The fur moves continually in slow ripples from

the conical head right down to the tail. These are completely

involuntary movements triggered by its emotional reactions to

outside stimuli. The evolutionary reasons for this mechanism are not

clearly understood, not even by the Kelgians themselves, but it is

generally believed that the emotionally expressive fur comple-ments

the Kelgian vocal equipment, which lacks emotional flex-ibility of

tone.The movements of the fur make it absolutely clear to another

Kelgian-what a Kelgian feels about the subject under discussion. As

a result they always say exactly what they mean be-cause what they

think is plainly obvious-at least to another Kelgian.They can not do

otherwise. Kelgians have an intense aver-sion towards any surgical

procedure which would damage or dis-figure its most treasured

possession, its furs. To a Kelgian the re moval of a strip or patch

of fur, which in their species represents ~ means of communication

equal to the spoken word, is a personal tragedy which all too often

results in permanent psychological damage. A Kelgian's fur does not

grow again and one whose pelt is damaged can rarely find a mate

because it is unable to fully display its feelings. Kelgians are

very close to Earth-humans in both basic metabolism and temperament.

Except for the thin-walled, narrow casing which houses the brain,

the DBLF species has no boney structure. Their bodies are composed

of an outer cylinder of mus-culature which, in addition to be being

its primary means of loco-motion, serves to protect the vital organs

within it. To the mind of a being more generously reinforced with

bones, this protection is far from adequate. Another severe

disadvantage in the event of in-jury is its complex and extremely

vulnerable circulation system; the blood-supply network which has to

feed the tremendous bands of muscle encircling its body runs close

under the skin, as does the nerve network that controls the mobile

fur. The thick fur of the pelt gives some protection here, but not

against chunks ofjagged-edged, flying metal. An injury which many

other species would consider superficial could cause a DBLF to bleed

to death in min-utes. Kelgians are herbivorous.

Classification:DBPK

Planet:Dwerla

Species:Dwerlan

No Individual Names Known

A warm-blooded oxygen-breathing herbivore that does not walk

upright. Judging by the shape of the spacesuits, the beings are

flat-tened cylinders about six feet long with four sets of

manipulatory appendages behind a conical section which is probably

the head, and another four locomotor appendages. Apart from the

smaller size and number of appendages, the beings physically

resemble the Kelgian race. The pointed, fox-like head and the thick,

broad-striped coat make it look like a furry, short-legged zebra

with an enormous tail. These beings seem not to possess natural

weapons of offrnce or defense, or any signs of having had any in the

past. Even their limbs are not built for speed, so they can not run

from danger. The set used for walking are too short and are padded,

while the fotward set are more slender, less well-muscled and end in

four highly flexible digits which don't possess so much as a

fingernail among them. There are the fur markings, of course, but it

is rare that a life-form rises to the top of its evolutionary tree

by camou-flage alone, or by being nice and cuddly. The species has

two sexes, male and female, and the reproductive system seems

relatively nor-mal. Both sexes use a water soluble dye to enhance

artificially the bands of color on their body fur~clearly the dyes

are for cosmetic reasons. The immature do not use dyes, but use a

brownish pig-ment on a bare patch above the tail.

Classification:DCNF

Planet:Sommaradva

Species:Sommaradvan

Individual:Trainee Cha Th rat

Four Ambulatory limbs; Four waist-level heavy manipulators; and a

set of manipulators for food provisions and fine work encircling the

neck. This being has two stomachs. Sommaradvan society is stratified

into three levels~serviles, warriors, and rulers~which strictly

govern how an individual acts within the society.

Classification:DCSL

Planet:Cromsag

Species:Cromsaggar

No Individual Names Known

This species has three sets of limbs: two ambulators, two medial

heavy manipulators, and two more at neck level for eating and to

perform more delicate work. It has a cranium covered by thick, blue

fur that continues in a narrow strip along the spine to the

vestigial tail.

Classification:DHCG

Planet:Wemar

Species:Wem

Individuals:First Hunter Creethar, Hunter Druuth, Youth Evemth,

First Cook Remrath, First Teacher Tawsar

The Wem life-form is a warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing species with

an adult body mass just under three times that of an Earth-human

and, since Wermar's surface gravity is one point three eight

standard Gs, a healthy specimen is proportionately well-muscled. It

resembles the rare Earth beast called a kangaroo. The differences

are that the head is larger and fitted with a really ferocious set

of teeth; each of the two short forelimbs terminate in six-fingered

hands possessing two opposable thumbs, and the tail is more massive

and tapered to a wide, flat triangular tip composed of immobile

osseous material enclosed by a thick, muscular sheath. The

flattening at the end of tail serves a threefold purpose: as its

principal natural weapon, as an emergency method of fast locomotion

while hunting or being hunted, and as a means of transporting infant

Wem who are too small to walk. The Wem hunt by adopting an awkward,

almost ri-diculous stance with their forelimbs tightly folded, their

chins touch-ing the ground, and their long legs spread so as to

allow the tail to curve sharply downwards and forwards between the

limbs so that the flat tip is at their center of balance. When the

tail is straight-ened suddenly to full extension, it acts as a

powerful third leg ca-pable of hurling the Wem forward for a

distance of five or six body lengths. If the hunter does not land on

top of its prey, kicking the creature senseless with the feet before

disabling it with a deep bite through the cervical vertebrae and

underlying nerve trunks, it piv-ots rapidly on one leg so that the

flattened edge of the tail strikes its victim like a blunt, organic

axe. While the tail is highly flexible where downward and forward

movement is concerned, it cannot be el-evated above the horizontal

line of the spinal column.The back and upper flanks are, therefore,

the Wem's only body areas that are vul-nerable to attack by natural

enemies, who must also possess the el-ement of surprise if they are

not to become the victim.

Classification:DRVJ

Species:Name Unknown

Individual:Doctor Yeppha

Planet:Unknown

A small, tripedal, fragile being. From the furry dome of its head

there sprout singly and in small clusters, at least twenry eyes.

Classification:DTRC

Species:Rhum

Planet:Unknown

Individual:Crelyarrel

Flat, roughly circular beings, dark gray and wrinkled on one

sur-face, and with a paler, mottled appearance on the other, smooth,

surface. The beings attach to their FGHJ hosts with thick tendrils

growing from the edge of the disk. The tendrils penetrate into their

FGHJ hosts' spinal columns and rear craniums. The DTRCs have their

own special needs that in no way resemble those of their hosts,

whose animal habits and undirected behavior are highly repugnant to

them. It is vital to the DTRCs continued mental well-being that the

masters escape periodically from their hosts to lead their own

lives~usually during the hours of darkness when the tools are no

longer in use and can be quartered where they can not harm

them-selves.

Classification:DTSB

Planet:Traltha

Species:Tralthan

No Individual Names Known

Apparent typographical error for Classification OTSB.

Classification:EGCL

Planet:Duwetz

Species:Dewatti

No Individual Names Known

A warm-blooded, oyxgen-breathing life-form of approximately twice

the body weight of an adult Earth-human. Visually it re-sembles an

outsize snail with a high, conical shell which is pierced around the

tip where its four extensible eyes are located. Equally spaced

around the base of the shell are eight triangular slots from which

project the manipulatory appendages. The carapace rests on a thick,

circular pad of muscle which is the locomotor system. Around the

circumference of the pad are a number of fleshy pro-jections,

hollows and slits associated with its systems of ingestion,

respiration, elimination, reproduction, and nonvisual sensors. The

EGCLs are organic empaths. They are organic transmitters,

reflec-tors and focusers and magnifiers of their own feelings and

those of the beings around them. The faculty has evolved to the

stage where they have no conscious control over the process.

Classification:ELNT

Planet:Melf Four

Species:Melfan

Individuals:Maintenance Technician Dremon, Senior Physician Edanelt,

Diagnostician Ergandhir, Patient Kennonalt, Patient KIetilt,

Maintenance Technician Kiedath, Nurse Lontallet, Senior Physician

Medalont, Senreth

Melfans are large, low slung crab-like crustaceans. The six thin,

bony, tubular, multi-jointed legs project from slits where the bony

carapace and underside join. The legs and all of the body are

ex-oskeletal. The head has large, protruding, vertically-lidded

eyes, enormous mandibles, and pincers projecting forward from the

place where ears should be. Two long, thin and fragile feelers grow

from the sides of the mouth. The species is amphibious.

Classification:EPLA

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name Unknown

Individual:Lonvellin

Apparent typographical error for Classification EPLH.

Classification:EPLH

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name Unknown

Individual:Lonvellin

The being is large, about one thousand pounds mass, and resembles a

giant, upright pear. Five thick, tentacular appendages grow from the

narrow head section and a heavy apron of muscle at its base gives

evidence of a snail-like, although not necessarily slow, method of

locomotion. The being is warm-blooded and has fairly normal gravity

requirements. Five large mouths are situated below the root of each

tentacle, four being plentifully supplied with teeth and the fifth

housing the vocal apparatus. The tentacles themselves show a high

degree of specialization at their extremities: three of them are

plainly manipulatory, one bears the patient's visual equipment, and

the remaining member terminates in a horn-tipped, boney mace. The

head is featureless, being simply an osseous dome housing the brain.

The cranium is pierced at regular intervals for visual, aural and

olfactory sensors. Their life-span, lengthy to begin with, is

ar-tificially extended. Because they have tremendous minds, they

have plenty of time, but they constantly have to fight against

boredom. Because part of the price of such longevity is an

ever-growing fear of death, they need to have their own personal

physicians~no doubt the most efficient practitioners of medicine

known to them-constantly in attendance.

Classification:FGHJ

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name Unknown

No Individual Names Known

The being has six limbs, four legs and two arms, all very heavily

muscled, and is hairless except for a narrow band of stiff bristles

running from the top of the head along the spine to the tail, which

seems to have been surgically shortened at an early age. The body

configuration is a thick cylinder of uniform girth between the fore

and rear legs, but the forward torso narrows towards the shoulders

and is carried erect. The neck is very thick and the head small.

There are two eyes, recessed and looking forward, a mouth with very

large teeth, and other openings that are probably aural or olfactory

sense organs. The legs terminate in large, reddish-brown hooves.

Each hoof has four digits and does not appear particularly

dexterous. This creature serves as a host to beings of

Classification DTRC.

Classification:FGLI

Planet:Traltha

Species:Tralthan

Individuals:Patient Cossunallen, Crajarron, Chief Dietitian

Gurronsevas, Patient Horrantor, Senior Physician Hossantir,

Surriltor, Senior Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology Thorn-nastor

A massive entity with an osseous dome housing its brain, six

el-ephantine feet connected to its triple massive shoulders, and

four extensible eyes on an immobile head. Its six stubby legs

normally give the Tralthan species such a stable base they

frequently go to sleep standing up. Even healthy Tralthans have

great difficulty get-ting up again if they fall onto their sides.

Tralthans must not be rolled onto their backs under normal gravity

conditions since this causes organic displacement which would

increase their respira-tory difficulties. Standard gravity at Sector

General is just over half Tralthan normal. Tralthans are

vegetarians.

Classification:FOKT

Planet:Goglesk

Species:Gogleskan

Individuals:Healer '(hone and child

The Gogleskan FOKT resembles a large, dumpy cactuslike plant whose

spikes and hair are richly colored in a pattern which seems less

random the more you look at it. A faint smell comes from the entity,

a combination of musk and peppermint. The mass of un-ruly hair and

spikes covering its erect, ovoid body are less irregular in their

size and placing than is at first apparent. The body hair has

mobility, though not the high degree of flexibility and rapid

mo-bility of the Kelgian fur, and the spikes, some of which are

extremely flexible and grouped together to form a digital cluster,

give evi-dence of specialization. The other spikes are longer and

stiffer, and some of them seem to be partially atrophied, as if they

were evolved for natural defense, but the reason for their presence

has long since gone. There are also a number of long, pale tendrils

lying amid the multicolored hair covering the cranial area, used for

contact telepa-thy. Its voice seems to come from a number of small,

vertical breath-ing orifices which encircles its waist. The being

sits on a flat, mus-cular pad, and it has legs as well. These

members are stubby and concertina-like, and when the four of them

are in use they increase the height of the being by several inches.

The being al50 has two additional eyes at the back of its

head~obviously this species has had to be very watchful in

prehistoric times.

Classification:FROB

Planet:Hudlar

Species:Hudlar, Hudlarian

Individuals:Patient FROB-3, Patient FROB-lO, Patient FROB-18,

Patient FROB-43, Patient FROB-1 132, Trainee FROB-61, Trainee

FROB-73, Senior Physician Garoth, Infant Patient Metiglesh

Hudlars are blocky, pear-shaped beings whose home planet pulls four

Earth gravities and has a high-density atmosphere so rich in

suspended animal and vegetable nutrients that it resembles thick

soup. Although the FROB life-form is warm-blooded and techni-cally

an oxygen-breather, it can go for long periods without air if its

food supply, which it absorbs directly through its thick but highly

porous tegument, is adequate. Hudlars are massive six legged

be-ings. Each leg is an immensely strong tapering tentacle, which

ter-minates in a cluster of flexible digits, curled inward so that

the weight is born on heavy knuckles and the fingers remain clear of

the floor. The two lidless, recessed eyes are protected by hard,

trans-parent and featureless casings. Hudlars communicate using a

speak-mg membrane, which grows like a cock's comb from the top of

the head. The speaking membrane also serves as a sound sensor. The

skin resembles a seamless covering of flexible armor in appearance

and texture. Food is ingested through organs of absorption that

cover both flanks and the wastes are eliminated by a similar

mecha-nism on the underside. Both systems are under voluntary

control. Because of the physiological necessity for avoiding further

sexual contact with its life-mate, a gravid Hudlar female changes

gradu-ally into male mode and, concurrently, its life-mate slowly

becomes female. A Hudlar year after partuition the changes to both

are com-plete.The Hudlar FROBs are acknowledged to be, physically,

stron-gest life-forms of the Galactic Federation and to have the

least-pervious body tegument. Contact with chlorine is instantly

lethal to them. Hudlar blood is yellow and circulates under great

pres-sure and pulse rate. Hudlars consider their names to be their

most private and personal possession, and do not give or use their

names in the presence of anyone who is not a member of the family or

a close friend.

Classification:FSOJ

Planet:Unknown

Species:Protectors of the Unborn

No Individual Names Known

The Protector of the Unborn is a large, immensely strong life-form

that resembles aTralthan, but is less massive with stubbier legs

pro-jecting from a hemispherical carapace flared out slightly around

the lower edges. The deployment of the legs and tentacles is

simi-lar to the Hudlar FROB life-form, but the carapace is a thicker

ELNT Melfan shell without markings, and the FSOJ is plainly not

herbivorous. From openings high on the carapace sprout four

ten-tacles. Two different types of tentacles have been observed on

dif-ferent beings: long and particularly thin tentacles which

terminate in flat, spear-like tips with serrated boney edges, and

thick tentacles terminating in a cluster ofsharp, bony projections

which make them resemble spiked clubs. The four stubby legs also

have osseous pro-jections which enable them to be used as weapons as

well. Midway between two of the tentacle openings there is a larger

gap in the carapace from which protrudes a head, all mouth and

teeth. The large upper and lower mandibles are capable of deforming

all but the strongest metal alloys. A little space is reserved for

two well-protected eyes at the bottom of deep, boney craters. A

serrated tail also protrudes from the heavily slitted carapace.

While the under-side is not armored, as is the carapace, this area

is rarely open to attack, and it is covered by a thick tegument

which apparently gives sufficient protection. In the center of this

area is a thin, longitudi-nal fissure which opens into the birth

canal. It will not open, how-ever, until a few minutes before giving

birth. The FSOJ brain is not in its skull, but deep inside the torso

with the rest of the other vital organs. It is positioned just under

the womb and surrounding the beginning of the birth canal. As a

result, the brain is compressed as the embryo grows. If it is a

difficult birth, the parent's brain is destroyed and junior comes

out fighting, with a convenient food supply available until it can

kill something for itself Senior Physi-cians Conway's first

impression was that the entity was little more than an organic

killing machine. Considering the fact that it is warm-blooded and

oxygen-breathing, and its appendages show no evidence of the ability

to manipulate tools or materials, Patholo-gist Murchison tentatively

classified it as FSOJ and probably non-intelligent. The Unborn young

of the bisexual FSOJ is retained in the womb until it is well-grown

and fully equipped to survive. The Unborn is an intelligent and

telepathic being, but loses these fac-ulties at birth.

Classification:GKNM

Planet:Ia

Species:Ian (adult)

Individual:Patient Makolli

The metamorphosed form of the adolescent DBLF life-form. The species

created a colony in this galaxy, coming from an adjoining one. The

race is oxygen-breathing and oviparous, having a long, rod-like but

flexible body, and possessing four insectile legs, ma-nipulators,

the usual sense organs, and three tremendous sets of wings. The

life-form looks something like a large dragonfly.

Classification:GLNO

Planet:Cinruss

Species:Cinrusskin

Individual:Senior Physician Prilicla

Cinrusskins are enormous, incredibly fragile flying insects, with a

tubular exoskeletal body. Six sucker-tipped pencil-thin legs, four

even more delicately fashioned, tiny, precise manipulators, and four

sets ofwide, iridescent, and almost transparent wings project form

the body. The head is a convoluted eggshell, so finely structured

that the sensory and manipulatory organs that it supports seem ready

to fall off at the first sudden movement. The eyes are large and

triple-lidded. The Cinrusskin are the Federation's only empathic

race. Cinruss has a dense atmosphere and one-eighth gravity.

Cinrusskins are sexless.

Classification:LSVO

Planet:Nallaji

Species:Nallajim

Individuals:Kytili, Senior Physician Seldal

The species has a birdlike, fragile, low-gravity physiology, with

three legs, two not-quite-atrophied wings, and no hands at all. When

LSVOs eat, they are sickened by anything which doesn't look like

bird seed.

Classification:MSVK

Planet:Euril

Species:Eurils

No Individual Names Known

Fragile, tn-pedal, stork-like beings from a low gravity world. The

MSVK environment has dim lighting and a opaque fog for an

at-mosphere. The race is driven by an intense curiosity and hampered

by extreme caution. They are the galaxy's prime observers, and are

content to look and learn and record through their long-probes and

sensors without making their presence known. MSVKs have a low

tolerance to radiation.

Classification:OTSB

Planet:Traltha

Species:Tralthan

No Individual Names Known

Tralthan Surgeons are really two beings instead of one, a

combina-tion of FGLI and OTSB.The OTSB is a nearly mindless symbiont

which lives with its FGLI host. At first glance the OTSB looks like

a furry ball sprouting a long ponytail, but a closer look shows that

the ponytail is composed of scores of fine manipulators, most of

which incorporate sensitive visual organs. A cluster of wire-thin,

eye- and sucker-tipped tentacles sends infinitely detailed visual

in-formation to its giant host and receives instructions from the

host. The Tralthan combinations are the best surgeons the Galaxy has

ever known. Not all Tralthans choose to link up with a symbiote, but

FGLI medics wear them like a badge of office.

Classification:PVGJ

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name Unknown

Individual:Doctor Fremvessith

Apparent typographical error for Classification PVSJ.

Classification:PVSJ

Planet:Illensa

Species:Illensan

Individuals:Senior Physician Gilvesh, Charge Nurse Hredlichi,

Diagnostician Lachlichi, Charge Nurse Leethveeschi

Probable Individual:Charge Nurse Lentilatsar

Illensans are chlorine breathers with shapeless spiny bodies and

dry, rustling membranes joining the upper and lower appendages. The

body resembles a haphazard collection of oily, yellow-green,

un-healthy vegetation. The two stubby legs are covered by what look

like oily blisters. Their loose protective suits are transparent

except for the faint yellow fog of chlorine contained within. The

Illensans are generally held to be the most visually repulsive

beings in the Federation, as well as the most vain regarding their

own physical appearance. Illensans suffer digestive upsets if they

exercise after meals. Contact with water is instantly lethal to

chlorine-breathers. PVSJs are not physiologically suited to the use

of stairs and have very sensitive hearing.

Classification:QCQL

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name Unknown

No Individual Names Known

Apparent typographical error for Classification QLCL. Senior

Phy-sician Mannen did not know there was any such beastie, but

Ma-jor O'Mara had a tape. There were two casualties of this

classifica-tion at Sector General. The operations were suit jobs,

since the gunk that the QCQLs breath would kill anything that walks,

crawls or flies, excluding them.

Classification:QLCL

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name Unknown

No Individual Names Known

Recent, and very enthusiastic, members of the Federation, this

species had never been to Sector General until the war with the

Empire. Then a small ward was prepared to receive possible QLCL

casualties. The ward was filled with the horribly corrosive fog the

QLCLs used for an atmosphere, and the lighting was stepped up to the

harsh, actinic blue which the they consider restful.

Classification:SNLU

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name: Vosan

Individual:Diagnostician Semlic

The SNLU life form requires a refrigerated life-support system for

its ultra-low-temperature environment while on the Chlorine and

Oxygen levels. A frigid-blooded methane-breather, it is most

com-fortable in an environment only a few degrees above absolute

zero. The SNLUs have a complex mineral and liquid crystalline

struc-ture. The species evolved on the perpetually dark worlds which

detached from their original solar systems and now drift through the

interstellar spaces. Physically they are quite small, averaging

one-third the body mass of a being like a Kelgian. In order to allow

contact with other, warmer, species, the SN LUs are required to wear

a large, complex, highly refrigerated life-support and sensor

trans-lation system, which requires frequent power recharge. The

scales covering the SNLU's eight-limbed, starfish-shaped body shine

coldly through the methane mist like multihued diamonds, mak-ing it

resemble some wondrous, heraldic beast. The SNLUs live and work in

the almost total silence of beings with a hypersensitiv-ity to

audible vibrations. These fragile, crystalline, methane-based

life-forms would decompose at temperatures in excess of eighteen

degrees above absolute zero and be instantly cremated if the

tem-perature rose above minus one-twenty on the temperature scale in

use in the Federation.

Classification:SRJH

Planet:Drambo

Species:Healers or Physicians or Protectors

No Individual Names Known

The Drambon Physicians are glorified leucocytes to the Drambon

Strata Creatures, treating the many independent organisms living in

and around those immense living carpets. The stupid, slow moving

Drambon Physicians stay close to the most active and dan-gerous

stretches of the Drambon shoreline. They resemble jelly-fish, so

transparent that only their internal organs are visible. A

leech-like form of life, the SRJHs seem comfortable in either air or

water. Their reactions in the presence of severe illness or injury

are instinctive. Using their spines or stings, they practice their

profes-sion by withdrawing the blood of their patients and pun fying

it of any infection or toxic substances before returning it to the

patients' bodies. (The process repairs simple physical damage as

well.) How-ever, not all the withdrawn blood is returned. It has not

been es-tablished whether it is physiologically impossible for the

SRJH to return it all or whether the Physician retains a few ounces

as pay-ment for services rendered. A Physicians can kill as well as

cure. It can barely touch a beast, causing a predator to go into a

muscular spasm so violent that parts of its skeleton pop through the

skin. There is no evidence that they communicate verbally, visually,

tac-tually, telepathically, by smell or by any other system known to

Sector General. The quality of their emotional radiation suggests

that they do not communicate at all in the accepted sense. The

Physicians are simply aware ofother beings and objects around them

and, by using their eyes and a mechanism similar to the empathic

faculty, they are able to identi~ friend and foe.

Classification:SRTT

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name Unknown

No Individual Names Known

This physiological type is amoebic, possessing the ability to

extrude any limbs, sensory organs or protective tegument necessary

to the environment in which it finds itself. It is so fantastically

adaptable that it is difficult to imagine how one of these beings

could ever fall sick in the first place.

Classification:TLTU

Planet:Threcald 5

Species:Name Unknown

Individual:TLTU Diagnostician

A TLTU doctor breathes superheated steam and has pressure and

gravity requirements three times greater than the environment of the

oxygen levels. The local protection needed by a TLTU doctor is a

great, clanking juggernaut which hisses continually as if it is

about to spring a leak. The large protective suit resembles a

spheri-cal pressure boiler bristling with remote handling devices

and mounted on caterpillar treads, and has to be avoided at all

costs. The large size is needed to allow for heaters to render the

occupant comfortable, and surface insulation and refrigerators to

keep the vicinity habitable by other life-forms. The small TLTU

life-form inhabits a heavy-gravity, watery planet with edible

minerals, which circles very close to its parent sun. The TLTU's

blood consists of superheated liquid metal. TLTU patients are

transported in their protective spheres anchored to stretcher

carriers. These spheres emit a high-pitched, shuddering whine as

their generators labor to main-tain the internal temperature at a

comfortable, for their occupants, five hundred degrees.

Classification:TOBS

Planet:Fotawn

Species:Name Unknown

Individual:Trainee/Doctor Danalta

This being can extrude any limbs, sense organs, or protective

tegu-ment necessary to the environment or situation in which it

finds it-self. It evolved on a planet with a highly eccentric orbit,

and with climatic changes so severe that an incredible degree of

physical adapt-ability was necessary for survival. It became

dominant on its world, and developed intelligence and a

civilization, not by competing in the matter of natural weapons but

by refining and perfecting its adap-tive capability. When it is

faced by natural enemies, the options are flight, protective

mimicry, or the assumption of a shape frightening to the attacker.

The speed and accuracy of the mimicry, particularly in the almost

perfect reproduction ofbehavior patterns, suggests that the entity

may be a receptive empath. The empathic faculty is under voluntary

control, so that the level of emotional radiation reaching its

receptors can be reduced, or even cut off at will, should it become

too distressing. With such effective means of self-protection

avail-able, the species is impervious to physical damage other than

by com-plete annihilation or application of ultrahigh

temperatures.The con-cept of curative surgery would be a strange one

indeed to members of that race. They do not require mechanisms for

self-protection, so they are likely to be advanced in the

philosophical sciences but back-ward in developing technology. When

not trying to look like some-thing else, TOBSs take the

configuration of a large, dark-green, uneven ball.

Classification:TRLH

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name Unknown

No Individual Names Known

The TRLH casualty was an ally of the Empire during that war.

Classification was aided by the fact that the patient's spacesuit

was transparent as well as flexible. The atmosphere the being

breathes is as exotic as that of the QCQLs, but can be reproduced.

The TRLH has a thin carapace which covers its back and curves down

and inwards to protect the central area of its underside. Four

thick, single-jointed legs project from the uncovered sections. It

has a large but lightly boned head, four manipulatory appendages,

two recessed but extensible eyes, and two mouths.

Classification:VTXM

Planet:Telf

Species:Telfi, Telphi

Individual:Astrogator-part Cheixic

A group-mind species whose small beetle-like bodies live by the

direct conversion of various combinations and intensities of hard

radiation. Mthough individually the beings are quite stupid, the

gestalt entities are highly intelligent. The Telfi operate in groups

as contact telepaths to pool their mental and physical abilities.

The Telfi have a spoken language as well as the telepathic faculty

used between individuals, especially members of a family gestalt.

An-other variant of the species resembles a large, terrestrial

lizard, just under five feet long from the bulbous head to vestigial

tail, with an extra set of fore-limbs growing from the base of the

neck. The only visible features are two tiny, lidless eyes and the

mouth. The four stubby walking limbs can be bent double to lie flat

against the body while the two, longer forward manipulators can

stretch forward and cross so as to allow the chin to rest on the

crossover point. The skin of a dead Telfi is pale gray with a

mottled and veined effect that resembles unpolished marble. The

color is a symptom of ad-vanced radiation starvation and a lethal

failure of the absorption mechanism. A healthy Telfi reflects no

light at all, looking like liz-ard-shaped black holes. A

healthyTelfi's temperature is below room temperature. Investigating

their ultra-hot metabolism closely is to risk radiation poisoning.

There is a fallacy among non-medics that the Telfi cannot be closely

approached or touched without the use of remotely controlled

manipulators. To live they must absorb the radiation normally

provided by their natural environment but when, for clinical

reasons, the radiation is withdrawn for several days and they are

week from their equivalent of hunger, their ra-dioactive emissions

drop to a harmless level.

Classification:VUXG

Planet:Unknown

Species:Name Unknown

Individual:Dr. Arretapec

The VUXG resembles nothing so much as a withered prune float-mg in a

spherical gob of syrup. The species has telepathic, teleportive,

and~sort of~precognitive abilities. The precognitive ability does

not appear to be of much use because it does not work with

individuals but only with populations, and so far in the fu-ture and

in such a haphazard manner that it is practically useless.

Classification:Unknown

Planet:Drambo

Species:Farmer Fish

No Individual Names Known

The large-headed Farmer Fish are responsible for cultivating and

protecting benign growth and destroying all other growth in the

Drambon Strata Creature. Farmer Fish have stubby arms sprout-ing

from the base of their enlarged heads.

Classification:Unknown

Planet:Drambo

Species:Strata Creatures

No Individual Names Known

The largest creature on the planet Drambo~so large that at a

scoutship's suborbital velocity of six thousand plus miles per hour

it takes just over nine minutes to travel from one side of the

pa-tient to the other. The creature is so vast that it has many

indepen-dent parts performing specialized functions, such as the eye

plants, air renewal plants, Farmer Fish, Thought Controlled Tools,

and vegetable teeth. The parts can communicate via a mineral-rich

sap. The creature uses water instead of blood as its working fluid.

It is not clear if the entire creature is an animal or a plant,

there being components of both in its immense expanse. There is only

one intelligent Strata Creature on Drambo, and it is being treated

for radiation poisoning.

Classification:Unknown

Planet:Drambo

Species:Thought Controlled Tools

No Individual Names Known

Under the mental control of its user, a "tool" can assume any

use-ful shape imagined. At Sector General, one appeared as a Hudlar

type six scalpel, a medium-sized box spanner, a metallic sphere, a

miniature bust of Beethoven, a set of Tralthan dentures, and a

Hudlar food sprayer, among other things. The tools belong to the

only sentient Strata Creature on Drambo, and were used to attack the

medical and military forces attempting to treat the Strata Crea-ture

for radiation poisoning.

Classification:Unknown

Planet:Dutha

Species:Duthan

Individuals:Patient Bowab, His Excellency the Lord Scrennagle of

Dutha

Duthans have a centaur-like body. The torso from the waist up

resembles that of an Earth-human, but the musculature of the arms,

shoulders and chest are subtly different. The hands are five-digi

ted, each comprised of three fingers and two opposable thumbs. The

head is carried erect above a very thick neck, which seems

dispro-portionately small.The face is dominated by two large, soft,

brown eyes that somehow make the slits, pro tuberan ces, and fleshy

petals which comprise the other features visually acceptable.

Classification:Unknowm

Planet:Keran

Species:Keranni

No Individual Names Known

No description given.

Classification:Unknown

Planet:Unknown

Species:Kreglinni

No Individual Names Known

No description given.

Classification:Various

Planet:Meatball

Species:CLCH/CLHG Drambon Rollers, Drambon Farmer Fish, Drambon

Strata Creatures, Drambon Thought Controlled Tools, SRJH Drambon

Healers or Physicians or Protectors

The planet was originally named by the crew of Descartes, but the

name was considered derogatory by one of the native intelligent

species. The planet is now referred to as Drambo.