TO KILL OR CURE

 

            The low pressure system centred off the Hebrides was lashing the coasts of Northwest Ireland and Scotland with rain squalls of nearly gale force when Trans-Ocean Airways Flight 317, while radioing her periodic position check, reported engine trouble. The signal was drowned uncompleted by a resurgence of the interference which had been rendering the ether unworkable for the past three hours—unworkable, that was, but for a few short breaks when that peculiar howling vanished with the suddenness of a light bulb going out. During the next such break Flight 317 could not be contacted at all. She was presumed to have ditched and an air-sea rescue operation was mounted forthwith.

 

            But the search depended to a great extent on ease of communication, and that was not possible with the unearthly din screaming out of head-sets and loudspeakers. When consulted, radio and Met experts spoke learnedly and at great length about sunspot cycles and auroral discharges, but they refused to be pinned down.

 

            On a training flight between North Bay on Barra to Londonderry an Anson aircraft found itself—for reasons best known to its navigator, who was, after all, a trainee— over the Derryveagh Mountains of North Donegal, some forty miles west of its intended destination. But the error was fortunate in that they spotted wreckage.

 

            If this was the missing 317 then a near-miracle had occurred. The pilot of the Anson stated that, although he had merely glimpsed the wreck through scudding rain-clouds and there appeared to be smoke coming from it, it very definitely was not burnt out. But this state of affairs could not last indefinitely. Something in the wreck was burning, probably a puddle of hydraulic fluid, and despite the rain falling in the area, that fire must eventually reach the fuel tanks.

 

            The survivors, if any, had to be reached quickly.

 

-

 

            The helicopter skidded and bounced across the sky, tossed and side-swiped by the up-draughts and cross-winds from the mountains one thousand feet below. This was no weather for helicopters, Terrins thought ruefully. He grunted and hugged his waistline in an involuntary attempt to keep his maltreated stomach in place.

 

            "Is there a doctor on the aircraft?" he said.

 

            It was a pretty feeble attempt at humour, Terrins knew as soon as he spoke; like himself at the moment, sickly.

 

            On either side of him Malloy and Thompson smiled with the politeness due a Lieut-Commander (Medical) from those of the lower deck, though their eyes never left the rugged terrain unrolling steadily beneath them. Sub-Lieutenant Price, navigating and in charge of communications when the interference allowed them, had his headphones on. Lieutenant Stephens in the pilot's position was just far enough away from the Lieut-Commander for him to pretend that he had heard nothing.

 

            Suddenly Price stiffened, an attentive expression on his youthful, rather boney face, then he pulled off the headphones with an angry motion and spoke.

 

            "The people in that Anson can see about as well as they can navigate," he said in disgusted tones. "That was a signal from Argus saying that Flight 317 turned up at Renfrew seven minutes ago on three engines. No flap, no panic—the passengers didn't even know that an engine had seized up. Seems 317's radioman put down the interference which interrupted his signal to self-oscillation or something in his own set, and he didn't receive our later messages or know that there was a search on for them because he was taking his set apart to find out what was wrong with it"

 

            He ended, "Argus says to return at once."

 

            Terrin's strongest emotion was one of relief. Though he had been senior medical officer on the aircraft carrier Argus for two years now, the times he had been up in the ship's pick-up helicopter could be counted on the thumb of one hand. Compared with the bouncing around he was suffering at the moment the thought of the large and relatively steady deck of the carrier—at present anchored in Lough Foyle with the rest of the squadron taking part in the forthcoming exercises—was a very pleasant one. With luck he would be back on board in another twenty minutes.

 

            But Price had barely finished talking when Thompson shouted, "Wreckage!" and pointed.

 

            "I see it" Lieutenant Stephens acknowledged, then: "Price. Report this to Argus. Tell them that under the circumstances we will investigate this wreck before returning." He looked back, seeking corroboration of this from Terrins, who nodded. "All right Seat belts! Down we go ...!"

 

-

 

            The wreck had not yet caught fire, Terrins saw, though a haze of white smoke around it was being pulled into tatters by the wind. The long, silvery fuselage seemed virtually intact and there was very little wreckage in the immediate vicinity. Terrins did a startled double-take at that. Where were the smashed and disembowelled engines, the crumpled remains of wings and tail-planes? There was nothing of that nature in the area at all. Only a peculiar difference in the colour and quality of the ground near the wreck ...

 

            Terrins brought his attention back to Stephens with a rush as the pilot shouted a warning. Stephens had been trying to land on a reasonably flat-looking ledge of rock about fifty yards to windward of the wreck. But close to the ground the wind was a treacherous, unpredictable thing which had to be out-guessed rather than judged. The helicopter was down to within a few feet of the ledge when a freak gust hurled it crabwise into the hillside. An undercarriage leg struck, and snapped off. They canted forward drunkenly. Two more tremors shook the aircraft as two of the rotor blades ground themselves into ruin against the stony hillside. There was silence then but for the whistling of the wind and the angry muttering of Stephens. Finally he raised his voice.

 

            "Tell Argus there are two wrecks now," he said glumly. "I'll give you a list of spares I think we'll need to get this thing airborne again ..."

 

            He broke off as Price shook his head and held one of his earphones outward so that they could all hear the noise coming from it. The interference was back.

 

            Now that they were down, the drill was to first see that any fires burning in the wreck were either put out or kept under control until the casualties were removed. But Terrins' mind was not on the issuing of fire-extinguishers or any other aspect of the rescue drill, it was focussed solely on the wreck.

 

            That's not smoke coming from it," he said when the silence had lasted several seconds. That is steam!"

 

            "I don't like this, sir," Stephens said nervously. That isn't an aeroplane. You can see that"

 

            Terrins could—they all could—and he did not like it either. He said, "I'd say it's a rocket an unsuccessful try at a manned orbital vehicle. What do you think?"

 

            There are no venturi openings for the rocket motors," Stephens replied. "And no stabilizing fins."

 

            "Let's have a closer look," Terrins said. He had been talking, he realised now, just to fill time until his seething brain came up with something which would fit the observable and highly disturbing facts before them.

 

-

 

            Except for the stoved-in appearance of the nose and the long, yard-wide rent where the shock of collision had caused the hull plating to open, the wreck was a streamlined, featureless torpedo-shape roughly two hundred feet long and twenty in diameter. But more disquieting than the sight of this enigmatic wreck was the appearance of the ground for about twenty yards around it.

 

            It was as though a giant sledge-hammer had struck the rocky hillside, leaving a regular, saucer-shaped depression where the tangle of heather and scree had been literally driven into the ground. A flattened mass of leaves and splinters showed where one small, lonely tree had stood. And in the centre of this highly unnatural depression rested the wreck.

 

            Terrins felt a chill go through him that had nothing to do with the cold, wind-driven rain that lashed at them suddenly from behind. Sunset was still two hours away, and already he was peopling this bleak hillside with bogey men—or bogey somethings. He made a great effort to get his thinking processes straightened out, then spoke.

 

            "Obviously, this is a spaceship of some kind," he said, and swallowed. He waved his hand at the flattened bushes around them. "And this looks as if ... as if it pushed in the ground somehow in trying to cushion its fall—as if the shock of collision was absorbed by a large area of ground surface instead of by the ship alone.

 

            "I'm only guessing," he went on, "but I'd say that this meant that it had some control of gravity or inertia. Certainly it is beyond the crude rocket motor stage ..." He broke off, looked at the three men who had accompanied him to the wreck—Price had been left standing by the helicopter's radio—and ended briskly, "Whatever gadget they used, it wasn't quite good enough. They crashed."

 

            And that was a very reassuring thought, Terrins told himself. He was curious about this wreck, intensely curious. But his curiosity had been more than off-set by anxiety regarding whatever form of life it might contain. His imagination had run riot on that particular track. But the ship was, after all, a wreck, and dead bogey men could not hurt anyone.

 

            The gaping tear in the hull was wide enough for a man to crawl through. Terrins flicked a wetted finger against the plating. It was hot, but not excessively so.

 

            "You're not going in!"

 

            Terrins had not meant to enter the wreck, but something in the shocked, incredulous tones of Stephens touched the mulelike streak of contrariness in him. Always when someone told him that something could or should not be done in that particular tone of voice, an unreasoning urge overtook him to do it just to prove how wrong they were. Usually they had been proved right and himself wrong, but that had not cured him ...

 

            "Certainly I intend going in," he said, bending to look into the opening. "It's dark inside. We'll need lights."

 

            He stressed the 'we' slightly, and took a perverse delight at the sudden fright in Stephens' face as the pilot began expostulating wildly. This was an event of unparalleled importance which had occurred, he insisted. They should report it and await instructions. This sort of thing was a job for specialists, anyway, and so on. There were a lot more reasons, all good ones, why they should not enter the alien ship just yet.

 

-

 

            But there seemed to be a devil driving Terrins, a stubborn, angry devil. Stephens was being eminently sensible, and Terrins himself realised that. But he had, he felt, committed himself to a certain course of action and could not back down now. Thompson and Malloy, the two sick-bay attendants who had recently joined the Argus, were standing by with carefully expressionless faces. Were they thinking that the Lieut-Commander was allowing Stephens to talk him out of something he was afraid to do, anyway? Terrins clenched his teeth and gestured for the pilot to be silent. One thing he did know, if they were going inside the wreck, then his reasons for going had to appear as strong to him as Stephens' reasons for wanting to stay out.

 

            "Lieutenant Stephens," he said sternly, "let me remind you that we were sent to the aid of survivors of this wreck, and while the wreck did not turn out to be the one we expected, I am specialist enough in my own field to think that our instructions still stand."

 

            A heroic little speech, Terrins thought in sudden self-disgust, you big ham, you.

 

            But it stopped the Lieutenant's arguments cold. Terrins watched the pilot's face as he considered this aspect of the affair, and the changing expression as his imagination began painting lurid pictures of the physical forms which these survivors might take. Terrins had not thought very deeply on that point either, and felt suddenly uneasy. What had he talked himself into this time ...?

 

            A hail from the helicopter interrupted them, followed by the shouted information that Price was in touch with their ship again. Did they have anything to report?

 

-

 

            It was not until a good twenty minutes later that Terrins insinuated himself into the gap in the ship's hull and peered about. Argus had been not too politely incredulous about their story of finding a wrecked spaceship, though they had eventually been convinced that the helicopter's crew had encountered a wreck of some description. They had phoned through to Letterkenny, the nearest large town, to send ambulances to the spot. Regarding the investigation of the interior of this alleged spaceship, they didn't care who went in. They had been quite short about it.

 

            It had been Stephens' idea that Terrins run a line from the grounded helicopter to a telephone head-set which he would carry with him into the wreck. In this way Price in the helicopter could relay their findings directly to Argus with minimum delay. And, of course, if anything should happen to them ...

 

            Terrins deliberately left that thought unfinished and moved a little further into the ship. The torch showed that he was in a large, rectangular compartment with nothing in it that moved. He called for the others to join him.

 

            The pooled light of four torches showed more detail.

 

            Ceiling, three of the walls and the floor they stood on were painted a drab, reddish-grey colour and were relatively free of attached gadgetry. The remaining wall most decidedly was not. Weird-looking mechanisms grew out all over it to a distance of a foot or eighteen inches, and there were trailing wires and torn metal where others had apparently been ripped from their bases by the crash. A broad, shiny black line began at a semi-circular opening in an adjoining wall and looped around each of the machines in turn, crossing and joining up with itself several times before disappearing through a similar opening in the opposite wall.

 

            Terrins was on the point of describing their surroundings to Price in the helicopter when it suddenly struck him that he was standing on a wall instead of on a floor, and the 'wall' with the machinery, black curving lines and opening several feet above the 'floor' was the true floor. The two-foot high, semi-circular opening was a door!

 

            "I'm taking notes, not relaying," Price said when Terrins made the correction. The interference is back, sir."

 

            It was a struggle for Terrins to get through the opening and into the compartment beyond—the black stuff was both sticky and oily and it came off on his clothes; it did not smell very nice, either. The others, being slimmer, had less trouble.

 

            This was a long, narrow compartment, and the mechanisms growing out of the floor beside and above them were more numerous and complicated. The broad black lines were everywhere. In the middle of the room a descending ramp, with the ever-present black band along its centre, led into the depths of the ship. Terrins was considering ways of climbing to the ramp using the machinery projecting from the nearly vertical floor when an exclamation from Thompson made him swing round.

 

            He saw his first alien.

 

-

 

            Terrins was reminded strongly of a tubby, pink and over-stuffed sausage and, because he had been expecting some larger and more grotesque horror, he felt quite relieved as he moved closer. Why, he told himself, he had seen worse tilings than this while weeding the garden.

 

            He saw that one end of the pink, slug-like body was pinned down by a heavy piece of equipment which had broken free in the collision, and there was a quantity of reddish-brown goo around which was probably the creature's blood. A knob-like protuberance on its other end—a watery blue colour, this—was probably an eye, and two flaps of skin partially covered it. Immediately behind this was a sort of cock's comb which terminated in three pencil-thin tentacles each about six feet long. Two of these were wrapped tightly around the creature's body and the third extended stiffly into the wreckage strewn against the forward bulkhead. The thing was twisted so that a large, oblong pad on its underbelly showed clearly. This pad was black and had a wet shine: Terrins concluded that its method of locomotion resembled that of a snail, and the broad black lines connecting the various items of equipment they had seen were in the nature of prefabricated snail tracks!

 

            Terrins' skin crawled at the thought of that black stuff smeared all over his clothes, and revulsion fought with his intense curiosity regarding the creature. He drew back slightly; he could just imagine what the thing would feel like to touch—cold and wet, and maybe sticky ...

 

            "Can you do anything for it, sir?"

 

            It was Lieutenant Stephens who had spoken. His face was pale, on the greenish side rather than white, but there was a vindictive gleam in his eye. Lieut-Commander Terrins had entered this wreck against Stephens' advice not to mention all the dictates of common sense, the pilot's tone implied. He had overridden this good advice, moreover, with the flimsy excuse of being a doctor confronted with a wreck which might contain survivors. Now Stephens was calling on him to do the impossible, and looking forward to seeing his superior officer squirm.

 

            Secretly, Terrins could not blame him.

 

            "It may already be dead," he replied ironically. "In which case I doubt if anything can be done for it ..." As he spoke he forced himself to touch the thin tentacle which stretched stiffly from the creature to a mechanism which was partly buried in the wreckage heaped against the forward wall.

 

            He was surprised to find that it was warm to the touch, then startled as it slid away from his hand and came whipping back. There was very little force behind it, but the tip of the tentacle was roughened enough to lift a narrow strip of skin off the back of Terrins' hand. The tentacle coiled and uncoiled uncertainly, then fell limp. The creature's body began a slow, quivering motion all over.

 

            "Well, it seems to be alive and, er ..." he forced a smile, "... twitching."

 

            He was saved from having to say or do anything else by Price's voice in the head-phones saying, "The interference has gone again, sir. Have you found ... I mean, is there anything fresh you want me to report?"

 

            "Yes ..." Terrins began, and brought Price up to date. He ended, "... and tell them I intend going as far as possible into the wreck. But from what we can see the ship's outer shell is extremely strong compared with the interior structure—the inside is a shambles, so we may not get very far."

 

-

 

            He turned to the creature quivering like a large pink jelly at his feet, and with the help of the others he tried to lift the girder and twisted plating which pinned it down. But the mass of metal extended deeply into the main wreckage and they had to stop in case the whole unstable mass caved in and buried the creature completely.

 

            Terrins began climbing to the ramp in the centre of the nearly vertical floor which led to the adjoining compartment.

 

            Warm to the touch, he was thinking. A high body temperature usually meant a warm-blooded oxygen breather, and the fact that the creature continued to live when the tear in the outer hull had opened the ship to Earth's atmosphere seemed to prove that ordinary air was not harmful—or immediately harmful, he corrected himself—to it. And the reddish tinge of its dark-brown body fluid also indicated an oxygen exchange system similar to that of a human being.

 

            It was sheer stupidity to suppose that he could aid them in his capacity as a doctor—that type of medical miracle was strictly B-feature stuff. But he should be able to deduce something from visual inspection of the creatures which would at least allow him to proceed without harming them further.

 

            They breathed air and they possessed a normally fast metabolic rate. Terrins blew on his skinned knuckles at the memory of that whiplash tentacle. Muscular action of that nature used up energy, and energy lost had to be replaced ...

 

            Terrins stopped in the sudden realisation that there was no way for that energy to be replaced. He had noted a small, porous area on the alien's upper surface through which it breathed, but nowhere on the injured creature had he found anything resembling a mouth! A highly developed organism simply could not function by breathing and nothing else.

 

            But apparently these creatures did not eat.

 

            Stephens, who was following him along the ramp, bumped him from behind. Terrins, in a kneeling position with one hand holding his torch, lost balance. He put the other hand out instinctively to keep from falling onto his face and it landed slap on the oily black line which the snail-like aliens used to get about the ship. It skidded to a sticky halt and the unpleasant odour—slightly fishy, Terrins thought, and a little like the smell of seaweed in the sun—struck at his nostrils. He noticed, too, that his sliding hand had wiped some of the black stuff off the metal underneath. Greenish yellow liquid began to ooze through what had seemed to be solid metal until the cleared patch was filled, then it rapidly turned black.

 

-

 

            Terrins had the frustrating feeling that the key to the problem puzzling him was staring him in the face if only he could jog his alleged brain into proper working order. But he was still worrying at the problem a few seconds later when the end of the ramp was reached. He helped the others out, then their torches swept this new compartment.

 

            Thompson was briefly and violently sick.

 

            The true floor of this compartment was only about twenty degrees off the horizontal. Terrins did some quick mental calculations and decided that the cylindrical interior of the alien ship was divided lengthways into three decks at one hundred and twenty degree angles to each other, with whatever machinery was used to furnish the artificial gravity operating from the longitudinal axis of the ship. Had the artificial gravity been working he was sure that all three decks would have been 'down' to those occupying them. But the mechanism and occupants had both suffered in the crash, and by the look of things in here the latter had had the worst of it.

 

            This compartment must have been crowded at the time of the crash. The usual debris lay heaped up against the forward bulkheads with the snail-like aliens lying in, on and under it. Had Terrins been immediately interested in the alien internal structure he would have had no trouble in setting to work, because several of the creatures were in more than one piece. The ones who were not all too obviously dead lay in the tangle of metal and quivered silently.

 

            They've no mouths, Terrins thought suddenly. They can't scream and even their breathing is silent. All they can do is lie and shake in agony. All at once he wished desperately that he could do something for them. But what could he do? He had been unable to even discover if or how the things fed, much less finding out a means of patching them up ...

 

            An idea he had had a few minutes earlier began to take form in the back of his mind. But it dissolved as the voice of Price came hesitantly from his head-phones.

 

            "Excuse me, sir, I thought ... I mean, I wondered ..." The navigator's voice stopped. He cleared his throat—a deafening sound in the head-phones—then got out, "The Derry operator—Derry is listening to us, too, now—and I have been talking. Things have changed there, he says. They don't think you're d—" he broke off in confusion, after very nearly having said too much.

 

            Terrins, said, "Drunk, Mister Price?"

 

            "Yes, sir," Price agreed, his voice gaining confidence now that the Lieut-Commander had taken the word out of his mouth. He went on, "Seems that the general feeling in Derry was that Lieutenant Stephens had piled the aircraft up on a cold mountainside and we were keeping warm with alcohol from the hydraulic system. But they don't think that now," he added hastily.

 

            Terrins' mind had been too busy with the immediate problem to wonder what they had been thinking about him on Argus or at Londonderry Base. But Price seemed bursting to tell him something, and the roundabout way he was going about it meant that his news could not be official. Terrins made an interrogatory sound in his throat and waited.

 

            "This is only a rumour, you understand," Price went on. "But the Derry operator says that the American Liaison people are in a tizzy over a message they've just received. Seems there's another spaceship, and this one isn't wrecked—" "What!"

 

            At his exclamation, Stephens a few feet away gave him a startled look. Terrins unclipped one of the ear-phones from his headband and motioned for Stephens to listen in as well.

 

            "... Yes. Seems the Americans were tracking a Mouse on radar—er, that means Minimum Orbital Unmanned Sat-"

 

            "I know what a MOUSE is," Terrins said irritably. "Get on with it!"

 

            Apparently the team hunting for a Mouse had caught themselves an elephant. An object which was at least one thousand feet long had appeared suddenly on their radar screens, approaching at a velocity that was starkly incredible and braking that same velocity at a simply impossible rate. It had descended to within four miles above the Florida coast, hung there for perhaps three minutes, then headed inland at a speed which left the fastest pursuit ships standing. All armed forces had been alerted, which included the American Naval units taking part in the forthcoming exercises.

 

            The Deny operator knew all this, Price explained, because the Americans in the radio room were talking about it at the tops of their voices. But it was not yet official, though no doubt it soon would be. Then instructions could be expected from the Argus for them ...

 

            Price broke off at that point to say that another signal was coming through, then he said, "It's from Argus, for you, sir. Your orders are to remain there and not to damage or disturb any devices or machinery inside the spaceship. They are hoping to learn something from them which might help against the other ship. The latest information on it is that it has reached the west coast of the United States and has turned back the way it had come and is on a track parallel and approximately twenty miles north of the original one, so that they think it may be mapping the area. Other countries are being warned to watch for similar ships—"

 

            "Reconnaissance!" Stephens burst out suddenly. "Of course! The first step in any war. But the ship assigned to this area had an accident and crashed ..."

 

            He left the sentence hanging as his eyes darted about the shambles around him, seeing it suddenly in a new light. Malloy and Thompson, who had not heard the news by virtue of the fact that the head-phones only had two ear-pieces, shuffled restively and made querying noises. Terrins filled them in quickly then turned to Stephens.

 

            Irritably, he said, "This does not necessarily mean we're being invaded. It could be a peaceful survey or exploration mission. Why—we don't know for sure that both ships are part of the same operation. They may be from entirely different localities, and contain different forms of life with different intentions towards us—"

 

            "That's stretching coincidence a bit, sir."

 

            "I agree. But ..." Terrins began, then broke off. He wanted to tell Stephens that they should be careful, that everybody should be careful—especially that small, widely scattered section of the Human race with the authority to start something which they might not be able to finish. This was a big thing and it had to be handled properly from the start. But talking about it would do no good where Stephens was concerned. Stephens had an idea fixed in his mind that the Earth was about to be invaded, and it was the kind of exciting idea that a young man of Stephens' temperament would not give up easily. The ones to convince were the higher-ups, and they, unfortunately, all too often thought like Stephens.

 

-

 

            Terrins remembered suddenly that Price had still to finish whatever he had been saying when the pilot had interrupted them. He said, "Sorry, Price. Is there anything else?"

 

            "No, sir—except that you are to take charge of and be responsible for the investigation until the Eire Government give permission for us to send a team of experts to relieve you. Meanwhile you are to find out all you can."

 

            "The Eire authorities won't mind that? Why don't they send them now and leave the red tape until later ...?"

 

            "Well, actually, they're thinking of sending an armoured column, too," Price replied. He added, "And air support."

 

            "But this thing's a wreck ...!" Terrins began, then: "Oh, never mind."

 

            Stephens had been listening on the other ear-piece. Eyes gleaming in the uncertain light of their four flash-lamps, he rapidly brought Thompson and Malloy up to date on the latest developments. Thompson seemed gradually to become infected with the pilot's excitement—he broke in once to ask if he should search the wreck for gun turrets—but Malloy's expression remained the same as it had been, a sort of resigned, what-will-the-Navy-throw-at-me-next look. He seemed a lot more interested in the aliens themselves than in their wrecked ship, Terrins had noticed, and at the moment he was gazing intently at one particularly battered specimen.

 

            Terrins said, "Well Malloy, what do you think of them?"

 

            "I think we should kill them, sir," Malloy replied after a short pause. Some strong emotion pulled at his facial muscles briefly, then subsided. He added, "That's if we can't do anything for them. They're in pain."

 

            Terrins had not expected a reply like that, and in some subtle fashion he felt ashamed of himself. Malloy, he thought, had probably been the type who brought stray dogs and starving cats home as a boy—or even as a man. Now there were some aliens—some tentacled, slug-like creatures from God alone knew where—who were hurt. To Malloy it was as simple as that.

 

            "Sir," Stephens broke in, "can I take Thompson and look around this thing? If we got an idea of the layout it would save time when the experts arrive, and we might discover something important."

 

            Absently, Terrins nodded assent. His mind was still busy with what Malloy had said. Kill them or cure them, that was the idea. Yet mercy killing was forbidden where humans were concerned, would it not also be wrong in relation to beings who were at least the intellectual equals of mankind? Terrins thought that it would. But neither could he just let them he there without trying to do something.

 

            Stephens and Thompson moved astern, their torches throwing weird, surrealistic shadows of the wreckage ahead of them.

 

            Terrins said, "Suppose we try to find one of these creatures who is not too badly injured. Maybe we could help a case like that."

 

            Malloy said, "Perhaps so, sir."

 

            And maybe we couldn't, Terrins thought. But they could try anyway. Aloud he said, "That one over there in the corner doesn't look too bad, we'll try him."

 

            This particular alien was battered but apparently still in one piece, and the constant shuddering of its body proved that it was still alive. Its hide was a mass of shallow incised wounds—suffered, no doubt, by its being flung against the forward bulkhead—and its three tentacles lay limp. A human in the same condition would have been a quite horrible sight, but the gore of the aliens was not the primary red of human blood, and it was a little difficult to feel deeply for a shapeless, pink sack which leaked something that had all the appearance of thick drinking chocolate.

 

            He said, "Lend a hand. We'll lift it onto that, clear section of deck, then we'll see if we can do something ..."

 

            Certain types of treatment were indicated, he was thinking as they linked hands under the warm, quivering mass and drew it free, when an organism displayed symptoms of a certain nature, no matter what its size, shape or origin might be. And if these symptoms included bleeding— or, in this case, the loss of a fluid equivalent to human blood—then the idea was to stop it. That course of action could do no harm, Terrins was sure, and it might even do good providing the creature had not also sustained internal injuries which would ultimately prove fatal. At least it was something to do.

 

            He said to Malloy, "Right, we'll clean the brown goo from the wounds, then you push the edges together with your fingers while I cover them with a sterile pad. Better that, I think, than using sulfa or penicillin dressings—they might be poison to its system. A few strips of tape will hold the pad in place and keep the wound closed ..."

 

            Once Price's voice interrupted the work to report that no other countries knew of spaceships violating their territories so far, and that the one over the United States was now on its second east to west leg. It was making no effort either to approach or to avoid large cities adjacent to its course, which made the observers pretty certain that it was on a mapping expedition. Price added that questioning of the radar men who had first noted the arrival of the spaceship had elicited the fact that the craft had just popped into view on their screens and had not been coming from anywhere. This they swore to. Mathematical experts and science-fiction readers among the high brass were now throwing words like 'space-warp' and 'hyper-drive' about ...

 

-

 

            Shortly afterwards Stephens and Thompson returned. The pilot reported that the after half of the ship's interior was impenetrable, due to what seemed to be a large number of semi-permanent fittings—metal partitions, sections of plumbing which leaked the black stuff, and so on—being torn free in the crash. The number of creatures mixed up in the wreckage led Stephens to suspect that the ship was either a passenger vessel or a military transport Whoever had to cut a way through it later was in for a very nauseating time, he added.

 

            Terrins grunted acknowledgement passed across his mike so that Stephens could repeat his report to Price in the helicopter, then returned his attention to the work in hand. Thompson bent to do his share, moving the creature slightly so that the black pad on its underside was partly exposed. Terrins found his mind going back to the paradox of this animal which possessed the powers of respiration and mobility and yet did not eat Even if they moved like snails they could not live solely on air.

 

            The pad on which the alien travelled resembled an oblong of black astrakhan fur, and the pile of the fur was in constant waving motion. Suddenly, Terrins thought he saw light.

 

            The patching-up job, as he had mentally referred to it, was finished. The alien lay quivering on the metal deck, an incongruous, strangely pathetic object. Terrins thought of a Humpty-Dumpty who had been put together again with sticking plaster. The patient, however, showed no other signs of life.

 

            Malloy and Thompson were bent over it, staring intently as if willing it to do something, anything, besides shudder. After a few minutes silence, Stephens spoke.

 

            "I think it's dying," he said. The remark was somewhat lacking in tact considering the work Terrins and the two sick-bay ratings had put in with it Positively, the pilot added, "I think they're all dying. It's only a question of time."

 

            Terrins felt his face and neck getting hot, and kept silent with an effort. If his idea about these creatures was correct he would quickly wipe that smug, know-it-all look from Stephens' face. He nodded for Malloy to help him, then together they lifted and moved the alien until it was over one of the broad, black lines which curved and crossed all over the deck. Terrins said, "Gently now, put it down."

 

            Three seconds later he said, "Lieutenant Stephens, your mouth is open. Were you going to say something?"

 

            Slowly, but with an air of great determination, the alien was moving along the black line on which they had placed it The two flaps of skin covering its eye drew back and it seemed to stare at them, and the three limp tentacles twitched, curled, then rose slowly upwards. The men stepped back hastily, but the creature merely continued slowly along the shiny black line on the deck, erasing it as it went.

 

-

 

            Stephens made stabbing motions at the creature with his index finger. His mouth was now opening and closing, but he still had not found his voice.

 

            "Pick out another likely specimen," Terrins said to Malloy and Thompson. "We may be lucky again."

 

            While they worked over another alien who appeared to have only superficial injuries, Terrins explained the seemingly miraculous 'cure' of alien Number One.

 

            "As I see it" he said, "their race must have developed first on the banks of a tidal river—or perhaps a shallow beach—the surface of which was carpeted with tiny forms of edible plant or animal life, animal in this instance also referring to the sea life left high and dry by receding tides. The creatures ingested through the black pads on their undersides, which were also used to move themselves forward when the supply of food immediately below them was exhausted."

 

            Terrins continued by saying that his guess was that the tentacles and eye had originally been a defence against natural enemies, probably of a winged nature. It was also his opinion that the creature's inefficient methods of food intake forced it to eat constantly in order to remain active— he likened it to a man being forced to exist on soup soaking through blotting paper. When they had evolved to their present high level of technology, a constantly renewing food-source and method of getting about was provided by the broad black lines which curved and circled all over the ship. The men could see for themselves how the creature apparently erased, soaked up, the line as it moved along it, and how a greenish fluid which rapidly turned black oozed out to replace the fluid absorbed.

 

            "... They're an awkward, slow-moving species," Terrins concluded. "When the crash piled them against the forward sections of the ship, even the least seriously injured could not extricate themselves to return to their ... er, food tracks."

 

            Stephens, looking impressed, turned to regard the alien they had 'cured' again. He pointed suddenly and said, "Look! What's it doing ...?"

 

            The alien was moving slowly along the food track which circled one of the few undamaged control panels in the compartment, its tentacles doing business-like things with the grooved, roughened handles which covered its sides.

 

            Stephens said anxiously, "We should be careful about putting too many of these things back on their ... their feet. There's no telling what they might do—"

 

            Suddenly the lights came on. It was a harsh, greenish light which robbed the men's faces of all colour, given off from what had been a continuous tubular strip just above floor level, though now there were several breaks in it. The alien withdrew from the control panel and approached them again. Thompson jumped suddenly to his feet. The alien, only a few yards away by this time, halted and seemed to shrink backwards.

 

            Thompson, you horrible two-eyed monster, you," said Malloy derisively. "Stay still, you're scaring the poor thing to death."

 

            Terrins giggled in spite of himself. He said, That's true, you know. To it we must look pretty fearsome specimens, and big, too." He made his tone more businesslike and went on, "Anyhow, this lighting is a lot better than flashlamps, so let's see how fast we can fix up his pal here."

 

            But apparently the alien had other ideas.

 

-

 

            Stephens hissed a warning as the creature came suddenly closer and sent a hesitant tentacle towards the three men bent over its companion. Malloy, busy taping up a four-inch gash near the second alien's eye, gave a yelp of surprise as the tentacle wrapped itself gently around his wrists and gave a slight tug before letting them go. This was repeated on the hands or wrists of Thompson and Terrins, then the peculiar process was begun again with Malloy.

 

            After a few minutes of it, Malloy said, "You know, sir, I think it doesn't want us to work on its pal here. It keeps trying to pull our hands away."

 

            He sat back on his haunches.

 

            That was probably it, Terrins thought. One alien would know better than they whether they were wasting time trying to help its injured companion or not. If the case they were working on was hopeless, and the other alien knew it, then the creature's next step would be—must be—to indicate to them which of its companions they could help ...

 

            Sure enough, all three tentacles curled around Malloy's arm, and this time they did not let go. Tugging and straining, the alien tried to make Malloy follow it. The rating's face was a study. His mouth was open and one eye-brow had practically disappeared into his hairline. Terrins said quickly, "Better follow it."

 

            During the few minutes the creature was pulling Malloy towards the pile of wreckage forward, Thompson got in a couple of nasty cracks, sotto voce, to his friend about taking dogs for walks. But at the tangle of metal and components it stopped, released him, and pointed with all three tentacles at another alien who was partially buried in the debris. While the others were getting it free, Terrins brought Price in the helicopter up to date.

 

            Before relaying the report to Derry, Price told him that there was no fresh news. The other spaceship was still flying in parallel lines back and forward across the southern United States.

 

            The injured alien was free by this time, but the one they had patched up made motions for it to be placed on a food track and would not allow them to work on it afterwards. Terrins watched it move laboriously along the track. It shuddered continuously, and one tentacle had been torn off and the dark brown blood seeped from lacerations all over its body. Terrins thought that Alien Number One was being a little heartless.

 

            Alien Number One was indicating another casualty to be rescued.

 

-

 

            Half an hour later there was a total of five aliens moving about the compartment, and some of them were so badly cut up that Terrins was surprised that they lived at all much less moved. Apparently this was a tough breed. He did, however, feel a little bit miffed at their refusal to let him try working on them, but he supposed they were afraid in case he did something wrong and accidentally killed one.

 

            Stephens had grown progressively more anxious as each new alien became mobile. He wanted to leave the rest of them where they were. You could not trust them, he stated. Given half a chance they would overpower or kill the humans, repair the ship and take off to wreak death and destruction all over the country ...

 

            Terrins was reaffirming for the fourth time that the physical structure and condition of the aliens made the overpowering of anything larger than a kitten impossible, adding that the pilot had been influenced by too many B-features, when the deck beneath him gave a peculiar lurch sideways. He staggered, and had the sudden feeling that he was going down in a fast lift, then everything returned to normal again.

 

            But not quite; the deck on which they were standing was no longer tilted at an angle of twenty degrees or so, it was now level.

 

            The ship must have rolled over a bit," Malloy said. It was hard to tell whether he was making a statement or asking a question. He added, "I feel funny."

 

            Terrins felt it, too, a queasy sensation of still going down in an elevator and the light-headed feeling that if he was not careful he would drift ceilingwards. Apparently the aliens were feeling light-headed, too, because he noticed them moving along their food tracks at a surprisingly fast pace—fast for snails, that was. Two of them disappeared into the ramp which the men had used to enter the compartment. The other three, led by the taped-up one, made for the human party.

 

            "I don't trust these things," said Stephens again.

 

            Terrins was beginning to have misgivings himself. As the three aliens wriggled nearer he found himself swallowing with a mouth which was too dry for it to be done comfortably. But when Alien Number One stopped before them and, with unmistakable wavings of its tentacles, merely indicated that it would like its companions' hides taped up the same as its own, Terrins cursed himself silently as a coward for being afraid of them.

 

            "I still don't like it" Stephens said doggedly. "I'm going to see what those other two are up to." He disappeared in the wake of the two aliens. Almost immediately they heard an exclamation of surprise and a yell of "Come here, quick!"

 

-

 

            Terrins was first into the descending ramp. He was startled to find that he could walk along it instead of having to crawl down it backwards. And when he arrived at the floor of the adjoining compartment which had been vertical when they had first entered—he found that he could walk upright on it too. The gaping rent in the hull through which they had entered was now in the wall facing them, and it was sealed by hard-packed earth and rock. Apparently the ship had rolled over, trapping them for the time being inside.

 

            Something cold and tight seemed to grow in the region of Terrins' diaphragm. A well-defined symptom of fear, he thought sardonically, and tried his best to ignore it. He said:

 

            "Obviously they've put their gravity control system back in working order as well as their lighting. More deck area—and therefore more food tracks—are available to them now. You must admit that they're doing all they possibly can to help themselves, or rather, to help us help them." He forced a smile. "I hope we have tape enough for all the patients."

 

            The truth was that Terrins felt much less confident than he had tried to make out To his general discomfort was added the uneasy feeling that it was the aliens who were running things now; they were using the humans.

 

            "How," said Malloy the Practical, "are we going to get out sir?"

 

            "Our people will cut a way in," Lieutenant Stephens answered for him. "Or jack up this end of the ship if the other way is too slow." He turned to face Terrins. "But I don't like—"

 

            Price's voice in the head-phones interrupted another of Stephens' dislikes.

 

            "The interference is back, sir, bad as ever." He sounded faintly disgusted, probably because the gossiping Derry operator was no longer available to relieve the boredom of waiting. "It's funny, sir, but it disappeared a few minutes after you entered the wreck. I thought it had gone for good."

 

            Coincidence, of course, Terrins thought; it had to be. But his uneasiness increased nonetheless. He asked, "Did you see the ship roll over?"

 

            "No, sir. It's almost dark out here."

 

            Dark! That meant ... With an unbelieving look at his watch he saw that they had spent over three hours in the ship. No wonder Price was feeling disgusted. He was telling Price to break into the emergency rations for himself when Stephens interrupted him again.

 

            "What's the attraction in that corner there?" he said, pointing. "What are they doing, anyway?"

 

            A few yards away two aliens were huddled against a tangle of wreckage which was pinning down a third. One of them held a tentacle stiffly as though working at something under the jumbled mass of metal which was just barely within reach. There was a strange familiarity about that position and stance ...

 

            "Price," Terrins said into his mike, "I'm going to make a test" He gave the navigator brief instruction, detached an earpiece and handed it to Stephens, then advanced on the aliens in the comer.

 

            This time he used a long piece of metal to knock away the tentacle, remembering the skinned knuckle he had suffered the first time. As he had more than half expected, the instant he nudged the stiffened tentacle away from whatever it had been touching, Price reported the interference gone.

 

            "Somebody," Terrins said with forced lightness, "is not using a suppressor."

 

            Whatever repairs the aliens were trying to make in that corner was the cause of the country wide interruption in radio communications.

 

            "We can't have this," Terrins said, wagging an admonishing finger at the aliens. "Shoo 'em away from that thing, Stephens. "I've got to finish my report to Derry."

 

            But the aliens did not want to be shooed away, it seemed. As the minutes passed and Terrins asked and answered questions relayed through the helicopter's set from Derry, Stephens' efforts to keep the creatures at a distance became increasingly strenuous. And the aliens, despite their injuries, were becoming downright vicious. Stephens, holding a piece of buckled plating before his face to protect it from their lashing tentacles, was reduced to pushing them away with his feet. He was not being gentle about it either. Whatever gadget lay underneath that wreckage it was clear that the aliens wanted to get at it badly.

 

-

 

            Malloy and Thompson, who had been in the adjoining compartment keeping an eye on the three aliens there, appeared, attracted by the rumpus. Stephens snarled, "Help me. Don't just stand there ..."

 

            While pushing at a quivering alien with his foot, Malloy reported that the creature they had patched up was engaged in cutting its way into the stern section of the ship. It was using a gadget similar to an acetylene torch, he stated, but much smaller—and the alien did not have to stand at all close to the metal it was working on. Malloy was quite enthusiastic about the gadget and was wondering if the alien would mind giving it to him, or one like it, as a souvenir, when Price's voice crackled suddenly from the 'phones. He must have been shouting for it to sound so loud.

 

            "Sir! Derry has just had a signal to say that the ship over the United States has suddenly changed course. They plotted its new heading, it's coming this way!"

 

            Stephens had heard it also, the ear-piece still being clipped to the side of his cap. His face went white.

 

            "It's a radio!" he babbled. "The thing they're trying to get at is a radio. They've been contacting their friends—

 

            "That's the gadget there," Malloy broke in, as yet blissfully unconscious of this latest development. He pointed.

 

            Alien Number One, looking vaguely piratical in its taping, crouched in the mouth of the entry ramp. The gadget so admired by Malloy which cut through metal walls at a distance was held firmly in one outstretched tentacle.

 

            "Don't move," Stephens whispered urgently. "Listen ..." He quickly told Malloy and Thompson what had happened. While he spoke the two aliens he had been fending off wriggled around him and made as if to resume their interrupted work at the radio. He continued, "... Now that other ship must have taken a fix on their last transmission, that's why it's suddenly heading this way. But I don't think it will be able to find us unless the aliens transmit more or less continuously. One fix at three thousand miles is surely not enough to pinpoint us with the necessary accuracy."

 

            He faced Terrins: "You agree, sir? The only way we can escape is for them not to find us. That other ship will be moving fast, too fast for us to dig our way out of here before it arrives. And you know what will happen to us if we're caught—we'll be the specimens ..."

 

            "Interference is back," said Price.

 

            "Get out of there!" Stephens cried, and swung viciously at the alien who had worked its way behind him, his weapon the section of metal plating which was still in his hands. There was a sound like tearing cloth and a foot long rent appeared on the flank of the already tattered body of the alien. The force of his swing-only partly expended by that glancing blow—sent him stumbling. He tripped and fell, to which accident he owed his life.

 

            The wall where he had been standing showed a bright orange patch at what would have been the level of Stephens' waist. Terrins could feel the heat of it from three yards away.

 

            On the human side most of the action was instinctive after that.

 

-

 

            It was several minutes later. Terrins and Lieutenant Stephens were making themselves as small as possible behind the remains of a low control desk. Malloy and Thompson had found similar cover a few yards away. Alien Number One was keeping them pinned down with its long-range cutting torch—even in his mind, Terrins balked at referring to it as a heat ray—and, flanked by its companions from the adjoining compartment, was edging steadily nearer. There were three aliens advancing in front of them and two behind. Of the latter, the one which Stephens had sliced with the metal plate had stopped moving. The other one had taken its place at the transmitter. And in the helicopter outside, Price was reporting interference again.

 

            "We've got to stop it signalling," Stephens said.

 

            Terrins did not answer. He was not feeling particularly afraid, strangely enough, but he felt hurt and very, very angry. When he had treated that first alien successfully, Terrins had felt a great sense of accomplishment, almost a feeling of pride—and he had taken it for granted that the being concerned would show a certain amount of gratitude for said treatment. But instead of gratitude they were trying to roast the humans with some weapon or other ...

 

            Stephens' voice broke suddenly in on his thoughts. The pilot, seeing that no help was forthcoming from the Lieut-Commander, had assumed command of the situation himself.

 

            "... Malloy and Thompson. Pick up any loose metal near you suitable for throwing. When I give the word, let fly at the alien with the weapon. You've got to distract it for a few seconds. All right? Now ...!"

 

            An assortment of metal began bouncing off and around Alien Number One. Stephens sprang to his feet, a twisted strip of plating in his hands. He brought it over and down like a broad-sword. Terrins glimpsed the quivering body of the alien at the transmitter, and its three writhing stumps of tentacles, then Stephens gave a gasping cry and dived for cover again. The leg of his uniform trousers was a charred rag and the flesh beneath was a raw, bright red, but his pain-distorted face made a grimace that must have been meant as a smile when Price reported that the interference had gone.

 

            The remaining three aliens advanced slowly.

 

            Relayed from Derry came the report that the second spaceship had been sighted three hundred miles off the Irish coast by a weather ship. Its Captain had stated that it was moving very fast indeed, its nose section glowing white hot. In Lough Foyle Argus was readying her De Havilland 110's and Scottish Command were dispatching a squadron of Javelins ...

 

            "If they get another fix on us, we're sunk," Stephens said through clenched teeth. His face was white and sweating, he was going into shock, and Terrins' kit was in the other compartment.

 

            Silently, Terrins wondered whether another fix was necessary. Alien radio might be that little bit different from the human variety. But if that were so then there was no hope at all for them.

 

-

 

            Stephens was hanging on to consciousness with his fingernails. He said, "If that thing comes much closer it could pick us off one at a time with no trouble. We've got to spread ourselves out, and jump it from three directions at once." He tried to get to his hands and knees, groaned as the partly cooked meat that was his lower leg touched the deck, and subsided again.

 

            "I think I know what you have in mind," Terrins said gently. He was feeling very much angrier now, and things like logic or caution seemed to have been crowded out of his mind. He took off his head-phones and gave them to the pilot with instructions to keep in touch with Price, then he turned to the others.

 

            With Terrins showing himself briefly and hurling odd pieces of wreckage at Alien Number One to distract its attention, Malloy and Thompson began their outflanking manoeuvre—the two unarmed aliens being ignored for the time being. But fully fifteen minutes passed before they were in satisfactory positions, and Terrins gave the signal of attack.

 

            One jump carried him to the top of the control desk and the second to within five yards of the alien—the lighter artificial gravity in the ship had its advantages, he thought. The alien's weapon was swinging round towards the running figure of Malloy, who had gone into action a split second too soon. He heard Malloy shriek and saw his arm from the elbow down smoke, shrivel and fall off, then the weapon was ranging round on him. He took two running paces forward—they felt as though he was being filmed in slow-motion—and dived blindly at the huddled shape on the deck.

 

            It may have been his imagination, but he thought that the alien held fire for an instant—surely at this stage it was not having qualms about killing the doctor who had patched it up? Terrins struck its soft, resilient body with both hands outstretched, knocking it off its food track and onto its back. The weapon made a firey zig-zag on the ceiling, then he heard it clatter to the deck.

 

            When Terrins picked himself up Thompson was beating at the alien savagely with a jagged strip of metal. The taping which Terrins and Malloy had applied so carefully was stained brown or hanging loosely from reopened wounds. Suddenly, he felt furiously angry with Thompson; he put his hand on the other's chest and sent him staggering backwards.

 

            Stephens' voice came then, weak but all too clear.

 

            "Price says there's a big ship above us. It's dropped flares and is coming down ..."

 

            Terrins looked at the shambles around him, at the aliens injured in the crash and at the others who had all too clearly suffered at the hands of the humans. They aren't going to like this, he thought sickly, they're not going to like this at all ...

 

-

 

            They should have allowed the aliens to summon help, Terrins knew now; that last struggle inside the wreck had been the cause of needless suffering to Stephens and Malloy, not to mention the aliens concerned. It was a good thing no permanent damage had been done.

 

            Dawn was silhouetting distant Mount Errigal and, although the rain had blown inland, it was cold inside the grounded helicopter. But its occupants were not really feeling it—the condemned man, Terrins thought drily, does not mind if the signature of his reprieve is a bit smudged.

 

            It was all clear to him now: the accidental crash of the spaceship on Earth, the intermittent interference when one of its crew struggled to send a distress call, and his certainty that it was only the fact of the transmitter being damaged that Earth receivers were affected by the signal at all, because it was obviously propagated at a speed thousands of times faster than light. Unfortunately, Terrins' entry into the ship had caused the signal to be cut off just as a rescue ship had appeared above Earth. The ship had begun a search pattern over the nearest land mass-America—until a brief renewal of the signal by a human-revived alien had given it the wreck's position.

 

            The rescue workers had been different from the injured aliens, bigger and with literally forests of arms and legs, and they had been extremely efficient. Practically every occupant of the wreck was showing signs of life before they left, including the ones which the humans had roughened up. But Terrins had put in one very bad moment when one of them had advanced upon Stephens and Malloy with a purposeful look in its nearest eye and waving the alien equivalent of a scalpel. Stephens and Malloy had been carried into the other alien ship, and Thompson and himself had been shooed out of the wreck and then ignored.

 

            But he had felt much better a few hours later when the two men came out again, dazed, but walking unaided on their feet.

 

            Lieutenant Stephens had not had much to say, but all through the night he had been touching or pinching the perfectly sound though hairless leg which had been burned so terribly by the alien weapon. He had asked Terrins once whether it was possible to dream that one was pinching oneself. Malloy, on the other hand, had rarely stopped talking. He was talking now.

 

            "... They must have a Health Service, too," he said, waving his right arm and hand in Thompson's face. Terrins had seen that hand burned off and the forearm reduced to a charred stump, and felt like pinching himself, too. Malloy went on, "But it's like ours. They mean well, of course, but they're rushed sometimes and are inclined to overlook things ..."

 

            He was mighty proud of that hand, a fact which he tried unsuccessfully to hide by continually griping about it. He held it out again for all to see.

 

            Terrins was thinking of the airliners which sometimes were forced down in the jungle, and of the natives who in their ignorant but well-meaning fashion tried to help the injured. But when proper medical assistance arrived, the doctors treated everyone as a matter of course—including the natives whose ignorant meddling had placed them also on the casualty list.

 

            "... Even the best dentists pull a wrong tooth sometimes," Malloy was saying in withering tones, "But this ... Well I ask you, six fingers ...!"