The Legacy of Lehr, Page 3

  Ten minutes later, Shannon was moving briskly down the corridor toward the Aludrans’ quarters, a medical kit slung on her shoulder and a wealth of new information in her mind about these particular Aludrans.

  She was already familiar with the racial type, of course. Fledgling physicians were required during their training to dissect cadavers of most of the major physiological groupings, and to complete certain survey courses in alien psychology and culture. The latter training had been augmented in even greater detail when Shannon came to work for the Gruening Line, since a starliner’s medical officer might routinely expect to encounter a far larger variety of alien patients than most planetside doctors saw in a lifetime. In two years, Shannon certainly had seen her share.

  Lutobo’s remark about demons disturbed her, though, for she remembered that the Aludrans were a very mystical people, possessed of an ancient and intricate myth system, and actually believed in supernatural beings. They were also slightly telepathic among themselves, though not with other races—which meant that one terrified Aludran could infect all the others. Her quick review of their medical records confirmed that these particular Aludrans were religious pilgrims bound for a retreat on Tel Taurig, which was to have been the ship’s next destination before they diverted to B-Gem. The leader, a lai—or priest—called Muon, was a noted lecturer at several major universities both on and off his home planet and carried the reputation of a respected and stable individual—though one could never be really certain when evaluating aliens by human standards. She remembered meeting him briefly at the captain’s reception, their first night out, and being impressed.

  Squaring her shoulders, Shannon paused in front of the first Aludran cabin and thumbed the call buzzer several times. Neither that signal nor several more produced any response. Nor did she have any better luck at the second cabin.

  But as she approached the third, which was assigned to Muon and his mate, she could hear sounds of movement and an occasional sob or moan, even though the cabins were supposed to be relatively soundproofed. Pushing the buzzer this time produced sudden and complete silence but no acknowledgement from the intercom. When no one responded after several more buzzes, she took out an override key and inserted it in a slot beside the signal buzzer, pushing when it met resistance.

  A circuit relayed, the buzzer sounded again, and a green light came on in the buzzer button.

  “This is Doctor Shannon, the ship’s surgeon,” she said in a low voice, speaking into the grille below the buzzer. “I’ve used a medical override because the captain asked me to be certain you were all right. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I understand that one of your party had an unpleasant experience a little while ago.”

  There was a short silence and then the scurry of feet and the sigh of a breath being drawn near the intercom.

  “Please to go away, Doctor,” piped a thin, reedy voice, thickly accented. “You can nothing do.”

  Shannon peered at the grille and at the blank vid screen beside it, wishing her medical immunity permitted her to override visual as well as audio circuits. In an emergency, she could override the door itself, but she would have to justify her actions later on, if the occupant complained. Thus far, she had no evidence of any real emergency.

  “I don’t mean to contradict you,” she replied, “but if you won’t tell me what’s wrong, how do I know that there’s nothing I can do? I realize that you’re upset, but I have my orders. May I at least speak with Muon, your leader?”

  “No!” came the emphatic reply. “Lai Muon not wish speak to anyone. I speak for him. I am his laia. This not concern you, Doctor.”

  “As a physician, it always concerns me if one of my passengers is in distress,” Shannon said gently. “May I please come in, just for a moment? I promise you, I’ll do nothing without your permission, and I’ll leave if you want me to, as soon as I’ve been inside and confirmed that everyone is all right.”

  She heard a faint twittering in the background, quickly muffled as someone apparently held something over the microphone pickup, and then: “You go away then?” the voice asked plaintively.

  “After I’ve been inside, of course I will.”

  She pulled out her override key as a faint click signaled the door circuit being activated. A puff of hot, moist air stirred her dark hair as the door slid back, and she felt her weight decrease slightly as she crossed the threshold. The Aludran atmosphere was oxygen-rich, tangy with some alien scent she could not identify, but she knew that nothing about the normal Aludran environment was harmful to humans. The thirty-degree temperature differential had her sweating immediately, though, and she hoped she would find no reason to stay in the Aludrans’ cabin overlong.

  “You come this way, Doctor,” said the Aludran who had admitted her. “Muon over here.”

  The cabin was dim, but not so dim that Shannon could not see that the four other Aludrans were standing and kneeling around the chair of a distressed-looking elder. Though Aludrans normally were a colorful lot, especially the males with their iridescent plumage, this one looked almost monochromatic. Even the scarlet and yellow feathers of his crest seemed faded against the grayish down that covered his neck and the backs of his hands, and the skin stretched over the planes of his sharp, angular face was ashen. His eyes were closed, his head leaning against the chair back, and the fur-lined robes he needed to wear outside the warmth of his cabin had been thrown back to reveal a simple garment of amber crysilk that flowed from a scarlet scholar’s collar and stole and partially covered his claw-toed feet. The female who had opened the door, rose-gowned to match her plúmage, moved quickly to his side and knelt beside him, her delicate hand resting anxiously on the elder’s, to face Shannon.

  “This Lai Muon, Doctor. You see now, he unharmed and resting. You go now?”

  Shannon, who had reviewed the basics of Aludran protocol when she scanned their medical records, gave careful salute in the prescribed manner of a healer to an Aludran elder, touching two fingers to her lips, to her breast, and then extending her open palm outward in the degree appropriate for near-equals. Several of the other Aludrans twittered among themselves in surprised approval at that, and the female kneeling beside Muon inclined her head cautiously in acknowledgement.

  “You know our ways.”

  “Some of them,” Shannon conceded. “Must I go immediately? I am concerned that Lai Muon was distressed.”

  The female returned a curt nod, but it was not one of dismissal.

  “Please excuse, Doctor, but our people very frightened by what happen to Lai Muon, and most not speak your language well. I speak for Muon. He rests now, as you see.”

  Shannon nodded, casually letting her left hand drift closer to the scanner controls on her medical kit.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” she asked. “My captain was told that Muon said something about—demons.”

  Unreadable emotion flickered in the female’s face, but before she could speak, Muon himself opened sharp yellow eyes and shook his head slightly.

  “Co-mekatta, Ta’ai,” he chided the Aludran woman softly. “Doctor, I apologize if I have caused your captain alarm. Someone misheard me, I fear. Please, do not concern yourself. We can deal with what must be done.”

  Shannon looked him over carefully, her physician’s eye evaluating the alien even as she moved slightly closer to him.

  “Are you certain you’re all right, sir?”

  “I am certain, Doctor.”

  “You won’t mind if I scan you, then, to see for myself?”

  “If you must.”

  She scanned him, but a quick glance at the status tallies confirmed that what Muon said was true, at least as far as his physical health was concerned. With a sigh, Shannon let the scanner back down on its strap, glancing at the others in the room.

  “Well, sir, you do appear to be in acceptable physical health. If only you would tell me—”

  “Please, Doctor,” Muon whispered.

  “I know. I promised to le
ave, and I shall,” Shannon replied resignedly. “But if there should be any further problem, I hope that you’ll contact me. I want to help, if I can.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Muon murmured in dismissal. “I should like to rest now, if you do not mind.”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  Shannon withdrew with a slight bow, reentering the cooler corridor with relief. She had not been aware of it in the cabin, but her uniform was stuck to her back, and perspiration crawied along her scalp and beaded across her upper lip. She resisted the urge to look over her shoulder as the cabin door slid shut behind her, and she concluded that whatever had riled the Aludrans was likely to remain a mystery for the present. Meanwhile, she decided that she had time to cool off and change to a fresh uniform before going below to look at these strange creatures that apparently had precipitated the aliens’ distress.

  And in the cargo hold assigned to the creatures in question—a square, high-ceilinged compartment perhaps twenty meters on a side—Mather’s Rangers had already secured most of the equipment brought aboard from the shuttle. What was not battened down along the perimeter or stowed in storage lockers had gone into the small security room opening off the larger area, where two of the men were splicing it into the existing security system—much to the mystification of three men from ship’s security. Just in front of the hold’s exit door, Mather and two more Rangers were assembling something that looked very much like an airlock made of plasteel mesh. The other three, under Wallis’s supervision, worked at jockeying the four cages into position for reconnection, one of them hooking up the big scanners atop each cage to switch from battery to ship’s power—all to the raucous accompaniment of four disgruntled Lehr cats.

  Actually, Wallis decided as she circled the long line of cages and took random readings with her hand scanner, the cats had weathered their transfer from B-Gem reasonably well, displaying real hysteria only when the anti-grav lifters were first attached to their cages and they began to float.

  But terror had fast faded to apparent curiosity when weightlessness did not seem to harm. And when lessened weight did return once the cages were ensconced aboard the shuttle ship, Empire Standard gravity being lighter by a sixth than B-Gem Normal, the cats found themselves accordingly lighter, more agile, and almost a little intoxicated by the time docking was made with the Valkyrie. The only other anxious moment had come when the cats had been moved from the shuttle to the Valkyrie and vented their displeasure on the ears of everyone in the vicinity of the shuttle bay.

  Not that the big cats had really settled down yet. Nor would they, until the cages were reconnected and they could be fed. Periodically, and for no apparent reason, one or another of them would let out a great roar—much to the chagrin of the three ship’s security guards, who had even closed the door to the security office in an effort to shut out the noise.

  But at least there was none of that frenzied clashing against the wire mesh, which the big cats had sometimes tried on B-Gem to amuse themselves. The two males looked quite befuddled by it all, and the female called Emmaline had even settled down sufficiently to nap, her oval topaz eyes shuttered to mere slivers beneath twitching, tufted ears. The other female had always been the least amiable of the four, and continued to pace back and forth in her cage, growling and lashing her tail against the mesh. She was also the one who seemed to be making the most noise.

  “Well, old Matilda is certainly vocal enough,” Mather said to Wallis as he came to look over her shoulder at her medscan readings. “Do you suppose she knows about hyperspace jumps?”

  Wallis grinned and glanced sidelong at him. “You haven’t been telling her, have you? Some people don’t need jump medication to get them through, and most people don’t react worse from the pills than they do from the jump. You’d better hope our little pets take after their ‘mom’ rather than their ‘dad’.”

  “I’ll settle for them making it through alive,” Mather said. “Casey, are we nearly ready to activate that lock?”

  A sandy-haired Ranger back at the entry portal gave a thumbs-up in response.

  “Two minutes, Commodore.”

  “Good. Webb, how’re we coming on the reconnections? I think that a lot of this caterwauling is going to stop, once they’re back together again—I hope.”

  “Ready as soon as we’ve jumped, sir.”

  “Excellent.”

  As Webb and another Ranger continued to tinker with the cages and Mather drifted over to watch, Wallis continued to scan the cats. She turned, though, at the hail of one of the Rangers by the door, as a dark-haired young woman in officer’s livery entered the hold and stopped inside the security lock, looking puzzled. Her insignia and the medical scanner slung across her shoulder identified her as one of the ship’s medical staff.

  “Is there something we can do for you, Doctor?” Mather asked, signaling Casey to let her through.

  “Ah, you must be Commodore Seton,” Shannon said. “Actually, I was looking for the doctor who’s supposed to be with your party. I’m Shivaun Shannon, ship’s surgeon.”

  “Ah, then, you’re looking for me,” Wallis replied, approaching the younger woman with a smile and an outstretched hand. “I’m Doctor Wallis Hamilton. Mather and I are in charge of this operation.”

  Good manners prompted Shannon to shake hands with both of them, but her attention had already shifted past the two of them, her eyes drawn irresistibly to the four caged cats.

  “So, that’s what’s been wreaking havoc on our passengers’ nerves and giving our captain headaches,” she murmured, awed, though she immediately recovered and gave them both a conspiratorial grin. “Both are very dangerous occupations aboard this ship, you know.”

  Wallis shrugged and returned the grin. “What can I say, Doctor, except that I’m sorry. Who would have guessed you’d have Aludrans on the observation deck this morning? And as for the captain—well, unfortunately, I suppose our friends’ shrieking can give one a headache, if one is so inclined.”

  “Well, our captain is, and he certainly did have one,” Shannon replied. “It isn’t really your fault. However, just so I can reassure him and anyone else who asks, I don’t suppose there’s any way they could get out?”

  Mather raised an eyebrow. “Through plasteel and a Margall force field? Not likely, Doctor. No, I’m afraid the only danger from our furry friends is the possibility of jangled nerves—and even that should be minimal, once we get them settled down.”

  As if in support of the fact that they had not settled down yet, the smaller male let out an ear-piercing yowl that immediately was echoed in triplicate by his mate and the other pair. Shannon grimaced and covered her ears, then chuckled uneasily as the screams subsided.

  “Well, I’ll hope that’s soon. Our first phase jump is coming up shortly. I suppose the medication will calm them down a little—or can you sedate them?”

  Wallis shook her head resignedly. “Afraid not, Doctor. Unfortunately, they’re allergic to the standard jump medication—deadly allergic, in fact. For that matter, we haven’t found much that they can tolerate. The expedition before ours, which brought back the only other pair in captivity, lost five from bad drug reactions, nerves, and just plain cussedness. We lost two ourselves—even with the benefit of prior knowledge—not to mention two Rangers and several local people.”

  “Aren’t you taking a big risk, then?” Shannon asked. “And why bother, especially with the vast expense involved?”

  Wallis sighed. “I know it seems ridiculous. Unfortunately, the emperor’s pair hasn’t bred in captivity, and he needs these rather badly. I wish I could tell you why, but I can’t. Actually, these are in far better shape than any of the others that have been captured alive. We hope they’ll be able to survive the jumps without too much danger—though it certainly isn’t going to be comfortable for them.”

  “Or for us,” Mather murmured under his breath.

  Shannon studied the cats thoroughly for several seconds, then turned back to the two
scientists. “I take it that you’ll be riding out the phase jump here, then, with the cats?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Wallis said.

  She was interrupted by the discreet chiming of a phase warning signal; the lights dimmed and came back to full. Shannon glanced at a red light that had begun flashing insistently above the door and controlled a smile as she moved in that direction.

  “Well, that’s the five-minute warning. I was going to invite you to join me in Medical Section. We’re testing some new suspension units that seem to be even better than drugs for getting people through jumps without discomfort. However—”

  Wallis echoed the resigned shrug of her fellow physician. “Sorry. As much as we’d like to take you up on it, I’m afraid our friends may need us. Maybe Mather can try your new toy the next time, though. He hates jumping, and the standard medication makes him queasy.”

  “And jumping makes me queasy.” Mather sighed. “A fine fate for a former starship commander, isn’t it, Doctor Shannon? Neither the jumping nor the medication is debilitating—just damned uncomfortable. The unfair part is that Wallis jumps clean and isn’t affected at all.”

  “You mean you jump without medication?” Shannon paused by the security lock. “I never heard of that.”

  “I hadn’t either,” Wallis said. “My mind just seems to click off during that instant of phase shift. I’ve tried to teach Mather how to do it, but—” She sighed and shrugged, giving Shannon an exaggerated expression of patient long-suffering, and Shannon shook her head in amused disbelief.

  “Well, it’s your headache. Incidentally, if Commodore Seton is still interested in food after an unmedicated jump, you’re both invited to dine at the captain’s table this evening. The purser asked me to tell you it will be formal.”

  If Mather had any misgivings about the probable condition of his stomach by dinnertime, his enthusiastic acceptance of the invitation did not show it. When Shannon had gone, Mather’s mood was almost jovial as he set the security lock and dismissed the Rangers and ship’s security guards to their jump stations in the adjoining security room. Wallis glanced at him sidelong as she positioned an oxygenator beside the cat cages.