"Think cubes at them!" he yelled. "Think something blunt! Harrison!"

  "Lock's open. Come running."

  But they could not run without taking their eyes and minds off the discs, and if they did that they could not run fast enough to clear the circular incision which was being made around them. Instead they sidled towards the scout-ship, willing every inch of the way that the discs become cubes or spheres or horseshoes—anything but the great, circular scalpels which something had made them become.

  Chapter Five

  AT SECTOR General Conway had watched his colleague Mannen perform incredible feats of surgery, using one of these thought-controlled tools, an all-purpose surgical instrument which became anything he wanted it to be, instantly. Now two of the things were crawling and twisting like metallic nightmares as they tried to shape them one way and something else—which was their owner and as such had more expertise—tried to shape them another. It was a very one-sided struggle but they did, just barely, manage to hamper their opponent's thinking enough to allow them to get clear before the circular plug of "skin" containing the drilling rig and other odds and ends of equipment dropped from sight.

  "They're welcome to do," said Major Edwards as the lock slammed shut and Harrison lifted off. "After all, we've been taking specimens for weeks and it may give them something to think about before we broaden contact with shadow diagrams." He grew suddenly excited as he went on, "With high-acceleration radio controlled missiles we can build up quite complex figures!"

  Conway said, "I was thinking more in terms of a tight beam of light projected on to the surface at night. The leaves should react by opening and the beam could be moved very quickly in a rectangular sweep pattern like old-fashioned TV. It might even be possible to project moving pictures."

  "That's it," said Edwards enthusiastically. "But how a dirty great beast the size of a county, who doesn't have arms, legs or anything else will be able to answer our signals is another matter. Probably it will think of something."

  Conway shook his head. "It is possible that despite their slow movements the carpets are capable of quick thinking, that they are in fact the tool users we are looking for and that their enormous bodies undergo voluntary surgery whenever they want to draw in and examine a specimen which is not within reach of a mouth. But I prefer the theory of a smaller, intelligent life-form inside or under the big one, an intelligent parasite perhaps which helps maintain the host in good health by the use of the tools and other abilities, and which makes use of the host being's 'eyes' as well as everything else. You can take your pick."

  There was silence while the scoutship levelled off on a course which would take it back to the mother ship, then Harrison said, "We haven't made direct contact, then—we've just put squiggles on a vegetable radar screen? But it is still a big step forward."

  "As I see it," said Conway, "if tools were being used to bring us to them, they must be a fair distance from the surface—perhaps they can't exist on the surface. And don't forget they would use the carpet exactly as we use vegetable and mineral resources. How would they analyse life samples? Would they be able to see them at all down there? They use plants for eyes but I can't imagine a vegetable microscope. Perhaps they would use the big beastie's digestive juices in certain stages of the analysis ..."

  Harrison was beginning to look a little green around the gills. He said, "Let's send down a robot sensor first, to see what they do, eh?"

  Conway began, "This is all theory ..."

  He broke off as the ship's radio hummed, cleared its throat and said briskly, "Scoutship Nine. Mother here. I have an urgent signal for Doctor Conway. The being Camsaug has gone on vacation wearing the tracer the Doctor gave it. It is heading for the active stretch of shore in area H-Twelve. Harrison, have you anything to report?"

  "Yes, indeed," replied the Lieutenant, glancing at Conway. "But first I think the Doctor wants to speak to you."

  Conway spoke briefly and a few minutes later the scoutship leapt ahead under emergency thrust, ripping through the sky too fast for even the leaves to react to its shadow and trailing an unending shock-wave which would have deafened anything on the surface with ears to hear. But the great carpet slipping past them might well number deafness among its many other infirmities which now, Conway thought angrily, included a number of well-developed and extensive skin cancers and God alone knew what else.

  He wondered if a great, slow-moving creature like this could feel pain, and if so, how much? Was the condition he could see confined to hundreds of acres of "skin" or did it go much deeper? What would happen to the beings living in or under it if too many of the carpets died, decomposed? Even the rollers with their off-shore culture would be affected—the ecology of the whole planet would be wrecked! Somebody was going to have to talk to the rollers, politely but very, very firmly if it wasn't already too late.

  All at once the horse-trading aspect of his assignment, the swapping of tools for medical assistance, was no longer important. Conway was beginning to think like a doctor again, a doctor with a desperately ill patient.

  At Descartes the copter he had requested was waiting. Conway changed into a lightweight suit with a propulsion motor strapped on to his back and extra air tanks on his chest. Camsaug had too great a lead for him to follow on foot, so Conway would fly out to the being's present position by helicopter. Harrison was at the controls.

  "You again," said Edwards.

  The Lieutenant smiled. "This is where the action is. Hold tight."

  After the mad dash to the mother ship the helicopter trip seemed incredibly slow. Conway felt that he would fall flat on his face if it did not speed up and Edwards assured him that the feeling was mutual and that they would have made better time swimming. They watched Camsaug's trace grow larger in the search screen while Harrison cursed the birds and flying lizards diving for fish and suiciding on his rotor blades.

  They flew low over the settled stretch of coast where the shallows were protected from the large predators of the sea by a string of off-shore islands and reefs. To this natural protection the rollers had added a landward barrier of dead land-beast by detonating a series of low power nuclear devices inside the vast creature's body. The area was now so settled that doughnuts could roll with very little danger far inside the beast's cavernous mouths and pre-stomachs and out again.

  But Camsaug was ignoring the safe area. It was rolling steadily towards the gap in the reef leading to the active stretch of coast where predators large, medium and small ate and eroded the living shore.

  "Put me down on the other side of the gap," said Conway. "I'll wait until Camsaug comes through, then follow it."

  Harrison brought the copter down to a gentle landing on the spot indicated and Conway lowered himself on to a float. With his visor open and his head and shoulders projecting through the floor hatch he could see both the search screen and the half mile distant shore. Something which looked like a flatfish grown to the dimensions of a whale hurled itself out of the water and flopped back again with a sound like an explosion. The wave reached them a few seconds later and tossed the copter about like a cork.

  "Frankly, Doctor," said Edwards, "I don't understand why you're doing this. Is it scientific curiosity regarding roller mating habits? A yen to look into the gaping gullet of a land-beast? We have remote-controlled instruments which will let you do both without danger once we get a chance to set them up ..."

  Conway said, "I'm not a peeping Tom, scientific or otherwise, and your gadgetry might not tell me what I want to know. You see, I don't know what exactly I'm looking for, but I'm pretty sure that this is where I can contact them—"

  "The tool users? But we can contact them visually, through the plants."

  "That may be more difficult than we expect," Conway said. "I hate to attack my own lovely theory, but let's say that because of their vegetable vision they have difficulty in grasping concepts like astronomy and space-travel or, as beings who live in or under their enormous host, of visualising it from an outside viewpoint ..."

  This was just another theory, Conway went on to explain, but the way he saw it the tool users had gained a large measure of control over their environment. On a normal world environmental control included such items as reaforestation, protection against soil erosion, efficient utilisation of natural resources and so on. Perhaps on this world these things were not the concern of geologists and farmers but of people who, because their environment was a living organism, were specialists in keeping it healthy.

  He was fairly sure that these beings would be found in peripheral areas where the giant organism was under constant attack and in need of their assistance. He was also sure that they would do the work themselves rather than use their tools because these thought-controlled devices had the disadvantage of obeying and shaping themselves to the nearest thought source—this had been proved many times at the Hospital as well as earlier today. Probably the tools were valuable, too much so to risk them being swallowed and/or rendered useless by the savage and disorganised thinking of predators.

  Conway did not know what these people called themselves—the rollers called them Protectors or Healers or an almost certain method of committing suicide because they killed more often than they cured. But then the most famous Tralthan surgeon in the Federation would probably kill an Earth-human patient if it had no medical knowledge of the species and no physiology tape available. The tool users worked under a similar handicap when they tried to treat rollers.

  "But the important thing is they do try," Conway went on. "All their efforts go towards keeping one big patient alive instead of many. They are the medical profession on Meatball and they are the people we must contact first!"

  There was silence then except for the gargantuan splashing and smacking sounds coming from the shoreline. Suddenly Harrison spoke:

  "Camsaug is directly below, Doctor."

  Conway nodded, closed his visor and fell awkwardly into the water. The weight of his suit's propulsor and extra air tanks made him sink quickly and in a few minutes he spotted Camsaug rolling along the sea bottom. Conway followed, matching the roller's speed and keeping just barely in sight. He had no intention of invading anyone's privacy, he was a doctor rather than an anthropologist and he was interested in seeing what Camsaug did only if it ran into trouble of a medical nature.

  The copter had taken to the air again, keeping pace with him and maintaining constant radio contact.

  Camsaug was angling gradually towards the shore, wobbling past clumps of sea vines and porcupine carpets which grew more thickly as the bottom shelved, sometimes circling for several minutes while one of the big predators drifted across its path. The vines and prickly carpets had poisonous thorns and quills and they lashed out or shot spines at anything which came too close. Conway's problem now was how to drift past them at a safe altitude but remain low enough so as not to be scooped up by a giant flatfish.

  The water was becoming so crowded with life and animal and vegetable activity that he could no longer see the surface disturbance caused by the helicopter. Like a dark red precipice the edge of the land-beast loomed closer, almost obscured by its mass of underwater attackers, parasites and, possibly, defenders—the situation was too chaotic for Conway to tell which was which. He began to encounter new forms of life—a glistening, black and seemingly endless mass which undulated across his path and tried to wrap itself around his legs and a great, iridescent jellyfish so transparent that only its internal organs were visible.

  One of the creatures had spread itself over about twenty square yards of seabed while another drifted just above it. They did not carry spines or stings so far as he could see, but everything else seemed to avoid them and so did Conway.

  Suddenly Camsaug was in trouble.

  Conway had not seen it happen, only that the roller had been wobbling more than usual and when he jetted closer he saw a group of poisoned quills sticking out of its side. By the time he reached it Camsaug was rolling in a tight circle, almost flat against the ground, like a coin in slow motion that has almost stopped spinning. Conway knew what to do, having dealt with a similar emergency when Surreshun was being transferred into the Hospital. He quickly lifted the roller upright and began pushing it along the bottom like an oversize, flabby hoop.

  Camsaug was making noises which did not translate, but he felt its body grow less flabby as he rolled it—it was beginning to help itself. Suddenly it wobbled away from him, rolling between two clumps of sea vines. Conway rose to a safe height meaning to head it off, but a flatfish with jaws gaping rushed at him and he dived instinctively to avoid it.

  The giant tail flicked past, missing him but tearing the propulsion unit from his back. Simultaneously a vine lashed out at his legs, tearing the suit fabric in a dozen places. He felt cold water forcing its way up his legs and under the skin something which felt like liquid fire pushing along his veins. He had a glimpse of Camsaug rolling like a stupid fool on to the edge of a jellyfish and another of the creatures was drifting down on him like an iridescent cloud. Like Camsaug, the noises he was making were not translatable.

  "Doctor!" The voice was so harsh with urgency that he could not recognise it. "What's happening?"

  Conway did not know and could not speak anyway. As a precaution against damage in space or in a noxious atmosphere his suit lining was built in annular sections which sealed off the ruptured area by expanding tightly against the skin. The idea had been to contain the pressure drop or gas contamination in the area of damage, but in this instance the expanded rings were acting as a tourniquet which slowed the progress of the poison into his system. Despite this Conway could not move his arms, legs or even his jaw. His mouth was locked open and he was able—just barely able—to breathe.

  The jellyfish was directly above him. Its edges curled down over his body and tightened, wrapping him in a nearly invisible cocoon.

  "Doctor! I'm coming down!" It sounded like Edwards.

  He felt something stab several times at his legs and discovered that the jellyfish had spines or stings after all and was using them where the fabric of his suit had been torn away by the vines. Compared with the burning sensation in his legs the pain was relatively slight, but it worried him because the jabs seemed very close to the popliteal arteries and veins. With a tremendous effort he moved his head to see what was happening, but by then he already knew. His transparent cocoon was turning bright red.

  "Doctor! Where are you? I can see Camsaug rolling along. Looks like it's wrapped up in a pink plastic bag. There's a big, red ball of something just above it—"

  "That's me ..." began Conway weakly.

  The scarlet curtain around him brightened momentarily. Something big and dark flashed past and Conway felt himself spinning end over end. The redness around him was becoming less opaque.

  "Flatfish," said Edwards. "I chased it with my laser, Doctor?"

  Conway could see the Major now. Edwards wore a heavy duty suit which protected him from vines and quills but made accurate shooting difficult—his weapon seemed to be pointing directly at Conway. Instinctively he put up his hands and found that his arms moved easily. He was able to turn his head, bend his back and his legs were less painful. When he looked at them the area of his knees was bright red but the body around it seemed more rather than less transparent.

  Which was ridiculous!

  He looked at Edwards again and then at the awkward, dangerously slow rolling of the wrapped-up Camsaug. A great light dawned.

  "Don't shoot, Major," said Conway weakly but distinctly. "Ask the Lieutenant to drop the rescue net. Winch both of us up to the copter and to Descartes, fast. Unless our friend here can't survive in air, of course. In that case haul us both to Descartes submerged—my air will last. But be very careful," he added. "We don't want to risk hurting the Doctor."

  They both wanted to know what the blazes he was talking about, but he said that he would explain later. Conway felt very weak and he had, after all, lost a considerable amount of blood even if it had been returned to him.

  THE DOCTOR lay on the floor of the lock antechamber like an enormous, translucent slug. It was still tinged pink with a pint or so of Conway's blood but he did not mind that. If a small blood transfusion was the only fee it demanded for its valuable professional services it was welcome to it. The being seemed just as happy in air as it had been under the sea.

  In the early days of medicine on Earth doctors had often been referred to as leeches, but this doctor really was a leech. It had withdrawn the blood from his body, neutralised the lethal dose of poison it contained and then returned it to him—most of it, anyway. It had also done a very fast and almost traceless job of repairing the lacerations which the vines had caused on his legs. Conway bent suddenly and stroked the smooth, transparent skin.

  It wriggled under his touch, but whether it was with pleasure, revulsion or through sheer reflex Conway could not be sure. He straightened up and spoke.

  "We have found our local opposite numbers," he said, "and with them helping and advising us the solution of the medical problem here is simply a matter of time. But you will have to be quite tough with Surreshun's people, sir. I don't want to tell your cultural contact officer his job, but the problem is medical and very urgent. As things stand the rollers don't even know what happens to their bodies after death and this is something they should be shown in a hurry.

  "I suggest retaining one of the roller cadavers and sealing it in an air bottle instead of allowing it to drift away," he went on grimly. "Then force them to view it while the processes of decomposition are well advanced. If it was explained to them that their whole planet would end up looking like that if they didn't stop—"

  "We'll be firm but a little more diplomatic than that, Doctor," Captain Williamson broke in drily. He added, "Right now I'd like to widen contact with your ... colleague. Can you help there?"

  "Not much, I'm afraid," said Conway, smiling. "It has eyes, eight of them, situated underneath the transparent tegument for protection, so you can try visual communication techniques. It may be able to hear and it is certainly very sensitive to touch. Eating habits, well, an ounce or so of blood each day should keep it happy until you reach the stage where it can communicate its own requirements. When this happens I would like to be told at once."

 

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