"James White - SG 04 - Ambulance Ship" - читать интересную книгу автора (White James)

challenge, friend Conway.тАЭ
The musical trills and clicks of the CinrusskinтАЩs speech were received by
ConwayтАЩs translator pack, relayed to the translation computer at the center of
the hospital and transmitted back to his earpiece as flat, emotionless English.
As expected, the reply was pleasant, polite and extremely non-controversial.
Prilicla was insectile, exe-skeletal, six-legged and with a pair of
iridescent and not quite atrophied wings and possessing a highlydeveloped
empathic faculty. Only on Cinruss with its one-eighth gravity and dense
atmosphere could a race of insects have grown to such dimensions and in time
developed intelligence and an advanced civilization. But in Sector General
Prilicla was in deadly danger for most of its working day. It had to wear
gravity nullifiers everywhere outside its own quarters because the gravity pull
which most of its colleagues considered normal would instantly have crushed it
flat, and when Prilicla held a conversation with anyone it kept well out of
reach of any thoughtless movement of an arm or tentacle which could easily cave
in its fragile body or snap off a leg.
Not that anyone would have wanted to hurt Prilicla-it was too well-liked
for that. The CinrusskinтАЩs empathic faculty forced it to be kind and considerate
to everyone in order to make the emotional radiation of the people around it as
pleasant for itself as possible.
Except when its professional duty exposed it to pain and violent emotion
in a patient, and that situation might arise within the next few minutes.
Turning suddenly to Prilicla, Conway said, тАЬWear your lightweight suit but
stay well clear of the being until we tell you that there is no danger of
movement, involuntary or otherwise, from it. We shall wear heavy duty suits,
mostly because they have more hooks on which to hang our diagnostic equipment,
and I shall ask TorranceтАЩs medic to do the same.тАЭ
Half an hour later Lieutenant Brenner, Murchison and Conway were hanging
beside the form of the enormous bird while Prilicla, wearing a transparent
plastic bubble through which projected its bony mandibles, drifted beside the
lock of their tender.
тАЬNo detectable emotional radiation, friend Conway,тАЭ reported the empath.
тАЬIтАЩm not surprised,тАЭ said Murchison.
тАЬIt could be dead,тАЭ said the Lieutenant defensively. тАЬBut when we found it
the body temperature was measurably above the norm for an object warmed only by
a two light-years distant sun.
тАЬThere was no criticism intended, Doctor,тАЭ said Murchison soothingly. тАЬI
was simply agreeing with our empathic friend. But did you, before or during the
trip here, carry out any examinations, observations or tests on this patient, or
reach any tentative conclusions as a result of such tests? And donтАЩt be shy,
Lieutenant-we may be the acknowledged experts in xenological medicine and
physiology here, but we got that way by listening and looking, not by gratuitous
displays of our expertise. You were curious, naturally, and...
тАЬYes, maтАЩam,тАЭ said Brenner, his voice registering surprise that there was
an Earth-human female inside the bulky suit. тАЬI assumed that, lacking
information on its planet of origin, you might want to know if there were any
safe atmospheric compositions in which it could be examined-I was assuming that,
being a bird, it needed an atmosphere to fly in and that it had been dumped in
space because of its diseased condition . .
Listening, Conway could not help admiring the smooth way in which