Norton, Andre - Anthology (26 page)

 
          
 
"We're approaching the animals,"
said Mandel's voice. "They apparently have no fear of us. They're both
sitting on their haunches looking at us and occasionally at each other. The
color changes in that organ on the neck are phenomenal, and that's just
happened since they caught sight of us. I wonder if that couldn't be their
means of
communication?
"

 
          
 
That's a nice conjecture, thought Edwards. We
communicate by vibrations of one frequency and wave-length range — why can't
the Minotaurans communicate on a different band of vibrations?
A little inconvenient on a dark night perhaps — but so is talking
and hearing in a boiler factory.

 
          
 
Mandel's voice broke into his thoughts again.
"One of the animals is wearing a sort of rope sling over his shoulders and
has a stone ax or hammer hanging from it. They're intelligent, I guess, at
least to the stage where they have artifacts."

 
          
 
The voice of the irrepressible Schultz
interrupted. "Irv, I feel silly. What is the proper procedure in greeting
these characters?"

 
          
 
Bob grinned. That clown Schultz—what a man!
Well, this wasn't taking care of Slawson.

 
          
 
"We're going to try to replace five
liters of blood," he told Thomas, as he took the blood from the
refrigerator. "This is all the same batch, isn't it?"

 
          
 
"That's right—that'll be
compatible," answered the pathologist. "We have nothing new to report
here. It will probably take hours before we can get this worked out. How is the
patient?"

 
          
 
"Not so good," answered Bob, as he
loaded the flasks of blood on a tray. "I don't even know if this idea will
work, but there's nothing else that I can see to do. Give me a call if you have
anything to report."

 
          
 
As Bob walked back toward the sick bay, he
heard the intercom again. "One of the animals has just plucked some leaves
off a bush and is holding them out to us. Is that meant to be a gesture of
friendship?"

 
          
 
Why does everything have to happen at once?
thought
Bob. Here was an experience, which could happen to
few men, that of meeting and greeting the strange inhabitants of a new planet —
and at the same time to be caught with one of the screwiest medical conditions
ever seen. But the doctor's conditioning asserted itself—the patient always
comes first. So without further thought about what was going on outside the
ship, he and Livingston set about their sanguinary tasks of replacing Slawson's
useless blood.

 
          
 
Withdraw 100 cc, replace 100 cc; observe;
repeat. Repeat again and again. They worked rapidly; they didn't attempt to adhere
to the usual rate of two or three drops a second. But it took time. More than
an hour had elapsed by the time the flask had been emptied of good blood and
replaced with the bluish liquid that had been in Slawson's veins.

 
          
 
This business of transferring blood was not
too difficult, of course. The task was sufficiently mechanical so they could
keep one ear open for the reports of the men outside the ship. They heard
Mandel describe the peculiar hands of the Minotaurans—ten pairs of opposable
thumbs on each forelimb. The medial pair was the largest, the next pair
slightly smaller; each succeeding pair of digits diminished in size, the most
lateral being tiny. The animals walked on the knuckles of the first three or
four pairs of digits, the remainder being kept clear of the ground. They had,
as far as could be determined, no sense of hearing, although it was possible
that they might be conscious of vibrations in objects which they touched.

 
          
 
They seemed peculiarly unpugnacious. They were
not fearful, either; they seemed curious about the humans, but in a rather
placid sort of way. Mandel inferred that these animals—or were they people?—had
no natural enemies and hence had little use for the emotion of fear.

 
          
 
The two doctors who were caring for Slawson knew
fear; they were very much afraid that one of the members was going to meet
Death on Minotaur. It wouldn't be the same sort of death that the members of
Expedition I had met. It was going to be quicker, more merciful—but just as
inevitable unless something could be done.

 
          
 
Edwards, who had been listening to the
stricken man's heart action, stood up with a sigh. "It's just no go. I
thought for a while that those transfusions would do the trick, but he's just
as bad as he was before we started. I wonder— could it be that he got so much
pollen into him that he couldn't absorb it all? Then, maybe, when we gave him
the blood we got rid of some of the pollen, but he absorbed some more
again."

 
          
 
"It sort of acts like that,"
Livingston confirmed. "If that's the case, we might have to give him
transfusions until hell freezes over—and I don't think we have that much blood
available."

 
          
 
"We don't," said Bob. "That was
the last of his type. Of course, we might get some donors from the crew, but
type B, Rh negative is quite rare. And besides, if this anoxemia persists for
much longer, he's going to have some permanent brain damage. In that case, it
might be kinder if he didn't survive."

 
          
 
"If we only had more time," muttered
Jack. "I'll bet that we could find some substance which would have a
greater affinity for the pollen than the pollen does for hemoglobin."

 
          
 
"You mean like the preference that
bacteria have for the sulphonamides instead of para-amino-benzoic acid?"
asked Bob.

 
          
 
"That's the idea; but those things can't
be found out in an hour, even with the equipment we have aboard. I guess that
it means that we just keep pouring the oxygen into him and hope for the best.
Hey, did you hear that?"

 
          
 
It was Mandel's voice. "We have
established some sort of communication with the pictures we've drawn on the
sand. It's hard for them to see directly below them, and Schultz and I are both
getting tired squatting. I believe it would be perfectly safe for us to bring
them aboard ship, where we can show them some photographs and maybe movies.
Tom, Bob, what do you think?"

 
          
 
It was Bob who made the decision and spoke
first. "You're in a better position to decide that than I am. If you think
it's
O.K., and if they'll follow you, come ahead.
O.K. with you, Kelly?"

 
          
 
"If you say so, Bob. But just to be on
the safe side, I'm going to keep them covered while they're
aboard—unobtrusively, of course."

 
          
 
"All right.
But
tell your men not to go trigger-happy on us. No shooting unless there's a
direct order from either you or me. And Irv—"

 
          
 
"Yes, Bob."

           
 
"Better take 'em on a sort of orientation
tour of the ship first. I don't know if they'll understand anything, but it
should be impressive. We'll wait here in the sick bay for you; Slawson has to
be watched."

 
          
 
Perhaps fifteen minutes elapsed before they
heard the peculiar slow clicking noise that they would always associate with
the walk of the Minotaurans. Bob and Jack had filled in that quarter-hour doing
useless little things for their patient, all to no avail. He was getting progressively
weaker and would probably not even survive the visit of their strange guests.
They looked up to see the Minotaurans entering the room.

 
          
 
The one who carried the stone ax entered
first, followed by his compatriot, then by Schultz and Mandel.

 
          
 
Schultz, as would be expected, performed the
introductions with a flourish. "Boys, meet Tom and Jack. Tom and Jack,
meet the boys."

 
          
 
The Minotaurans were oblivious of this
travesty of courtesy, of course. They gazed at the two doctors with their large
limpid yellow eyes, while their neck-organs turned a pleasing shade of
chartreuse.

 
          
 
Then their eyes fell on the unconscious blue
body of Slawson. With one accord they moved slowly toward the bed and gazed at
him for a long moment. Then the larger of the two Minotaurans faced the other
and began to manifest all possible color combinations in the mass of tissue
which adorned his neck. Reds, greens, yellows, violets, flashes of orange,
bands and flecks, stripes and spots—it was a veritable pageant of color. It
seemed to make sense to the other, for he swung about on his hind legs and left
the room.

 
          
 
"Now, what?" asked
Bob.
"What do you suppose got into him?"

           
 
"Should I follow him?" asked Kelly,
sticking his head around the edge of the door.

 
          
 
"If you don't mind, let's just wait and
see what happens," counseled Mandel. "I have a sneaking suspicion
that these boys know what's going on here. They seem to have an instinct of
intuition that far surpasses ours. That boy will be back shortly, I'll bet
anything."

 
          
 
So they waited, impatiently. Stone-Ax sat on
his haunches and gazed at them, placidly. It was rather embarrassing, like
trying to be polite to a foreigner who doesn't speak your language. You
couldn't make polite conversation; you couldn't ask how business conditions
were in his country or how many children he had.

 
          
 
Mandel had given an excellent description; one
thing he hadn't mentioned, though, was that the Minotauran had a peculiar and
pleasant body odor. Bob had to sniff and think for several minutes before he
could identify the elusive scent. Why, it's lilac, of course, he thought.
Wouldn't you know it would be a color, too?

 
          
 
His thoughts were interrupted by the clicking
pad, pad of the other Minotauran, returning. He wasn't exactly hurrying, but
you could tell that he wasn't loitering by the wayside, either. He entered the
room, and everyone was startled to see that he carried
a half
-dozen
nondescript flowers in his mouth.

 
          
 
"Oh, oh—more flowers," said Jack,
excitedly. "Shall we try to stop him?"

 
          
 
Bob had a sudden intuition.
"No,
let's not.
He can't do anything to hurt poor Slawson—I'm afraid he's
beyond that stage. Let's see what they're going to do."

 
          
 
Stone-Ax took the flowers in one of his
polydactyl appendages, then with the other arm pointed to the oxygen mask
strapped to Slawson's face. He then pointed to his own face and made a gesture
which apparently signified removal.

 
          
 
"I guess he wants us to take the oxygen
mask off," said Schultz. "Should I, Bob?"

 
          
 
"Go ahead; we can put it back in a few
seconds, if necessary."

 
          
 
The mask was removed. The Minotaur an extended
his hind legs so his forelimbs were over the level of the bed, then
unhesitatingly thrust the flowers in front of Slawson's nose and mouth. There
was a breathless silence in the room. For a moment nothing happened; then
Slawson's stertorous breathing suddenly halted—and he gave a mighty sneeze! The
flowers were left there for a few seconds longer,
then
were thrown to the floor. Then
both of
these strange
beings turned toward the men, gave a curious little inclination of their necks,
and, with unaltered dignity, left the room.