and fell _splat_ on the floor.
"Friend of yours?" the Black Doctor asked casually.
It was a pink heap of jelly just big enough to fill a scrub bucket. Itsat on the floor, quivering noxiously. Then it sent out pseudopods inseveral directions, probing the metal floor. After a few moments itbegan oozing along the strand of itself that lay on the floor, andsqueezed through the hole into the next hold.
"Ugh," said Sam Jenkins, feeling suddenly sick.
"The hydroponic tanks are in there," the Black Doctor said. "You've seenone of those before?"
"Not in person." Jenkins shook his head weakly. "Only pictures. It's a_hlorg_. We thought it was only a Maukivi persecution fantasy."
"This thing is growing pretty fast for a persecution fantasy. We spottedit eight hours ago, demolishing what was left of your food supply. It'stwice as big now as it was then."
"Well, we've got to get rid of it," said Jenkins, suddenly coming tolife.
"Amen, Doctor."
"I'll get the survey crew alerted right away. We won't waste a minute.And my apologies." Jenkins was hurrying for the door. "I'll get itcleared out of here fast."
"I do hope so," said the Black Doctor. "The thing makes me ill just tothink about."
"I'll give you a clean-ship report in twenty-four hours," the Red Doctorsaid as confidently as he could and beat a hasty retreat down thecorridor. He was wishing fervently that he felt as confident as hesounded.
The Maukivi had described the _hlorg_ in excruciating detail. He andGreen Doctor Stone had listened, and smiled sadly at each other, dayafter day, marvelling at the fanciful delusion. _Hlorgs_, indeed! Andsuch creatures to dream up--eating, growing, devouring plant, animal andmineral without discrimination--
And the Maukivi had stoutly maintained that this _hlorg_ of theirs wasindestructible--
* * * * *
Green Doctor Wally Stone, true to his surgical calling, was a man ofaction.
"You mean there _is_ such a thing?" he exploded when his partnerconfronted him with the news. "For real? Not just somebody's pipedream?"
"There is," said Jenkins, "and we've got it. Here. On board the _Mercy_.It's eating like hell-and-gone and doubling its size every eight hours."
"Well what are you waiting for? Toss it overboard!"
"Fine! And what happens to the next party it happens to land on? We'resupposed to be altruists, remember? We're supposed to worry about thehealth of the Galaxy." Jenkins shook his head. "Whatever we do with it,we have to find out just what we're tossing before we toss."
The creature had made itself at home aboard the _Mercy_. In the spiritof uninvited guests since time immemorial, it had established a toeholdwith remarkable asperity, and now was digging in for the long winter.Drawn to the hydroponic tanks like a flea to a dog, the _hlorg_ hadsettled its bulbous pink body down in their murky depths with acontented gurgle. As it grew larger the tank-levels grew lower, thebroth clearer.
The fact that the twenty-five crewmen of the _Mercy_ depended on thosetanks for their food supply on the four-month run back to Hospital Earthdidn't seem to bother the _hlorg_ a bit. It just sank down wetly andbegan to eat.
Under Jenkins' whip hand, and with Green Doctor Stone's assistance, theSurvey Crew snapped into action. Survey was the soul and lifeblood ofthe medical services supplied by Hospital Earth to the inhabited planetsof the Galaxy. Centuries before, during the era of exploration, everyEarth ship had carried a rudimentary Survey Crew--a physiologist, abiochemist, an immunologist, a physician--to determine the safety oflandings on unknown planets. Other races were more advanced intechnological and physical sciences, in sales or in merchandising--butin the biological sciences men of Earth stood unexcelled in the Galaxy.It was not surprising that their casual offerings of medical serviceswherever their ships touched had led to a growing demand for thoseservices, until the first Medical Service Contract with Deneb III hadformalized the planetary specialty. Earth had become Hospital Earth,physician to a Galaxy, surgeon to a thousand worlds, midwife to thosesusceptible to midwifery and psychiatrist to those whose inner liveszigged when their outer lives zagged.
In the early days it had been a haphazard arrangement; but graduallydistinct Services appeared to handle problems of medicine, surgery,radiology, psychiatry and all the other functions of a well-appointedmedical service. Under the direction of the Black Service of Pathology,Hospital ships and Survey ships were dispatched to serve as bases forthe tiny General Practice Patrol ships that answered the calls of theplanets under Contract.
But it was the Survey ships that did the basic dirty-work on any newplanet taken under Contract--outlining the physiological and biochemicalaspects of the races involved, studying their disease patterns, theirimmunological types, their susceptibility to medical, surgical, orpsychiatric treatment. It was an exacting service to perform, and Surveydid an exacting job.
Now, with their own home base invaded by a hungry pink jelly-blob, theSurvey Crew of the _Mercy_ dug in with all fours to find a way toexorcise it.
The early returns were not encouraging.
Bowman, the anatomist, spent six hours with the creature. He'd go afterthe functional anatomy first, he thought, as he approached the task withgusto. Special organs, vital organ systems--after all, every Achilleshad his heel. Functional would spot it if anything would--
Six hours later he rendered a preliminary report. It consisted of ablank sheet of paper and an expression of wild frustration.
"What's this supposed to mean?" Jenkins asked.
"Just what it says."
"But it says nothing!"
"That's exactly what it means." Bowman was a thin, wistful-looking manwith a hawk nose and a little brown mustache. He subbed as ship's cookwhen things were slow in his specialty. He wasn't a very good cook, butwhat could anyone do with the sludge from the harvest shelf of ahydroponic tank? Now, with the _hlorg_ incumbent, there wasn't even anysludge.
"I drained off a tank and got a good look at it before it crawled overinto the next one," Bowman said. "Ugly bastard. But from a strictlyanatomical standpoint I can't help you a bit."
Green Doctor Stone glowered over Jenkins' shoulder at the man. "Butsurely you can give us _something_."
Bowman shrugged. "You want it technical?"
"Any way you like."
"Your _hlorg_ is an ideal anamorph. A nothing. Protoplasm, justprotoplasm."
Jenkins looked up sharply. "What about his cellular organization?"
"No cells," said Bowman. "Unless they're sub-microscopic, and I'd needan electron-peeker to tell you that."
"No organ systems?"
"Not even an integument. You saw how slippery he looked? That's why.There's nothing holding him in but energy."
"Now, look," said Stone. "He eats, doesn't he? He must have wastematerials of some sort."
Bowman shook his head unhappily. "Sorry. No urates. No nitrates. NoCO{2}. Anyway, he doesn't eat because he has nothing to eat with. Heabsorbs. And that includes the lining of the tanks, which he seems tolike as much as the contents. He doesn't _bore_ those holes he makes--he_dissolves_ them."
They sent Bowman back to quarters for a hot bath and a shot of Happy-Oand looked up Hrunta, the biochemist.
Hrunta was glaring at paper electrophoretic patterns and pulling outchunks of hair around his bald spot. He gave them a snarl and shoved asheaf of papers into their hands.
"Metabolic survey?" Jenkins asked.
"Plus," said Hrunta. "You're not going to like it, either."
"Why not? If it grows, it metabolizes. If it metabolizes, we can killit. Axiom number seventeen, paragraph number four."
"Oh, it metabolizes, all right, but you'd better find yourself anotheraxiom, pretty quick."
"Why?"
"Because it not only metabolizes, it _consumes_. There's no sign of theusual protein-carbohydrate-fat metabolism going on here. This baby hasan enzyme system that's straight from hell. It bypasses the usualmetabolic activities that produce heat and
energy and gets right down tobasic-basic."
Jenkins swallowed. "What do you mean?"
"It attacks the nuclear structure of whatever matter the creature comesin contact with. There's a partial mass-energy conversion in its rawestform. The creature goes after carbon-bearing substances first, since theC seems to break down more easily than anything else--hence itspreference for plant and animal material over non-C stuff. But it canuse anything if it has to--"
Jenkins stared at the little biochemist, an image in his mind of thepink creature in the hold, growing larger by the minute as it ate itsway