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presumably the SRTT sound tape. Conway thought that if positions were reversed and he was a
frightened small boy listening to a voice striving to speak to him through that incredible uproar, he would
feel anything but reassured. And the atmosphere of the SRTT's home planet would almost certainly be of
a different density to this one, which would further increase the distortion of the voice. He did not say
anything to Prilicla, but Conway thought that it would be nothing less than a miracle if this cacophony
produced the result which O'Mara had intended.
The racket cut off suddenly, was replaced by a voice in English which droned out, "Would Dr.
Conway please go to the intercom," then it returned unabated. Conway hurried to the nearest set.
"This is Murchison in the AUGL lock, Doctor," said a worried female voice. "Somebody I mean
something just went past me into the main ward. I thought it was you at first until it began opening the
inner seal without putting on a suit, then I knew it must be the runaway SRTT." She hesitated, then said,
"Considering the state of the patients inside I didn't give the alarm until checking with you, but I can
call "
"No, you did quite right, Nurse," Conway said quickly. "We'll be down at once.
When they arrived at the lock five minutes later, the nurse had a suit ready for Conway, and the
combination of physiological features which made it impossible for the Earth-human members of the Staff
to regard Murchison with anything like a clinical detachment were rendered slightly less distracting by her
own protective suit. But Conway had eyes at the moment only for the inner inspection window and the
thing which floated just inside it.
It was, or had been, very like Conway. The hair colouring was right, also the complexion, and it was
in whites. But the features were out of proportion and ran together in a way that was quite horrible, and
the neck and hands did not go into the tunic, they became the collar and sleeves of the garment. Conway
was reminded of a lead figure that had been crudely fashioned and carelessly painted.
At the moment Conway knew that it was not a threat to the lives of the ward's tiny patients, but it was
changing. There was a slow growing together of the arms and legs, a lengthening out and the sprouting of
long, narrow protuberances which could only be the beginnings of fins. The AUGL patients might be
difficult for an Earth-human DBDG to catch, but the SRTT was adapting to water also, and speed.
"Inside!" said Conway urgently. "We've got to herd it out of here before it "
But Prilicla was making no attempt to begin the bodily contortions which would bring it inside its
protective envelope. "I have detected an interesting change in the quality of its emotional radiation," the
GLNO said suddenly. "There is still fear and confusion present, and an overriding hunger& "
"Hunger... !" Murchison had not realized until then just what deadly danger the patients were in.
"But there is something else," Prilicla continued, disregarding the interruption. "I can only describe it as
a background pleasure sensation coupled with that same urge toward dissolution which I detected a short
time ago in its parent. But I am puzzled to account for this sudden change."
Conway's mind was on his three tiny patients, and the predatory form the SRTT was beginning to
take. He said impatiently, "Probably because recent events have affected its sanity also, the pleasure
trace being due possibly to a liking for the water "
Abruptly he stopped, his mind racing too fast for words or even ordered logical thought. Rather it was
a feverish jumble of facts, experiences and wild guesswork which boiled chaotically through his brain,
then incredibly became still and cool and very, very clear as& the answer.
And yet none of the tremendous intellects in the observation ward could have found it, Conway was
sure, because they were not present with an empathic assistant when a young SRTT close to insanity
through fear and grief had been immersed suddenly in the tepid, yellow depths of the AUGL tank...
When an intelligent, mature and mentally complex being encounters unpleasant and hurtful facts of
sufficient numbers and severity the result is a retreat from reality. First a striving to return to the simple,
unworrisome days of childhood and then, when that period turns out to be not nearly so carefree and
uncomplicated as remembered, the ultimate retreat into the womb and the motionless, mindless condition
of the catatonic. But to a mature SRTT the foetal position of catatonia could not be simple to attain,
because its reproductive system was such that instead of the unborn offspring being in a state of warm,
mindless comfort, it found itself part of its parent's mature adult body and called upon to share in the
decisions and adjustments its parent had to make. Because the SRTT body, every single cell of it, was
the mind and any sort of separation was impossible to a life-form whose every cell was interchangeable.
How divide a glass of water without pouring some off into another container?
The diseased intellect would be forced to retreat again and again, only to find that it had become
involved in endless changes and adaptations in its efforts to return to this nonexistent womb. It would go
back-far, far back until it eventually did find the mindless state which it craved and its mind, which was
inseparable from its body, became the warm water teeming with unicellular life from which it had
originally evolved.
Now Conway knew the reason for the slow, melting dissolution of the terminal case upstairs. More,
he thought he saw a way of solving the whole horrible mess. If he could only bank on the fact that, as
was the case with most other species, a complex, mature mind tended to go insane faster than an
undeveloped and youthful one...
He was only vaguely aware of going to the intercom again and calling O'Mara, and of Murchison and
Prilicla drawing closer to him as he talked. Then he was waiting for what seemed like hours for the Chief
Psychologist to absorb the information and react. Finally:
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