Address: Centauri by F. L. Wallace (most read book in the world .TXT) 📖

such as never existed. It's about time one appeared in the human race. We've worked with machines long enough to evolve someone who understands them without having to study and learn. I'm that way myself, a little. Nothing like her."

They all knew that. Even on Earth they were probably busy revising their intelligence ratings. "That doesn't change our problem—her problem."

Jordan hesitated. "The idea's pretty vague but we've made one advance: we know she can think."

"We always did," said Anti.

"Sure, we did. But doctors and psychologists weren't convinced and they were the ones who were studying her. Now it's up to us."

There was a difference. No matter what they'd thought, previously they'd been patients, and it was axiomatic that the patient's ideas were largely ignored. Now they had stepped into a dual role, patient and doctor, subject and experimenter, the eye at the microscope and the object on the slide.

They all had second-hand medical training—with long association some of it had rubbed off on them. There wasn't one of them who didn't know his own body far better than the average man. That knowledge, subjective though it was, could be pooled. Fortunately they had a well equipped hospital to work with.

"We'll have to get busy on Nona," continued Jordan. "Where are we going? She knows but we don't. There's got to be some way to find out."

It hadn't mattered before—it was enough that they were leaving. But once they had achieved that, new problems were thrusting up every direction they looked. "What do you suggest?" asked Docchi.

"An oscillograph," said Jordan triumphantly.

Docchi shook his head. "No good. She's been around them often enough to show an interest if she really feels any."

"Maybe she could learn to write, actually, on the screen."

"She hasn't changed and I doubt if her interests have. From what we know she doesn't use words; she thinks directly in terms of mechanical function. The gravity computer was the first thing she found complex enough to arouse her interest."

"But she's always been near the computer."

"That's not so. She came here years ago and though there was a computer in the ship that brought her she wasn't mature enough to use it. Since then she's been kept away from the main computers the same as the rest of us have been."

Jordan leaned on his hands and rocked thoughtfully. "She learned all that during the few hours we were on the ship?"

"It was days," said Docchi. "Yes, she did. It was the only opportunity she had." It was a strange language she'd learned, the code a complex computer used inside itself, the stop, go; current and no current; the electron stream; the mechanical memory rocked back and forth magnetically—and all the while the whisper of a steel tape as it coiled and uncoiled. It was possible that only a computer would ever be able to understand the girl. And yet she was a creature of flesh, bones, glands, nerves, and blood flowing through her veins in response to the intangible demands of life.

Anti stirred restlessly. Waves of acid spilled over the sides and where the fluid touched, grass curled and blackened. "I said I'd wait but I didn't say I liked waiting. Why don't you two get busy?"

"I was thinking where to begin," said Jordan. He hoisted himself onto a repair robot he'd taken for himself. It was an uncomfortable vehicle for anyone else but it seemed just right for him.

Docchi got up; there was no question where to start. Anything they considered needed something done. In the struggle for freedom, in their resistance to the guards, they'd overlooked it. They'd have to reorient their outlook. Perhaps that was the biggest thing that confronted them.

"Goodbye," Anti called out as they left. The picture Docchi looked back to was unforgettable—the tank and Anti in it, Nona sitting in blank pensiveness under the tree. One was capable of near miracles with seemingly little effort, but at times she seemed inert. The other was raw vitality with an urge to live—but there was hardly any time she could stand upright.

Docchi hurried along, trying to keep up with Jordan. He lengthened his pace but still the gap grew. After a while he slowed down, attempting to assess the damage the guards had done as he passed by evidence of their destructiveness.

Visibly they seemed to have torn everything apart but actually not much had been destroyed. Mostly the repairs would consist in reassembling machines and structures that had been dismantled. This wasn't the result of consideration. Until the last moment the general had been certain he'd find Nona and hence retain possession of the asteroid. If he had, the unnecessary violence would have been hard to explain. Lucky—because the guards could have wrecked the place.

They'd still have difficulty; even able-bodied men would, and they were far from that. They were not equipped for an expedition of this nature and somehow they'd have to build what they lacked. Light and heat, the function of power, was automatic, and the oxygen supply was nearly so. It was with the lesser things they'd have trouble. Some food had always been brought in, and now that supply was gone. It would have to be replaced. They could do without other luxuries now that they had the biggest one—freedom to do what they wanted.

Docchi himself was a good engineer and Nona couldn't be too highly evaluated. Between them they could convert unnecessary equipment into something they needed. Two geepees and a repair robot taken apart and properly reassembled might equal some inconceivable machine that would go a long way toward solving problems of food, air, meteor detection or what have you. It was a thought.

Jordan clung perilously to the robot as it rumbled along. "Where is everyone?" he called back.

"Asleep, I guess," said Docchi.

"Sleeping, when there's so much to be done?"

Habit had taken over. The mechanisms of the asteroid were still operating as they were set to function. The lighting in the dome indicated it was time and so they slept. But there were no hours, days, weeks, and moments any more, nothing but necessity to guide them.

"We'll change this," said Docchi. "Most of us have been treated as invalids so long we believe it. We'll divide up in groups and from now on somebody will always be awake, working or watching, or both."

It was obvious what the watch would be for. Empty space—but how empty? The region near Sol had been explored but what lay beyond? Between the sun and Alpha Centauri there might be many interstellar masses large enough to smash the asteroid. They'd have to take precautions.

Jordan sent the machine along faster as if to compensate for others' inactivity. Presently he stopped abruptly, waiting for Docchi to catch up. He glanced down in front of his machine. "Here's one of them who was very sleepy," he said. "Unless——"

Docchi looked at her. It was one of the Nonas who hadn't yet removed the disguise. The cosmetechnicians had done their work well and it was difficult to say who she was. There was a startling resemblance to the girl they'd just left with Anti. She was curled up in an uncomfortable position and it was obvious she wasn't there by choice.

Jordan swung off the machine and felt her pulse. "There is one," he muttered, carefully looking her over. "Can't see anything," he said at last. "At first I thought the guards had done it but there's no broken bones nor, as far as I can tell, internal injuries. She ought to have a medical examination."

Startled, Docchi glittered. Medical care was one of the luxuries they'd have to do without. They needn't fear epidemics; they were isolated and their bodies were phenomenally resistant to disease and anyway the antibiotics they had would quell any known infections. But here was something they hadn't accounted for. "There are a few people around who used to be nurses," said Docchi. "We'd better get them."

"Where?" grunted Jordan. "She needs attention now."

Jordan was right; the girl couldn't wait. Part of the difficulty was that there were so many accidentals with peculiarities. What was safe for one accidental might be deadly to another. They had to know who the girl was before they could decide whether to do anything. The disguise had helped them get away but it was hurting them now. "Can you pry off the makeup?" he asked.

"Without the goop they carry in the cosmetic kit? Hardly. I'd tear her own face off."

It could mean her death to move her before something was done—but what was that something? She would know; everyone did. They were all experts on their own ailments and could give down to the last item on their prescription, diet or exercise, a concise analysis of what they had to do to maintain their health.

Jordan shook her gently, harder when that failed. Presently she stirred, her eyes fluttered and she whispered something.

"Ask her who she is," said Docchi, but that was impossible. It had taken strength to respond at all and after she'd used it the girl had lapsed back in the coma.

"She didn't say," said Jordan helplessly. "She whispered one word—food. That was all."

Food. Docchi knelt beside her to check his conclusions. Now that he was close he could see that her skin was extraordinarily smooth and lustrous. Her face, arms, legs, even her hands, and if they removed her clothing the rest of her body would be the same. Her skin and the mention of food told him what he needed to know. It was Jeriann, the first volunteer Nona—and the first real casualty.

He could reconstruct with some accuracy what had happened. After Cameron discovered who she was she'd been kept in custody and given medical care. As the search wore on and more guards were sent out to search she had managed to escape, hiding from the guards. But she had remained hidden too long and had collapsed trying to get to the hospital.

Hunger shock, simply that, but with her hunger was a traumatic experience. Having no digestive system at all she was always close to starvation. "Pick her up. It won't hurt her," said Docchi. "Let's rush her to the dispensary."

Jordan hoisted the limp girl to the top of the repair robot, wrapping extensibles around her, adjusting them so they held her. He got on beside her, reaching into the controls and squeezing extra speed out of the makeshift ambulance.

Docchi was not far behind, arriving at the hospital not long after Jordan and his passenger did. The dispensary was on the first floor and so Jordan wheeled the robot directly to the door. He dismounted and lifted Jeriann off.

Inside the dispensary there was little that had actually been broken. This was remarkable considering how thoroughly the guards had ransacked the hospital. But someone with a grim sense of humor had seen to it that the medical preparations were hopelessly intermixed, scattered over the floor in complete confusion. For the present emergency it couldn't have been worse if everything had been broken.

Docchi stared down at the litter, his face twitching as he glanced back at Jeriann.

"It's in here somewhere," said Jordan. "How do we find it in a hurry?"

"See if there are names or symbols on them."

Jordan was close to the floor anyway; he leaned down and began pawing hastily but with extreme care through the confusion of medicals. Every bit of it was precious even though they didn't know what it was. Someone could use it, had to have it, and eventually they'd be able to place whom it was intended for. "No names," said Jordan as he continued to look.

Docchi was afraid of that, but it was a thought for the future. Hereafter there would be names on everything so that even if it got displaced they'd be able to identify it. The medical administration must have been exceedingly lax. "What about symbols?" he said quickly.

"There seem to be some. Don't know what they mean." Jordan brightened. "We can look in the files."

Docchi bent his body. He'd observed that when he entered. "Won't do any good. The files are scattered too." And that was an act of wanton hatred. It hadn't helped the guards find Nona.

Jordan stopped scrabbling through the piles of miscellaneous bottles, capsules, and vials. "Then we've got to go for help," he said slowly. "There's got to be somebody who knows what she takes looks like."

He couldn't condemn her so easily and that's what it would mean if she wasn't attended to in the next few minutes. There was a line beyond which the body couldn't pass without extreme damage, perhaps death. And she'd been close to it when they found her. Docchi began to review desperately what he knew of Jeriann. It wasn't much. There were too many accidentals for him to know all of them.

First, she never ate or drank. Her needs in this respect were supplied medically. That was why her skin