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possible, but by demonstrating the Federation’s goodwill towards newly discovered species by rescuing and giving medical or other assistance to ailing, injured, or space-wrecked aliens.
    The memories and images were returning, sharp and clear. In many of them, unlike this time, he had not borne the clinical responsibility for rescue and treatment because the then–Senior Physician Conway had been in charge of the medical team, with himself assisting as a kind of empathic bloodhound whose job was to smell out and separate the dead from the barely living casualties. There had been the recovery of the utterly savage and non-sapient Protectors of the Unborn whose wombs contained their telepathic and highly intelligent offspring; and the Blind Ones, whose hearing and touch had been so sensitive that they had learned to build devices that enabled them to feel the radiation that filtered down to their world from the stars they would never see, even though they had traveled between them; and there had been the Duwetti, the Dwerlans, the Gogleskans, and the others. All had presented their particular clinical problems and associated physical dangers, especially to a fragile life-form like himself who could literally be blown away by a strong wind.
    He wondered how the present-day Diagnostician Conway would have handled the current situation, where its beloved special ambulance was in danger of becoming a ship of war. Certainly not by flying away to hide in its room.

CHAPTER 4
    It was four days later. Beyond the direct-vision panel and on the main screen that was relaying the control deck image, the flickering gray motion of hyperspace gave a final, eye-twisting heave before dissolving into a view of normal space. Within a few moments the relayed voice of Lieutenant Dodds on the sensors was telling them and the ship’s mission recorders what they were already seeing.
    â€œWe have emerged close to a planet, Captain,” it reported crisply. “The coloration and cloud cover suggests an atmosphere capable of sustaining warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing life and the vegetation to support it. Two ships are in close orbit around the planet within fifty miles of each other. One is Terragar; the other has a configuration that is new to us. Neither is showing serious structural damage.”
    â€œSplit the screen,” said the captain. “Give me maximum magnification on both. Haslam, contact Terragar. ”
    The casualty-deck screen blurred suddenly, then showed images of the two ships that expanded rapidly until they touched the edges of their display areas.
    â€œ Terragar is not obviously damaged,” said Dodds, continuing to describe what they were seeing. “But it is tumbling slowly with a pronounced lateral spin, and there is no light from the flight-deck canopy or the viewports. Sir, it looks like they have no power, certainly not for attitude control.…”
    â€œOr communication,” Haslam broke in. “They aren’t responding to our signal.”
    â€œThe other ship also appears to be unlit,” Dodds continued, straying, “although that could be explained by visual hypersensitivity on the part of the crew. The outer hull is intact apart from two areas amidships about three and four meters in diameter. They are deeply cratered, which suggests the recent presence of intense heat accompanied by explosions. There is no evidence of the fogging that would indicate escaping air or whatever it is that they breathe. Either their safety bulkhead seals worked very fast, or the hits they sustained were lethal and the ship is airless and probably lifeless.
    â€œThe outer hull,” it added, “shows no evidence of anything recognizable as external weapons launchers, or of the protective covers that would conceal such weapons. First indications, sir, are that this vessel was a victim rather than an attacker.”
    Even though half the length of Rhabwar stretched between them and the