Ambulance Ship

1980

A collection of three novellas describing the activities of the Ambulance Ship Rhabwar.

On her commissioning flight, the Rhabwar is tasked to recover a Monitor scoutship that reported a serious shipboard medical emergency. When the vessel gets to the site of the emergency they find nine members of the ten man crew all stacked up neatly in the ship's airlock.

Who was the missing crewman? Why was the scoutship coated in burnt grease? What were the origins of the wreck that the scoutship had found?

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While still waiting out the quarantine period aboard Rhabwar, the ship is called out on another rescue mission. This time, their target is a more 'traditional' space wreck. As the Rhabwar plots its way through the wreckage, a badly injured alien is located and successfully evacuated to Sector General where it is transferred to the emergency theatre. After it recovers consciousness, those in the theatre not-so-slowly collapse; an impressive sight when one was the Tralthan Diagnostician-in-charge of Pathology Thornnastor!

As the emergency alarms ring out through Sector General Conway has to find out what was going on before the air ran out.

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In the final story, the Rhabwar arrives at a ship that appears to be undamaged though it shows no sign of noticing the Rhabwar's presence. Captain Fletcher's skill in ship-design technologies gets them in to the dark, narrow corridored vessel. Dr Conway realised that the crew of this ship had never developed sight - the rough patches near entrances or round the drivers warning the ship's crew of danger.

But once in the ship those entering were horrified to find what appears to be a torture chamber. And how is it that the lifeforms that Dr Prilicla can sense only appear to get stronger when the machinery is switched on by accident?

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