Contamination Crew

In Short

When a small survey ship brings an unverified alien threat aboard a larger medical vessel, a frantic battle for survival ensues against an entity that devours matter at the nuclear level. As the voracious pink jelly grows and consumes the ship's food stores and bulkheads, a team of dedicated space-faring physicians scrambles to find a vulnerability. Through grim determination and an unthinkable sacrifice, the crew manages to contain the menace. This classic short story endures through its sharp medical bureaucracy satire and clever, darkly humorous sci-fi premise.

The Story

Red Doctor Samuel B. Jenkins files a preemptive communication with Hospital Earth to anticipate disciplinary charges from Black Doctor Turvold Neelsen. Three months prior, Jenkins and Green Doctor Wallace Stone investigated a mass delusion on Mauki IV, where locals feared an indestructible creature called a hlorg was devouring their world. Dismissing the fears as a psychiatric fantasy, Jenkins and Stone brought their patrol ship, the Lancet, aboard the survey ship Mercy. Soon after, Neelsen discovers a mysterious hole in the Lancet's hull and a strange pink blob gnawing through the ship's food stores and hydroponic tanks. The creature is an actual hlorg, growing rapidly by converting matter directly at the nuclear level. The survey crew mobilizes immediately to analyze and destroy the anomaly. Bowman the anatomist finds that the creature has no cells or organs, consisting purely of energy-bound protoplasm. Hrunta the biochemist discovers that its enzyme system bypasses normal metabolism to attack nuclear structures, making it capable of consuming the entire ship. As the hlorg reaches the size of a small hippopotamus, the crew attempts various countermeasures, including heat, cold, and acids, but nothing permanently stops it. During these desperate investigations, Hrunta mysteriously disappears. Following his disappearance, Green Doctor Stone discovers a rejected mass of tissue that resembles a human stomach, pointing to Hrunta's grim fate. Jenkins realizes that Hrunta must have died inside a vat containing dilute hydrochloric acid—the very substance that successfully discolors, deactivates, and kills a test sample of the hlorg. With the ship's chemical supply exhausted and the creature only reduced to three-quarters of its size, the physicians face a stark reality: the only permanent, reliable source of dilute hydrochloric acid on board is human gastric acid. When Black Doctor Neelsen flatly refuses their plan, Jenkins and Stone proceed anyway out of absolute necessity. They restrain Neelsen and confine the crew, using the acid-producing source to continuously whittle the hlorg down daily. In his final report to the Disciplinary Board, Jenkins notes that the crew is recovering well, the creature is managed under strict quarantine, and the Grey Service on Mauki IV should be recalled immediately because the local fear of the hlorg is entirely real.

How It Unfolds

The voyage begins Red Doctor Jenkins writes a detailed, defensive report to Hospital Earth explaining how a routine medical survey mission to the fourth planet of Mauki inadvertently led to disaster. The local population's frantic, persistent warnings about an indestructible alien creature called a hlorg are entirely dismissed by the visiting physicians as a mass psychiatric delusion.

The contaminant appears Aboard the survey ship Mercy, Black Doctor Turvold Neelsen discovers a strange pink blob emerging from the docked patrol ship's hull. The gelatinous creature is already devouring the ship's hydroponic tanks, destroying the primary food supply, and growing at an alarming exponential rate that defies normal biological expectations.

The scientific impasse Specialists analyze the creature's anatomy and metabolism, finding that it possesses no cells, no organs, and uses an extreme enzyme system to convert raw matter into energy. Standard physical and chemical attacks, including acids, extreme temperatures, and desiccants, fail to destroy or permanently hinder the resilient protoplasm.

A gruesome discovery Biochemist Hrunta vanishes completely without a trace from his quarters, and a rejected piece of tissue resembling a human stomach is recovered from the hold. Jenkins deduces that human gastric acid successfully neutralizes the creature's enzyme system, rendering its base protoplasm vulnerable to destruction.

An unthinkable solution With standard chemical supplies exhausted and the monster still threatening the safety of the ship, Jenkins and Stone make the grim decision to utilize human digestive fluid. After forcibly restraining the commander and crew, they use this unconventional method to daily reduce and manage the creature for the remainder of the long voyage home.

The People

Samuel B. Jenkins is a young Red Doctor nearing the end of his internship, eager for a permanent planetary appointment. He wants to prove his competence and clear his name of incompetence and mutiny, but his initial skepticism toward alien warnings leads to disaster. Through the crisis, he shifts from a dismissive bureaucrat to a desperate pragmatist willing to make unthinkable compromises. Green Doctor Wallace Stone is Jenkins' surgical partner, defined by a pragmatic drive for action. He wants to protect the ship and galaxy, standing by Jenkins to test hypotheses and ultimately executing the grim solution. Turvold Neelsen is a blunt, uncompromising Black Doctor and commander of the Mercy. He wants to maintain strict discipline and adherence to medical standards, acting as a strict foil to the younger physicians. He ends up forcibly restrained when his authority clashes with the emergency measures. Hrunta is the ship's dedicated biochemist who wants to understand the creature's metabolism, ultimately meeting a tragic end inside the monster's digestive process. Bowman is the anatomist who struggles to classify the anomaly, moving from frustration to collaboration. Together, these characters evolve from overconfident medical professionals into survivors facing bizarre, horrifying realities.

In Its Own Voice

When the Red Doctor confronts the initial realization that an alien organism has breached their vessel, the Black Doctor delivers the shocking news with characteristic bluntness:

"You have brought aboard a contaminant."

Faced with the total lack of traditional biological structures or organ systems in the strange entity, the ship's anatomist summarizes his baffling findings in utter frustration:

"Your hlorg is an ideal anamorph. A nothing. Protoplasm, just protoplasm."

Refusing to accept the physicians' desperate, highly unconventional proposal to handle the crisis using human digestive fluids, the mission commander stands firm in his absolute rejection:

"It's monstrous and preposterous. I won't stand for it. Nobody will stand for it."

What It's Really About

The story explores the friction between rigid institutional bureaucracy and unpredictable, terrifying cosmic realities. Hospital Earth functions as an all-knowing medical empire, yet its highly trained representatives initially dismiss alien knowledge as mere superstition. The narrative questions the limits of scientific reductionism when faced with an anomaly that defies categorization, operating entirely outside cells, organs, and standard metabolic laws. Furthermore, it examines professional hubris, institutional discipline, and the heavy price of dismissing local wisdom. Ultimately, the book argues that true survival requires abandoning ivory-tower arrogance to confront physical facts directly, even when those facts demand unthinkable personal sacrifice and forcefully subvert established medical authority.

Why Read It Today

Readers who love classic, high-concept science fiction that blends clever body horror with bureaucratic satire will thoroughly enjoy this inventive tale. It reads like a tense medical procedural set against the vast backdrop of space, combining clinical precision with mounting, claustrophobic dread. The atmosphere crackles with professional friction, sterile laboratory tension, and the creeping horror of an expanding, unkillable alien entity. While modern readers might notice mid-century pulp conventions and a distinctly masculine institutional tone, the story's relentless pacing and darkly humorous climax easily transcend its period. What stays with you long after finishing is the brilliant, squeamish ingenuity of the ending and the unsettling realization that humanity's greatest medical triumph requires the most primitive of solutions. It offers a masterclass in how to escalate a sci-fi premise from a dismissed local myth into an urgent, skin-crawling crisis that challenges the very foundation of cosmic bureaucracy.