by Hal Clement
“Thanks, Captain; that’s good. I can see the ground along the starboard side, and what I suppose is the main lock, and some of your people working along the sides. It’s a little hard to judge distances, but I know how big the Kwembly is and about how far back the main lock is, and, of course, I know how big your people are, so I’d guess your lights let me see the ice for fifty or sixty yards on past the lock.”
Dondragmer was surprised. “I can see fully three times that far—no, wait; you’re using your twelve-based numbers so it’s not that much—but I do see farther. Eyes must be better than the pickup cells in your set. I hope, though, that you are not just watching what goes on here. Are the other screens for the Kwembly sets all where you can see them? Or are there other people watching them? I want to be kept in as close touch as I possibly can with the search party that has just left on foot. After what happened to Reffel, I’m uneasy about both them and their set.”
Dondragmer was debating with his own conscience as he sent this message. On the one hand, he was pretty certain that Reffel had shuttered his set deliberately, though it was even less clear to him than to Barlennan why this should have been necessary. On the other was his disapproval of the secrecy of the whole Esket maneuver. He would not, of course, deliberately ruin Barlennan’s plans by any act of his own; but he would not be too disappointed if everything came out in the open. There certainly was a reasonable chance that Reffel was in real trouble; if, as seemed likely, whatever had happened to him had occurred only a few miles away, he had had time to get back and explain even on foot.
In other words, Dondragmer had a good excuse, but disliked the thought that he even needed one. After all, there was Kervenser, too.
“All four screens are right in front of me,” Benj’s assurance came back. “Just now I’m alone at this station, though there are other people in the room. Mother is about ten feet away, at the Esket‘s screens—did anyone tell you that something had moved on one of those?—and Mr. Mersereau has just gone off for another argument with Dr. Aucoin.” (Barlennan would have given a great deal to hear that sentence.) “There are about ten other observers in the room watching the other sets, but I don’t know any of them very well. Reffel’s screen is still blank, five people are working in whatever room in the Kwembly your other set is in but I can’t tell just what they’re doing, and your foot party is just walking along. I can see only a few feet from them, and only in one direction, of course. The lights they’re carrying aren’t nearly as strong as the ones around the Kwembly. If anything does come after them, or some trouble develops, I may not even get as much warning as they do; and, of course, there’ll be the delay before I could tell them anyway.”
“Will you remind them of that?” asked Dondragmer. “The leader is named Stakendee. He doesn’t have enough of the human language to do any good. He may very well be depending too heavily on you and your equipment for warning; I’m afraid I took for granted, without saying much of anything about it, that your set would help him that way when we were planning the search. Please tell him that it is strictly an indirect communicator between him and me.”
The boy’s response was considerably longer in coming than light-lag alone would explain; presumably he was carrying out the request without bothering to acknowledge its receipt. The captain decided not to make a point of the matter; Hoffman was very young. There was plenty else to keep Dondragmer busy, and he occupied himself with this, filing the unfinished conversation until Benj’s voice once more reached the bridge.
“I’ve been in touch with Stak and told him what you asked. He promised to take care, but he’s not very far from the Kwembly yet—still among the stones, and they give out a little way upstream, you remember. He’s still on the map, I think, though I can’t really tell one square yard of that rock garden from another. It’s either smooth ice, or ice with cobblestones sticking up through it, or occasionally cobblestones with no ice between them. I don’t see how they’re going to search it very effectively. Even if you climb on the highest rock in the neighborhood, there are a lot of others you can’t see behind. The helicopters aren’t very big, and you Mesklinites are a lot smaller.”
“We realized that when we sent out the party,” Dondragmer answered. “A really effective search will be nearly impossible among the stones if the missing people are dead or even helpless. However, as you said, the stones give way to bare rock a short distance from here; and in any case, it is possible that Kerv or Reffel could answer calls, or call for help themselves. Certainly one can be heard much farther than he can be seen, at night. Also, whatever is responsible for their disappearance may be bigger or easier to spot.” The captain had a pretty good idea how Benj would answer the last sentence. He was right.
“Finding whatever that is by having another group disappear wouldn’t put us much farther ahead.”
“It would if we actually learned what had happened. Keep in close touch with Stakendee’s party, please, Benj. My own time is going to be taken up with other matters, and you’ll learn whatever happens half a minute before I could anyway. I don’t know that those seconds will make much real difference, but at least you’re closer to Stak in time than I am.
“Also, I have to go outside now.
We’re getting to a ticklish point in taking this metal bar off the hull. I’d bring one of the sets outside to keep in closer touch with you, but I wouldn’t be able to hear you very well through a suit. The volume of these communicators of yours isn’t very impressive. I’ll give you a call when I’m back in touch; there’s no one handy to leave on watch here. In the meantime please keep a running log, in any way you find convenient, on what happens to Stakendee.”
The captain waited just long enough to receive Benj’s acknowledgment—which did arrive this time—before making his way down to the lock and donning his airsuit. Preferring an inside climb to an outside one, he took the ramps back to the bridge and made use of the small lock which gave onto the top of the hull—a U-shaped pipe of liquid ammonia just about large enough for a Mesklinite body. Dondragmer unsealed and lifted the inner lid and entered the three-gallon pool of liquid, the cover closing by its own weight above him. He followed the curve down and up again and emerged through a similar lid outside the bridge.
With the smooth plastic of the hull curving down on all sides, except aft, he felt a little tense, of course; but he had long ago learned to control himself even in high places. His nippers flashed from one holdfast to another as he made his way aft to the point where the few remaining refrigerator attachments were still intact. Two of these were the ones which extended entirely through the hull as electrical contacts, and were, therefore, the ones which caused Dondragmer the most concern. The others, as he had hoped, were prying out of the cruiser’s skin like nails; but these last ones would have to be severed, and severed so that they could be reconnected later on. Welding and soldering were arts which Dondragmer knew only in theory, but whatever substitute was to be used would certainly need a stub projecting from the hull as a starting point. The captain wanted to make particularly sure that the cutting was done far enough out to leave one.
The cutting itself, as he had already been told, would be no trouble with Mesklinite saws. He selected carefully the points where the cuts were to be made, and saw two of his sailors started on this task; he warned the rest to get out of the way when the bar was free. This meant not only down to the surface but well away from the hull; the idea was to lower the metal on the lock side, once it was detached, but Dondragmer was a cautious being where weights were concerned and knew that the bar might just possibly not wait to be lowered. Even a Mesklinite would regret being underneath when it descended from the top of the hull, feeble as Dhrawn’s gravity seemed to them.
All this had taken the best part of an hour. The captain was wondering about the progress of the foot party, but there was another part of the melting project to check first. He reentered the ship and sought the laboratory, where Borndender was readying a power uni
t to fit the makeshift resistor. Actually there was little to be done; polarized sockets, one at one end of the block and one at the other, would provide direct current if the bar could be gotten into the holes, and any changes needed to make a fit possible would have to be made on the bar rather than the power box. It took only a moment to make this clear to the captain, who looked for himself, decided the scientist was obviously right, and made his way hastily back to the bridge. Only when he got there and tried to call Benj did he realize that he had never removed his airsuit; talking to Borndender through it was one thing, but the radio was quite another. He stripped it off far enough to get his speaking-siphon into the open and spoke again.
“I’m back, Benj. Has anything happened to Stakendee?” He finished removing the suit while waiting for the answer, smoothed it, and stowed it close to the center hatchway. It didn’t belong there, but there wouldn’t be time to get it down to the rack by the main lock and return before Benj’s words.
“Nothing really important, as far as I can tell, Captain,” came the boy’s voice. “They’ve walked a long way, though I can’t tell just how far—maybe three miles since you went, but that’s a guess. There has been no sign of either flier, and the only thing they, or I, have seen which might possibly have affected either of them has been an occasional patch of cloud a few hundred feet up—at least, that’s what Stak guesses; I can’t see well enough myself—drifting back toward the Kwembly. I suppose if you accidentally flew into a big cloud you might get disoriented and if it was low enough crash before you could straighten out; there aren’t any blind flying instruments on those things, are there? But it’s hard to believe they’d do such a thing—of course, if they were keeping their eyes on the ground instead of their flying—but none of the clouds we’ve seen so far is anywhere near big enough to give them time to lose their way, Stak says.”
Dondragmer was inclined to share this doubt about clouds being responsible—would have doubted it even had he not had reason for another opinion. An upward glance showed that no clouds had yet reached the Kwembly, the stars twinkled everywhere. Since Benj had said they were coming toward the cruiser, the ones Stakendee had seen must be at the edge of the pattern, and they must have been much farther to the west when the fliers were up. This might mean nothing as far as Kervenser was concerned—he could have been a long, long way from the Kwembly—but suggested that Reffel at least had not encountered them. He brought his attention back to Benj, who had not paused for a reply.
“Stak says the stream bed is going uphill noticeably, but he didn’t tell me how he knew—just that they’d gone up several feet since leaving the Kwembly.” Pressure change, Dondragmer assumed; it was always more noticeable in the suits. Just climbing around on the hull made a difference in suit tightness which could be felt. Besides, the stream which had carried the cruiser here had been flowing fairly fast; even allowing for Dhrawn’s gravity, its fall must be fairly great. “The only other real change is the nature of the bottom. They’re well away from the cobbles. It’s mostly bare rock, with patches of ice in the hollows.”
“Good. Thank you, Benj. Have your weathermen come up with anything at all about the likelihood of another flood?”
The boy chuckled, though the sound meant little to the Mesklinite. “Nothing, I’m afraid. Dr. McDevitt just can’t be sure. Dr. Aucoin was complaining about it a little while ago, and my boss just cut loose. He said that it had taken men a couple of centuries to get where they could make a reliable ten-day forecast on Earth, with only one phase-varying component—water—and the whole planet accessible for measurement. Anyone who expected much in a couple of years for a world as big as Dhrawn which had been covered to the extent of about one back yard and had two phase-variables and a temperature range from fifty to over a thousand degrees Kelvin must still believe in magic. He said we were lucky the weather hadn’t produced ice fields that turned into swamps when the temperature dropped and rainstorms six feet deep with clear air underneath but icing up the cruiser bridges and forty other things that his computer keeps coming up with every time he changes another variable. It was funny watching Dr. Aucoin try to calm him down. Usually it’s the other way around.”’
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to hear it. You seem amused,” replied the captain. “Did you tell your chief about the clouds which Stakendee has reported?”
“Oh, certainly. I told everyone. That was only a few minutes ago, though, and they haven’t come back with anything yet. I really wouldn’t expect them to, Captain; there just isn’t enough detailed information from the surface for interpolation, let alone prognosis. There was one thing though; Dr. McDevitt was very interested in finding out how many feet Stak’s group had climbed, and he said that if the clouds they reported hadn’t reached the Kwembly yet he wanted to know as exactly as possible the time they do. I’m sorry; I should have reported that earlier.”
“It doesn’t matter,” replied Dondragmer. “The sky is still clear here. I’ll let you know the moment I see any clouds. Does this mean that he thinks another fog is coming, like the one which preceded the last flood?” In spite of his inborn defenses against worry, the captain waited out the next minute with some uneasiness.
“He didn’t say, and he wouldn’t. He’s been caught too wrong too many times. He won’t take the chance again, if I know him, unless it’s a matter of warning you against some very probable danger . . . wait. There’s something on Stak’s screen.” Dondragmer’s many legs tensed under him. “Let me check . . . yes, all Stak’s men but one are in sight, and that one must be carrying the back end of the set because it’s still moving. There’s another light ahead. It’s brighter than the ones we’re carrying—at least, I think so, but I can’t really tell its distance. I’m not sure whether Stak’s people have seen it yet—but they should have; you said your eyes are better than the pickups.
“Mother, do you want to get in on this? And should we call Barlennan? I’m keeping Don posted.
“Yes, Stak has seen it and his party has stopped moving. The light isn’t moving either. Stak has the sound volume up, but I can’t hear anything that means anything to me. They’ve put the transmitter down, and are fanning out in front of it; I can see all six of them now. The ground is nearly bare, only an occasional patch of ice. No rocks. Now Stak’s men have put out their lights, and I can’t see anything except the new one. It’s getting brighter, but I guess it’s just the pickup cells reacting to the darker field. I can’t see anything around it; it looks a little foggy, if anything. Something has blocked it for a moment; no, it’s on again. I could see enough of a silhouette to be pretty sure it was one of the search party—he must have reared up to get a better look ahead. Now I can hear some hooting, but it’s not any words I know. I don’t see why . . . wait.
“Now Stak’s people are turning their lights back on. Two of them are coming back toward the set—they’re picking it up and bringing it forward toward the rest of the group. All the lights are well in front with them, so I can see pretty well now. There’s mist blowing past only a few feet—maybe a few inches—up; the new light is up in it a little way. I can’t judge its distance yet at all. The ground has no marks to help; just bare stone, with six Mesklinites flattened down against it, and their lights, and a dark line beyond them which might be different colored rock, or maybe a narrow stream slanting toward them from the far left and going out of sight to my right. Now f get a vague impression of motion around the new light. Maybe it’s the running light of a helicopter—I don’t know how they’re arranged, or how high off the ground they are when the machine is parked, or how bright they are.
“Now it’s clearer . . . yes, there’s something moving, it’s coming toward us, just a dark blob in the mist, it’s not carrying any light. If my guess at distance means anything, which it probably doesn’t, it’s about the same size as the Mesklinites. Maybe it’s Kervenser or Reffel—
“Yes. I’m almost sure it’s a Mesklinite, but still too far away for me to recognize. I�
��m not sure I’d know either of those two anyway. He’s crossing that line—it must be a stream; some liquid splashed up for a split second into the path of the light—now he’s only a few yards away, and the others are converging on him. They’re talking, but not loudly enough for me to make any of it out. The group is milling around, and I can’t recognize anyone. If they’d come a little closer, I’d ask them who’s there, but I suppose they’ll report pretty soon anyway, and I can’t make them hear through the airsuits unless they’re right beside the set. Now they’re all coming this way, and the bunch is opening out—two of them are right in front of the set; I suppose it’s Stakendee and the one who’s just—”
He was interrupted by a voice which originated beside him. It reached not only his ear, but three open microphones, and through them three different receivers on Dhrawn; and there it produced three very different results.
“Kabremm! Where have you been all these months?” cried Easy.
XI
It really wasn’t quite Kabremm’s fault, though Barlennan was a long time forgiving him. The transmitter had been away from the lights. When the newcomer had first joined Stakendee’s group he had not been able to see it; later he had failed to notice it; and not until he was within a foot or two did he recognize it. Even then he wasn’t worried greatly; human beings all looked alike to him, he assumed that his own people looked at least as indistinguishable to the humans, and while he would not have put himself deliberately in view, a sudden withdrawal, or any attempt to hide, would have been far more suspicious than staying calmly where he was.
When Easy’s voice erupted from the speaker with his name, it was obviously sixty-four seconds too late to do anything. Stakendee, whose reflex response to the sound was to reach for the shutter on the top of the vision set, realized in time that this would only make matters worse.
