Classic Fiction

by Hal Clement

The Erthumoi looked at each other. “Could be an automatic transmitter on a deep-sea research device,” Hugh said after a while. His wife nodded.

  “It fits. It also fits your notion that no sensible flyer would be underwater.” She smiled at Rekchellet. “And with your inability to get them interested in star travel.” She turned up her suit heat; the wind had suddenly become colder, though the air was still clear. “Their ocean is as much of a challenge as space, and of far more immediate importance to them.”

  The Crotonite looked enthusiastic at the first part of her remark and appeared about to agree, but paused and took on what both watchers recognized as a thoughtful expression at the second.

  “I suppose so.” His wings shifted uneasily, and he glanced toward the antenna a hundred meters away where his companion was still busy. Both human beings knew that Crotonites were divided on the matter of persuading or pressuring Habranha’s natives to join the six known starfaring communities—the seventh was still in the province of archeologists. Some, like Venzeer, wanted another winged species to offset the influence of ground crawlers and swimmers on the patterns of interstellar trade and diplomacy. Others seemed to prefer the lonely splendor of being the only flying star travelers, or possibly were worried about competition for worlds suitable for winged intelligences. Husband and wife glanced briefly at each other and changed the subject.

  “You think they could build something able to take deep sea pressures, then, don’t you?” Hugh asked. “One can see why they’d want detailed information on current patterns. Continental drift really means something here, with the continent made of ice, hundreds of kilos of ocean depth, and Sunside to Darkside heat circulation.” Neither he nor his wife was really familiar with Habranha, as they had been on the world only a few weeks. They had seen the ring-shaped continent of floating ice as they approached from space, and understood generally how it was continually melting away on its sunward side and being rebuilt on the other by icebergs drifting from the dark hemisphere. Like other aliens, and the natives themselves, they were not clear how a tide-locked planet could have such complex and variable weather, though there was a general belief that the complicated ocean circulation was somehow involved. Venzeer and Rekchellet, like other Crotonites, had been trying to learn something new and useful about Habranha to improve their own image with the natives; the Rocks had been hired as skilled help.

  “Of course they can.” The translating equipment carried the Crotonite’s snort of contempt clearly enough. “They mine silicate mud from the bottom, five hundred kilos down, for their farms; it takes irrigation with minerals to make the ice fertile. The technology for a solid automatic transmitter which wouldn’t even have to resist depth pressure is trivial. Information about currents is important to them, and obviously they couldn’t explore the depths personally. We’re not very far from what they call the Solid Ocean which covers all Darkside and some of the sunlit hemisphere on the surface. The natives say there also seem to be glaciers extending for hundreds of kilometers from there out over the mud on the ocean bottom. We should be over that, if they’re right. They couldn’t mine around here even if it were conveniently close to the ring horizontally. So I like your suggestion of a research transmitter.”

  Hugh, but not Janice, felt a touch of condescension in the speaker’s tone. “It will be interesting to examine it if it surfaces, and it does seem to be coming up.”

  “Maybe some of the locals will be coming to meet it,” said the woman thoughtfully. “It could be surfacing automatically or being brought up for servicing and readout. Perhaps we should get over to the edge and see. Should you broadcast to let them know we’re here? You can handle the local speech.”

  Rekchellet gave an almost human shrug. “They know we’re here. We certainly told them of our plans at Pwanpwan in enough detail, and being flyers they have a uniform culture so the word would have spread planetwide.”

  If what we’re doing is that important to them. Hugh kept the thought tactfully to himself.

  “If they meet the thing, we’ll see them,” the artist went on. “If they don’t it will be a good opportunity to check their technology in more detail. They don’t always seem willing to share with us.”

  Janice frowned; she was never happy when her determined liking for people collided with evidence of their less admirable qualities. Her husband made it unnecessary for her to speak, however.

  “Jan! Your suit’s stopped the medication. How does your chest feel?” She sat up slowly, stretched and bent her arms and legs, and took several deep breaths.

  “A little headache, but I guess I’m back in action. Let’s go check the antenna again. I suppose Venz has been staying with the signals.” She glanced toward the balloon.

  Rekchellet put away his sketching gear and answered as he took to the air. “Of course. Let’s see if we can get some sort of distance for that source. It might be near enough now for interferometry . . .” He left the thought unfinished and flapped away; the walkers followed toward sled and antenna at their own speed. They were less optimistic about distance measures through variably dirty ice and multiple thermal layers in open ocean, but there was always a chance; and keeping objections or doubts to oneself made for more peaceful team life. The Crotonites regarded themselves with some justice as directors of the group, though the junior members were developing some skill at slipping their own policy notions into cracks between the flyers’ divergent aims toward the native population.

  Venzeer was growing enthusiastic as they got near enough to hear his translator. “It’s really getting louder and the direction line more horizontal, and over toward the edge, too. I’m for flying over and seeing whatever it is; it’s got to be surfacing. How about it, Rek? You’ll have to record the thing when it comes up, anyway. The others can monitor signals while they drive. It’s only five or six kilometers.”

  “All right,” the woman said quickly. “We can afford to be out of touch for a while.” The group had no radios, of course, because of the natives, and neutrino receivers were too heavy to be carried personally by the flyers.

  The Crotonites winged sunward with no further words. Hugh and Janice checked the balloon moorings once more, boarded the carrier, and energized its fuser.

  They couldn’t watch the antenna itself very well from where they sat, since the open platform which carried the flyers’ seldom used controls was just above them. The woman, however, monitored its directional readings carefully.

  They had to drive slowly, partly because of a gathering haze and partly to minimize the heavy atmosphere’s drag on the huge balloon. With the flyers gone even briefly, more broken mooring lines could compromise the whole project. It was also advisable for safety’s sake to avoid any vegetation, since much native Habranhan life used azide ion instead of ATP. Hence, they didn’t expect to reach the edge of the giant iceberg until long after the Crotonites. Probably they would have found and disassembled the signaling device long before the Erthumoi could do anything to prevent what even Janice considered an unethical maneuver. Even she was concerned enough to take advantage of the Crotonites’ absence and make a quick report by neutrino beam to the Erthuma-crewed research vessel orbiting Habranha. If the flyers did cheat on the natives, at least someone would know.

  However, they got there in time for two reasons. The recent tilt had brought the sea much closer, or perhaps more correctly had brought the explorers closer to the sea. It was now only a little over one kilometer from where they started driving. Also, whatever was emitting the signals had not yet surfaced when they did arrive. Rekchellet was several hundred meters up, apparently sketching the new water line when the human explorers stopped the carrier. The Darkside wind had resumed and cleared the haze by this time, though another snow squall could be seen far to the left of sunward. As the vehicle stopped, the recorder planed to a landing beside them, stowing his equipment.

  “I’ve got it this time.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Janice.

  �
��When I dropped the pad before, I didn’t save quickly enough, and washing around bumped something, so I lost the last record. Most embarrassing. I won’t let that happen again.”

  Hugh was rather startled; it seemed odd for a Crotonite to confess an error not merely within Erthuma hearing but directly to an Erthuma. It seemed best not to emphasize the matter, however, so he merely asked about the signals. Venzeer, who had resumed station at the antenna the moment it had come in sight, reported, ignoring the fact that Janice had been checking them all along.

  Signal direction was still below horizontal, and now nearly constant; only the increasing strength implied that the source was still in motion. It was almost as though something were traveling along the slope of the ice-ocean interface toward them, rather than merely rising through the water.

  The surf was heavy, a fact neither surprising nor predictable on Habranha, so none of the team could get very close to the edge, and with the motionless sun in front of them this made watching difficult. Grendel, as the Erthuma explorers had named Habranha’s red dwarf sun, glared less than twenty degrees above the horizon. By the time the berg joined the ring continent it would appear nearly twice as high, but it had hundreds of kilos yet to drift before this happened. All that could easily be seen offshore was that much vegetation had been torn loose by the tilt and was being washed toward them. Much of this had already burned; some was smoking as it rolled in the surf, and much yet submerged—not all Habranhan plant life floated—was presumably causing the heavy frothing at the surface. Even more, it could be guessed, was waiting for something to help it discharge electrically.

  The explorers watched the dazzling waves roll toward them, crest, and break. That part was familiar enough to all of them, but what followed was subtly different. The surf had no sand to move. The broken waves slid for hundreds of meters along hard, gently rising, smooth ice, losing energy very slowly as the water did its trivial work against Habranha’s weak gravity. Nearly free of ripples as this part of the moving fluid was, it was still hard to see whether anything but seaweed was being carried by it. All four beings watched intently, each with some sort of idea what would show up.

  Probably, Hugh thought, it would be a featureless sphere, since the hypothetical instrument must be designed for hundreds of kilos depth. Rekchellet seemed to have dismissed this factor, apparently expecting solid-state apparatus, but the man was less certain.

  All were wrong. Something decidedly not a plant finally showed almost in front of them—no coincidence, since they had moved as close as the antenna could guide them to the path of the signal source—but for more than a minute few details could be made out as succeeding surges carried it closer and closer to shore.

  It was not a sphere, but something very irregular, and all four explorers inched closer with due care to avoid charged plants. The thing finally landed, and for a moment before the next surge arrived it was fully exposed. It was still too distant for clear Erthuma vision, but both the Crotonites gave whistles of surprise.

  Then it was almost covered by water once more and borne closer; and the next exposure left even the Erthumoi in no doubt, especially as the snow squall had moved in front of the sun.

  Many of the details were still obscured, but not by water. Clearly and unarguably it was a native Habranhan wearing some sort of armor and connected by a rope to a sausage-shaped pack. Even the wings were protected but free to spread and move. As the explorers watched, the being wriggled, straightened itself out, and began to crawl away from the next wash of oncoming sea. Hugh and Janice, already less startled by the arrival than amused by the probable Crotonite reaction to flyers underwater, dashed forward to help, and a few moments later the native was safe above the reach of the ocean. The radio speaker emitted a complex sound pattern, and the translator followed with interpreted Crotonite speech in Venzeer’s voice.

  “You’re—you’re welcome. But what’s a flyer doing underwater?”

  That was just what Hugh and his wife would have asked if they had been able to speak the native language and think of a wording inoffensive to the Crotonites. They listened eagerly for an answer, but heard only the incomprehensible gabble of Habranhan radio emission turned into sound.

  Maybe the Crotonites would translate, of course. The machines were set to interpret between Falgite, the native speech of the Erthumoi, and the language of whatever Crotonite planet the flyers had come from—neither Hugh nor Janice knew its name. This could, they suddenly realized, be awkward. Crotonites had been on Habranha much longer than any Erthuma group, and many of them could understand and speak with the natives without translation. Only conversion between radio and ordinary sound was needed. There was pretty certainly, Hugh thought ruefully, no translation system yet in existence between Habranhan and any Erthuma language. “Ground crawlers” had just discovered the place; Crotonites had known of it for at least several decades and possibly for several generations—different sources gave different answers to that question.

  He and Janice would have to make what sense they could out of the flyers’ side of any conversation with this native, and hope they could stay close enough to get all of that.

  “Gabble.” Presumably the native.

  Venzeer’s voice replied, “Complex static.”

  Hugh kicked himself metaphorically. The machine wouldn’t handle whatever speech the Crotonites used talking to the natives, either. Of course. He looked at his wife, his raised eyebrow visible enough through the clear suit fabric. She gave an almost imperceptible shrug. She wouldn’t want to be sneaky anyway, he reflected. Ask and ye shall receive.

  “Rek, could you tell us what’s going on? Or could your translator cover native-to-you and then you-to-Falgite, so we can follow? I never expected a live native underwater, any more than you did.” True enough, and also tactful.

  The Crotonites looked at each other briefly. Both Erthumoi were pretty sure of their thoughts; Hugh was more nearly right, it turned out. He became almost certain when the others hesitated before answering; if such translation had not been practical they would have said so at once. They must be wondering whether letting their surface-bound companions follow all conversation with the native was a good idea or not.

  One of them realized after a moment that the hesitation had betrayed them. It might have been Venzeer; at least, it was he who answered.

  “Y-yes. I think we can do that. We have a local translator cartridge for reference backup, though both of us handle the language pretty well. We can put that into one of our sets, and as long as we’re in hearing distance of each other it should work out all right.”

  He began manipulating something attached to a harness strap.

  “Why is this fellow all alone so far from the ring and underwater besides? Has one of their mining subs had an accident? I thought they couldn’t mine this close to Darkside, anyway.” Hugh hit what he considered the key points first.

  “I don’t know. We’ve been assuming that their mining equipment was automatic or remote controlled. The submarines we have seen are open frameworks apparently not designed to resist bottom pressure, but merely to survive it.” The man nodded.

  “I haven’t seen any myself, but they have practically no metals here and bottom pressure is around ten thousand atmospheres—my units, if the translator doesn’t take that for granted. Unmanned machines that didn’t need to protect any crew from pressure would seem obvious. This fellow, though, was underwater. I hope he’s willing to tell us why.”

  “So do I,” Venzeer responded promptly. “Let’s find out. There seem to be none of his fellows nearby. Maybe . . .” He failed to finish the sentence. Rekchellet was already addressing the native again, and this time the Erthumoi could follow the conversation.

  “Did your submarine craft have some sort of accident?” Reasonably straightforward for a Crotonite, Hugh thought. The answer came through rather brokenly; two sequential translations had to involve delays from the differing sentence structures involved. Even one was usua
lly a bit jerky.

  “We had no sub. It was not exactly an accident. Pert and I were riding a deep berg, charting currents, and it moved up to the deep-middle pressure boundary more quickly than we expected. The surface chose to blow off instead of pulverize, and a fragment killed Pert, I’m afraid; I haven’t seen or heard her since. What was left of the berg was much less dense. I don’t know whether from phase change or lost mud or both. Anyway, it came up quite rapidly, and I rode it. I nearly got crushed when it hit the bottom of this one. It shattered, and there was no single piece big enough to be worth following, so I came up to report.”

  “How will you do that? Are some of your people nearby?”

  “Not likely. I’ll just shed the armor, eat what I can of the supplies”—the native indicated the streamlined pack he had been towing—“and fly sunward to the ring. It won’t matter where I hit it.”

  “You’ll leave your armor here?” The Crotonite made no pretense of hiding his surprise, or perhaps was hoping the translator would not carry it. Neither Hugh nor Janice could guess whether the feeling, obvious to them, had come through to the native.

  “Sure. I could never fly with it, and it’s easy enough to replace. If your work carries you that way, you might carry it farther from the water; it’ll be more likely to be available if anyone else should want it.”

  “Fair enough.” This time Rekchellet’s voice showed no obvious emotion. “We can certainly carry it on our supply vehicle.”

  “Good. I’ll get along; the sooner I can get the current data home, the closer to real time we can figure.” The native, showing not the slightest surprise or curiosity about the aliens, stripped off his protective garment. If either of the Erthuma watchers had known that much about their ancestral world, they would have been reminded of a dragonfly emerging from its pupal form, though the Habranhan body was much more flexible and had three pairs of wings rather than two. The head was large enough to make intelligence predictable, though it appeared rather small on the four-meter body. The four other limbs were much thicker for the being’s overall size than those of any terrestrial insect. They ended in knoblike wrists which could serve as feet, though they would hardly have a good tread on ice, and from which half a dozen flexible tendrils could be extended for handling. Once out of the armor, the being moved to its pack, opened one end, and extended a proboscis into some invisible container inside. For several minutes it remained motionless, presumably eating or drinking. Then the wings firmed and extended as fluid was pumped into their veins and stiffened them. It turned to face the four aliens, still showing no surprise.