by Hal Clement
All fibers, both fabric components and control and sensor connectors, were far too small to see with the unaided eye. With the suits turned off, as Peter’s was, the basic material was almost transparent. The eye-hurting pattern of the tight shorts which were his only inner garment, a random alteration of patches displaying leopard spots, tiger stripes, and geometric exercises in fluorescent colors, could be seen too clearly for comfort.
Vicki’s face was also visible as she released her mask; she had knelt to examine the ground more closely, and brought out her pill vial. Her features were rather broad and round for D’Orrey’s personal tastes but much easier to look at than his nephew’s shorts.
“Nothing the tracks tell me,” she announced after several minutes of careful examination. “Any project details?”
“Some. We’ll trash it over on the way down,” D’Orrey replied. “Or do you want to stay longer, Pete? Can you think of anything else we ought to do now?”
“I guess not. I’d like to see where they went, but you’re right about not staying much longer without supplies. I know better what equipment we should bring up, now. We ought to have brought more food with us this time.”
“If I’d been sure we’d see anything, we would have. Now we can feel pretty sure of finding them in this area, we can set up here for a longer stay—maybe even move the camp.”
“Are you sure these snakes are the same ones you saw before?” Vicki asked suddenly. She had stowed the pills again without opening the container.
“Not at all. They could be, but I can’t recognize individual rattlers by sight. But if they are, they seem to work this area fairly regularly, and if they aren’t there could be a whole tribe of them around. Either way this should be a good place to work; there’s a lot of clover and berries, and presumably a lot of mice and rabbits.”
Peter nodded, and the three started down the trail which opened into the clearing a few meters from the lookout rock. They quickly found themselves in more comfortable shade, but discussing plans was harder than D’Orrey had assumed. The way was usually too narrow to let them travel side by side, steep enough to demand full attention to footing much of the time, and the woman’s sneezing was now up to full antihistamine-free level. She used her pills only when this would interfere with work. Nothing was really settled in the half hour they took to get almost back to sea level.
Here the mixed pine and second-growth hardwood opened out once more, and they could see the lake.
Here it was also a good deal hotter, and the midafternoon sun was nearly straight ahead of them. The sea breeze from behind and to their left was blocked almost entirely by hills. As they approached the road—little more than a track, but useable by vehicles—which led out toward the tip of the peninsula, Peter scored another point.
“Suits off,” he said quietly, deactivating his own. This time neither adult compromised with common sense; even though nothing wheeled could be seen or heard, crossing a road in an operating camouflage suit was what the boy would have called pure crack. D’Orrey switched his unit off without comment; Vicki thanked Peter. None reactivated the garments when they reached the other side.
The camp was still a half kilometer away, beside a brook which emptied further on into the lake. The way was quite open now, and they could talk more freely. Little had really been settled, however, when Peter stopped and gestured for the others to do the same. His other hand went to his waist. His suit, unlike the others, had a belt which carried several items besides the camouflage logic unit; as a matter of courtesy, neither of the adults had asked what these were. Hackers like to keep their tricks to themselves when not in showoff mood.
He seemed to be listening, but had not asked for silence so was presumably not using an ordinary eavesdropper. He had not removed anything from the belt, but he was touching first one point and then another on it, waiting two or three seconds before each new shift of the finger. It was fully a minute before he relaxed and turned to his companions.
“No one’s been in t he camp, and nothing—no animal—into the tents or the food.”
“As far as you can tell,” appended his uncle.
“Of course. If I’m wrong, someone’s curious enough about what we are doing to cover it very carefully.”
“Well, if the snakes are a hacker’s trick, maybe someone is. If it’s legitimate research or, perish the thought, a natural change in snake behavior, no one should be.”
D’Orrey thought a moment, then risked a guess. “I take it you left sound and maybe other sensors and recorders in and around the camp, and have been playing them back.”
“That’s the idea.”
“The same general sort of stuff you said you’d use for me to track animals up on the Stage?”
“Right.”
“Good. How long will it take you to set them up back there?”
“Not long.” Peter grinned smugly. “You were here when I set these after we arrived, but never saw me.”
“Great. I didn’t think of it when we first talked this over, but can you keep our glasses and other gear checked for false-witness tampering?”
Peter frowned thoughtfully for a moment. “I could, but it’d be better for you to stay with Jerry, wouldn’t it?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m part of this team. Shouldn’t the checker be independent? You should keep your personal observing gear—glasses, cameras, recorders—out of my reach, and you should quarantine mine for checking if I ever report anything you don’t see or hear.”
“Unless you record it, I suppose that’s true. But you can record, obviously.”
“Sure, if you want to trust my records—”
Vicki cut in. “Of course we do. Any record can be faked; everyone knew that even before UFO days, but there’s no point assuming it has been until there’s trouble repeating an observation. Otherwise no one gets anywhere. You said it just now: you’re part of the team, as reliable a part as we are. Science is certainly a search for truth, mixed with a reasonable effort not to easily that you’ve already found it, but you’re worrying far too much about the faker-defense aspect.”
The boy glanced at D’Orrey, who nodded. “Even if I had any reason to suspect you, which I don’t, she’s right. I know about the never-ending war among hackers, anti-hackers, and other hackers, but nothing ever gets done if we spend all the time worrying about rivals and liars. This is where prevention is not better than cure; it gets in the way of the work. We assume no one wants to live with the only cure there is for liars unless he’s force to. So stop worrying, be ready to record anything any of us decides is worth keeping, and pardon the lecture. You cook this evening; deal out some of that chili you did before if there still is any. It’s good.”
“Thanks. I like flattery, but you still cook tomorrow.” His uncle made no answer, but shed his camouflage suit and stretched happily.
The meal was quickly prepared in an extremely old-fashioned kettle over a jellied-alcohol fire—burning wood was still taboo in the park—and almost as quickly eaten. D’Orrey took three helpings without looking at the boy, whose only comment was a repetition. “You still cook tomorrow.”
“And I wash up tonight,” added Vicki, getting to her feet. “Don’t dawdle too long over that last helping, Jaques.” The man made no answer; his mouth was full.
Vicki and Peter, the latter rather pointedly, took advantage the next morning of D’Orrey’s culinary duties to remain late in their tents, but the sun was not very high when the three left camp together with the built in back-packs of their suits loaded with food, water, and carefully selected equipment. They hoped to stay away until the study was done, so the tents and unused equipment were collapsed, cased, powered down as appropriate and stowed i a single travel pack concealed in a tree. Bears and smaller mammals could be a nuisance, but Peter felt that human interference was much more likely. The adults were pretty sure he was carrying equipment which would warn him if the bundle were disturbed. They didn’t ask, but both
noticed that he had paid little attention while Vicki carefully adjusted the camouflage wrap on the container.
It was still cool when they started back up the hill. The sea breeze had not yet developed, and would have had little effect at the camp anyway. It would help later, but they wanted to get up to Stage, as Vicki had named the work area, before the sun became too oppressive. Once across the still deserted road, all activated their suits.
They wanted to get there early, but even Peter was too experienced to wear himself out at the start. He was willing—again rather pointedly—to allow D’Orrey to set the pace once the slope began to steepen. Vicki tactfully brought up the rear.
This proved to be, not exactly a mistake, but unfortunate.
They had climbed nearly a hundred meters, the woman’s natural morning sneeze pattern was well established, and they were at a point where the trail was not only narrow and steep but offered very poor footing in loose crumbled granite, dry dusty loam, and even drier pine needles. All were careful; they had passed this way twice before. Even the fact that it was much trickier descending failed to make anyone careless; Vicki was simply unlucky, perhaps because she was behind and encountering freshly loosened surface.
She ejaculated some words which would have been considered more appropriate for a male—one of low culture—not too many years earlier, as her weight came on her left foot and the substrate slipped from under her. Her hands were both free and her reflexes good as she grabbed for branches, but the only one she caught proved unworthy of trust. Her other foot, rising for a forward step, came down abruptly on an equally unreliable surface well short of the spot she had intended; it slipped too. This brought her chest, stomach, knees and face into violent contact with the trail.
The others heard, but had no time to do anything. She stopped herself after a couple of meters of sliding, at a spot where the slope flattened a little, and struggled back to her feet. She had said nothing after the first moment and still remained silent, checking damage.
The suits were designed for outdoor use, and hers had been actually pierced in only a few places. Her skin had not done so well. She had a deep slash over her right eye, and her knees and palms were dirt-plastered crimson messes. Damage to her suit was at least as eye-catching. Several control fivers had been severed, mostly in places not matching visible bodily injury, and fairly large areas of its body and legs no longer responded to the logic unit. About half her head piece above the level of the cut revealed the mahogany red-brown of the hair inside, and a roughly triangular area from right shoulder downward to her waist and inward to the small of her back showed the fabric of the sweat suit she was wearing under the camouflage unit.
“Can you walk? asked D’Orrey. “There’s a place a few meters up where we can get close enough together for first aid”
Peter silently came down the trail, passing very carefully the spot where she had slipped, and made his way with equal care around her.
The climb was resumed more slowly.
Jaques had been right about the level spot. There was even a boulder large enough for a seat and after making sure it was solidly embedded Vicki settled herself on its fairly smooth top.
“At least I can sit,” she remarked.
“Don’t be flippant. Those knees are a mess.”
“And my hands. You’ll—both of you—have to use the kit. And am I bleeding into my right eye? something has certainly happened to my head.”
“It sure has. We’d better work from the top down. Pete, you use the tester; find if there’s a skull fracture under that cut. I’ll take care of the blood. The first aid kit was open now, and the older man pulled out a squeeze tube, snapped off its tip, and began to spread a layer of opaque brown gel over the gash.
Peter had silently taken out a golf-ball-sized capsule, opened it in a walnut fashion, touched the convex sides briefly to each other and pulled them apart. He placed the flat side of one over Vicki’s left eye at the point corresponding to the cut over the right, waited for D’Orrey to finish his anointing plus a few seconds for the gel to crust, and place the other over the wound itself. A monitor screen in the lid of the kit came to life, and all three read it with interest.
“Put some goo on this side, too,” the boy said after a moment, lifting the sensor to permit the operation.
D’Orrey obeyed, and Peter replace the instrument. The seniors expressed satisfaction, the man with a nod. Vicki grunting approvingly. Moving her head was uncomfortable.
“They match well enough. I guess I didn’t crack the egg. I got quite a wallop, though.”
“Do you feel dizzy or sick?” asked Peter.
“Not really. I can use a P-pill, I guess; even if I don’t really have concussion or shock, it won’t hurt.”
“At least you’re not like Mom.”
“Should I be relieved or worried? How did you mean that?”
“She’d have you lying down while she brewed some sort of herb poultice to plaster on you, and some other sort of tea to pout into you. She doesn’t believe in antibiotics, and less in nano or pseudolife repair gadgets. Let nature heal, she says.”
“Hmph. Mostly I agree with her. But why aren’t antibiotics natural? They originally came from molds, didn’t they?”
“Don’t argue with me. I’m just a hacker, as far from nature as anyone can get, she complains.”
“At least she knows it’s natural for kids to disagree with their parents,” cut in D’Orrey. “Let’s not wait for nature with these hands and knees. They must hurt.”
The symmetry test for fractures was harder with the kneecaps, since both areas were damaged about equally, but after much moving around of the sensors and a certain amount of argument all three decided that neither patella had been damaged. The chemicals and nano repair devices suspended in the gel could be expected to deal with infection, pain and, within an hour or so, to finish healing.
Even so, walking wasn’t easy for a while. They went on, partly because all wanted to get to work and partly because it was better for the damaged knees to be in normal use during repair. More information was available to the nanohealers. Travel was much slower, of course, and now Peter brought up the rear while Vicki set the pace.
She was happy to rest and pull out her pill vial after they reached the study site, while Peter criss-crossed the Stage to plant his instrument layout. This time he kept his camouflage on and travelled very slowly and watchfully; he was quite willing to let any snakes know he was coming, but if he scared the small mammals away ti might delay operations. Even so, the process was much more obvious to his companions than it had been at camp. Two or three creatures did bound or scurry out of his path, but none of the group saw anything resembling a mass exodus, and kept their hopes up. Vicki had taken her first pill; D’Orrey hoped it would not prove incompatible with the first aid equipment already at work, but made no comment. She was old enough to have her own judgment—several years older than he.
The rock he had used the day before seemed the best observing site, and it was agreed that all three should stay there. Using trees would have allowed broader coverage of the Stage, but it seemed better to have all three watchers monitor the same area so that memories as well as objective records could be compared. False-witness units were easy to sneak into monoculars, but many times harder with binoculars because of matching, correlation, and cross-connection problems, and almost impossible with multiple sets of instruments being used by different people from almost, but not quite the same point—especially if the observers occasionally moved a trifle with respect to each other. This was not a matter of worry in the sense that D’Orrey had been preaching, but had long been lab routine like clean glassware.
The older two had binoculars and video rings; Peter didn’t reveal much about his own equipment, which he had presumably designed and grown himself, but the others assumed he would not only be recording vision and sound but other factors. Use of radiation equipment which might stimulate, activate, track, or control anim
als and observing gear through minute receivers and transmitters was standard research procedure, and an obvious possibility even to non-hackers. Neither D’Orrey nor Vicki would have wanted to implant anything in a rattlesnake, but there were many who would consider it an interesting challenge. The hacker mindset had expanded naturally from data processing to nanotechnology, pseudobiology, and gene engineering, which after all differed little from each other.
His elders did not, therefore, try to watch Peter at all closely as he went around the area presumably planting sensors and transmitters, and the boy showed no urge to brag about, or even demonstrate, what he had. He spent about a quarter of an hour moving around the Stage. Apparently he met no snakes, or at least aroused none, and eventually he rejoined the others at the top of the rock.
He was now carrying openly a palm-sized monitor unit. Its screen showed a very active display, but this was not pictorial; symbols neither of the others could understand flickered endlessly on its surface. Peter made no effort to keep them from looking, but wore a half-amused, half-contemptuous smile when they tried. Vicki thought briefly of asking whether he would tell them anything, but decided not to give him the amusement of refusing. D’Orrey faced the same temptation but decided not to give him the amusement of explaining. The man had no objection in principle to showing off—he enjoyed it himself—but considered that Peter’s feeling of superiority because of his height needed no encouragement. He confined himself to a different question.
