Iceworld

by Hal Clement

  “Is there just this one big bubble?” he asked. Ordon Lee answered.

  “No; we have found several, very similar in structure, along this cliff, and there are probably others with no openings into them. I suppose they could be located by echo-sounders if we really wanted to find them.”

  “It might be a good idea to try that,” Ken pointed out. “A cave whose only entrance was one we had drilled would be a lot easier to keep airtight than this thing.” Feth and Lee grunted assent to that. The latter added a. thought of his own. “It might be good if we could find one well down; we could be a lot freer in drilling — there’d be no risk of a crack running to the surface.”

  “Just one trouble,” put in Feth. “Do we have an echo-sounder? Like Ken on his soil analysis, I have my doubts about being able to make one.” Nobody answered that for some moments.

  “I guess I’d better show you some of the other caves we’ve found already,” Lee said at last. No one objected to this, and they retraced their steps to daylight. In the next four hours they looked at seven more caves, ranging from a mere hemispherical hollow in the very face of the cliff to a gloomy, frighteningly deep bubble reached by a passageway just barely negotiable for a space-suited Sarrian. This last, in spite of the terrors of its approach and relative smallness, was evidently the best for their purpose out of those examined; and Lee made a remark to that effect as they doffed space suits back in the Karella.

  “I suppose you’re right,” Ken admitted, “but I’d still like to poke deeper. Blast it, Feth, are you sure you couldn’t put a sounder together? You never had any trouble with the gadgets we used in the torpedoes.”

  “Now you’re the one who doesn’t realize the problem,” the mechanic replied. “We were using heating coils, thermometers, pressure gauges, and photocells for the other stuff. Those come ready made. All I did was hook them up to a regular achronic transmitter — we couldn’t use ordinary radio because the waves would have taken ten or twelve minutes for the round trip. I didn’t make anything — just strung wires.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Ken admitted. “In that case, we may as well go back to the station and lay plans for sealing off that last cavern.” He kept a sharp look on his two companions as he said this, and succeeded in catching the glance Feth sent at the clock before his reply. It almost pleased him.

  “Hadn’t we better get some photographs and measurements of the cave first?” Ordon Lee cut in. “We’ll need them for estimates on how much gas and soil will be needed, regardless of how it’s to be obtained.” Ken made no objection to this; there was no point in raising active suspicion, and he had substantiated his own idea. He was being kept away from the station intentionally. He helped with the photography, and subsequently with the direct measurement of the cave. He had some trouble refraining from laughter; affairs were so managed that the party had returned to the ship and doffed space suits each time before the next activity was proposed. It was very efficient, from one point of view. Just to keep his end up, he proposed a rest before returning to the base, and was enthusiastically seconded by the others. Then he decided to compute the volume of the cave from their measurements, and contrived to spend a good deal of time at that — legitimately, as the cave was far from being a perfect sphere. Then he suggested getting some samples of local rock to permit an estimate of digging difficulties, and bit back a grin when Feth suggested rather impatiently that that could wait. Apparently he had outdone the precious pair at their own game — though why Feth should care whether or not they stayed longer than necessary was hard to see.

  “It’s going to take quite a lot of gas,” he said as the Karella lunged into the black sky. “There’s about two million cubic feet of volume there, and even the lower pressure we need won’t help much. I’d like to find out if we can get oxygen from those rocks; we should have picked up a few samples, as I suggested. We’re going to have to look over the upper area for small cracks, too— we have no idea how airtight the darn thing is. I wish we could — say, Feth, aren’t there a lot of radar units of one sort or another around here?”

  “Yes, of course. What do you want them for? Their beams won’t penetrate rock.”

  “I know. But can’t the pulse-interval on at least some of them be altered?”

  “Of course. You’d have to use a different set every time your range scale changed, otherwise. So what?”

  “Why couldn’t we — or you, anyway — set one up with the impulse actuating a sounder of some sort which could be put in contact with the rock, and time that return-echo picked up by a contact-mike? I know the impulse rate would be slower, but we could calibrate it easily enough.”

  “One trouble might be that radar units are usually not very portable. Certainly none of the warning devices in this ship are.”

  “Well, dismantle a torpedo, then. They have radar altimeters, and there are certainly enough of them so one can be spared. We could have called base and had them send one out to us — I bet it would have taken you only a few hours. Let’s do that anyway — we’re still a lot closer to the caves than to the base.”

  “It’s easier to work in the shop; and anyway, if we go as far underground as this idea should let us — supposing it works — we might as well scout areas closer to the base, for everyone’s convenience.” Ordon Lee contributed the thought without looking from his controls.

  “Do you think you can do it?” Ken asked the mechanic.

  “It doesn’t seem too hard,” the latter answered. “Still, I don’t want to make any promises just yet.”

  “There’s a while yet before that suit comes back. We can probably find out before then, and really have some material for Drai to digest. Let’s call him now — maybe he’ll have some ideas about soil.”

  The eyes of the other two met for a brief moment; then Lee gestured to the radio controls,

  “Go ahead; only we’ll be there before you can say much.”

  “He told me you were going to manufacture soil,” reminded Feth.

  “I know. That’s why I want to talk to him — we left in too much of a hurry before.” Ken switched on the radio while the others tried to decide whether or not he was suspicious about that hasty departure. Neither dared speak, with Ken in the same room, but once again their eyes met, and the glances were heavy with meaning.

  Drai eventually came to the microphone at the other end and Ken began talking with little preliminary.

  “We’ve made measurements of the smallest cave we can find, so far at least, and figured out roughly how much air you’re going to need to fill it. I can tell you how much soil you’ll need to cover the bottom, too, if you plan to use all of it. The trouble is, even if I can analyze the soil — even as roughly as I did the air — you’re facing a supply problem that runs into tons. I can’t make that much in the laboratory in any reasonable time. You’re going to have to get it ready-made.”

  “How? We can’t land a person on Planet Three, let alone a freighter.”

  “That we’ll see presently. But that’s not the suggestion I wanted to make — I see we’re nearly there, so we can finish this chat in person. Think this over while we’re going in: whatever sort of atmosphere a planet may have, I don’t see how the soils can be too different — at least in their principal constituents. Why don’t you get a shipload of Sarrian soil?” Drai gaped for a moment.

  “But — bacteria—”

  “Don’t be silly; nothing Sarrian could live at that temperature. I admit it would be safer to use soil from Planet Three, and we may be able to. But if we can’t, then you have my advice, if you’re interested in speed — even if I knew the composition, it would take me a lot longer than a week to make a hundred tons of dirt!” He broke the connection as the Karella settled to the ground.

  10

  Ken wasted no time donning his space suit and leaving the ship with the others. Once inside the station and out of the heavy garment, he hastened to the shop to see how far out the returning test suit was; then, sat
isfied with its progress as recorded there, he headed for the observatory to continue his conversation with Laj Drai. He met no one on the way. Lee had stayed on the ship, Feth had disappeared on some errand of his own the moment the lock had closed behind them, and the rest of the personnel kept pretty much to themselves anyway. Ken did not care this time whether or not he were seen, since he planned a perfectly above-board conversation.

  He was interrupted, however, in planning just how to present his arguments, by the fact that the observatory door was locked.

  It was the first time he had encountered a locked door in the station since his arrival, and it gave him to think furiously. He was morally certain that the trading torpedo had returned during the absence of the Karella, and that there was a load of tofacco somewhere around the building. If this were the only locked door — and it was, after all, the room Drai used as an office—

  Ken pressed his body close to the door, trying to tell by sound whether anyone were in the room. He was not sure; and even if there were not, what could he do? A professional detective could probably have opened the door in a matter of seconds. Ken, however, was no professional; the door was definitely locked, as far as he was concerned. Apparently the only thing to do was seek Drai elsewhere.

  He was ten yards down the ramp, out of sight of the observatory door, when he heard it open. Instantly he whirled on his toes and was walking back up the incline as though just arriving. Just as he reached the bend that hid the door from him he heard it close again; and an instant later he came face to face with Feth. The mechanic, for the first time since Ken had known him, looked restless and uneasy. He avoided Ken’s direct gaze, and wound the tip of one tentacle more tightly about a small object he was carrying, concealing it from view. He brushed past with a muttered greeting and vanished with remarkable speed around the turn of the ramp, making no answer to Ken’s query as to whether Drai were in the observatory.

  Ken stared after him for seconds after he had disappeared. Feth had always been taciturn, but he had seemed friendly enough. Now it almost seemed as though he were angry at Ken’s presence.

  With a sigh, the pro tem detective turned back up the ramp. It wouldn’t hurt to knock at the door, anyway. The only reason he hadn’t the first time was probably a subconscious hope that he would find Drai somewhere else, and feel free to investigate. Since his common sense told him he couldn’t investigate anyway, he knocked.

  It was just as well he hadn’t made any amateur efforts at lock-picking, he decided as the door opened. Drai was there, apparently waiting for him. His face bore no recognizable expression; either whatever bothered Feth had not affected him, or he was a much better actor than the mechanic. Ken, feeling he knew Feth, inclined to the former view.

  “I’m afraid I’m not convinced of the usability of any Sarrian soil,” Drai opened the conversation. “I agree that most of the substances present in it, as far as I know, could also be present at Planet Three’s temperature; but I’m not so sure the reverse is true. Mightn’t there be substances that would be solid or liquid at that temperature and gaseous at ours, so that they would be missing from any we brought from home?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Ken admitted. “The fact that I can’t think of any such substances doesn’t mean they don’t exist, either. I can skim through the handbook and see if there are any inorganic compounds that would behave that way, but even that might miss some — and if their life is at all analogous to ours, there are probably a couple of million organic compounds — for which we don’t have any catalogue. No, blast it, I guess you’re right; we’ll have to take the stuff from the planet itself.” He lapsed into silent thought, from which Drai finally aroused him.

  “Do you really think you’re going to be able to get to the surface of that world?”

  “I still can’t see why we shouldn’t,” replied Ken. “It seems to me that people have visited worse ones before, bad as that is. Feth is pessimistic about it, though, and I suppose he has more practical knowledge of the problem than I. We can make more definite plans in that direction when the suit comes back, which shouldn’t be long now. According to the instruments it started back a couple of hours ago.”

  “That means nearly three days before you’re sure. There must be something else — say! You claim it’s the presence of a conducting atmosphere that makes the heat loss on Planet Three so great, don’t you?”

  “Sure. You know as well as I that you can go out in an ordinary space suit light years from the nearest sun; radiation loss is easy to replace. Why?”

  “I just thought — there are other planets in this system. If we could find an airless one roughly the same temperature as Three, we might get soil from that.”

  “That’s an idea.” Ken was promptly lost in enthusiasm again. “As long as it’s cold enough, which is easy in this system — and Three has a satellite — you showed it to me. We can go there in no time in the Karella—and we could pick up that suit in space while we’re at it. Collect Feth, and let’s go!”

  “I fear Feth will not be available for a while,” replied Drai. “Also,” he grimaced, “I have been on that satellite, and its soil is mostly pumice dust; it might have come straight from the Polar Desert on Sarr. We’d better consider the other possibilities before we take off. The trouble is, all we’ve ever noted about the other planets of the system is their motions. We wanted to avoid them, not visit them. I do remember, I think, that Five and Six do have atmospheres, which I suppose writes them off the list. You might see where Four is just now, will you? I assume you can interpret an ephemeris.”

  Ken decided later that courtesy was really a superfluous facet of character. Had it not been for the requirements of courtesy he would not have bothered to make an answer to this suggestion, and had not most of his attention been concentrated on the answer he would never have made the serious error of walking over to the cabinet where the table in question was located, and reaching for it. He realized just as he touched the paper what he was doing, but with a stupendous effort of will he finished his assurance that he could read an ephemeris and completed the motion of obtaining the document. He felt, however, as though a laboratory vacuum pump had gone to work on his stomach as he turned back to his employer.

  That individual was standing exactly where he had been, the expression on his face still inscrutable.

  “I fear I must have done our friend Feth an injustice,” he remarked casually. “I was wondering how you had come to imply that a round trip to Sarr would take only a week. I realize of course that your discoveries were made quite accidentally, and that nothing was farther from your plans than vulgar spying; but the problem of what to do about your unfortunate knowledge remains. That will require a certain amount of thought. In the meantime, let us continue with the matter of Planet Four. Is it in a convenient position to visit, and could we as you suggested pick up the torpedo carrying your suit without going too far from course?”

  Ken found himself completely at a loss. Drai’s apparently unperturbed blandness was the last attitude he expected under the circumstances. He could not believe that the other was really that indifferent; something unpleasant must be brewing between those steady eyes, but the face gave him no clue. As best he could he tried to match his employer’s attitude. With an effort he turned his attention to the ephemeris he was holding, found the proper terms, and indulged in some mental arithmetic.

  “The planets are just about at right angles as seen from here,” he announced at length. “We’re just about between the sun and Three, as you know; Four is in the retrograde direction, roughly twice as far from us. Still, that shouldn’t mean anything to the Karella”

  “True enough. Very well, we will take off in an hour. Get any equipment you think you will need on board before then — better use engineering armor for Planet Four, even if it doesn’t have air. You’ll have to point out where they are to whomever I get to help you.”

  “How about Feth?” Ken had gotten the idea that the me
chanic was in disgrace for betraying the secret of their location.

  “He won’t be available for some time — he’s occupied. I’ll give you a man — you can be picking out what you want in the shop; I’ll send him there. One hour.” Laj Drai turned away, intimating that the interview was at an end.

  The man he sent proved to be a fellow Ken had seen around, but had never spoken to. The present occasion did little to change that; he was almost as taciturn as Feth, and Ken never did learn his name. He did all he was asked in the way of moving material to the Karella, and then disappeared. The takeoff was on schedule.

  Ordon Lee, who evidently had his orders, sent the vessel around the planet so rapidly that the acceleration needed to hug the curving surfaces exceeded that produced by the planet’s gravity; the world seemed to be above them, to the inhabitants of the ship. With the sun near the horizon behind and the glowing double spark of Earth rising ahead, however, he discontinued the radial acceleration and plunged straight away from the star. Under the terrific urge of the interstellar engines, the Earth-Luna system swelled into a pair of clearly marked discs in minutes. Lee applied his forces skillfully, bringing the vessel to a halt relative to’ the planet and half a million miles sunward of it. Drai gestured to Ken, indicating a control board similar to that in the shop.

  “That’s tuned in to your torpedo; the screen at the right is a radar unit you can use to help find it. There’s a compass at the top of the panel, and this switch will cause the torpedo to emit a homing signal.” Ken silently placed himself at the controls, and got the feel of them in a few minutes. The compass gave rather indefinite readings at first because of the distance involved; but Lee was quickly able to reduce that, and in a quarter of an hour the still invisible projectile was only a dozen miles away. Ken had no difficulty in handling it from that point, and presently he and Drai left the control room and repaired to a cargo chamber in the Karella’s belly, where the torpedo was warming up.