The Best of Hal Clement

by Hal Clement

  On Thrykar’s left—that is, within the shaft—the dripping of water became audible; and at the same time the bushes and irregular rocks disappeared, and he found himself on what could be nothing but a badly kept road. He did not realize its condition at first; but within a few feet he found a rivulet flowing across it, in a fairly deep gully which it had cut in the hard earth. Investigating this flow of water, he found that its source was the shaftlike excavation, which was apparently full of water almost to the level of the road. With growing enthusiasm, Thrykar found that the hole was fully a hundred and fifty yards in the dimension running parallel to the face of the mountain; and he had learned during his descent that it had fully half that measure in the other direction. If it were only deep enough—he was on the point of entering the water to investigate, when he remembered the communicator, which might suffer damage if wet, and from which he had promised Tes not to separate himself. Instead of investigating the pit, therefore, he turned back, following the road toward the sounds which had first roused his curiosity.

  His progress, on the legs which were so ridiculously short for his height, was not rapid. In fifteen minutes he had passed two more of the water-filled pits and was approaching a third. This he was able to examine in more detail than the others, though he could not approach it so closely; for the road at this point, and the water near it, were illuminated by the first of the town’s outlying street lamps. A few yards farther, on the side of the road away from the pits, house lights began to be visible, and, seeing them, Thrykar paused to consider.

  The sound was evidently coming from farther inside the town. If he went any further in his investigations, he not only sacrificed the shelter of darkness, but could also expect a heavier concentration of human beings. On the other hand; his skin was dark in color, the lights were by no means numerous, he was very curious about the sounds which had continued without interruption since he had first heard them, and it would be necessary to confront a human being eventually, in any case—though, if all went well, the human being would never know it. Thrykar finally elected to proceed, with increased caution.

  * * *

  He chose the side of the road away from the pits, as it was somewhat darker at first, and offered some concealment in the form of hedges and fences in front of the houses, which now began to be more numerous. He walked, with his mincing gait, close beside these standing at his full height and letting the great, independent eyes set on either side of his neckless, rigidly set head rove constantly around the full circle of his vision. One more pit was passed in this fashion; but a hundred yards farther down the road, on the right side, a wall began which effectually cut off the sight of any more, if they existed. It was a fence of boards, solidly built, and its top was fully two feet above Thrykar’s head. The sounds appeared to be coming from a point behind this barrier, but somewhat farther down the road.

  Having come so far, the alien was human enough to dislike the idea of having wasted his efforts. He crossed the road at a point midway between two street lamps. Between the pits, the brush-covered slope of the hill came down almost to the thoroughfare; so he dropped flat once more to take advantage of this cover as he approached the near end of the wall. He had hoped to find access to the hinder side of the barrier, but he found that, instead of beginning where it was first visible, the portion along the road was merely a continuation of a similar structure that came down the hillside; and Thrykar considered it a waste of time to circumambulate the enclosure on the chance of finding an opening.

  Instead, he rose once more to his full height, and looked carefully about him. The neighborhood still seemed deserted. Pressing close against the boards, he reached up and let the tips of his four wiry tentacles curl over the top of the fence. The appendages, even at the roots, were not much thicker than a human thumb, for they were, anatomically, detached portions of the great side fins rather than legs and feet modified for prehensile use; unless they could be wound completely around an object, they could not approach the gripping or pulling strength of the human hand and arm. Thrykar, however, let his supple body sag in an S-curve, and straightened suddenly, leaping upward; and at the same instant exerted all the strength of which the slender limbs were capable. The effort proved sufficient to get the upper portion of his body across the top of the fence, and during the few seconds he was able to maintain the position he saw enough to satisfy him.

  There were two more of the pits inside the fence, dimly lighted by electric bulbs. They contained practically no water, and were enormously deep—the nearer, whose bottom was visible to Thrykar, was over two hundred feet from the edge to the loose blocks of stone that lay about in the depths. The pits were quarries, quite evidently. The stone blocks and tools, as well as the innumerable nearly flat faces on the granite walls, showed that fact clearly. The noises that had aroused the alien’s curiosity came from machines located at the bottom of the nearer pit; and the existence of certain large pipes running up from them, as well as the almost complete absence of water, assured him that they were pumps.

  There was a further deduction to be drawn from the absence of water. These human beings were strictly air-breathers—the handbook had told Thrykar and Tes that much; and it followed that the pits farther along the mountainside, which had been allowed to fill with water, must no longer be in use. If they were as deep as these, there was an ideal hiding place for the ship.

  At that thought, Thrykar let himself slip down once more outside the fence. He flexed his body once or twice to ease the ache where the edges of the boards had cut into his flesh, and started to stretch his tentacles for the same purpose; but suddenly he froze to rigidity. Behind him, on the road down which he had come, appeared a glow of yellow that brightened swiftly—so swiftly that before he could move, its source had swept into sight around the last shallow curve in the route and he was pinned against the fence by the beams from the twin headlights of an automobile.

  As the vehicle reached the straight portion of the street the direct beams left him; but he knew he must have been glaringly visible during the second or so in which they had dazzled his eyes. He held his breath as the car approached; and the instant it passed he plunged up the hillside for twenty or thirty yards, wriggled his way under some dense bushes, and lay as motionless as was physically possible for him. He listened intently as the sound of the engine faded and died evenly away in the distance, and finally gave a deep exhalation of relief. Evidently, hard as it was to believe, the occupant or occupants of the vehicle had not seen him.

  It did not occur to Thrykar that, even if the driver had noticed the weird form looming in his headlight beams, stopping to investigate might be the furthest thing in the universe from his resultant pattern of action. Thrykar himself, and every one of his acquaintances—which were by no means confined to members of his own race—would have looked into the matter without a second thought about the safety or general advisability of the procedure.

  He was a little shaken by the narrow shave. He should have foreseen it, of course—it was little short of stupid to have climbed the wall so close to the road; but what would be self-evident to a professional soldier, detective, or housebreaker did not come within the sphere of everyday life to a research chemist on a honeymoon. If Thrykar had known anything about Earth before starting his journey, he wouldn’t have come near the planet. He had simply noted that there was a refresher station near the direct route to the world which he and Tes had planned to visit on a vacation; and not until he had cut his drive near the beacon on Mercury had he bothered to read up on its details. They had been somewhat dismayed at what they found, but the most practicable detour would have consumed almost the entire vacation period in flight; and, as Tes had said, what others had evidently done he could do. Thrykar suspected that his wife might possibly have an exaggerated idea of his abilities, but he had no objection to that. They had stayed.

  The car did have one good effect on Thrykar; he became much more cautious. Having satisfied his curiosity ab
out the sounds, he began to retrace his way to the ship and Tes; but this time he stayed well off the road, traveling parallel to it, until the abandoned quarries prevented further progress on that line. Even then he left the woods and went downhill only far enough to permit him to enter the water without splashing. He swam rapidly across, holding the communicator out of the water with one tentacle, and emerged to continue his trip on the other side. He had wasted as little time as possible, as the pit he had just crossed was the one so comparatively well illuminated by the street lamp.

  At the next one, however, he spent more time. Instead of carrying the communicator with him, he cached it under a bush near the road and disappeared entirely under water. It was utterly black below the surface, and he had to trust entirely to his sense of touch; and remembering what he had seen of the walls of the empty quarries, he dared not swim too rapidly for fear of braining himself against an outcrop of granite. In consequence, it took him over half an hour to get a good idea of the pit’s qualifications as a hiding place. The verdict was not too good, but possible. Thrykar finally emerged, collected his communicator, and proceeded to the next quarry.

  He spent several hours in examining the great shafts. There were seven altogether; two were in use, and enclosed by the fence he had found, one was rendered unusable by the embarrassing presence of the street lamp; so the remaining four claimed all his attention. The one he had found first was the last, and farthest from the town; but it was the adjacent one which finally proved the most suitable. Not only was it the only one at all set back from the road—a drive about twenty yards in length led down to the water—but it was deeply undercut about thirty-five feet below the surface, on the side toward the mountain. The hollow thus made was not large enough to hide the hull of the ship altogether, but it would be a great help. Thrykar felt quite satisfied as he emerged from the water after his second examination of this recess. Recovering the small case of the communicator from its last hiding place, he tapped out the signal he had agreed on with Tes to announce his return. Then he held it up toward the mountain, moving it slowly from side to side and up and down until a small hexagonal plate set in the case suddenly glowed a faint red. Satisfied that he could find his ship when close enough, the alien began his climb.

  Just before entering the dense woods above the quarries, he looked back at the town. Practically all the house lights were extinguished now; but the station was still illuminated and the street lamps glowed. The quarry pumps were still throbbing, as well; and, satisfied that he had created no serious disturbance by his presence, Thrykar resumed his climb.

  It took his short legs a surprisingly long time to propel him from the foot of the valley to the hollow near the mountaintop where the ship still lay. He had hoped and expected to complete the job of concealing the craft before the night was over; but long before he reached it he had given up the plan. After all, it was invisible until the searcher actually reached the edge of the hollow; and he was practically certain that no human beings would visit the spot—though the handbook had mentioned that they still hunted wild animals both for food and sport. He and Tes could alternate watches in any case, and if a hunter or hiker did approach—steps could be taken.

  Twice during the climb he made use of the communicator, each time wondering why it was taking so long to get back. The third time, however, the plate glowed much more brightly, and he began to follow the indicated direction more carefully instead of merely climbing. It took him another half-hour to find the vessel; but at last he reached the edge of the small declivity and saw the dim radiance escaping from behind the partly closed outer door of the airlock. He slipped and stumbled down the slope, scrambled up the cleated metal ramp that had been let down from the lock, and pushed his way into the chamber.

  * * *

  Tes met him at the inner door, anxiety gradually disappearing from her expression.

  “What have you been doing?” she asked. “I got your return signal, and began broadcasting for your finder; but that was hours ago, and I was getting worried. You had no weapon, and we don’t know that all Earth animals would fear to attack us.”

  “Every creature I met, fled,” replied her husband. “Of course, I don’t know whether any of them would have attacked an Earth being of my size. They may all have been herbivorous, or something; but in any case, you know we could get into awful trouble by carrying arms on a low-culture planet.

  “However, I’ve found an excellent place for the ship, very close to the town. If I weren’t so tired, we could take it down there now; but I guess we can wait until tomorrow night. The whole business is going to take us several of this planet’s days, anyway.”

  “Did you see any of the intelligent race?” asked Tes.

  “Not exactly,” replied Thrykar. He told her of the encounter with the automobile, while she prepared food for him; and between mouthfuls he described the underwater hollow where he planned to conceal the ship and from which they could easily make the necessary sorties. Tes was enthusiastic, though she was still not entirely clear as to the method Thrykar planned to employ in obtaining what he wanted from a human being without the latter’s becoming aware of the alien presence. Her husband smiled at her difficulty.

  “As you said, it’s been done before,” he told her. “I’m going to sleep now; I haven’t been so tired for years. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.” He rose, tossed the eating utensils into the washer, and went back to the sleeping room. The tanks were already full; he slid into his without a splash, and was asleep almost before the water closed over him. Tes followed his example.

  He had not exaggerated his fatigue; he slept long after his wife had risen and eaten. She was in the library when he finally appeared, reading once again the few chapters the handbook devoted to Earth and its inhabitants. One of her eyes rolled upward toward him as Thrykar entered.

  “It seems that these men are primitive enough to have a marked tendency toward superstition—ascribing things they don’t understand to supernatural intervention. Are you going to try to pass off our present activities in that way?”

  “I’m not making any effort in that specific direction,” he replied, “though the reaction you mention may well occur. They will realize that something out of the ordinary is happening; I don’t see how that can be avoided, unless we are extremely lucky and happen on an individual whose way of life is such that he won’t be missed by his fellows for a day or so. I’m sure, however, that a judicious use of anesthetics will prevent their acquiring enough data to reach undesirable conclusions. If you will let me have that book for a while, I’ll try to find out what is likely to affect their systems.”

  “But I didn’t think we had much in the way of drugs, to say nothing of anesthetics, aboard,” exclaimed Tes.

  “We haven’t; but we have a fair supply of the commoner chemicals and reagents. Remember your husband’s occupation, my dear!” He took the book, smiling, and settled into a sling. He read silently for about ten minutes, leafing rapidly back and forth in a way that suggested he knew what he was looking for, but which made it very difficult for his wife to read over his shoulder. She kept on trying.

  Eventually Thrykar spent several consecutive minutes on one page; then he looked up and said, “It looks as though this stuff would do it. I’ll have to see whether we have the wherewithal to make it. Do you want to watch a chemist at work, my beloved musician?”

  She followed him, of course, and watched with an absorption that almost equalled his own as he inventoried their small stock of chemicals, measured, mixed, heated and froze, distilled and collected; she had only the most general knowledge of any of the physical sciences, but in watching she could appreciate that her husband, in his own occupation, was as much of an artist as she herself. It was this understanding, shared by very few, of this side of his character that had led her to marry an individual who was considered by most of his acquaintances to be a rather stodgy and narrow-minded, if brilliant, scientist.

  Thrykar con
nected the exhaust tube of his last distillation to a small rotary pump, confining the resultant gas in a cylinder light enough to carry easily. Even Tes could appreciate the meaning of that.

  “If it’s a gas, how do you plan to administer it?” she asked. “Judging from their pictures, these human beings are much more powerful than we. You can’t very well hold a mask over their faces, and even I know it’s not practical to shoot a jet of gas any distance. Why don’t you use a liquid or soluble solid that can be carried by a small dart, for example?”

  “The less solid equipment we carry and risk losing, the better for all concerned,” replied Thrykar. “If the air is fairly still and there is no rain, I can make them absorb a lungful of this stuff quite easily. It has been done before, and on this planet—you should pay more attention to what you read.” He rolled an eye back at his wife. “Did you ever blow a bubble?”

  Tes stood motionless for a moment, thinking. Then she brightened. “Of course. I remember what you mean now. Passing to another phase of the problem, how and where do you find a human being alone?”

  “We attack that matter after moving the ship. We’ll have to watch them for a day or two, to learn something about their habits in this neighborhood—the book is not very helpful. If a lone hunter or traveler gets near enough, the problem will solve itself; but we can’t count on that. I’ve done all I can here, my dear. We’ll have to wait till dark, now, to move the ship.”

  “All right,” replied Tes. “I’m going outside for a while; our only daylight view of this planet was from high altitude. Even if we can’t get close to any small animals, there may be plants or rocks or just plain scenery that will be worth looking at. Won’t you come along?”

  Thrykar acquiesced, with the proviso that neither of them should wander far from the hollow in which the ship was located. He was perfectly aware of his limitations in an uncivilized environment, and knew that it wouldn’t take a very skillful stalker to approach them without their knowing it. In the open, that could be dangerous; with the ship and its equipment at hand, countermeasures could always be taken.