Noise

by Hal Clement

  Eventually, the captain put her tools back and handed the armor back to the child. ’Ao looked at it gloatingly for a few seconds, then caught the other’s eye and hastily slipped back into the garment. The captain nodded toward the hammock—there were also two shelflike bunks, and Mike suspected the arrangements had been modified to allow for his presence—and ’Ao, with apparent reluctance, started to climb into it. Then she paused.

  “Is it all right if I use a bunk until Keo comes in?” she asked. Wanaka looked a little surprised, but nodded permission. Mike guessed the reason for the request; the little one lay down on her side so that anyone else in the cabin could see the new pattern. This would not have been practical in the hammock. The adults glanced at each other, but said nothing. The captain, after a few more minutes of writing, also retired; Mike still had much to do with his own records, and also doubted that the hammock would support him even in the local gravity.

  Nothing further happened for some hours. Malolo’s motion was as usual, and as long as he was seated Mike wasn’t bothered by its unpredictability. A bell whose tongue was mounted on a flexible but still airtight section of the wall signified the end of Keo’s watch, and the captain woke up and went on deck. Two or three minutes later, presumably after reporting status details to his commander, Keo came in. He took in the situation at a glance, smiled, and gently lifted the sleeping child and her doll into the hammock. The doll piped, “Good night, Keo.” The man answered, “Good night, ’Oloa,” dropped onto the shelf left vacant by the captain, bade Mike good night as well, and was asleep in moments. Mike, using the bunk from which ’Ao had been removed, followed suit a few minutes later.

  It was presumably still night when he woke again. Some hours must have passed, since the other bed was now occupied once more by the captain, but she, too, was sitting up.

  “What was that?” she asked. Mike had no answer, and no idea what had awakened him. Before he could say anything, the bell sounded—not the single tone that signified change of watch, but three sharp notes, louder than usual.

  “Ni’ui kanaau!” Wanaka leaped for the door. It took Mike a moment to work out her meaning, slightly because of the shifted glottal stop, more because of the mixture of Tahitian and Samoan, more still because he had not expected such language from the captain, and perhaps mostly because he himself was probably the only person now on Kainui who had ever actually seen a shark and might be expected to mention its entrails as a curse. He hesitated for a moment, wondering whether he would be any help on deck or would merely be in the way; then curiosity won. He left the child still asleep in the hammock. Whatever had awakened him and the captain had apparently failed to disturb her.

  Or the doll, he thought in passing.

  On the deck he could see that dawn was in the sky, though neither sun was yet visible. Kaihapa’s foggy disk showed plainly enough, a little less than full, almost imperceptibly lower than before in the west. Whatever Keokolo had to report to his captain must already have been said; she was giving orders, and included her passenger in them the moment she saw him.

  “Mike, take the tiller when Keo has us hove to. You can keep us that way well enough. We’re both taking lights overboard. We hit something, certainly not very big but we need to know if there are any nicks or scratches. Keo didn’t see anything, but we’ll check as completely as we can from bow to amidships. Even small scratches can get infected, and with that whatever-it-is sticking to the port hull we need to be really careful. I don’t like stopping even at night when we’re on the run like this, but—”

  “But we may not be running from anything, after all,” cut in Keokolo. “In any case, the quicker we make this check the sooner we can use the wind again. I’m ready, Wan.” Without waiting for an answer he flipped his helmet into place, latched it, strode forward, and went over the port bow. The captain also sealed herself and took the starboard hull. Mike followed orders, keeping the boom straight aft and watching the sail ripple.

  He could tell the approximate positions of the divers by the diffused glow of their hand lights. They moved very slowly indeed, apparently seeking something that might be hard to find. The passenger had some idea of why; the hulls, like the Kainuian cities and most other human artifacts, had been grown rather than manufactured. They were pseudolife, subject to infection by other pseudoorganisms. Like the crew’s armor they had four biologically very different protective coatings, each supposedly vulnerable to only a limited variety of microbes, but even a quite small nick or scratch could decrease Malolo’s biological protection by a quarter, or a half, or three-quarters, or completely.

  Mike could only guess how serious a worry the little bump, which had barely awakened him, might represent.

  He made no attempt to keep track of time, but both suns could be seen through the ubiquitous haze and Kaihapa had shrunk to obviously gibbous phase, though of course not moving visibly in the sky, before the two divers regained the deck and flipped back their helmets. Both shook their heads negatively.

  “Think we ought to start over, Captain? It’s daylight now.”

  Wanaka considered briefly, then vetoed the suggestion. “No. Get us under way again, but change course thirty degrees back for an hour or so. We can afford the time to tack if we need to. If that thing on the port hull is putting out scent, there should be a good fog of it all around us by now, and if anyone really is following us it’ll take ’em a while to pick up the new track. After an hour, we’ll—never mind; I’ll be back on watch by then. Maybe I’ll have a different idea after I’ve finished sleeping. At least, we have plenty of oxygen; we can afford a few days at search-only speed, with the leaf not out.”

  Mike ventured a suggestion, rather reluctantly. He was sure the likelihood was that his ignorance would make it a silly one.

  “Could we go back for a while and then change course to cross whatever trail we might have left? Would that be more confusing to anyone following?”

  Keo nodded approvingly, to Mike’s relief. “Could work, if no one’s close enough behind to see us at it.” Wanaka also nodded, but disappeared into the cabin with no further words.

  Mike could also have used more sleep, but decided not to bother. There was always a chance of seeing something new even with the haze, or hearing it through the continuous thunder, and as a passenger he could sleep at any time—almost. Also, walking around on the ever-heaving deck was still important practice. He wished what rails there were, were just a little higher; even under Kainuian gravity, there might not be time to lock his helmet if he lurched overboard.

  Eventually the captain reappeared, accompanied by ’Ao, and took the tiller. Keo started for the cabin, then paused.

  “Maybe we should check below. If anything did get to us, it might be easier to see from inside—and if anything is through either hull we’d better know it.”

  Wanaka merely nodded. The man disappeared through the forward hatch of the starboard hull, the child taking the port without comment. Mike, who had been on the point of retiring himself, decided to remain out for at least a little longer. It would be nice not to have to worry whether he should be worried or not.

  There seemed nothing unusual away from the catamaran. Thunderheads still showed their endless lightning as far as could be seen through the haze, the bumps and hollows of microtsunamis and wind-driven swells could still be felt, and occasional waterspouts were visible. The frequency of these had surprised Mike at first. The low gravity made for a high atmospheric scale height, only partly countered by high molecular weight, and the sea-level pressure was more than twice Earth’s to begin with; convection currents, whether driven by heat or humidity, tended to be far taller than at home and much more effective at lifting things. And, most decidedly, much more electrically violent.

  No vessels could be seen, though this meant little; sails and even running lights would not be visible a third of the way to the distant horizon.

  ’Ao reappeared and reported the starboard hull apparently tight. There wa
s a little bilgewater, but no more than usual. The captain nodded, and suggested that the child eat and then take the masthead. Mike expected no objection to this, and was quite right. ’Ao didn’t mind the motion, and there was always a chance of glory in spotting potential cargo. Even if the captain didn’t want to stop for it this time—Mike had no idea how much the little one knew or could infer about their present course—merely sighting a potential mine would be to her credit.

  She was out again in a few minutes, and Mike looked away uncomfortably as she hand-over-handed her way up the rungs of the mast with ’Oloa clinging to her shoulder, and settled with seeming comfort into the broad strap that formed Malolo’s crow’s nest. It was not too hard to look at her just now, the sky offering little distinct background. Later, when the suns neared the meridian, her wiggling and wobbling as the hulls shifted this way and that would become hard on the passenger’s stomach, especially as the deck underfoot would be affecting the line of sight from his own end. He wished there were some way of cutting his semicircular canals out of his nerve wiring—temporarily, of course. It would be worse, he reminded himself, if the horizon were visible, but this fact offered little comfort.

  He deliberately looked down and began walking around the deck, keeping safely away from the railing where there was one and even more carefully away from the verge where there was neither rail nor grab lines. He seemed to be getting some sort of sea legs at last; he didn’t fall or even stumble once, this time. Keo nodded approval at one point, when their glances met.

  ’Ao occasionally called a “nothing in sight” from her masthead, to show she was still awake, Mike assumed. He sometimes heard fainter voices from above and wondered whether she were talking to the doll or the latter were keeping her alert. Otherwise there was practically no conversation, and the passenger found his mind wandering among evolved Polynesian vocabulary and grammar rules. He wondered whether Wanaka would have used the term she had if ’Ao had been awake. Some cultures were highly critical of bad language, others had no grasp of the concept; the latter usually expressed annoyance more physically, he had noticed. He thought fleetingly of experimenting, but of course decided against it.

  His attention was recalled to the real world by a cry from the masthead.

  “Keo! Ship, starboard quarter, hove to. Mining, I think. Only one person on deck.”

  “Banners?” asked the helmsman.

  “Can’t see yet.”

  Keo brought Malolo into the wind, gestured Mike to the tiller, and leaped to the marked flexible section of the cabin wall. Wanaka emerged in seconds. She took in the situation at once, glanced at her own masthead to recheck which banners were flying, took Keo’s place, ordered him to take in some sail, and slowly approached the other vessel—not driving straight at it, but keeping Malolo’s bows some degrees to one side so they approached in a slow spiral.

  There was still only one person visible on the other deck; ’Ao’s probable inference that the rest were mining seemed valid. Wanaka called to the child.

  “Can you tell what they’re getting?”

  “Copper, I’m pretty sure.”

  Mike had by now spotted a field of leaves not, to him, significantly different from those on the iron-fish, but the captain seemed to accept the youngster’s judgment. The Earth native could see several pennons strung down a line from the other craft’s masthead, but could read none of them. He memorized as much of what he could see as possible; maybe ’Ao’s next explanation would be more comprehensible. Keo guessed some of his problem, and translated the flags.

  “They have copper and titanium, enough to trade.” He glanced at Wanaka, who nodded without saying anything, and the man ran up a flag Mike had not seen before.

  “Requesting permission to approach.” This time it was the captain who translated for him.

  The figure on the other deck beckoned the newcomers, then turned to the farther gunwale of its own craft and pulled up a collecting bucket familiar to Mike. It gestured at the invisible bearer, and another figure lifted itself into sight from the ocean. Mike couldn’t tell whether either was man or woman.

  Wanaka glanced up at her own masthead and called ’Ao down, and the three waited while the vessels, now essentially both hove to, drifted closer together. Keo, Mike, and the child stood motionless until Malolo’s port hull was less than two meters from the other’s single outrigger. Mike had been examining the vessel with interest. It was single-hulled with an outrigger, the breathing cabin only a little larger than their own, and the passenger, still allowing for his own inexperience, guessed that the crew could hardly number more than four or five.

  Wanaka must have reached the same conclusion. She said a few words to ’Ao and gestured toward the other vessel. The child promptly sealed her helmet and went overside. She reappeared at the other’s hull and was helped up by the one who had originally been on deck.

  In the next quarter hour two more swimmers emerged from the sea and doffed helmets. Mike had now realized with no surprise that he was a subject of close interest to all four of the other’s crew. He knew he was an impressive sight. An adult of Kainui looked quite ordinary to a Terrestrial when wearing sound armor, and more like a skeleton only when indoors where one could breathe properly. Mike, in armor, was frighteningly bulky.

  When the two crews finally mixed, he judged that the others were rather surprised that he could talk at all, and even more so when he proved, after a few minutes of listening, to be more at ease than any of Wanaka’s crew with the language of the others.

  It was, to his comfort and pleasure, much richer in Maori, though still far from pure. The languages of even the most literate cultures evolve, sometimes even more rapidly than their religions. He added much to his notes during the next few hours.

  The others were quite willing to trade. All four were male, and Mike never did feel quite sure which was the captain. Most of the talk, to which he listened carefully, was bargaining. He found that titanium was cheaper than copper, which might have told a planetologist something, and both were far cheaper than iron. The dealing concluded with a polite exchange of foods, since every ship had its own varieties of pseudovegetables, and a formal-sounding query to ’Ao whether she would care to be adopted by the other crew. She declined very politely and no one seemed to take offense.

  The other vessel still had cargo space, and was remaining to do some more copper mining when Malolo hoisted sail. There had been no suggestion that she stay and share this particular treasure; Mike had already gathered that finders-keepers was an accepted custom. This “fish” seemed far larger than the one he had seen before, and it seemed to him that there must be more than enough metal for both, again allowing for his own ignorance. But maybe copper-fish were less productive. He didn’t ask.

  Once under way again, Wanaka was visibly relieved, and made no secret of the reason.

  “If anyone really was smelling after us, they’ll lose interest when they see those others. We’ll get that thing off our hull in the morning, but we don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

  “Did you tell the others about that problem?” asked Mike.

  Wanaka and Keo both looked surprised. “No. Of course not. It wouldn’t have made them any more careful than they would be anyway, or any better able to fight if pirates did come along. With that much wealth already aboard, they probably won’t stay much longer anyway, and I expect they’ll be looking for a city by this time tomorrow.”

  This reminded Mike of something he knew, but hadn’t really considered carefully. Cities didn’t stay put on Kainui. They floated, and it didn’t much matter where, except for avoiding the tropical precipitation belt where the ocean was most dilute and things didn’t float so high. It was understood that he would eventually be brought back to Muamoku if Malolo survived, and he had been told this might take an unpredictably long time, but he hadn’t really grasped the fact that Wanaka really didn’t care at all where, or very much when, she disposed of her cargo. Presumably she and K
eokolo expected to get back to their child eventually, but it was not obvious just how intense an emotion was involved.

  Mike might be going to learn a great deal more about Kainui languages, customs, and history than he had expected or really hoped.

  He thought more of this now, but was not yet really worried. It was almost another day before he became so.

  They hove to at sunset this time, Wanaka being no longer concerned about followers. When daylight returned, Mike was left at the tiller and all three of the crew went overboard, the adults to work on the object clinging to the port hull, and ’Ao to make another and most minute check for impact scratches or nicks. All were out of sight for more than an hour.

  Keo appeared first, and paused to tell the passenger what was going on.

  “We still don’t know whether it’s really a scent tracer or something else,” he explained, “but we’d better get it off anyway. It’s really stuck to the outer paint, and we may have to damage that to get it loose. If we do, some of our infection defense will be gone.” Mike nodded; this was something he already understood. The other went on, “We have cleaning organisms of our own which should be able to grow between the outer coat and the stuff that’s sticking to it—bugs that are related to the coat itself. It’ll take a while for them to work, if they’re going to work at all. Maybe they won’t; this thing may have been designed to resist anything of that sort. The fact that it sticks so well to our outer layer suggests that it was made up with that paint in mind.”

  “Wouldn’t that mean they knew it was the Malolo ?”

  “Not necessarily. There are only so many things anyone uses in hull paint, and this thing might have a taste for several of them—maybe for all anyone knows how to make, if its designer was really good. We might wind up merely clearing its way to the inner coats. Not bored, I hope? Keep Malolo as she is; we don’t want to be left behind if the sails take wind.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m good at staying put.”

  Keokolo nodded, went to a locker at the base of one of the cabin walls, rummaged around in it for a while, took several articles out, and reclosed it. Then he nodded once more to Mike, closed his helmet, and went overside.