by Hal Clement
Bad even with an apparently empty ocean, as a microtsunami immediately reminded him.
No one emerged from the cabin for some time. He spent the interval making sure the little ship was secure, and in brooding. He was mystified, and wanted in the worst way to ask questions, but could not get rid of the feeling that Wanaka had already provided at least part of an answer; and he was almost neurotic about making a fool of himself. Ship and child had arrived safely, which seemed to confirm the implication of Wanaka’s “they,” but still left unanswered several questions Mike didn’t quite want to ask because he feared he should know the answers already—she had, after all, been right about the return.
The most mysterious of all, and incidentally the most reasonable excuse for simply starting to ask questions regardless of personal face, was of course: How had ’Ao found her way back?
What could the sighting on the suns have had to do with it? There had been no way to get results to the child on a planet where the loudest sound of a bullhorn would be drowned out by thunder in a few hundred meters, the brightest portable signal light stopped by haze in a kilometer or two, and constant lightning and ionized haze made essentially all electromagnetic communication equipment useless. Hoani had no confidence in the concept of telepathy, and was quite sure that if it really occurred and the people of Kainui had reduced it to engineering practice, either their culture would be very different from what he had seen so far or the range of the phenomenon was disappointingly short.
Best to wait for more orders. One could hope that Wanaka, with the responsibilities of a captain, wouldn’t merely give him a detail-free command like, “Start it growing again,” just to see how much Mike had figured out for himself. He could answer that one with some confidence, of course, since he was quite sure the little ship was still growing—but maybe it wasn’t! How could he be sure?
Stop it, Mike Hoani. She can’t expect you to know everything.
Or would she?
With nothing, as far as he knew, left to watch for, Mike immersed himself more and more deeply in his brooding. Speculations that centered more and more, as the minutes went by, around that word “they.”
And around the natural near-total absence of silicon in a highly acid ocean. And the long-obvious fact that the doll contained some sort of data-handling gear. And the fact that a good quiz answer might, after all, consist in asking a straightforward question.
Which, of course, might still make him look silly.
Equally of course, the principal set of generally silly questions consisted of those not asked. The only specific exceptions he could think of at the moment were “Are you crazy?” and “Can I trust you?” Maybe he’d get the first for an answer. It would be nice to be able to show he wasn’t, and maybe nicer to have someone else appear silly.
Mike made up his mind at last, and brought his attention back to Malolo’s surroundings. He could only guess how long he had been musing, but began to wonder why no one had emerged from the cabin. Was ’Ao in real trouble from hunger or possibly oxygen lack? That seemed unlikely. While almost certainly concerned about such matters, judging by her haste in getting to the cabin, she had been active and well coordinated when she arrived.
No doubt she was reporting in detail to the captain. Mike would like to have heard the details of that report, but had, after all, been ordered to stay on watch.
So he watched. No ships. No patches of metal-reducing pseudolife, as least any that he could recognize. Nothing to run into, presumably; Malolo was essentially motionless with respect to the surrounding water. No waterspouts with constant bearing; keeping sure of that took more of his attention, now that he had really decided to ask a question, than anything else.
Occasional spells of doubt about the wisdom of asking that particular question at all, or whether to do it inside the cabin or out, or which of the group it would be best to have listening when he asked it, did occur; but he held firm to the basic decision and settled the corollary details one by one.
Outside. With everyone present. With all helmets off, especially the child’s; Mike was pretty good now at reading expressions around breathing masks, he felt sure. So what were they all doing? When would they come out for whatever needed to be done next?
He had completely forgotten again that the child had probably had little food or sleep for at least a day and a half, until he began to feel sleepy himself, and that raised a new if minor question. Just when would he be relieved? Should he use the signal bell? Wanaka would never have forgotten such a matter. Never. She was, after all, a rated ship’s master. For some reason, even Mike was unable really to worry about such a slip on her part.
He was, however, very tired and almost hungry enough to nibble on his suit’s emergency food before anyone appeared from the cabin. Then it was only the adults, reasonably enough, so he couldn’t ask his question right away.
The little catamaran was inspected thoughtfully, with no comments that Mike could catch—it was moored now to the cabin, and he was still on the old hull. Then time was spent resetting the submerged sails, with both Wanaka and Keokolo in the water. Then another sight was taken, this time by Keo, on the suns and on the twin planet, which even without instruments was now visibly lower in the western sky. So much for any possibility that the other sighting had somehow been transmitted to ’Ao.
Then Mike was dismissed with the unneeded advice to eat, sleep, and check breathing gear while Wanaka took over the control lines and Keo began reeling in the “leaf.”
Inside the cabin there was nothing surprising. ’Ao was asleep, not in her hammock as expected but on one of the cots. Her back was turned toward anyone in the room, and it was obvious even to Mike that the pattern between her shoulders was more complex. Since she was deeply asleep, he decided not to congratulate her just yet. Very briefly he considered asking his question of the others anyway, but thought better of it. After all, he wanted to check everyone’s reaction, whether or not he got an answer. All he could think of now to worry about was whether, with routine pretty well restored, he would have to wait for another emergency before everyone would be on deck again.
He didn’t. The half-grown ship called for nonstandard activity, he found almost immediately on being roused himself. He was told that it was still growing, and that the process would cease only when the first coat of protective paint was applied. This would have to be done quickly enough so that one hull wouldn’t outgrow the other too much, though actually this would probably happen to some very slight extent. Even though the process was not actually a painting job but merely a planting of very sticky seeds along each keel, the growth of the “paint” was never perfectly uniform.
This was all interesting, but to Mike the good point was that everyone would be outside the cabin for a lot of the time even before the growing was ended. It was less than a day, in fact, before the chance came to ask his planned question.
He was back on the control lines, with ’Ao beside him still giving occasional advice in Finger. The weather was calm enough to allow helmets to be open. The only problem at first was that both captain and mate were on the old hull, too distant for a question asked in a normal voice to be audible above the thunder, even allowing for the usual effect of the thunder on a “normal” voice.
Then for some reason the officers both went to the growing ship, not yet noticeably larger than when ’Ao had brought it back. It was still moored to the cabin, but had been brought between that structure and the old hull to render it more accessible, so Wanaka and Keo were only a couple of meters away.
For just a moment Mike’s determination wavered, but he managed to keep control of himself. He got the question out.
“’Oloa, how did you know which way to tell ’Ao to steer?”
Only the child looked startled. She glanced at her elders, obviously wanting advice. The captain gave a very slight nod.
“Tell him, ’Oloa.” It was ’Ao who spoke, not Wanaka.
“I have an inertial system
,” piped the doll. Mike’s mind raced.
“Of course, you can’t guide us to Muamoko.” He made it a statement, not a question.
“Of course. I don’t know where it is.”
“You couldn’t estimate?” The doll was silent.
“I don’t think she knows that word,” said ’Ao. “I’m just guessing at it myself.”
“Too many variables, anyway,” the captain interjected. Mike nodded thoughtfully.
“Silicon?” he asked. Wanaka smiled visibly around her mask.
“Yes. Imported. ’Ao’s parents are quite wealthy, and are very fond of her. ’Oloa cost more than Malolo did. They very much want to get ’Ao back, properly educated, of course.”
“Did I get those points just for waiting?” ’Ao asked.
“More for knowing when to stop waiting, and most for the general recovery,” was the answer. “You’ll have to wait longer before I can post them all, though. I promise that’s the first thing I’ll do when we have the cabin installed on—what should we call the new ship?”
“Humuhumunukunukuapua’a ?” suggested the child.
“It won’t be very small when it finishes growing, remember.”
“Well—it has to be some kind of fish. That’s the rule, since there aren’t any real ones on Kainui.”
“How about Mata’italiga ?” suggested Mike again. He was beginning to get a grasp of some of the more abstract customs. The hammerhead shark was a variety whose name might not have survived very well in the Kainuian language mixture, and therefore be less an everyday name since Samoan seemed to form a rather small fraction of the evolved tongues.
“Kumu,” suggested the captain.
“Pilikia,” was Keo’s rather cynical suggestion.
“We have trouble enough,” retorted the child and the captain, almost together.
“I know. Sorry. I’ll settle for Mike’s suggestion.”
’Ao approved immediately, perhaps out of courtesy, and the other suggestions were dropped, partly because a converging spout and thunderstorm made maneuvering necessary and upset the sea-anchor arrangement once more. ’Ao scurried back to Mata with an armful of oxygen canisters to replace the ones she had used while away, and lashed them and herself in place. Very seldom does only one thing happen at a time.
But practically nothing hectic occurred for several days—at least, nothing out of the ordinary, though no one had reason to be bored, especially when at the sea-anchor controls.
Mata’italiga grew visibly. The captain checked over the seeds that would provide its protective coatings and stop its own growth. She, Keo, ’Ao, and even Mike held several discussions over the best order for applying them, all realizing that any given selection could be wrong. Mike became very fluent in Finger, and while no formal declaration about it was yet made, effectively reached the status of able-bodied seaman. Even ’Ao came to trust him at the sea-anchor lines.
Mata’s growth would have to be stopped at a rather precise size, in order to install the old cabin properly. They were, Wanaka and Keo judged, within two or three weeks of this point when temptation reared its head.
And the captain yielded.
Wanaka was a highly skilled sailor and a more than competent trader; she had contributed significantly to the general wealth of the city of Muamoku in recent years. For reasonable decisions, one needed reliable data, and she knew this perfectly well. She became less sure of herself when data seemed less than reliable, but usually made decisions anyway, as she did this time—quite aware that doing so might be expensive or fatal. She knew, in other words, that life was sometimes a gamble, and accepted the fact. She also accepted the fact that failure to decide was itself a decision, and therefore a gamble.
The decision this time was clear enough, considering both the available and unavailable facts. What was left of Malolo drifted into contact with a patch of weedy jelly rather similar to the iron source that had given Mike his first experience with Kainuian metal recovery. It was not quite a collision; the mine, or fish, whose species no one on board could recognize offhand, was riding the poleward surface current, while the ship was holding against this as well as could be managed with the sea anchors. The current itself was not very strong, however, by this time. They were much farther south than Wanaka liked; their “navigation” had been far from perfect.
The pseudoorganism was much larger, apparently, than the iron and copper sources Mike had seen before. Like those creatures, this one’s body was a huge and gelatinous expanse floating a meter or so below the surface of the sea, covered even more completely with the energy-drinking “leaves” than the iron-fish had been. Its total size could not be made out from any one spot. Leaf shape and color were markedly different from the others.
Wanaka didn’t consider this at first, however; the immediately meaningful fact was that the sea anchor, or at least its control lines, had been trapped in the jelly. Malolo’s remaining pieces as well as the growing Mata had essentially become part of the drifting organism.
Specifically, they were drifting with it, away from the equator as if they weren’t already farther than anyone wanted. No sun-sighting was needed to know that; ’Oloa confirmed the fact when asked. The doll was being consulted much more frequently now; Mike suspected that he had not been told about its nature and uses earlier because he had had no need to know, and might have said something unwise when mixing with the crew of another ship. Neither Wanaka nor Keo had confirmed or denied this suspicion because, being Mike, he hadn’t asked.
The drift of the organism was not rapid, and would presumably become less so as the low-salinity current weakened and grew saltier with changing latitude. They would not, Hoani supposed, be carried too far from the latitude where they had met this fish; he guessed they could separate themselves from the thing in a day or two at the most, perhaps much less.
Like Wanaka, he had reached a conclusion with inadequate data. Unlike her, he didn’t know it.
Just how long it would have taken to get untangled from the pseudoorganism he never found out. Wanaka issued no orders on the subject. She questioned Keo intensively—excessively, Mike felt—about his certainty that he had never seen or heard of this particular species of fish. She even asked ’Ao. She sent the mate overboard, and even went herself, to collect leaves and leaf stems and bits of the thing’s tissue, and to look for pods of water and metal. She spent time in the cabin consulting a voluminous reference work, one of the few items of written material aboard, apparently without result.
There were plenty of water pods to be found, but no metal.
And that was the lack of data that guided Wanaka’s decision.
Well, Mike thought quietly, it was her profession.
“We don’t need to worry about drifting away from this thing,” the captain remarked slowly, after much fruitless trying to identify it. “Mike, you stay on the ship in case anything does happen. Keo, ’Ao, and I will examine every bit of it we can reach, for however long it may take us, to find out just what besides water it gives. For a start, though, you and Keo deploy the leaf; you’ll have to pull it out, of course, since there’s no relative current now to drag on it. ’Ao, check the food; we won’t be in motion, and we may have to do something about getting new sea water into the growth tanks.”
Mike ventured a question, not seeing how this one could be silly.
“How long do you think we’ll stay with this thing?”
What he could see of her face looked determined. “We have no idea yet about how big it is, but we’re not leaving until we’ve either checked every square meter of it or found out what metal, or metals, it traps. It’s got to be something really rare, or we’d know already.”
“It couldn’t be something designed just to desalt water?” The question popped out before he meant it to, but Mike decided that it couldn’t be regarded as silly, either. She evidently didn’t; she paused before answering.
“I doubt it. The drinkable water is usually incidental to reducing met
al ions, and I don’t see much use in building a creature only for water and turning it loose at sea. Even for a city, there’s usually enough hail from storms to keep people in drink and baths. That’s one reason cities don’t usually let themselves drift too far north or south of the temperate storm belt. I suppose you could think of some excuse for a simple desalter, but this one is big enough for a city, it seems to me, and surely wouldn’t be floating free. Anyway,” she admitted frankly, “just the possibility of rare metals is enough to keep me right here. We’re staying ’til we’re sure, one way or the other. I hope you’re not too bored after the first few weeks.”
Hoani was a little startled at the suggested time, but tried not to show it. He had the sense not to say it, but still hoped they’d encounter another ship now and then; his own project could always use more language data.
He wondered how Wanaka and Keo would react to another ship’s appearing. The captain was clearly feeling possessive about this creature, just as the crew they had met earlier had seemed to feel about their copper mine. Wanaka had left this to them without argument, presumably as a matter of custom. If this creature were as potentially valuable as she seemed to hope, custom might not be enough for others—or conceivably, he suddenly thought, for her. He remembered the captain’s mentioning people “with a one-sided notion of trading.” This was a remarkably gentle description of piracy, after all.
And certainly there would be no question of escaping from anyone on Malolo’s remains even if they could be disentangled from the jelly.
Of course, if they were given time, Mata would be grown and assembled, and a new, smooth set of hulls might outsail—
No, it wouldn’t. Ships didn’t grow barnacles on Kainui.
He wondered briefly whether traveling away from the equator would make any change in their chance of meeting other vessels, but couldn’t bring himself to ask this question. He should know enough to answer it himself. He probably did; but some of the things he thought he knew suggested one answer, and some the other.
