Star Light m-2

by Hal Clement

  He emerged at last into the light and the view field of the communicator. His appearance alone was something of a relief to Benj; the boy had concluded, just as the captain had, that the helmsmen could not be under the hull alive, and he had rather expected to see Dondragmer pulling bodies after him. The relief was only relative, of course; the burning question remained — where was Beetchermarlf?

  The captain was climbing out of the put and leaving the field of view. Maybe he was coming back to the bridge to make a detailed report. Benj, now showing clearly the symptoms of sleeplessness, waited silently with his fists clenched.

  But Dondragmer’s voice did not come. The captain had planned to tell the human observers what he had found, indeed; but on the way up the side of the hull, visible to them but unrecognized, he paused to talk to one of the men who was chipping ice from the lock exit.

  “I only got what the human Hoffman told me about what you found when your part first reached that stream,” he said. “Are there any more details I should know? I have the picture that you had just met someone at the point where the ground was almost up into the fog, but I never heard from Hoffman wheter it was Reffel or Kervenser. Who was it? And are the helicopters all right? There was an interruption just then — someone up above apparently caught sight of Kabremm back at the Esket, and I cut in myself because the stream you had found worried me. That’s why I split your part. Who was it you found?”

  “It was Kabremm.”

  Dondragmer almost lost his grip on the holdfasts.

  “Kabremm? Destigmet’s first officer? Her? And a human being recognized him — it was your screen he was seen on?”

  “It sounded that way, sir. He didn’t see our communicator until it was too late, and none of us thought for an instant that there was a chance of a human being telling one of us from another — at least, not between the time we recognized him ourselves and the time it was too late.”

  “but what is he doing here? This planet has three times the area of Mesklin; there are plenty of other places to be. I knew the commander was going to hit shoals sooner or later playing this Esket trick on the human beings, but I certainly never thought he’d ground on such silly bad luck as this.”

  “It’s not entirely chance, sir. Kabremm didn’t have time to tell us much, we took advantage of your order about exploring the stream to break up and get him out of sight of the communicator — but I understand this river has been giving trouble most of the night. There’s a buildup of ice five million or so cables downstream, no very far from the Esket, and a sort of ice river is flowing slowly into the hot lands. The Esket and the mines and the farms are right in its way.”

  “Farms?”

  “That’s what Destigmet calls them. Practically a Settlement with hydroponic tanks — a sort of oversized life — support right that doesn’t have to balance as closely as the cruiser ones do. Anyway, Destigmet sent out the Gwelf under Kabremm to explore upstream in the hop of finding out how bad the ice river was likely to get. They had grounded where we met them because of the fog — they could have flown over it easily enough, but they couldn’t have seen the riverbed through it.”

  “Then they must have arrived since the flood that brought us here, and if they were examining the riverbed they flew right over us. How could they possibly have missed out light?

  “I don’t know, sir. If Kabremm told Stakendee, I didn’t hear him.”

  Dondragmer gave the rippling equivalent of a shrug. “Probably he did, and made it a point to stay out of reach of our human eyes. I suppose Kervenser and Reffel ran into the Gwelf, and Reffel used his vision shutter to keep the dirigible from human sight; but I still don’t see why Kervenser, at least, didn’t come back to report.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know about any of that, either,” replied the sailor.

  “Then the river we’ve washed into must bend north, if it leads to the Esket area.” The other judged correctly that Dondragmer was merely thinking out loud, and made no comment. The captain pondered silently for another minute or two. “The big question is wheter the commander heard it, too, when the human — I suppose it was Mrs. Hoffman, she is about the only one that familiar with us — called out Kabremm’s name. If he did, he probably thought that someone had been careless back at the Esket, as I did. You heard her on your set and I heard her one mine, but that’s reasonable; they’re both Kwembly communicators, and probably all in one place up at the station. We don’t know, though, about their links with the Settlement. I’ve heard that all their communication equipment is in one room, but it must be a big room and the different sets may not be very close together. It’s equally possible that Barl did, or did not, hear her.

  “What it all shapes up to is that one human being has recognized an Esket crew member, not only alive long after they were all supposed to be dead , but five or six million cables from the place where they presumably died. We don’t know how certain this human was of the identification; certain enough to call Kabremm’s name on impulse, maybe no certain enough to report to other humans without further checking. After all, such a report could sound pretty silly without strong evidence. We don’t know wheter Barlennan knows of this slip; and worst of all, we can’t tell what he’s likely to answer when questions about it come his way. His safest and most probably line would be complete ignorance seasoned with shocked amazement, and I suppose he’ll realize that, but I certainly wish I could talk to him without having human beings along the corridor.”

  “Wouldn’t your best line be complete ignorance, too?” queried the sailor. Like all the Mesklinites on Dhrawn, he was fully aware of the trick being played on the human beings to get the Esket off their books. He also knew as much of the reason for it as Barlennan had made public. Very few — Dondragmer not among them — had been let all the way into the commander’s thinking.

  “It would be,” the captain answered, “but I can’t get away with it. I’ve already told the humans about your return. The most hopeful notion I have at the moment centers around the possibility of mistaken identity; how sure is Mrs. Hoffman, or whoever it was — the more I think of it, the more certain I am it was her voice; I wish I’d been paying more attention — that it was really Kabremm she saw? How does she tell us apart anyway? Coloration pattern? Walking style? Can she recognize any of us at a glance, or just a few whom she knows especially well, or does one have to have a missing leg, or no red on his head?

  “I’d use that line, except that I just don’t know what Barlennan is going to do — or if he’s in a position to have to do anything. If he didn’t hear that call, and the human is really suspicious, it wouldn’t take many trick questions to catch him out. Even if he did, and is warned, he’s in trouble, because then he’ll be worrying about what I’m likely to say. That’s the sort of thing I’ve been worried about ever since the beginning; with all long distance communication having to go through the humans, coordination of this trick was bound to get difficult. If we could have avoided slips until Destigmet had made enough wire to reach form the mines to the Settlement, and gotten it strung, the chances of getting away with the while thing would have gone up a lot.”

  “all that ever worried me,” replied the sailor as he resumed his chipping at the ice, “was what would happen when they did learn about what we were doing. I don’t suppose they’d really abandon us here — human beings don’t seem to be quite that firm, even on business deals — but they could as long as we don’t have spaceships of our own.”

  “That was the basic argument the commander gave, as you know,” returned Dondragmer. “They seem to be dependable beings, and personally I’d trust them as far as I would anyone, but they are different in some ways and one is never quite sure what they will consider an adequate motive, or excuse, for some action. That’s why the commander wanted to get us self-supporting on this world without their knowing about it. I’m glad Destigmet has done so well with his ‘farm.’ The mines were a long step, and the dirigibles were a triumph; but we’re a
long, long way from being able either to make, or to do without, the human-made energy boxes; and I sometimes wonders if the commander realizes just how beyond us those are.

  “But that’s not the immediate problem. I’m going to have to talk to the station again. I suppose my best policy is not to mention Kabremm unless they ask me, and if they do, try to convince them it was mistaken identity.”

  “Not mentioning it might make them suspicious,” pointed out the sailor.

  “It would be consistent with the mistaken-identify line, though. Thanks for the point; I hadn’t considered it. Carry on, and give me a wave on the bridge when the lock is clear.”

  The sailor gestured agreement, and Dondragmer at last got to the bridge.

  There was plenty to say to the human beings without mentioning Kabremm, and the captain began saying it as soon as he had doffed his airsuit.

  “At least one of the helmsmen was under the hull for a while, and probably both of them were, but I couldn’t find any trace of either one just now except work they had done trying to get out — at least, I can’t see any other reason for it; it certainly wasn’t an assigned job. They wrecked, or nearly wrecked, two of the trucks in the process. Much of the space under there is still frozen up, and I’m afraid they’re probably in the ice. We’ll search more carefully, with lights, when the crew comes back and I can spare the men. The water, or whatever it was, that was boiled away by our heater coated an ice layer on the hull which has sealed the main lock; we must get that back into service as quickly as possible. There is much equipment which can’t now be moved out if we have to abandon the Kwembly, and much which can’t be moved back inside if we don’t, because it won’t go through any other lock.

  “Also, the use of that heater caused the melting of about a body length of the radiator wire, and I don’t see how we are going to restore the refrigerator to service if we do get the Kwembly free. This may not be of immediate importance, but, if we do get back into service, we’d have to think twice about going very far into Low Alpha without refrigeration. One of the few things you people seem really sure of is that the low-pressure area is caused by high temperature, presumably from internal heat, and I know you set a very high priority on finding out about it. There is virtually no metal in the ship, and one of the few things I understand about that refrigerator is that its outside radiator must be an electrical conductor. Right?”

  The captain waited for his reply with some interest. He hoped that the technical problem would divert the human interest from the whole question of Kabremm and the Esket; but he knew that this would not have worked if he himself were on the other end of the conversation. Of course, Benj Hoffman was young — but he was probably not the only person there.

  At least it was Benj who answered; but he didn’t seem much interested in technology.

  “if you think they’re in the ice, shouldn’t people get down there right away and look? They might still be alive in those suits, mightn’t they? You said a while ago that no one had ever found out, but that at least seems to me that the longer you put off finding them, the less chance they have of living. Isn’t that the most important problem right now?”

  Easy’s voice followed on, before Dondragmer could frame an answer; she seemed to be talking to her son as well as to the captain.

  “It’s not quite the most important. The Kwembly is synonymous with the lives of its entire crew, son. The captain is not being callous about his men. I know you feel about your friend, and as a feeling it’s perfectly proper; but a person with responsibility has to think as well as feel.”

  “I though you were on my side.”

  “I feel with you very strongly, but that doesn’t keep me from knowing the captain is right.”

  “I suppose Barlennan would act the same way. Have you asked him what Dondragmer should do?”

  “I haven’t asked him, but he knows the situation — if you don’t think so, there’s the microphone; give your side of it to him. Personally I don’t think he’d dream of overriding Dondragmer or any other cruiser captain in such a matter, when he himself isn’t on the scene.” There was a pause while Benj hunted for words to refute this claim; he was still young enough to think that there was something fundamentally inhuman about thinking more than one step ahead at a time. After ten seconds or so of silence, Dondragmer assumed that the station transmission was over and a reply was in order.

  Mrs. Hoffman — I believe I recognized her voice — is quite right, Benj. I have not forgotten Beetchermarlf, any more than you have forgotten Takoorch, although it is obvious even to me that you are thinking less of him. It is simply that I have more lives to consider than theirs. I’m afraid I’ll have to leave any more discussion of it to her, right now. Would you please get some of your engineers thinking about the problem of my refrigerator? And you probably will see Borndender climbing the hull with his sample; the report about the stream should come up in a few minutes. If Mr. McDevitt is still there, please have him stand by; if he was left for any reason, will you please have him come back?”

  The watchers had seen a climbing Mesklinite as the captain had said, though not even Easy had recognized Borndender. Before Benj could say anything, McDevitt answered, “I’m still here, Captain. We’ll wait, and as soon as the analysis is here I’ll take it to the computer .If Borndender has any temperature and pressure readings to send along with his chemical information, they will all be useful.”

  The boy was still unhappy, but even he could see that this was not the time for further interruption. Also, his father had just entered the communication room, accompanied by Aucoin and Mersereau. Benj tactfully slid out of the seat in front of the bridge screen to make room for the planner, though he was too angry and upset to hope that his badly-chosen words of the last few minutes would go unmentioned. He was not even relieved when Easy, in bringing the newcomers up to date, left the question of the missing helmsmen unmentioned.

  Her account was interrupted by Dondragmer’s voice.

  “Borndender says that he has checked the density and boiling temperature of the liquid in the stream, and that it about three eights ammonia and five eights water. He also says that the outside temperature is 71, the pressure 26.6 standard atmospheres — our standard, of course — and the wind a little north of west, 21 degrees to be more precise, at 120 cables per hour. A very light breeze. Will that suffice for your computer?”

  “It will all help. I’m on my way,” replied McDevitt as he slid from his seat and headed toward the door. As he reached the exit he looked back thoughtfully, paused and called, “Benj, I hate to pull you from the screens right now, but I think you’d better come with me for a while. You should check me on the input, and you can bring the preliminary run back to report to Dondragmer while I do the recheck.”

  Easy kept her approval to herself as Benj silently followed his nominal chief. The approval was divided between McDevitt, for veering the youngster’s attention in a safe direction, and her son for a better example of self-control than she had really expected. She had known, of course, that he would not whine or throw a tantrum, but she would not have been surprised if he had come up with a reasonable excuse for staying at the screens.

  Aucoin paid no attention to the exchange; he was still trying to clarify his picture of the current state of affairs.

  “I take it that none of the missing personnel has turned up,” he said. “All right, I’ve been thinking it over. I assume that Barlennan had been up to date, as we agreed a few hours ago. Is there anything else which has happened, and which he has been told about but I haven’t?” Easy looked up quickly, trying to catch evidence of the resentment on the administrator’s face, but he seemed unaware that his words could possibly have been interpreted as criticism. She thought quickly before answering.

  “Yes. Roughly three hours ago, Cavanaugh reported action on one of the Esket screens. He saw a couple of objects sliding or rolling across the floor of the laboratory from one side of the screen to the other. I st
arted watching but nothing has happened there since.

  “Then an hour or so later, the search party Don had out for the missing helicopters met a Mesklinite which we, of course, took at first to be one of the pilots; but when he got close to the transmitter I recognized Kabremm, the first officer of the Esket.”

  “Six thousand miles from where the Esket’s crew is supposed to have died?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was his comment?”

  “Nothing specific. He acknowledged the whole report, but didn’t offer any theories.”

  “He didn’t even ask you how sure you were of the identification? Or on what you based it?”

  “No.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind I’d like to. Just how did you know Kabremm, and how certain are you that you were right?”

  “I knew him, before the loss of the Esket, well enough to make it difficult to say what I went by — he’s simply distinctive, in color pattern and stance and walk, just as you and Ib and Boyd are.”

  “The light was good enough for color pattern? It’s night down there.”

  There were lights near the set — though most of them were in front of it, in the field of view, and Kabremm was most backlighted.”

  “Do you know the two missing men well enough to be certain it was neither of them — do you know neither one looks like Kabremm?”

  Easy flushed. “It certainly wasn’t Kervenser, Don’s first officer. I’m afraid I don’t know Reffel well enough to be sure, that possibility hadn’t occurred to me. I just saw the man, and called out his name pretty much by reflex. After that I couldn’t do much but make a report; the Settlement microphone was alive at the time, and Barlennan, or whoever was on duty, could hardly have helped hearing me.”

  “Then there is a reasonable chance that Barlennan’s lack of comment was a polite attempt to avoid embarrassing you — to gloss over what may have seemed to him a silly mistake?”