Heavy Planet

by Hal Clement

  “But why shouldn’t he complain, or even ask for radios, if he has come to feel that he should have them?” The planner was not completely sidetracked, but Easy noted with approval that the defensiveness was gone from his tone. “I don’t know why,” Hoffman admitted. “I just remember what I’ve learned about our first dealings with Barlennan a few decades ago. He was a highly cooperative, practically worshipful agent for the mysterious aliens of Earth and Panesh and Dromm and these other mysterious places in the sky during most of the Gravity mission, doing our work for us just as we asked; then at the end he suddenly held us up for a blackmail jolt which five human beings, seven Paneshka, and nine Drommians out of every ten still think we should never have paid. You know as well as I do that teaching advanced technology, or even basic science, to a culture which isn’t yet into its mechanical revolution makes the sociologists see red because they feel that every race should have the right to go through its own kind of growing pains; makes the xenophobes scream because we’re arming the wicked aliens against us; gets the historians down on us because we’re burying priceless data; and annoys the administrative types because they’re afraid we’re setting up problems they haven’t learned to cope with yet.”

  “It’s the xenophobes who are the big problem,” Mersereau snapped. “The nuts who take it for granted that every non-human species would be an enemy if it had the technical capacity. That’s why we give the Mesklinites only equipment they can’t possibly duplicate themselves, like the fusion units: things which couldn’t be taken apart and studied in detail without about five stages of intermediate equipment like gamma-ray diffraction cameras, which the Mesklinites don’t have either. Alan’s argument sounds good, but it’s just an excuse. You know as well as I do that you could train a Mesklinite to fly a reasonably part-automated shuttle in two months if the controls were modified for his nippers, and that there isn’t a scientist in this station who wouldn’t give three quarts of his blood to have loads of physical specimens and instruments of his own improvising bouncing between here and Dhrawn’s surface.”

  “That’s not entirely right, though there are elements of truth in it,” Hoffman returned calmly. “I agree with your personal feeling about xenophobes, but it is a fact that with energy so cheap that a decently designed interstellar freighter can pay off its construction cost in four or five years, an interstellar war isn’t the flat impossibility it was once assumed to be. Also, you know why this station has such big rooms, uncomfortable as some of us find them and inefficient as they certainly are for some purposes. The average Drommian, if there were a room here he couldn’t get into, would assume that it contained something being deliberately kept secret from him. They have no concept of privacy, and by our standards most of them are seriously paranoid. If we had failed to share technology with them when contact was first made, we?d have created a planetful of highly competent xenophobes much more dangerous than anything even Earth has produced. I don?t know that Mesklinites would react the same way, but I still think that starting the College on Mesklin was the smartest piece of policy since they admitted the first Drommian student to M.LT.? “And the Mesklinites had to blackmail us into doing that.”

  “Embarrassingly true,” admitted Hoffman. “But that’s all a side issue. The current point is that we just don’t know what Barlennan really thinks or plans. We can, though, be perfectly sure that he didn’t agree to take two thousand of his people including himself onto an almost completely unknown world, certain to be highly dangerous even for a species like his, without having a very good reason indeed.”

  “We gave him a good reason,” pointed out Aucoin. “Yes. We tried to imitate him in the art of blackmail. We agreed to keep the College going on Mesklin, over the objections of many of our own people, if he would do the Dhrawn job for us. There was no suggestion on either side of material payment, though the Mesklinites are perfectly aware of the relation between knowledge and material wealth. I’m quite willing to admit that Barlennan is an idealist, but I’m not sure how much chauvinism there is in his idealism or how far either one will carry him. “All this is beside the point too. We shouldn’t be worrying about the choice of equipment provided for the Mesklinites. They agreed with the choice, whatever their private reservations may have been. We are still in a position to help them with information on physical facts they don’t know and which their scientists can hardly be expected to work out for themselves. We have high-speed computation. Right now we have one extremely expensive exploring machine frozen in on a lake on Dhrawn, together with about a hundred living beings who may be personnel to some of us but are personalities to the rest. If we want to change policy and insist on Barlennan’s accepting a shuttleful of new equipment, that’s fine; but it’s not the present problem, Boyd. I don’t know what we could send down right now that would be the slightest help to Dondragmer.”

  “I suppose you’re right, Ib, but I can’t help thinking about Kervenser, and how much better it would have been if—”

  “He could have carried one of the communicators, remember. Dondragmer had three besides the one on his bridge, all of them portable. The decision to take them or not was strictly on Kervenser himself and his captain. Let’s leave out the if’s for now and try to do some constructive planning.” Mersereau subsided, a little irritated at Ib for the latter’s choice of words but with his resentment of Aucoin’s attitude diverted for the moment. The planner took over the conversational lead again, looking down the table toward the end where the scientists had now fallen silent. “All right, Dr. McDevitt. Has any agreement been reached as to what probably happened?”

  “Not completely, but there is an idea worth checking further. As you know, the Kwembly’s observers had been reporting nearly constant temperature since the fog cleared; no radiational cooling; if anything, a very slight warming trend. Barometric readings have been rising very slowly at that place ever since the machine was stranded; readings before that time are meaningless because of the uncertain change in elevation. The temperatures have been well below the freezing points of either pure water or pure ammonia but rather above that of the ammonia monohydrate-water eutectic. We’re wondering whether the initial thaw might not have been caused by the ammonia fog’s reacting with the water snow on which the Kwembly was riding. Dondragmer was afraid of that possibility; and if so, the present freeze might be due to evaporation of ammonia from the eutectic. We’d need ammidity readings—”

  “What?” Hoffman and Aucoin cut in almost together. “Sorry. Office slang. Partial pressure of ammonia relative to the saturation value — equivalent of relative humidity for water. We’d need readings on that to confirm or kill the notion, and of course the Mesklinites haven’t been taking them.”

  “Could they?”

  “I’m sure we could work out a technique with them. I don’t know how long it would take. Water vapor wouldn’t interfere; its equilibrium pressure is four or five powers of ten smaller than ammonia’s in that temperature range. The job shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “I realize this is an hypothesis rather than a full-blown theory, but is it good enough to base action on?”

  “That would depend on the action.” Aucoin made a gesture of impatience, and the atmospheric physicist continued hastily. “That is, I wouldn’t risk an all-or-nothing breakout effort on it alone, but I’d be willing to try anything which didn’t commit the Kwemb/y to exhausting some critical supply she carries, or put her in obvious danger.” The planner nodded. “All right,” he said. “Would you rather stay here and supply us with more ideas, or would it be more effective to talk this one over with the Mesklinites?” McDevitt pursed his lips and thought for a moment. “We’ve been talking with them pretty frequently, but I suppose there’s more good likely to come from that direction than—” he stopped, and Easy and her husband concealed smiles. Aucoin nodded, appearing not to notice the faux pas. “All right. Go on back to Communications, and good luck. Let us know if either you or they come up with anything else tha
t seems worth trying.” The four scientists assented and left together. The ten remaining conference members were silent for some minutes before Aucoin voiced what all but one were thinking. “Let’s face it,” he said slowly. “The real argument is going to come when we relay this report to Barlennan.” Ib Hoffman jerked upright. “You haven’t yet?” he snapped. “Only the fact of the original stranding, which Easy told them, and occasional progress reports on the repair work. Nothing yet about the freeze-up.”

  “Why not?” Easy could read danger signals in her husband’s voice, and wondered whether she wanted to smooth this one over or not. Aucoin looked surprised at the question. “You know why as well as I do. Whether he learned about it now or ten hours from now or from Dondragmer when he gets back to the Settlement a year from now would make little difference. There is nothing Barlennan could do immediately to help, and the only thing he could do at all is something we’d rather he didn’t.”

  “And that is?” interjected Easy sweetly. She had about made up her mind which line to take. “That is, as you well know, sending one of the two land-cruisers still at the Settlement off to rescue the Kwembly, as he wanted to do for the Esket.”

  “And you still object to that.”

  “Certainly, for exactly the same reasons as before-which Barlennan, I admit, accepted that time. It’s not entirely that we have other specific plans for those two cruisers, but that’s part of it. Whatever you may think, Easy, I don’t dismiss life as unimportant merely because it isn’t human life. I do object, though, to wasting time and resources. Changing policy in the middle of an operation generally does both.”

  “But if you claim that Mesklinite lives mean as much to you as human ones, how can you talk about waste?”

  “You’re not thinking, Easy. I understand and don’t really blame you, but you’re ignoring the fact that the Kwembly is something like ten thousand miles airline from the Settlement, and more like thirteen thousand by the route they took. A rescue vehicle could not possibly cover that track in less than two hundred or two hundred and fifty hours. The last part of it, which the Kwembly traversed by being washed down a river, might not be findable and the last four thousand miles across the snow field may no longer be passable.”

  “We could give them directions with satellite fixes.”

  “We could, no doubt. The fact remains that unless Dondragmer can get himself, his crew, and his vehicle out of their present trouble, nothing Barlennan can send out for him is likely to be of the slightest help if the Kwembly is in real and immediate danger. If she is not, if it’s just a matter of being frozen in like a nineteenth-century whaler, they have indefinite supplies with their closed-cycle life system and fusion converters and we and Barlennan can plan a nice, leisurely rescue.”

  “Like Destigmet’s Esket,” retorted the woman with some bitterness. “It’s been over seven months, and you squelched all rescue talk then and ever since!”

  “That was a very different situation. The Esket is still standing there, unchanged as far as her vision sets can tell us, but her crew has dropped out of sight. We haven’t the faintest idea what has happened to them but since they’re not on board and haven’t been for all this time it’s impossible to believe they’re still alive. Even with all their abilities and physical toughness, Mesklinites couldn’t live on Dhrawn for seven months without a good deal more equipment than their air suits.” Easy had no answer. On pure logic, Aucoin was perfectly right; but she could not accept the idea that the situation was purely logical. Ib knew how she felt and decided that the time had come to change course again. He shared the planner’s opinion, up to a point, on basic policy; he also knew why his wife could not possibly accept it. “The real, immediate problem, as I see it,” Hoffman interjected, “is the one Don has with the men who are still outside. As I get it, two are under the ice, as far as anyone can tell; and no one seems to know whether that puddle is frozen to the bottom. In any case, judging by the work they were supposed to be doing, they’re in among the Kwembly’s trucks somewhere. I suppose that means a straight icepick-and-search job. I can’t guess what the chances are of an air suited Mesklinite’s living through that sort of thing. The temperature won’t bother them that far below melting water ice, but I don’t know what other physiological limitations they may have. “Don’s first officer is also missing, overdue from a helicopter flight. We can’t help directly, since he didn’t take a communicator with him, but there is another flier available. Has Dondragmer asked us to assist while a search is made with the other machine and a vision set?”

  “He hadn’t up to half an hour ago,” replied Mersereau. “Then I strongly advise that we suggest it to him.” Aucoin nodded agreement, and glanced at the woman. “Your job, I’d say, Easy.”

  “If someone hasn beaten me to it.” She rose, pinched Ib’s ear in passing, and left the room. “Next point,” Hoffman went on. “Granting that you may be right in opposing a rescue expedition from the Settlement, I think it’s time Barlennan was brought up to date about the Kwembly.”

  “Why ask for more troubles than we need?” retorted Aucoin. “I don’t like to argue with anyone, especially when he doesn’t really have to listen to me.”

  “I don’t think you’ll have to argue. Remember, he agreed with us the other time.”

  “You were saying a few minutes ago that you weren’t sure how sincere his agreements have been.”

  “I’m not, but if he had been strongly against us that time he’d have done just what he wanted and sent a crew out to help the Esket. He did, remember, on a couple of other occasions when there was a cruiser in trouble.”

  “That was much closer to the settlement, and we finally approved the action,” retorted Aucoin. “And you know as well as I do that we approved it because we could see that he was going to do it anyway.”

  “We approved it, Ib, because your wife was on Barlennan’s side both times and out-talked us. Your argument, incidentally, is a point against telling him about the present situation.”

  “Whose side was she on during the Esket argument? I still think we should tell Barlennan the present situation pronto. Plain honesty aside, the longer we wait the more certain he is to find out, sooner or later, that we’ve been censoring expedition reports on him.”

  “I wouldn’t call it censoring. We’ve never changed a thing.”

  “But you have delayed the relay plenty of times while you decided what he ought to know, and as I’ve said before I don’t think that’s the game as we agreed to play it with him. Pardon my reactionary sentiments, but on purely selfish grounds we’d be well advised to keep his confidence as long as possible.” Several of the others, who had listened in silence up to this point, spoke up almost at once when Hoffman expressed this sentiment. It took Aucoin several seconds to untangle their words, but it eventually became clear that the feeling of the group was with Ib. The chairman yielded gracefully; his technique did not involve standing in front of the bull. “All right, we pass on the complete report to Barlennan as soon as we adjourn.” He glanced at the winner. “That is, if Mrs. Hoffman hasn’t sent it already. What’s the next point?” One of the men who had done little but listen up to this point asked a question. “Forgive me if I didn’t follow you too clearly a few minutes ago. Ib, you and Alan both claim that Barlennan agreed with Project policy in limiting to an absolute minimum the amount of sophisticated equipment his expedition was to use. That was my understanding also; but you, Ib, just mentioned having doubts about Barlennan’s sincerity. Do any of those doubts stern from his accepting the helicopters?” Hoffman shook his head. “No. The arguments we used for their necessity were good, and the only surprising thing to me was that Barlennan didn’t anticipate them and take the equipment without argument.”

  “But Mesklinites are acrophobic by nature. The thought of flying, to anyone from a world like that, must be just unimaginable.” Ib smiled grimly. “True. But one of the first things Barlennan did after he made his deal with the Gravity people an
d started learning basic science was to design, build and fly, on Mesklin, in the polar zone where gravity is at its highest, a hot air balloon. Whatever is motivating Barlennan, it isn’t acrophobia. I don?t exactly doubt him; I?m just not sure of his thinking, if you?ll forgive a rather crude quibble.? “I agree,” Aucoin interjected. “And I think we’re running dry. I suggest we break up for, say, six hours. We can think, or go down to Comm and listen to the Mesklinites or talk with them; anything that will keep your thoughts on Dhrawn questions. You know my ideas about that.”

  “That’s where mine have been.” It was the same speaker. “I keep wondering about the Esket, every time one of the cruisers runs into trouble, even when the trouble is obviously natural.. “So do we all, I imagine,” rejoined Aucoin. “The more I think of it, the more I feel that her crew must have run into intelligent opposition. After all, we know there is life on Dhrawn, more than the bushes and pseudo-algae the Mesklinites have found. They wouldn’t account quantitatively for that atmosphere; there must be a complete ecological complex somewhere. I’d guess in the higher-temperature regions.”

  “Such as Low Alpha.” Hoffman completed the thought. “Yes, you don’t have ammonia and free oxygen in the same environment for very long, on the time scale of a planet. I can believe the possibility of an intelligent species here. We haven’t found any sign of it from space and the Mesklinite ground parties haven’t met it, unless the Esket did, but seventeen billion square miles of planet make a lot of good reasons for that. The idea is plausible and you’re not the first to get it but I don’t know where it leaves us. Barlennan thought of it too, according to Easy, and debated sending another cruiser to the area of the Esket’s loss specifically to seek and contact any intelligence that may be there; but even Barlennan was doubtful about undertaking a search. We certainly haven’t pushed it.”