Still River

by Hal Clement

  “I wasn’t worrying, and I’m sure Carol wasn’t,” replied Molly. “Keep your eye open for life forms; we’ll want to compare the two hemispheres.”

  “Certainly. I have entered a cave that, according to my recorded diagram, provides a relatively quick path to the lowest level my machines have reached so far. I have seen no living organisms yet but am keeping lights on all around me. I’ve set my controller to follow the passage recorded and can devote full attention to observing. I will report anything worthy of note.”

  Joe fell silent, and routine supervened. Molly, supposedly looking out for noteworthy material, was letting her mind wander once more; she was wondering who would be next to break the silence and trying to decide whether Charley deserved odds if she were to bet on the point. She hoped partly that it would be Jenny, with more details about the local life chemistry, and partly that it would be Joe.

  She was also keeping rather close watch on her thermometer, since another thought had occurred to her. The local air was now well above the melting point of ice, but the last check had shown the river still to be somewhat below that temperature; it was evidently not yet pure water.

  It was Joe who won, perhaps half an hour after he had started underground.

  “There’s something strange about my diagram,” he reported. “It seems to be growing narrower at the lower end, as though the machines were finding fewer and fewer ways to go, and those were all funneling closer together. I find that both surprising and disturbing.”

  “So do I,” admitted Molly. “If only the polar regions are porous, you’ll really have to go back out and come for us the other way.”

  “And it will be necessary to rethink our ideas about planetary air circulation from the beginning. I shall investigate in person, of course, before committing us to any premature conclusions.”

  “Of course.” Molly hoped she had kept sarcasm out of her voice; if she had not, she was sure now that the Nethneen would spot it. She maintained silence for more minutes, wondering what Joe’s investigation would disclose.

  “This is a bit embarrassing,” the quiet voice resumed at length. “There seems to be no real change in the planetary structure. I made another thoughtless mistake in programming.”

  “Do you care to be specific?” Molly wasn’t sure she should have asked even that much, but couldn’t resist.

  “Of course; it will serve as a warning for all. I had, of course, equipped the machines to detect and home to free metal, since the search for you and your robot carries high priority.”

  “Of course. That seems perfectly reasonable so far.”

  “True. My mistake was in failing to provide for shutting off all the other metal sensors when one had responded. It appears that one of the machines has found a metal object, and all are now converging on it. I regret to admit that I am going to have to reset them individually when I get there. This will take some little time; I trust you will forgive me.”

  “It seems a natural mistake. I wonder what metal they found? Offhand, I see no reason for there being anything of the sort—how far?—two hundred, nearly three hundred kilometers below Enigma’s surface.” Molly was not just being polite; even she was more curious about the discovery than amused or resentful at the Nethneen’s planning slip. Not even Charley sounded superior as all chimed in with comforting remarks.

  “I will certainly examine what they have found, but will be some time getting to it. I suspect the approaching passages will be somewhat clogged with my robots.”

  “Maybe it will be in a cave.”

  “Maybe. I will let you know. I assume you are still traveling.”

  “Yes. Nothing to report. You, too, Charley?”

  “Nothing much. My river has joined a larger one; I am continuing to follow downstream.” None of them asked Jenny, presumably busy in her laboratory.

  It was more than two hours before Joe reported again.

  “It is in an open cave, but my machines are so clustered around whatever they found that I can’t see it yet.”

  “Maybe it’s just as well they didn’t find us,” Carol remarked.

  “Oh, they can’t be in actual contact; they were set to stop a few meters away and keep reporting position. I’ll have to reset a lot of them before I can see what’s there, though; if I merely push them out of the way, they go back as close as they can without interfering with each other. I’m starting to work now. Five or ten seconds will be enough on each—I’ll simply turn off the metal search.”

  With five hundred—but he won’t have to do all of them before getting to the middle of the pile, Molly thought. Well, we’ve waited longer before. She kept the thought to herself; there are times when ordinary courtesy goes in line with mere decency.

  The minutes passed, and the women resolutely kept their eyes and minds on the passing scenes revealed by their lights. There was still vegetation, if that’s what it really was. Neither of them had seen anything resembling animal life, in the sense that it could move around under its own power. Bushlike, grasslike, and totally strange growths showed both beside the river and in it. Again they stopped to check liquid temperature and, as far as they could, composition. It seemed fairly certain that the water percentage was now nearly total; there was nothing obvious to tell what the plants were doing about this. There was no point in collecting anything else; they would have had to discard something else, probably just as informative. They went on.

  Then Joe’s voice sounded, with the near-whisper that indicated use of the private channel.

  “Carol! Molly! There is a problem here. I am not sure what I should—no, I’ll have to face it and solve it myself.” He shifted to the general translator channel.

  “I’ve found what attacked the robots, and it is a little disconcerting.” He paused, long enough for Charley to get in his inevitable question.

  “What is it?”

  “It seems to be two suits of environmental armor, designed for different species. One I do not recognize by name, though I have seen members at the School. The other, while its design is not just like any I have ever seen, would fit a Kantrick. You could get into it, Charley, except for one fact.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It is already occupied, I regret to report.”

  “You mean there’s a—a…” Charley produced a choking sound that Molly had never heard from him. Before she could begin to speculate on what her translator was doing, and what sort of signal her fellow student was actually putting out, Joe responded.

  “Yes, I mean there are remains of the original occupants in both suits. I am not a good historian, but would guess from some of the more obvious engineering features of the armor that they have been here for perhaps a thousand years.”

  The stammering that had afflicted the Kantrick for a moment disappeared. “Have you examined them closely?” “Not very, and only by eye.”

  “What’s left of the bodies? Can you tell how they died?”

  “Very little is left. The Kantrick’s exoskeleton is there; soft parts such as eyes are not. The armor apparently remained functional long enough for biodegrading reactions to go well toward normal completion. The other being appears to have had a hard endoskeleton like Carol, Molly, and Jenny, and tissue seems to have shrunk around it. That may not be accurate; as I say, I am not really familiar with the species in question. The armor has no visible damage, and I would guess they died of chemical deprivation—suffocation, hunger, or thirst. What we feared was going to happen to Carol and Molly, before they managed to revive their robot. A power connection links the suits, which suggests that the two shared what resources they had as long as there were any. I would like to believe that, certainly.”

  “Any sign of how they got there?”

  “None. None that I recognize, at least.”

  Charley was silent for perhaps half a minute. Lor the first time, Carol seemed to have had her emotional armor pierced; she was clutching Molly’s arm tightly and breathing hard. The giant slipped h
er other arm around the small form and held her as close as their armor allowed. Molly herself had been afraid all along, but more afraid to admit it; the silence and darkness of Enigma’s caverns, coupled with the knowledge that nothing there would supply her with usable food or safe drink, had haunted the edges of her mind from the time she had gone underground. She had envied Carol’s ability to ignore the dangers, or inability to face up to them, whichever it was. Now the envy was gone, with real sympathy taking its place.

  Well as the two knew each other, Molly realized that their attitudes toward death were still hidden. She knew nothing whatever of the customs or religious beliefs of a single one of the School species, not even the Nethneen. It occurred to her that in an institution of several tens of thousands of beings, most of them as far as she had heard with life spans comparable to the Human one, there must have been numerous deaths since she and Rovor had arrived; but she had not been aware of a single one of them. Some aspect of Joe’s excessive privacy-consciousness? She couldn’t even guess; and she could not really tell how the Kantrick was reacting to the word of what appeared to be the death of one of his own people.

  Charley’s voice caught their attention again, and the Shervah released her grip on Molly. The Human kept her arm around the other as they listened.

  “Is there any record of students being lost doing lab work here?”

  “None that I know of.”

  “Molly, do you know?”

  “Of course I don’t. How could I? I’m among the first of my people ever to attend this institution; there hasn’t been a human being in this part of the galaxy until a very few years ago. You said yourself the planet had been used as a student lab for thousands. I should think you’d know if anyone does, Charley. You kept telling us about earlier student results being sealed or destroyed so that the lab work could be done over by new classes, but it seems unlikely to me that accident reports would get the same disposal.”

  “Then you honestly don’t know.”

  “I really and truly don’t.”

  There were several more seconds of silence from the Kantrick. When he did speak, it was very slowly, and on private channel to Molly.

  “I should have guessed.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Of Course That’s Why

  Once again, Molly found herself unable to understand the implication of the Kantrick’s remark or his reason for making it privately. She was also quite unable to think of an appropriate answer, other than the obvious “Why?”

  And Charley, as with his earlier prediction about the fate of the boat, seemed unwilling to pursue the matter further. He appeared content with making it clear to her and to her alone that he had an idea on the subject; its details might come later. Possibly after he had worked them out himself, Molly thought, and realized how unfair the thought might be. For the moment, he sounded almost like Joe being embarrassed by another oversight in planning.

  “It’s just something I should have thought of earlier. I’ll tell you when things work out” was all he would say before returning to general communication. Molly could ask no more; Joe was speaking again.

  “I don’t quite know what to do about these remains. They would fit in the mapper here with me, I suppose, but I’m not too happy at the thought of carrying them inside for the rest of the trip, and I’m not sure I could fasten them outside effectively with what rope I have. Charley, do you feel strongly about what happens to the body of one of your people? We can arrange to recover it later, of course.”

  So Joe wasn’t familiar with other peoples’—at least, with some other peoples’—funeral customs, either, but recognized that at least some groups did feel strongly about such things. Molly decided that perhaps her ignorance wasn’t her own fault, after all.

  The Kantrick responded promptly and with no sign of emotion. “It doesn’t matter to anyone alive, if your guess at the age is right. We should probably bring them back eventually in order to figure out just what happened, but I don’t see any reason for hurry. They’ve been here a long time and can wait awhile longer. I should think their translators would give some clue, but I suspect the archaeologists would shell us alive for separating those from the remains. I suppose there are translators with them?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t made a close enough examination. They’d be hidden inside the armor, and your point about archeology is well taken. Very well. It’s one of your people, as far as I can tell, and you have the say; with your permission we will leave them here for future attention.”

  “You have it.”

  Molly wondered what was going on in the Kantrick’s mind. She had had the feeling, from his initial response to Joe’s announcement, that he had been as shocked and bothered as she and Carol by the hard proof that death could actually strike a harmless student; like Carol, he had previously seemed unable to take in that fact on any but the coldly intellectual level. Now all signs of fear, or shock, or horror—whatever he had felt—had vanished, and he was treating Joe’s discovery as though it had been news of an abandoned robot. The Kantrick was not cold-blooded, except in the most literal physical sense; she had met enough of his people to recognize an approximately Human tendency toward affection and fellowship in them. Had Charley popped an emotional circuit breaker somewhere? Probably not, but there was something about him she definitely did not understand.

  “You have the location in your diagram.” The Kantrick was stating, not asking. Joe confirmed that he had. “I will examine the site myself, later, if work permits; you have no objection?”

  “Of course not.” Molly would have asked why anyone could possibly object; Joe did not. Maybe he understood the Kantrick better—or maybe it was just Joe. But why should Charley anticipate objection?

  Molly gave it up. Xenopsychology was interesting but unlikely to be useful right now. Back to work.

  “The mappers are spreading out satisfactorily,” Joe reported. “I should have them all back in service quite soon. There is no evidence that the makeup of Enigma’s crust is changing greatly; their behavior was entirely due to their response to the armor here, I feel certain.”

  “How far down did all this happen?” asked Molly.

  “Three hundred five kilometers below the cave at which I entered. That’s radial component, not along the travel line.”

  “And what’s the temperature there? I know your little robots can’t read it, but surely you have a thermometer in the one you’re riding.” For just a moment, Molly’s breath stopped; if Joe had forgotten that item, she had phrased the remark very tactlessly. Fortunately he had not.

  “I read two hundred eight-three.”

  “That’s only a little higher than we have. I wouldn’t have thought we could possibly be anywhere near your depth.”

  “You may not be. I have a cold wind following me from the surface, and silicate is a poor conductor with a fairly low heat capacity. The temperature deep in the rock around me may be a great deal higher. You are getting air from inside…”

  “But a river from outside.”

  “True.” Except for the one-word response, Joe ignored the interruption; Molly blushed unseen even by Carol. “Nevertheless, I could be deeper. We will know in due time. I have all my mappers back in service now and am heading deeper myself. It will be interesting to learn whether this porosity extends all the way to Enigma’s center.”

  “And what the temperature is there,” added Carol. “I wonder how far down this river will last and how far down the life will go, even if they both turn to water. Onward and downward, comrade.”

  “And how stable the caverns at the center are, if they do exist,” added Charley.

  “I told people to accompany that thought with the word creep,” Molly said firmly.

  “Sorry. I’ll be with you, if these rivers do join up. If we do get flattened, it will creep down on us together.”

  “Good try” was Molly’s dry retort.

  Joe, traveling by far the fastest, made the next re
port of real interest, but this was not for several more hours. In the meantime the other three explorers had all gone deeper, presumably by several kilometers, and the river followed by the women was now well above the melting temperature of ice. Molly was following this phenomenon with interest that surprised even Carol, stopping for analysis and thermometer check far more frequently than the Shervah wanted. The Human was following another idea of her own, though she had kept it to herself so far. Ammonia was now below the detection limit of the simple instrument in Carol’s armor. Ice had long since vanished from the rock, and living forms were becoming scarce and stunted.

  “It begins to look as though they were ammonia rather than water types,” Carol said thoughtfully, as she threw aside a tangle of filaments that might have been dead roots or a badly designed bird’s nest. “With that disappearing, they aren’t doing very well. Maybe Jenny’s high energy compounds don’t form this deep.”

  “You’d think the rivers would carry them at least as far as they themselves flow, if they form on the surface from stellar energy.” Molly was equally pensive. “Ordinary evolution can do a lot, but I suppose it does have its limits. I never heard of a supersonic flyer on any planet, for example. Earth has things that can do with incredibly little water, and these may be the ammonia equivalents; maybe we should sacrifice another of our already collected items and put it in a can.”

  Carol hesitated, as Molly had expected. “You’re pretty big. I don’t suppose there’s any space in your armor where you could tuck that thing, is there?”

  “Well…” Molly picked it up and considered. “There is room around the removable water and chemical flasks—the ones I bled water from before, for example. Putting foreign matter in there is not exactly good procedure, but the compartments are sealed from the rest of the suit, of course, so I can open them while it’s in use. Maybe—all right. I’ll take a chance. It was my idea about the plants, I’d like to check it out. This thing looks very dry; if a valve leaks and the specimen gets contaminated with water, don’t blame me.”