“Why everybody come crashing home?” she asked through the imp link.
“Ice,” Richard replied, raising his boot to show its bottom. “The thick tread on these boots gets packed with ice, and when we step on the floor of the airlock, which is just a degree or so warmer than the freezing point, it instantly becomes slick as glass. We’ll have to be careful of that first step inside — or else put down a doormat!”
Soon they were all inside and out of their suits. With a sigh, Sam plopped himself into the sofa in the lounge.
“After all those months in zero-gee, just carrying myself around is work,” he said.
Richard agreed, and headed purposefully for the hot shower, stepping neatly in front of Shirley. She glared, but sat down again.
“Guess we better get the reports going in before we forget anything,” she said.
“Those ice-rugs … I don’t know what to say,” said Katrina.
“A first,” whispered Deirdre to Cinnamon.
“Well,” said David, “They’re very intelligent, they live somehow I just can’t understand, and they’ve got some kind of sophisticated government, even! I’m just glad they’re musicians!”
“Doesn’t help the rest of us,” grunted George.
“They’re a very different life-form from anything we’ve ever met,” concluded Cinnamon.
Deirdre concurred. “A combination, it is, of plant and animal — and intelligent. Still, it concerns me that you gave it the microscope, Katrina.”
“It was nothing, such a little thing, and I meant it to be friendly!” protested Katrina.
“Isn’t history full of such well-meaning gifts?” said Deirdre grimly. “Starlings, now, what could be the harm in them? And the lovely gray squirrels…”
“Oh, now, Deirdre,” said Cinnamon. “This isn’t the same, Pink-Orb said they already have microscopes, they use them as we do…”
“But they are not us, nor like us at all!” maintained Deirdre fiercely. “And we cannot logically expect it. We must remain detached, and learn, but neither help nor hinder when we don’t know which it is we’re doing!”
The dispute had ended inconclusively, as always, and amity was restored swiftly over a relaxing meal of a hearty soup with real vegetables and chewy chunks of algae pseudo-beef, served with Arielle-baked croissants, prepared in the tiny galley and eaten together in the small lounge. Three of them crowded into the soft sofa looking out the large view port window at the distant gathering of icerugs and flouwen, with two more sitting on the floor, two perched on the sofa back, and two on the galley stools. Gratefully they slurped at the mugs, which were a nice change from free-fall squeezers, while making themselves comfortable again. The humans, so carefully chosen years ago for their cooperative natures, had long since discarded any tendency to quarrel.
“I don’t know about you,” interjected Thomas, nibbling the crusty bits at the ends of his croissant that he had saved for last. “But I’m heading for my bunk. Slavedriver Shirley will be needing my body tomorrow to lower the Dragonfly.”
“Don’t forget to do your debriefing reports,” reminded George. “Our primary purpose here is to gather information and pass it back to Earth.”
“Let’s sort out our report together,” suggested Katrina to Cinnamon and Deirdre. “We’ll direct it to Nels, including everything we saw. Perhaps, with James’s help, he can come up with some answers to how this icerug creature lives — and how it got that way!” Cinnamon agreed instantly.
Deirdre was less enthusiastic. “Send Nels all we know, that’s fine, but we’re the ones who can best study the creatures, being on the spot. Reports of icerugs — it’ll read like reports of dragons — he’ll not be quite able to believe it’s the truth we’re telling.”
Shirley stood, as Richard emerged from the shower, refreshed and dressed in his night coverall. “My report can wait just a bit,” she said. “My turn for the hot water.”
George glanced up. “Let’s not linger over these reports anyway,” he advised. “Just dump all the facts and observations you picked up into James and let him sort through them. We need to get some sleep. We’ve got only seven hours to sunrise, and first thing tomorrow we have to put the Dragonfly together. I’d like to get the flouwen into the water as soon as possible after that, then we’ll visit the big city.”
CHAPTER 05 — LOWERING
During the first part of the seven-hour night, well illuminated by Gargantua moving from half-moon through full-moon and back to half-moon again, the flouwen learned from Gray-Mote that the icerugs also spent some part of the day “doing nothing at all”.
“During the dark period that occurs near the middle of the day, when the Sun-God goes behind the Night-God, so that the eye of the Night-God is completely closed, it becomes very dark indeed. Without the energy coming into our bodies from the light emitted by the Sun-God, we imitate the Night-God and close our eye and rest. During that time, we will not be able to converse with you.”
#We find something else to do then,# said Little Purple. #Maybe find something to eat.#
*Hungry now!* announced Little Red. Manipulating within the confines of his suit one of the self-sealing bags that carried a supply of preserved food, Little Red removed a strand of dried flatweed and proceeded to digest it. The top of the strand could be seen in his head behind his “eyes” where the images of the three icerug nodes were focused on the red flesh inside his lensed helmet.
“How extraordinary!” exclaimed Gray-Mote, putting its monocle up before its eye to look closer at the slowly disappearing strand of seaweed. “I can see you digesting your food! How did it get there? Where is your mouth?”
*All of me is mouth,* replied Little Red nonchalantly.
“But I can see your eye portion looking at me, so that isn’t mouth,” objected Gray-Mote.
In reply, Little Red moved the piece of flatweed right to the surface of his body and continued to digest his snack right where the image coming through his left lens was focused. *All of me is mouth,* he repeated. He swirled his fluid body around inside his helmet, the piece of flatweed moving with it, until he had cleared his lenses and had two eyes back again. *All of me is eye, too.*
“But you have arms,” objected Yellow-Star, pointing with one of its four jade tentacles at the glassy-foil covered pseudopods extending from holes in the neckring of Little Red’s suit. “Three of them.”
In reply, Little Red collapsed all three sleeves and drew the flesh into his suit, then filled the sleeves again. *All of me is arm, too.*
“But you are obviously intelligent beings, so you must have a brain,” said Pink-Orb.
*All of me is brain, too.* said Little Red smugly. *Smart brain!*
“Then you have no specialized structures inside that protective clothing?” asked Gray-Mote, finally beginning to comprehend the true alienness of the colorful creatures standing before it.
^All cells in our body are the same,^ said Little White. ^All of them work at all things. But the whole of us is more than just all cells added up. The bigger we grow, the smarter we grow. We three are buds from our primaries, which are much bigger. They much smarter too.^
“Most extraordinary,” echoed Pink-Orb. “My fellow researchers at the Center for Scientific Studies will be most interested in hearing about a creature that is all brain.”
Gray-Mote added in its agreement. “And I am certain that when my reports are received at the Center for Medical Studies they will be most interested in hearing about a creature that is all mouth. Indeed, all everything.” Gray-Mote looked close again at the fast-disappearing seaweed strand. “That looks like a piece of seaweed.”
*Flatweed.*
^Flatweed is plant, grows near volcanic vents in ocean of Eau on Rocheworld,^ explained Little White. ^May be like plants you have in your oceans.^
“We could compare,” said Gray-Mote. “I have some seaweed stored in my food locker. I will bring it here, along with some samples of the other kinds of food we eat.”
>
Little Red opened his food bag to get some pieces of food to share. He was about to open the zipper on his suit to put them outside when he paused.
*If we touch air here, what will happen?*
^The human Shirley said air is not poisonous to humans, so it cannot be too dangerous.^
Little Red unzipped a small opening in his suit and extended a cautious red probe of flesh. Reassured, he said, *Thick. But not poisonous.* It did indeed seem dense to the flouwen. On their native planet, Rocheworld, the pressure was twenty percent of that of Earth. Here — as the humans had observed — it was four times higher in pressure and density.
Little Red brought out some of the food supplies Cinnamon had stuffed into his suit, some flatweed, a flitter wing, and a light-brown flat creature that the humans called a ‘gingersnap’.
*Here, taste!* said Little Red, thrusting the food toward the icerugs in the direct manner of the flouwen. The three icerugs each took a tiny sample, put them into their sharp-toothed mouths and chewed thoughtfully.
“Peculiar, but not inedible,” said Gray-Mote. Its eye turned away to look back on its carpet. “The samples of our food will be here shortly.” With their limited eyesight, the flouwen were not aware of anything approaching, until all at once they spied some objects moving towards them across Gray-Mote’s carpet, as though they were flotsam moving on top of a turquoise wave.
“Ah,” said Pink-Orb, looking with satisfaction at the approaching food. “There is a tasty portion — a coelashark head. The cheek muscle meat is especially delicious. Do sample it.”
“I also brought a smallfish and some boardweed, somewhat like your flatweed but thicker. When dried it makes a good building material.”
“And when you are finished using it to make things, you can always eat it,” added Yellow-Star. “If you are hungry enough.”
Gray-Mote removed a small stone scalpel-like knife from a scabbard in the pouch hanging from its belt, and with its amazingly sharp blade, sliced off small portions of the various samples of food. Cutting a slice of meat off the coelashark head was the difficult part.
“You can’t get at the cheek meat from the outside,” said Gray-Mote, tapping the point of its knife on the armored jaw of the dead coelashark. “You have to go through on the inside.” With deft motions, the icerug surgeon used two tentacles to hold open the mouth of the coelashark, exposing the soft white skin inside, and used the other two to slice open the skin and remove the cheek muscle.
“No vermicysts, I suppose,” said Yellow-Star, bending its large eye down to look inside the coelashark mouth.
“No. I checked. Long ago,” said Gray-Mote. “The cheeks are snowy white.”
Gray-Mote held out samples of all the foods to the three flouwen.
Little Red was eager to try, and his approving remarks induced the other two to join him. Little White remembered to put a small portion of each different type of food into sample bags. “To take to Katrina,” he said.
“The human Katrina collects samples of everything,” said Gray-Mote, with understanding. “Certainly you may take back samples. In fact, you may take back the remains of the whole coelashark head. There is much to learn from examining it.”
#Very tasty indeed!# said Little Purple, after finishing his bit. Gray-Mote moved closer, trembling just a bit with interest. “That is surely significant that you can not only eat, but enjoy our food!”
^We must share a common ancestor,^ started Little White, but for once the translation computer, which had been so ably handling the conversation so far, stopped at the last word.
“I am sorry,” apologized Josephine as it took over the translation task from the computer program in Little White’s suit. “But there seems to be no icerug word for ‘ancestor’.”
“Strange!” interjected Thomas, who was monitoring the conversation of the icerugs and the flouwen from the comm console on Victoria. “Not even father or mother? How about husband or wife, or brother or sister? How about just ‘relative’?”
Josephine was firm. “No words indicating any personal relationships at all.”
“Must be a strong taboo — possibly related to a taboo about sex,” concluded Thomas. “Better steer away from that topic, Little White.”
“For some reason, that last phrase was not completely translated,” Gray-Mote finally said after a long wait.
“We must share a common taste,” corrected Little White, conscious that he was telling his first lie in his extremely long life. Flouwen could not lie to each other. Their mental processes were literally too transparent to the three-dimensional view of their insides that sonar sight provided. The coming of the humans had now taught Little White how to do something else that had never been done before by flouwen — and Little White was not sure he liked it.
“Yet, how different we are,” mused Gray-Mote for a moment, then suddenly the icerug physician had another idea. “Here! Taste you of my flesh!” The flouwen were silent, horrified at such a suggestion.
^Although we share memories with other flouwen by giving them a small taste of memory chemicals, we don’t eat each other’s flesh. We only eat animals and plants.^
“No, no, it’s quite all right. We don’t mind a bit,” Gray-Mote replied in reassurance. “We routinely trade flesh with each other. It will be a most interesting scientific experiment to see if you like it! You don’t need to reciprocate if it would bother you.” The icerug budded off three small portions of its body and held out the turquoise chunks of its flesh with its tentacle. The pieces of flesh remained flaccid, unlike an equivalently small portion budded off from a flouwen — which would have been very active.
Not so eager now, Little Red waited, until both Little Purple and Little White had brought their shares within the confines of their suits and tasted them.
#Strange!# said Little Purple. #First, almost a memory, but not quite — like sharing thoughts with someone far from your pod who uses different words for things. But then … it just tastes like food.#
^I tasted that, too,^ said Little White. ^Strong memories with bright pictures, all strange to me.^
*Almost, I understood,* said Little Red with unaccustomed seriousness. *A bit, about water, almost clear, but then — crazy sounds and colors.*
^We can taste some of your memories,^ concluded Little White. ^But they are not clear.^
“The fact that you could taste any memories at all is most interesting,” said Gray-Mote. “This will certainly be of interest to those in the Center for Medical Studies — transferring knowledge by means of taste. Perhaps you could go there to help them conduct some experiments.”
^We have other work to do here,^ said Little White firmly. ^We must explore ocean under ice and meet the coelasharks.^ Little White, however, being a flouwen astronomer, was anxious to talk further with Pink-Orb, the icerug astronomer, to test the icerug’s level of understanding of planetary dynamics. He turned from Gray-Mote to Pink-Orb.
^You have predicted next eruption of the geyser-god Manannan will be when Near-God and Far-God and Sun-God are all in a line behind Ice. How do you know when gods are going to be all in a line when you can’t see them?^
The translation program in Little White’s suit converted the flouwen’s question, and the suit imp on the outside of Little White’s suit used its speaker cone to convert the question into deep sounding tones centered in the icerug’s hearing range. There was a pause as the eyes of the icerugs rolled around on their bent stalks as they looked at each other. Obviously, something again had gone wrong in the translation.
“I will answer your question,” finally replied Pink-Orb, after rolling its eye back to look at Little White. “But first, we need to remove a misunderstanding between us. Your statements, as we hear them from the glittering machine, refer to the objects in the skies with words that imply they are deities to be worshiped. It is true that our ancient ancestors gave those objects the names of gods, and sometimes, even today, we refer to their actions as if they were living
beings — such as saying ‘the Night-God closing its eye’ — but we know those objects are not gods. They are just spherical bodies composed of various different materials, that are orbiting around each other following the orbital laws.”
Thomas interjected a comment. “Same thing back in the solar system — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter — nearly all the planets and moons are named after old-time gods.”
Little White was relieved to hear what Pink-Orb had to say. ^Good! I thought you use stories about gods instead of mathematics to predict conjunctions.^
“Of course not!” said Pink-Orb loudly, and then went on. “I have excellent telescopes with which to observe the various objects in the sky. I have long observed the motions of the moons, and recorded their positions with respect to the stars. I also use mathematics to calculate their orbits with great precision and my calculations agree with my observations. It is relatively simple to use the orbital equations to calculate when those objects which are out of sight must be lined up with those objects which we can see.”
^Tell me how you calculate orbits of moons,^ said Little White.
“It is not easy.” The astronomer Pink-Orb was slightly condescending. “It starts with a simple mathematical rule, based on the logic of gravity for a spherical mass: One massive object will attract a second massive object with a force that is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the two objects, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the centers of mass of the two objects. The rule is relatively simple to apply to two or three spherical masses, but after that it is simple no longer, and must be solved by using approximations. With great patience, I and others at the Center for Scientific Studies have worked out the orbits and cycles for all of the objects in our sky, but it took a great deal of time. It is very complex mathematics, and only a few of us are capable of understanding it. I, however…”
Little White could not restrain himself longer. ^It is simple! Rule for many spheres is simple!^
#That’s right,# said Little Purple. #Rule combines complex variable substitution with coordinate transformation into an nth root dimensional space, where n is number of spheres.#
Ocean Under the Ice Page 13
