Classic Fiction

by Hal Clement

  It was Benj who answered, beating his mother by a second.

  “I heard you were the first Mesklinite to see the general idea of real science, and that you were the one who did most to get the College going. What do you mean, you wish you had learned more?”

  Easy cut in; like Benj, she used Dondragmer’s own language.

  “You know far more than I do, Don, and you are in command. If you hadn’t been convinced by what Katini told you, you wouldn’t have given those orders. You’ll have to get used to that feeling you don’t like; you’ve just collided with something new again. It’s like that time fifty years ago, long before I was born, when you suddenly realized that the science we aliens were using was just knowledge carried on past the common-sense level. Now you have bumped into the fact that no one—not even a commander—can know everything, and that you sometimes have to take professional advice. Calm down, Don!”

  Easy leaned back and looked at her son, who was the only one in the room to have followed her speech completely. The boy looked startled, and almost awestruck. Whatever impression she had made on Dondragmer—or would, when her words got to him—she had certainly got home to Benjamin Ibson Hoffman. It was an intoxicating sensation for a parent; she had to fight the urge to say more. She was assisted by an interruption, in a human voice.

  “Hey! What happened to the helicopter?”

  All eyes went to Reffel’s screen. There was a full second of silence. Then Easy snapped, “Benj, report to Dondragmer while I call Barlennan!”

  TO BE CONTINUED

  STARLIGHT

  Part III of IV. Any effort to explore any frontier is always an invitation to a new and unexpected way of dying. On a planet like Dhrawn, with a 40-gravity load, and a weirdly unstable atmo-hydrosphere, not even atomic-powered engines were an assurance of safety!

  Dhrawn is the star/planet companion of Lalande 21185, a red dwarf sun half a dozen light-years from the solar system. It has been bothering the cosmologists and planetologists. In terms of mass, it is on the borderline between typical Jovian planet and extreme dwarf star; in terms of composition, it seems to be as nearly destitute of light elements as Earth, or Venus. It is generating internal energy; its sun could not warm it above a few tens of degrees Kelvin, but there are local regions as hot as 1200°K. The atmosphere contains free oxygen, although the oceans (?) contain not only water but ammonia—a chemically unstable situation leading to the presumption that Dhrawn has active life.

  Direct exploration is impossible for human beings because of the forty-Earth surface gravity. It has been decided to hire natives of Mesklin, the variable-G planet of 61 Cygni A, to do the work. BARLENNAN, the Mesklinite sea captain who had worked with non-Mesklinite researchers on his own world fifty Earth years before, jumps at the offer—with unmentioned ideas of his own in connection with the deal. A Mesklin-con ditioned settlement is established on Dhrawn, and a dozen exploring vehicles to be manned by the Mesklinites are designed and built.

  One of these, the Kwembly, is commanded by DONDRAGMER, Barlennan’s first officer in the old days when they were carrying alien instruments around their own planet. One of the Kwembly’s helmsmen is a young sailor named BEETCHERMARLF.

  The surface work is being monitored from a station manned principally by human beings, in synchronous orbit six million miles from the planet. Its chief administrator is ALAN AUCOIN, who has a basic, though fairly well hidden, distrust of nonhuman beings. His staff includes EL1SE RICH HOFFMAN—“EASY”—who functions as interpreter with the Mesklinites, and general spreader of oil on troubled waters; and her husband IB HOFFMAN. Their seventeen-year-old son BENJ is also at the station, serving an apprenticeship in the aerology laboratory. Like his mother, Benj is an excellent natural linguist and can talk directly with the Mesklinites.

  A distrust has been developing between human and Mesklinite leaders, partly because of Aucoin’s attitude and partly from Barlennan’s underhanded activities. Even though field communication between the settlement on Dhrawn and the land-cruisers has to be relayed through the human station, Barlennan has been working to establish another settlement independent of, and unknown to, the human beings. Toward this end he has arranged the “loss” of the land-cruiser Esket and the disappearance of her crew. The Esket is being used as the nucleus of the new settlement, at which mining and other activities leading toward local self-sufficiency are being carried on.

  Now, however, genuine troubles are developing. The complex phase relationships between water and ammonia have been outwitting the human aerologists and their computers, and Dondragmer’s Kwembly has been washed down a river formed by a suddenly melting “snow” field, grounded, damaged, partly repaired, and finally frozen in. Beetchermarlf and a companion have been trapped under the cruiser by the ice; another officer, KERVENSER, has disappeared in one of the tiny scout helicopters carried by the Kwembly.

  The human beings get into a sharp disagreement because of the Kwembly situation. Aucoin, as in the Esket incident previously, is reluctant to authorize a rescue trip by one of the other cruisers—though he realized that if Barlennan wants to do this there is no way to stop him. The elder Hoffmans want the whole decision left up to Barlennan, with any help whatever which he may ask—including rescue from space—to be furnished from the station. They resent Aucoin’s policy of editing, or actually censoring, the reports between Dondragmer and Barlennan. Benj, who has formed a close radio friendship with Beetchermarlf, considers only the personal aspects of the problem, but is deeply upset by these. A staff discussion, kept from becoming a major brawl by Easy’s professional tact, leads to only one result: Ib Hoffman, hearing for the first time a real summary of the relevant facts, begins to realize that Barlennan really is up to something on his own.

  Beetchermarlf and his companion, caught in the shrinking volume of free liquid under the Kwembly’s hull, spend hours in futile efforts to dig, scrape, and melt themselves free. They finally take refuge in one of the air cells forming the “mattress” underpinning between the hull and the driving trucks—incidentally concealing themselves very effectively from possible rescuers. Their own supply of breathing hydrogen, while not yet critically low, is causing them and the distant Benj more and more concern.

  The human assistance to the Kwembly finally concentrates on technical advice, and some of the cruiser’s equipment is dismantled to improvise a heater. Dondragmer is reluctant to take this step, fully aware of the Mesklinite position with regard to replacing or repairing, the equipment—but it seems the least of a host of evils.

  At the Settlement, Barlennan and his staff have come to suspect that the human beings have not been entirely frank with their Mesklinite agents. Barlennan does not resent this, since he has been extremely deceitful himself and regards such things as matters of business acumen; but he decides that he should set up a test situation to find out how truthful the men are being, using the Esket as bait. He is about to send a message containing the arrangements by one of the dirigibles which the Mesklinites have improvised from homemade balloons and human-supplied power units. At this point, however, a message arrives from the orbiting station reporting a disturbance at the site where the Esket was lost. Barlennan is left wondering whether something is really happening at his secret base there, or whether the human beings are testing him.

  At the Kwembly, Dondragmer is growing more and more concerned about the possibility of another flood, and keeps asking for risk estimates from the human scientists. If such a thing happens, his command is likely to be a total loss. He is considering moving the trapped vessel’s life-support equipment to high ground, to insure his crew’s survival. He also has his other helicopter out, carrying one of the television sets which transmit to the human station. The pilot is looking for Kervenser as well as for signs of another flood.

  When the human watchers report that this set has also ceased sending, it does not occur to Dondragmer that the report might be false; but he is annoyed. He supposes that the pilot shuttered the set
to keep the human beings from seeing something which would betray Barlennan’s machinations, such as a wandering dirigible; and unlike most of the Mesklinite staff, he has never been in very close sympathy with Barlennan’s policy of trickery.

  Part 3

  IX

  The weather had long since cleared at the Settlement, the ammonia fog blown into the unknown central regions of Low Alpha and the wind dropped to a gentle breeze from the northwest. Stars twinkled violently, catching the attention of occasional Mesklinites who were outside or in the corridors, but going unnoticed for the most part by those in the better lighted rooms under the transparent roof.

  Barlennan was in the laboratory area at the west side of the Settlement when Easy called, so her message did not reach him at once. It arrived in written form, borne by one of Guzmeen’s messengers who, in accordance with standing orders, paid no attention to the fact that Barlennan was in conference. He thrust the note in front of his commander, who broke off his own words in mid-sentence to read it. Bendivence and Deeslenver, the scientists with whom he was speaking, waited in silence for him to finish, though their body attitudes betrayed curiosity.

  Barlennan read the message twice, seemed to be trying to recall something, and then turned to the messenger.

  “All this just came in, I take it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And how long has it been since the preceding report from Dondragmer?”

  “Not long, sir—less than an hour, I’d say. The log would show; shall I check?”

  “It’s not that urgent, as long as you know. The last I heard was that the Kwembly had grounded after washing down a river for a couple of hours, and that was a long time ago. I assumed that everything was all right, since Guz didn’t pass any more on to me about it. I assume now that he either heard interim reports at the usual intervals, or asked the humans about it?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I haven’t been on duty the whole time. Shall I check?”

  “No. I’ll be there in a little while myself. Tell Guz not to send anything out after me; just hold any calls.” The runner vanished, and Barlennan turned back to the scientists.

  “Sometimes I wonder whether we shouldn’t have more electrical communication in this place. I’d like to know how long it’s taken Don to get into this mess, but I want to learn some other things before I walk all the way to Guzmeen’s place.”

  Bendivence gestured the equivalent of a shrug. “We can do it if you say the word. There are telephones here in the lab which work fairly well, and we can wire the whole Settlement if you want the metal used that way.”

  “I don’t yet. We’ll keep to the original priorities. Here, read this. The Kwembly has gotten herself stuck in frozen water or something, and both her helicopters have disappeared. One had a communicator to the human beings aboard and in use at the time.”

  Deeslenver indicated his emotion with a soft buzz, and reached for the message in turn; Bendivence passed it over silently. The former read it silently—twice, as Barlennan had done—before he spoke.

  “You’d think the humans would have a little more information if they were watching at all carefully. All this says is that Kervenser failed to come back from a flight, and that a flier searching for him with a communicator on board suddenly stopped sending—the screen just went blank all of a sudden.”

  “I can see one possible reason for that,” remarked Bendivence.

  “I thought you would,” returned the commander. “The question is not what blanked the screen but why it should have happened there and then. We can assume that Reffel used the shutter on his set—it would have been nice if you’d thought of that trick before the Esket went out; it would have simplified that operation a lot—because something had come into his field of view which wouldn’t have fit in with the Esket story. But what could it have been? The Kwembly is five or six million cables from the Esket. I suppose one of the dirigibles could be down that way, but why should it be?”

  “We won’t know until another flight gets back from Destigmet’s place,” replied the scientist practically. “What interests me is why we didn’t hear about Kervenser’s disappearance earlier. Why was there time for Reffel’s mission to be flown and for him to disappear, too, before we were told about it? Was Dondragmer late in reporting to the human observers?”

  “I doubt that very much,” replied Barlennan. “Actually, they may have told us about Kervenser when it happened; remember, the runner said that other messages had been coming in. Guzmeen might not have thought the disappearance worth sending a runner for until Kerv had been gone for a while. We can check up on that in a few minutes, but I imagine there’s nothing funny this time.

  “On the other hand, I have been wondering lately whether the people up there have always been relaying information completely and promptly. Once or twice I’ve had the impression that—well, things were being saved up and sent in one package. It may be just sloppiness, or it may not really be happening—”

  “Or they may be deliberately organizing what we hear,” said Bendivence. “Half our crew could be lost at this point without our knowing it, if the human beings chose to play it that way. I can see their being afraid we’d quit the job and demand to be taken home, according to contract, if risks proved too high.”

  “I suppose that’s possible,” admitted Barlennan. “It hadn’t occurred to me just that way. I don’t think that particular notion is very likely, but the more I consider the situation, the more I’d like to think of a way of checking things—at least, to make sure they’re not taking time to hold conferences on just how much to tell us every time something does go wrong with an exploring cruiser.”

  “Do you really think there’s much likelihood of that?” asked Deeslenver.

  “It’s hard to tell. Certainly we’ve been a bit less than completely frank with them, and we have what we consider some very good reasons for it. I’m not really bothered either way. We know some of these people are good at business, and if we can’t keep even with them it’s our fault. All I really would like to be sure of is whether it’s business or carelessness. I can think of one way to check up, but I’d rather not use it yet; if anyone can suggest an alternative, it will be very welcome.”

  “What’s the one you have?” both scientists asked together, Deeslenver perhaps half a syllable ahead.

  “The Esket, of course. It’s the only place where we can get an independent check on what they tell us. At least, I haven’t thought of any other so far. Of course, even that would take a long time; there won’t be another flight from there until sunrise, and that’s twelve hundred hours or so away. Of course, we could send the Deedee even at night—”

  “If we’d set up that light relay I suggested—” began Deeslenver.

  “Too risky. It would have much too big a chance of being seen. We just don’t know how good the human instruments are. I know most of them stay ’way up at that station overhead, but I don’t know what they can see from it. The casual way they distribute these picture-senders for us to carry around here on this planet suggests that they don’t regard them as very fancy equipment, as does the fact that they used them twelve years ago on Mesklin. There’s just too much chance that they’d spot any light on the night side of this planet. That’s why I overrode your idea. Dee; otherwise, I admit it was a very good one.”

  “Well, there’s nothing like enough metal yet for electrical contact that far,” added Bendivence. “And, I don’t have any other ideas at the moment—though come to think of it, you might make a simple test on how well the humans can pick up lights.”

  “How?” the question came in body attitudes, not verbally.

  “We could ask them innocently if there were any way of their hunting for the running lights or the floods of the missing fliers.”

  Barlennan pondered the suggestion briefly.

  “Good. Excellent. Let’s go—though if they say they can’t, we won’t be sure that they aren’t just keeping it from us. You might be t
hinking of a further check for that.” He led the way out of the map room where the discussion had been held, and along the corridors of the Settlement toward the communication room. Most of the passageways were relatively dark; the sponsors of the expedition had not stinted on the supply of artificial lights, but Barlennan himself had been rather close-nippered with their distribution. Rooms were adequately lighted; hallways had a bare minimum of illumination.

  This gave the Mesklinites the comforting feeling that there was nothing overhead, by letting them see the stars without too much trouble. No native of that planet was really happy to face the fact that there was anything in a position to fall on him. Even the scientists glanced up occasionally as they went, taking comfort from the sight even of stars not their own. Mesklin’s sun, which men called 61 Cygni, was below the horizon at the moment.

  Barlennan looked upward more than he looked ahead, but he was trying to get a glimpse of the human station. This carried a beacon light visible from Dhrawn as a fourth magnitude “star,” and its barely visible crawl against the celestial background was the best long-term clock the Mesklinites had. They used it to reset the pendulum-type instruments which they had made, but which seldom agreed with each other for more than a few score hours at a time.