by Hal Clement
“I suppose Barlennan would react 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. Hottman—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 has 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 is about three eighths ammonia and five eighths 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 safer 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 brought 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 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 started 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, assumed 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.”
“You told this to Barlennan?”
“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 this 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 mostly backlighted.”
“Do you know the two missing men well enough to be certain it was neither of them—do you know that neither one looks much 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?”
“I suppose it’s possible.” Easy could not make herself sound anything but doubtful, but even she knew that her opinion was unlikely to be objective.
“Then I think,” Aucoin said slowly and thoughtfully, “that I’d better talk to Barlennan myself. You say nothing more has happened at the Esket since Cavanaugh saw those objects rolling?”
“I haven’t seen anything. The bridge set, of course, is looking out into darkness, but the other three are lighted perfectly well and have shown no change except that one.”
“All right. Barlennan knows our language well enough, in my experience, so that I won’t need you to translate.”
“Oh, no; he’ll understand you. You mean you’d rather I left?”
“No, no, certainly not. In fact, it would be better if you listened and warned me if you thought there might be any misunderstanding developing.” Aucoin reached for the Settlement microphone switch, but glanced once more at Easy before closing it. “You don’t mind, do you, if I make sure of Barlennan’s opinion about your identification of Kabremm? I think our main problem is what to do about the Kwembly, but I’d like to settle that point, too. After you brought the matter up with him, I’d hate Barlennan to get the idea that we were trying to . . . well, censor anything, to phrase it the way Ib did at the meeting.” He turned away and sent his call toward Dhrawn.
Barlennan was in the communicator chamber at the Settlement, so no time was lost reaching him. Aucoin identified himself, once he was sure the commander was at the other end, and began his speech.
Easy, Ib, and Boyd found it annoyingly repetitious, but they had to admire the skill with which the planner emphasized his own ideas. Essentially, he was trying to for
estall any suggestion that another vehicle be sent to the rescue of the Kwembly, without himself suggesting such a thing. It was a very difficult piece of language manipulation, and even knowing that the matter had been uppermost in Aucoin’s mind ever since the conference, so that it was anything but an impromptu speech, did not detract from its merit as a work of art—as Ib remarked later. He did mention Easy’s identification of Kabremm to the commander, but so fleetingly that she almost failed to recognize the item. He didn’t actually say that she must have been mistaken, but he was obviously attaching no importance to the incident.
It was a pity, as Easy remarked later, that such polished eloquence was so completely wasted. Of course Aucoin had no more way of knowing than did the other human beings that the identification of Kabremm was Barlennan’s main current worry, and that for two hours he had been concerned with nothing else. Faced with the imminent collapse of his complex scheme and, as he suddenly realized with embarrassment, having no ready alternative, he had employed those hours in furious and cogent thought. By the time Aucoin had called, Barlennan had the first steps of another plan; and he was waiting so tensely for a chance to put it into operation that he paid little attention to the planner’s beautifully selected words. When a pause came in their delivery, Barlennan had his own speech ready, though it had remarkably little to do with what had just been said.
The pause had not actually been meant as space for an answer; Aucoin had taken a moment to review mentally what he had covered and what should come next. Mersereau, however, caught him as he was about to resume talking.
“That break was long enough to let Barlennan assume you had finished and wanted an answer,” he said. “Better wait. He’ll probably have started talking before whatever you were just going to say gets down there.” The administrator obediently waited; a convention was, after all, a convention. He was prepared to be sarcastic if Mersereau were wrong, but the Mesklinite commander’s voice came through on the scheduled second—closer to it than they would have been willing to bet, Ib and Easy thought later.
“I’ve been thinking deeply ever since Mrs. Hoffman told me about Kabremm,” he said, “and I’ve been able to come up with only one theory. As you know, we’ve always had to carry in mind the possibility that there was an intelligent species here on Dhrawn. Your scientists were certain there was highly organized life even before the landing, because of the oxygen-rich air, they said. I know we haven’t run into anything but simple plants and practically microscopic animals, but the Esket had ventured farther into Low Alpha than any of the other cruisers, and conditions are different there; certainly the temperature is higher, and we don’t know how that may change other factors.
“Until now, the chance that the Esket had met intelligent opposition was only one possibility, with no more to support it than any other idea we could dream up. However, as your own people have pointed out repeatedly, none of her crew could have lived this long without the cruiser’s support system or something like it; and they certainly couldn’t have traveled from where the Esket still is—as far as we can tell—to Dondragmer’s neighborhood. It seems to me that Kabremm’s presence there is convincing evidence that Destigmet’s crew has encountered and been captured by natives of Dhrawn. I don’t know why Kabremm was free enough to meet that search party; maybe he escaped, but it’s hard to see how he would have dared to try under the circumstances. More likely they sent him deliberately to make contact. I wish very much that you’d pass this idea along to Dondragmer for his opinion, and have him find out what he can from Kabremm—if he is still available. You haven’t told me whether he was still with the search party or not. Will you do that?”
Several pieces fell into place in Ib Hoffman’s mental jigsaw puzzle. His silent applause went unnoticed, even by Easy.
TO BE CONCLUDED
STARLIGHT
Conclusion. Exploration of a strange world, like Science, depends for success on free interchange of all available information. When one group starts trying to hold out information—things can get very sticky indeed!
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-conditioned 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’,! helmsmen is a young sailor named BEETCHERMA RLF.
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 ELISE 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.