Classic Fiction

by Hal Clement

  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.

  Dondragmer sends out a ground party to check the situation and restore his flood-guard, neither knowing nor greatly caring what Barlennan may know or think about the matter. This group is also carrying a vision set; and a short distance upstream it meets a Mesklinite on foot. Easy, watching the screen, assumes at first that it is either the missing Kervenser or the second pilot; but then she recognizes KABREMM, whom she knew well—and had assumed lost with the crew of the Esket.

  At this point Barlennan, Dondragmer, the human watchers, and the ground search party—including Kabremm—have incomplete and conflicting pictures of the situation. Only the human beings are in direct touch with any of the other groups. Kabremm is horrified at having allowed himself to be recognized and thereby compromising Barlennan’s plan; the human beings are theorizing about possible natives of Dhrawn who must have captured the Esket’s crew months before; Barlennan is trying to decide how much to believe of what he hears from the human station; and Dondragmer, mainly concerned with his vehicle and crew, is more annoyed at the confusion caused, he feels, by his commander’s trickery, than anything else. He has now melted his way under the Kwembly’s hull and is about to search for the missing Beetchermarlf when he is interrupted by sounds coming from across the ice. Benj, watching on one of the vision sets, knows only that the captain has been distracted; he cannot tell what is going on.

  The result is that considerable communication back and forth from the human station to Dondragmer at the Kwembly and from humans to Barlennan at the Settlement has managed to confuse issues quite thoroughly. Barlennan is now trying to explain Kabremm’s appearance on the basis of a possible Dhrawn native tribe, capture and escape. Dondragmer prefers to talk about anything else, and work at getting the Kwembly in action, while Aucoin wants to keep Barlennan from deciding to send another cruiser to the Kwembly’s rescue.

  Clarification of the situation is progressing at a very high negative rate.

  Dondragmer, inherently the most straightforward of the group, has the best understanding of what’s going on—but out of loyalty to Barlennan and the necessity of relaying through the human station, can’t explain.

  Part 4

  XIII

  Barlennan was quite pleased with his speech. He had not told a single actual falsehood—the worst he could be accused of was fuzzy thinking. Unless some human beings were already actively suspicious, there would be no reason for them not to pass on the “theory” to the Kwembly’s captain, thus telling him the line that Barlennan proposed to follow. Dondragmer could be trusted to play up properly, especially if the hint that Kabremm might not be available for further questioning were transmitted to him. It was too bad, in a way, to spring the “native menace” so long before he had meant to—it would have been much nicer to let the human beings invent it for themselves; but any plan which couldn’t be modified to suit new circumstances was a poor plan, Barlennan told himself.

  Aucoin was taken very much aback. He had personally had no doubt whatever that Easy was mistaken, since he had long ago written the Esket completely off in his own mind, and Barlennan’s taking her opinion seriously had been a bad jolt. The administrator knew that Easy was by far the best qualified person in the station to make such a recognition; he had not, however, expected the Mesklinites themselves to be aware of this. He blamed himself for not paying much more attention to the casual conversation between human observers, especially Easy, and the Mesklinites over the past few months. He had let himself get out of touch, a cardinal administrative sin.

  He could see no reason for denying Barlennan’s request, however. He glanced at the others. Easy and Mersereau were looking expectantly at him, the woman with her hand on the microphone selector in her chair arm as though about to call Dondragmer. Her husband had a half-smile on his face which puzzled Aucoin slightly for a moment, but as their eyes met Hoffman nodded as though he had been analyzing the Mesklinite’s theory and found it reasonable. The planner hesitated a moment longer, then spoke into his microphone.

  “We’ll do that right away, Commander.” He nodded to Easy, who promptly changed her selector switch and began talking. Benj returned just as she started, obviously bursting with information, but he restrained himself when he saw that a conversation with the Kwembly was already in progress. His father watched the boy as Easy relayed the Barlennan theory, and had some difficulty in concealing his amusement. It was so obvious that Benj was swallowing the idea whole. Well, he was young, and several of his elders seemed a bit uncritical, too.

  “Barlennan wants your thoughts on this possibility, and especially any more information you may have obtained from Kabremm,” concluded Easy. “That’s all . . . no, wait.” Benj had caught her attention. “My son has come back from the aerology lab, and seems to have something for you.”

  “Mr. McDevitt has made one run with the new measures added to the earlier data, and is making a second now,” Benj said without preamble. “According to the first, he was right about the reason for the melting and freezing of your lake, and the nature of the clouds which Stakendee has encountered. The chances are better than even that condensation from these will increase, and make the stream near you bigger. He suggests that you check very carefully, as he mentioned before, the time the clouds reach the Kwembly. As he guessed, they are evaporating from adiabatic heating as the air carrying them comes down the ground slope. He says that the later they are in getting to you, the worse the flood will be when it does. I don’t see why myself, but that’s what the computer implies. He said to be sure to remind you that this was just another tentative calculation, just as likely to be wrong as any of the earlier ones. He went into a long speech about all the reasons he couldn’t be sure, but you’ve heard them already.”

  Dondragmer’s answer commenced almost on the light-echo; he could not have spent more than a second or two after the end of Benj’s report in deciding what to say.

  “Very well, Benj. Please tell Barlennan that his idea sounds reasonable, and at least fits in with the disappearance of my two fliers. I have had no opportunity to get information from Kabremm, if it really was he; I haven’t seen him. He hasn’t come back to the Kwembly. You could tell better than I whether he’s still with Stakendee and those who went upstream. I will take precautions on the assumption that the commander is right. If the idea had occurred to me earlier, I certainly would not have sent out practically my entire crew to set up the safety base at the side of the valley.

  “However, it may be just as well I did. I see no possibility of freeing the cruiser in any reasonable time, and if Mr. McDevitt is even moderately sure that another flood is on the way we’ll have to finish moving out shortly. If a current anything like the one that brought us here hits the Kwembly while she’s fastened down like this, there’ll be pieces of hull scattered for a million cables downstream. When my men come back we’ll take one more load of necessary equipment and abandon the ship for the time being. We’ll set up on the valley rim, and, as soon as life-support equipment is running adequately there, I’ll start sending crews back here to work on freeing the Kwembly—provided the flood isn’t obviously on the way. That’s a firm basic plan; I’ll work out details for covering the work crews with your assistance, and if Barlennan’s theory calls for special action I’ll take it, but I haven’t time to argue the basic decision. I can see moving lights to the north; I assume it’s my crew on the way back. I’ll turn the set so that you can see them.”

  The view on the screen wavered, then panned jerkily as the captain nudged the transmitter box through a third of a circle. The result was no improve
ment, from the human viewpoint; the lighted region around the Kwembly where details could not only be seen but compared and interpreted, was replaced by almost total darkness relieved by a few specks of light. It took close, careful watching to confirm Dondragmer’s claim that they were moving. Easy was about to ask that the lens be returned to its former position when Benj began talking.

  “You mean you’ve given up all hope of finding Beetchermarlf and Takoorch and the others, and are just going off and leaving them there? I know you have nearly a hundred other people to worry about, but there are times when that seems a pretty thin excuse for not even trying to rescue someone!”

  Easy was startled and rather dismayed at her son’s choice of words, and almost cut in with a combined rebuke to the boy and apology to Dondragmer. She hesitated, however, in the effort to find words which would do this without doing violence to her own feelings; these bore a strong resemblance to Benj’s.

  Aucoin and Mersereau had not followed the exchange at all closely, since both were concentrating on Barlennan on the other screen and Benj had uttered his tirade in Stennish. Ib Hoffman showed no expression which the casual observer could have translated, though Easy might have detected traces of amusement if she had been looking at him. McDevitt had just come in, but was too late to catch anything except Easy’s facial expression.

  The pause went overtime, so they waited for Dondragmer’s answer. This revealed no annoyance in tone or choice of words; Easy wished she could see him to judge his body attitude.

  “I haven’t given them up, Benj. The equipment we plan to take includes as many power units as possible, which means that men will have to go under the hull with lights to get as many of them as they can from the unfrozen trucks. Those men will also have orders to search the ice walls carefully for traces of the helmsmen. If they are found, men will be assigned to chip them out, and I will leave those men on the job until the last possible instant. However, I can’t justify putting the entire crew to work breaking ice until there is nothing else to be done to get the cruiser free. After all, it is perfectly possible that they discovered what was going on before the pond froze to the bottom, and were trapped while looking for a hole in the ice somewhere else in the pond.”

  Benj nodded, his face somewhat red; Easy spared him the need of composing a verbal apology.

  “Thanks, Captain,” she said. “We understand. We weren’t seriously accusing you of desertion; it was an unfortunate choice of words. Do you suppose you could aim the communicator back at the lighted space? We really can’t see anything recognizable the way it’s pointed now.”

  “Also,” McDevitt cut in without allowing a pause to develop at the end of Easy’s request, “even though you are planning to leave the Kwembly, do you suppose you could leave a power unit on board to run the lights, and lash the bridge communicator about where it is so we can see the hull? That would not only let us observe the flood if it comes, which I’m almost certain it will in the next three to fifteen hours, but would also give us a chance to tell you whether there was any use looking for the cruiser afterward—and possibly even where to look for it. I know that will leave you with only two communicators, but it seems to me that this would be worth it.”

  Again, Dondragmer appeared to make up his mind on the spot; his answer emerged from the speaker almost with the sixty-four second bell.

  “Yes, we’ll do it that way. I would have had to leave light power anyway, since I wanted crews to come back for work; and as I said, I wanted some sort of safety communication with them. Your suggestion fits that perfectly. I’ve turned the set back to cover the starboard side, as you no doubt see. I must leave the bridge now; the crew will be back in a minute or two, and I want to assign duties to them as they arrive.”

  Again, Benj began talking without checking with anyone else.

  “Captain, if you’re still in hearing when this gets to you, will you wave or signal some way, or have Beetch do it, if you find him alive? I won’t ask you to make a special trip back to the bridge to give details.”

  There was no answer. Presumably Dondragmer had suited up and gone outside the moment he finished speaking. There was nothing for the human beings to do but wait.

  Aucoin, with Easy’s assistance, had relayed Dondragmer’s answer to the Settlement, and received Barlennan’s acknowledgment. The commander asked that he be kept up to date as completely as possible on Kwembly matters, and especially on any ideas which Dondragmer might have. Aucoin agreed, asked Easy to relay the request to the captain, and was told that this would be done as soon as the latter reestablished contact.

  “All right,” nodded the planner. “At least, there’s been no mention so far of sending a rescue vehicle. We’ll leave well enough alone.”

  “Personally,” retorted Easy, “I’d have dispatched the Kaliff or the Hoorsh hours ago, when they first froze in.”

  “I know you would. I’m very thankful that your particular brand of ethics won’t let you suggest it to Barlennan over my objections. My only hope is that he won’t decide to suggest it himself, because every time I’ve had both of you really against me I’ve been talked down.” Easy looked at Aucoin, and then at the microphone, speculatively. Her husband decided that distraction was in order, and cut into the thickening silence with a question.

  “Alan, what do you think of that theory of Barlepnan’s?”

  Aucoin frowned. He and Easy both knew perfectly well why Ib had interrupted, but the question itself was hard to ignore; and Easy, at least, recognized that the interruption itself was a good idea.

  “It’s a fascinating idea,” the planner said slowly, “but I can’t say that I think it very probable.

  Dhrawn is a huge planet, if it can be called a planet, and it seems funny . . . well, I don’t know whether it seems funnier that we’d have met intelligence so quickly, or that only one of the cruisers has done so. There certainly isn’t a culture using electromagnetic energy—we’d have detected it when we first approached the place. A much lower one . . . well, how could they have done what seems to have been done to the Esket’s crew?”

  “Not knowing their physical and mental capabilities, quite aside from their cultural level, I couldn’t even guess,” replied Hoffman. “Didn’t some of the first Indians Columbus met wind up in Spain?”

  “I think you’re stretching resemblances, to put it mildly. There’s a practical infinity of things which could have happened to the Esket without her running into intelligent opposition. You know that as well as I do; you helped make up some of the lists, until you decided it was pointless speculation. I grant that Barlennan’s theory is a little bit more believable than it was, but only a very little.”

  “You still think I was wrong in my identification of Kabremm, don’t you?” said Easy.

  “Yes, I’m afraid I do. Furthermore, I just don’t believe that we’ve run into another intelligent species—and don’t compare me with the people who refused to believe that dePerthe’s rocks were manmade tools. Some things are just intrinsically improbable.”

  Hoffman chuckled. “Human ability to judge likelihood—you might call it statistical insight—has always been pretty shaky,” he pointed out, “even if you skip purely classical examples like Lois Lane. Actually, the chances don’t seem to be that low. You know as well as I do that in the very small volume of space within five parsecs of Sol, with only seventy-four known stars and about two hundred sunless planets, what we have found in the way of intelligence. Twenty races at about our own stage of development, safely past their Energy Crisis; eight, including Tenebra and Mesklin, which haven’t met it yet; eight which failed to pass it and are extinct, and three which failed but have some hope of recovery—every one of them, remember, within a hundred thousand years of that key point in their history, one way or the other! That’s in spite of the fact that the planets range in age from Panesh’s nine billion years or so to Tenebra’s maybe a tenth of that. There’s more than coincidence there, Alan.”

  “Maybe
Panesh and Earth and the older planets have had other cultures in the past—maybe it happens to any world every few tens of millions of years.”

  “It hasn’t happened before unless the earlier intelligent races were so intelligent from the beginning that they never tapped their planet’s fossil fuels. Do you think man’s presence on Earth won’t be geologically obvious a billion years from now, with looted coal seams and the beer bottle as an index fossil? I can’t buy that one, Alan.”

  “Maybe not, but I’m not mystical enough to believe that some super-species is herding the races of this part of space toward one big climax.”

  “Whether you like that Demon Hypothesis, or prefer the Esfa Theory, doesn’t matter. There’s certainly more than chance involved, and, therefore, you can’t use the laws of chance alone to criticize what Barlennan has suggested. You don’t have to assume he’s right, but I strongly urge you to take him seriously. I do.”

  Dondragmer would have been interested in hearing this discussion, just as he would have appreciated attending the staff meeting of some hours before. However, he would have been too busy for either, even if attendance had been physically possible. With the return of most of his crew—some, of course, had stayed behind to continue setting up the life-support equipment—there was much to oversee and quite a lot to do himself. Twenty of his men were set to helping the trio already chipping ice from the main lock. As many more went under the hull with lights and tools to find and secure any power units not too solidly frozen in.

  The captain kept his promise to Benj, ordering this group to check most carefully for signs of Beetchermarlf and Takoorch. However, he emphasized the importance of examining the ice walls closely, and as a natural result the group found nothing. Its members emerged in a few minutes with the two power boxes from the trucks which the helmsmen had used, and two more which had been freed by the action of the heater. The rest, which according to Dondragmer’s recollection and the laws of arithmetic must number six, were unapproachable, even though the sailors could make a reasonably well founded guess as to which trucks they were on.