Classic Fiction

by Hal Clement

  And now the crowd was moving closer. Was it because more people were crowding into the space, or for some other reason? He looked wistfully at his ship, towering above the walls only a few hundred meters away. Would it pay to make a dash for it? Almost certainly not. He could get to the right space along the wall, but that swim through the tangle would be a waste of time if even a single native chose to interfere. He got uneasily to his feet.

  The heads were closer. Were they coming closer, or were more appearing inside the circle of early arrivals? A few minutes’ watch showed that it was the latter, and that eased his mind somewhat. Evidently the crowd was not deliberately closing on him, but it was growing in size, so the word of his presence must be spreading. When would it reach the beings? Who had tried to capture him earlier? What would their reaction be when it did?

  He was in no real immediate danger, of course. With any warning at all, he could spring back down the wall and be out of reach, but this would bring him no nearer to his ship in any sense. He wished Hinge or Creak would show up . . . or that someone would simply talk to him.

  A head emerged a couple of meters to his left, against the wall; its owner, wearing a breathing suit, slowly snaked his way out of the water.

  Cunningham stood tense for a moment. Then he relaxed, realizing that the newcomer could pose no threat at that distance. But he tightened up again and began looking at the water closely as it occurred to him that the being might be trying to distract his attention.

  The native carefully dragged himself onto the wall so that no part of his length remained in the water. This seemed more effort than it was worth, since a typical Rantan weights around four hundred fifty kilograms in air even on his own planet, and Cunningham was more suspicious than ever. He was almost sure that the fellow was bidding strictly for attention when he heard its voice.

  “Cun’m! Listen carefully! Things have gone very badly. I don’t think anyone in the water can hear me right now, but they’ll get suspicious in a moment. It’s very important that you stay away from your ship for a time, and we should both get away from here. As soon as I’m sure you understand, I’m going to roll down the wall; you follow as quickly as you can. Some may come after us, since there are a few other breathing suits on hand, so I’ll roll as far as I can. I have some rope with me, and as soon as we get together you can use it to help me travel. That way we can go faster than them and maybe they’ll give up.”

  By now, Cunningham had recognized Creak’s body pattern.

  “Why should they want to catch us?” he asked.

  “I’ll explain when we have time. Do you understand the plan?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, here I go. Come on!”

  Creak poured his front end onto the slope and followed it with the rest of his body, curling into a flat spiral with his head in the center as he did so. His limbs were tucked against his sides, and his rubbery body offered no projections to be injured. He had given himself a downhill shove in the process of curling up, and the meter-wide disk which was his body went bounding down the irregular outer surface of the wall. Cunningham winced in sympathy with every bounce as he watched, though he knew the boneless, gristly tissue of the Rantans was not likely to be damaged by such treatment. Then, splashes behind him suggested that Creak probably had good reason for the haste he was so strongly recommending.

  The man followed him, leaping as carefully as he could from rock to rock, tense with the fear that one of them would come loose as he landed on it. He reached the bottom safely, however, and sprinted after Creak, whose momentum combined with the southward slope of the rocky beach to carry him some distance from the wall.

  Finally, he bumped into the springy scaffolding surrounding one of the numerous buildings that dotted the area, and was brought to a halt. He promptly unrolled, and shook out the rope which he had been carrying in some obscure fashion. It was already tied into a sort of harness which he fitted over his forward end. As Cunningham came up, the native extended a long bight to him.

  The man had no trouble slipping this over his head and settling it in place around his waist. He looked back as he was finishing and saw that half a dozen suited natives had emulated Creak’s method of descending the wall. They had, however, unrolled as soon as they reached the bottom, probably to see which way the fugitives were going; and they were well behind in the race. The nearest were just starting to crawl toward them in typical Rantan dry-land fashion, pulling themselves along by whatever bits of lava they could find projecting through the sand.

  “East or west? Or does it matter?” Cunningham asked.

  “Not to me,” was the response, “but let’s get moving!”

  Cunningham took a quick look around, saw something from his erect vantage point which amused him, leaned into the bight of the rope harness, and headed east. Creak helped as much as he could, but this was not very much. The native could not conveniently look back, since the harness prevented his front end from turning and none of his eyes projected far enough. The man could, and did.

  “Only a couple are actually following,” he reported. “You’re pretty heavy, and I’m not dragging you really very much faster than they can travel; but I guess the fact that we’re going faster at all, and that I am evidently a land creature, has discouraged most of them.”

  “There are some who won’t give up easily. Don’t stop just yet.”

  “I won’t. We haven’t reached the place I have in mind.”

  “What place is that? How do you know anything about this area? Personally, I don’t think we should stop for at least a couple of your kilometers.”

  “I can see a place where I think we’ll be safe even if they keep after us. You can decide, when we get there. I’ll go on if you think we have to. But remember, you weigh half a dozen times as much as I do. This is work.”

  One by one their pursuers gave up and turned back, and at about the time the last one did so Cunningham felt the load he was pulling ease considerably. At the same moment Creak called out, “I’m sorry, Cun’m. I can’t help you at all here. It’s all sand, and there’s nothing to hold on to.”

  “I know,” the man replied. “That was what I thought I’d seen. It’s easier to pull you in deep sand, and I didn’t think anyone could follow us here.” He dragged the native on for another hundred meters or so, then dropped the rope and turned to him.

  “All right, Creak, what is this all about?”

  The native lifted the front third of his body, am looked around as well as the height and his lens would permit before answering.

  “I’ll have to give you a lot of background, first. I dodged a lot of your questions earlier because I wasn’t sure of your attitude. Now I’m pretty sure, from some of the things you’ve said, that you will agree with me and help me.

  “First, as you seem to take for granted, we used to be dwellers in the tidal jungles—many lifetimes ago. Our ancestors must have been hunters like the other creatures that live there, though they ate some plant food as well as animals. Eventually they learned to raise both kinds of food instead of hunting for it, and still later learned so much about the rules which control the forms of living things that they could make new plants and animals to suit their needs. This knowledge also enabled them to make buildings out of stone and wood, once cement was developed; and they could live in shelters and provide themselves with necessities and pleasures, without ever risking their lives or comfort in the jungles. We became, as you have called it, civilized and scientific.

  “That so-called ‘progress’ separated most of us from the realities of life. We ate when we were hungry, slept in safety when we were tired, and did whatever amused us the rest of the time—developing new plants and animals just for their appearance or taste, for example. The tides, which I think were the real cause of our developing the brains we did, became a nuisance, so we built homes and finally cities out of the water.”

  “And you think that’s bad?”

  “Of course. We ar
e dependent on the city and what it supplies, now. We are soft. Not one in a hundred of us could live a day in the tidal jungles—they wouldn’t know what was fit to eat, or what was dangerous, or what to do when the tide went out. Even if they learned those things quickly enough to keep themselves alive, they’d die out because they couldn’t protect eggs and children long enough. I’ve been pointing all this out to them for years.”

  “But how does this lead to the present trouble? Did you really wreck the dam yourself, to force people out of the city?”

  “Oh, no. I’m enthusiastic but not crazy. Anyway, there was no need. Civilization out of water, like civilization in it, depends on construction, and construction depends on cement. It was—I suppose it was, anyway—the invention of cement which made cities possible; and now that the cement is starting to fail, the warning is clear. We should—we must—start working our way back to the sea—back to Nature. We were designed to live in the sea, and it’s foolish to go against basic design. We should no more be living on land than you should be living in the water.”

  “Some of my people do live in underwater cities,” Cunningham pointed out. “Some live on worlds with no air, or even where the temperature would freeze air.”

  “But they’re just workers, doing jobs which can’t be done elsewhere. You told me that your people work only a certain number of years, and then retire and do what they please. You’re certainly back to Nature.”

  “In some ways, I suppose so. But get back to the reason we’re sitting on the sand out of reach of my ship.”

  “Most of the people in the city can’t face facts. They plan to send a big party of workers to repair the dam, and go on just as we have been for years, of course setting up a strict water-use control until the reservoir fills again. But they plan to go on as though nothing serious had happened, or that nothing more serious could ever happen. They’re insane. They just don’t want to give up what they think of as the right to do what they want whenever they want.”

  “And you’ve been telling them all this.”

  “For years.”

  “And they refuse to listen.”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, I see why you are here. But what do they have against me? Or were they merely trying to get me away from your influence?”

  If Creak saw any irony in the question he ignored it. “I’ve been telling them about you from the first, of course. I don’t understand this bit about worlds in the sky, and most of them don’t either, but there’s nothing surprising about creatures living on land even if we’ve never seen any before. I told them about your flying machine, and the things you must know of science that we don’t, and the way that you and your people have gone back to Nature just as I keep saying we must. You remember—you told me how your people had learned things which separated them from the proper life that fitted them, and which did a lot of damage to the Nature of your world, and how you finally had to change policies in order to stay alive.”

  “So I did, come to think of it. But you’ve done a certain amount of reading between the lines. You really think I’m living closer to Nature than my ancestors of a thousand years ago?” Cunningham was more amused than indignant, or even worried.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I hate to disillusion you, but—Well, you’re not entirely wrong, but things aren’t as simple as you seem to think. I could survive for a while on my own world away from my technological culture, and most of my people could do the same, because that’s part of our education these days. However, we got back to that state very gradually. As it happened, my people did become completely dependent on the physical sciences to keep them protected and fed, just as you seem to have done with the biological ones. We did such a good job that our population rose far beyond the numbers which could be supported without the technology.

  “The real crisis came because we used certain sources of energy much faster than they were formed in Nature, and just barely managed to convert to adequate ones in time. We’re being natural in one way: we now make a strong point of not using any resource faster than Nature can renew it. However, we still live a very civilized-scientific life, the sort that lets us spend practically all our time doing what we feel like rather than grubbing for life’s necessities. You’re going to have to face the fact that the technology road is a one-way one, and cursing the ancestors who turned onto it is a waste of time. You’ll just have to take the long way around before you get anywhere near where you started.”

  “I . . . I suppose I was wrong, at least in some details.” The native seemed more uneasy than the circumstances called for, and Cunningham remembered the need-to-be-right which he had suspected of being unusually strong in the species. Creak went on, “Still, using you as an example was reasonable. Your flying machine proves you know a lot more than we do.”

  Cunningham refrained from pointing out the gap in this bit of logic, since at least it had led back to the point he wanted pursued.

  “That machine is something I’d like to get back to,” he remarked. “If you really don’t want to explain why someone tried to capture me, I can stand it. But how do I get back there?”

  “I wasn’t trying to avoid explaining anything,” Creak responded, rather indignantly. “I don’t know why anyone tried to capture you, but maybe they thought I wasn’t telling the exact truth about the situation and they wanted to question you without my intervention. I suppose they’d have been willing to take the time to learn your language—it’s the sort of intellectual exercise a lot of them would like. But how you can get back there will take some thinking. I think I can work it out somehow—I’m sure I can. How long can you stay away from your machine without danger? I’ve never known you to spend more than two days—”

  “I’m set to be comfortable for three days, and could get along for five or six; but I hope you don’t take that long. What do I do, just sit out here on the sand while your brain works?”

  “Can’t you learn things outside the city? I thought that was what you were here for. However, there is one other thing you could do, if you were willing—and if it is possible. I know you are a land creature, but am not sure of your limits.”

  “What is that?”

  “Well . . . it’s Nereis. I can tell myself she’s all right, and that nothing can reasonably go wrong, but I can’t help thinking of things that might. How long would it take you to get to our house, without your ship? Or can you travel that far at all?”

  “Sure. Even going around the city, that’s less than twenty kilos each way, and there’s nothing around to eat me. You really want me to go?”

  “It’s a little embarrassing to ask, but—yes, I do.”

  Cunningham shrugged. “It will be quite a while before I have to worry, myself, and you seem pretty sure of being able to solve the ship problem all right. I suppose, the sooner the better?”

  “Well, I can’t help but picture the house wall going out like the dam.”

  “I see. Okay, I’m on my way. Put your brain to work.”

  4

  Laird Cunningham was an unsuspicious character by nature. He tended to take the word of others at face value, until strong evidence forced him to do otherwise. Even when minor inconsistencies showed up, he tended to blame them on his own failure to grasp a pertinent point. Hence, he started on his walk with only the obvious worry about recovering his ship occupying his mind—and even that was largely buried, since his conscious attention was devoted to observing the planetary features around him.

  He had left Creak at a point which would have been slightly inside the city if the latter had been a perfect square. The easiest way to go seemed to be east until he reached the southern end of the east wall, north along the latter, and then roughly parallel with the aqueduct until he reached the north end of the latter. Crossing it, or the dam, might be a little risky, but the reservoir should be nearly empty by now. Unless he had to stay with Nereis for some reason, it should be possible to get back in, say, five or six
hours. He should have mentioned that to Creak—But, no, the sun was almost down now; most of the journey would be in the dark. Why hadn’t he remembered that?

  And why hadn’t Creak thought of this?

  Cunningham stopped in his tracks. A Rantan breathing suit was not particularly time-limited—it merely kept the air intakes at the bases of the tentacles wet, and in theory several days’ worth of water could be carried. Still, why hadn’t Creak been worried for his own sake about the probable time of the man’s return? He was trapped on a surface where he was almost helpless. Had he simply forgotten that aspect, through worry for his wife and incipient family? It was possible, of course.

  Cunningham, almost at the corner that would take him out of sight of Creak, paused and looked back. He could just see the native, but nearly a kilometer of distance hid the details. He drew a small monocular from his belt and used it.

  The sight was interesting, he had to admit. Creak had stretched his body on the sand, holding a slight curve, like a bent bow. His limbs were pulled tightly against his sides. Evidently he was exerting a downward force at the ends of the arc, for he was rolling in the direction of the convexity of the curve—rolling less rapidly than Cunningham could walk, but much faster than the man had ever seen a Rantan travel on dry land.

  As he watched, Creak reached the end of the deep sand and reverted to more normal travel, pulling himself along the projecting stones. Creak never looked back at Cunningham; at least, his lorgnette was never called into use. Probably it never occurred to him that the human being’s erect structure would give him such a wide circle of vision . . .