by Hal Clement
“When the arc section got above the liquid—” Belvew began.
“I can see what happened. The pipes are drained now, I expect. I’m dropping a lab right here, Seichi; you can try getting a lake sample without having it lost in the drink. I’ll hold off on thrust until you can walk it to one side far enough. Then I’ll push a little closer to the pool, or hill, or tarpot or whatever we’re going to call it and drop another—or do you want even more, Seichi?”
“Two should be enough, but if you can spare more it would be nice to have a couple in reserve.”
“All right. Just a moment.” The rockets thundered briefly. “Here go two labs. Get them off to the sides, or to one side, or whatever is handiest as fast as you can, please.”
“I have control of them both. They seem to be responding normally to commands. I have them moving aft—now they’re clear of the keels. Another couple of minutes.” Even Belvew was silent during the wait. “All right. They’re both about fifty meters to your left, and should be clear of your wash. You’re getting closer to the stuff?”
“Yes.” Again everyone heard rocket thunder, and watched instruments and screens as Theia slid closer to the rise. “All right, here go two more for you to use on the tar or whatever it is. Move them aft and a little to the right—my left, that is. I’m going to use the right engine to turn Theia parallel to the foot of the slope before I try takeoff; that should use less mass than trying to accelerate up the slope, especially if it’s going to pull the sticky trick. The first two are enough closer to the lake so I won’t be risking them. Nothing else needed on the ground?”
No one answered, and the aircraft swivelled clumsily to its left until it was parallel to the shore a dozen meters away. Then it accelerated northward, a dark cloud again appearing behind as hot gas swept the lowest fringe of the hill/pool. Ginger had not recited the check list aloud, but she had followed it. The wings were cambered for maximum lift, and Theia was airborne in less than three hundred meters. The moment it was safe—perhaps a fraction of a second before Belvew would have done it—the pilot opened the intakes and shifted to ramjet mode, smoothly enough so that the sergeant nodded approvingly if pointlessly in the solitude of his quarters far above.
Without a word Ginger headed for the now well developed cumulus cloud above the lake, climbed to four kilometers, and drove into it to refill her tanks. She didn’t really expect any remarks from Belvew, but there seemed no point in asking for them.
She got one anyway.
“Look at your chamber temperature and exhaust speeds. There’s something there shouldn’t be in both pipes, clogging them maybe two percent. It’s lucky you didn’t open the intakes any sooner; that would have been pretty low for a pipe stall.”
“Right.” Ginger was thoughtful. She wasted no worry on what hadn’t occurred; pessimism is not the same as a brooding tendency. The fact that she wasn’t actually riding the jet had nothing to do with her attitude; losing the craft would have been practically as bad as losing herself with it. There was a piloting problem to be faced, and she give it all the attention she could spare from steering the jet through the nearby cloud and operating the collection equipment. She even asked for help.
“Status, watch those engine readings and let us know if you detect any change in any direction. You needn’t recite the readings themselves, but let me know whether the obstruction they indicate is increasing or decreasing.”
“It is decreasing,” was the instant response.
“Something sticky got into the pipes while they were submerged, and is burning out now,” Belvew concluded promptly.
“Let’s hope it’s just the obstruction that burns,” Ginger acknowledged his admittedly very probable analysis obliquely.
“A hypothesis is just a simile. Don’t risk predictions, especially worrisome ones, until it at least graduates to a theory and can be treated as an analogy,” the commander put in, unable to resist. Belvew did tend to become positive rather easily. “Seichi,” she went on before the sergeant could react, “have you any analysis of the lake yet? Is there anything which might explain this?”
“The lake is mostly methane, ethane, and small amounts of higher but still simple hydrocarbons,” the chemist replied promptly. “The key word, though, does seem to be mostly. Maybe half a percent of the stuff is very, very complicated, and it’ll be a long time before I can get even a rough composition. It’s certainly a mixture, not one or two nice, clean compounds with readable structures and writable formulas.”
“Tars, in other words?” the commander queried.
“I couldn’t say yet. Using the word more loosely than we have so far, not just for the stuff in the smog, I suppose so. That’s about as meaningful, though, as the word ‘protoplasm’ was when there were still a few orders of magnitude between the smallest thing you could see with a microscope and the biggest you could identify in a test tube.”
“Are you trying to say ‘life’ again?”
“It won’t—wouldn’t—surprise me.”
“And jellyfish swam into the pipes?”
Seichi ignored Belvew’s sarcasm, if he even noticed it. “That would indeed surprise me,” was his answer.
“How about a heading for the factory?” Ginger changed the subject.
“Sorry. Wasn’t thinking,” replied Maria. “Status?”
“Wait, please.” It was the chemist again “One of the labs dropped beside the slope has stopped reporting. Major, could you look it over before leaving?”
“Sure. Where was it?”
“I moved it to the edge of the hill, if that’s what we’re calling it now, as soon as you were away. It should be at the edge of the tar—pardon the word; we’ll have to find some more specific labels—within half a dozen meters of the other, which is sampling the ground between lake and whatever. It should not be more than half a meter into the whatever.”
“All right. I’ll concentrate on flying. The rest of you do anything you can think of with your screens, and look for that egg. Any better ideas?”
None were offered, and the jet glided back toward its recent landing site, easily enough identified from above. The smoke had drifted out over the lake, but the “hill” itself still contrasted in color with the “ground”. Ginger flew over the area at three hundred meters altitude and standard observing airspeed.
The two labs by the lake side could be seen easily enough, and, after a few seconds, Martucci spotted what was presumably the still active member of the second set. He indicated it on his own screen, and Status emphasized the image for the others. No one, however, could see the fourth lab, and Ginger banked out over the lake to make another pass. Scalp once more sweating, she dropped to a hundred meters in height and two per second above pipe stall speed and straightened out, tensely ready to close airscoops and turn on reaction mass at minimum notice.
Several screens showed the errant lab almost at the same moment. Maria and even Belvew waited for Seichi to report; he should, after all, have the most to say. Peter, however, was less restrained.
“It’s sunk in! It’s nearly half—”
“Look closer,” Maria interrupted softly.
“What?”
“It hasn’t sunk. There’s a little hill around it.”
“I told you!” exclaimed the chemist.
Belvew cut in, to no one’s surprise. “The lab is pseudolife. It was grown from molecular patterns. Its shell is organic—close enough to chitin. All sorts of things would react with it—”
“And climb up around it like ants around a jar of—”
“Or like the other one around my boots?” Xalco cut in.
“No! Dissolve it—absorb it—and swell up as it soaked into them! I’ll bet you’ll find molecules from that lab spreading out in that stuff like—”
Maria refrained from interfering. Science might have become more military under need, and it had always needed discipline as much as combat did, but a scientific debate was best not stopped unless it grew too acri
monious to be useful.
“How do I find out? The lab’s not working, or at least not reporting.” Belvew paused for a moment’s thought as Seichi made this point.
“You have three more labs there. They all have samplers with fairly inert tips and throats. Get one of them over near where the first is disappearing, without letting anything but the sampler head touch the stuff, of course, and pick up bits at various distances from the one you’ve—we’ve—lost. How far from the lab body can you reach?”
“Half a meter, maybe. No, less; thirty centimeters or so.” The chemist’s indignation at the criticism of his pet idea had visibly subsided. “But I can’t judge distances very well except where I have items in sight to provide scale. The lab has only one eye, and that doesn’t have much resolving power; it’s mainly for travel guidance.”
“It’s on a stalk,” Martucci pointed out. “Wave it around and have Status show you a 3-d image. You can keep the lab out of danger easily enough and if you do slip there are always more. It’s not as though they were jets. Ginger’s going back to the factory now for cans, and can get more labs while she’s at it, if Captain Yakama has really bad luck.”
“That should work,” Maria pronounced firmly. “Ginger, your heading is two-zero-two. Seichi, get to it—no, first make sure the labs doing the factory site are all working.”
“They are,” was the report after a brief pause.
“All right, you get back to the lake work. Status, keep track of all the labs and tell the world if any of them, anywhere, either stop reporting or send readings inconsistent with their earlier ones. Use Sigma One consistency criteria. Cheru, cover my mapping program along with Status; I want to keep on top of the pool situation. Gene—”
“It’s almost time for me to relieve Ginger with Theia,” the sergeant pointed out.
“Take Crius instead and make a really tight air current grid through the turbulence region she just left. Modify it to fit any new information Status may supply; use your own judgement, subject to aircraft limitations. Keep repeating it until either you get too tired to fly, or Titan has been out of Saturn’s shadow for two hours. Ginger will last long enough at what she’s doing. Get a heading from Status, and start earning your pay.”
No one laughed at the p-word; there was serious work to be done. Even those not receiving specific orders had routine to continue.
By the time Theia reached the factory site, Yakama had found with natural irritation that Belvew’s hypothesis about diffusion was probably right. The lost lab had disappeared completely into the “tar,” the bulge which had formed around it was now slowly flattening out to match the surrounding slope, and the confusion of molecules in the vinyl gel definitely included many which had to be fragments of the lab’s pseudolife outer shell and inner machinery. At least, their makeup was consistent with ordinary industrial pseudolife, and nothing very like them had been found anywhere else on Titan. Seichi was able to report this without revealing too much annoyance, and Belvew refrained from any triumphant remarks. He was far too busy, in any case; flying a planned grid pattern through and around the turbulence zone was straining even his skill. It was comforting to remember that he had made no tactless remarks about Ginger’s handling of the same task.
“The ice cliffs in sight,” reported Xalco. “I’ll make a wind check before—I set her down.” No one argued or even commented; not even Maria felt this time that the pilot had any qualms about the landing. Yakama made a request, but it was pure routine.
“Status, check the camera records as she goes over and give me any changes in albedo or topography around and on Oceanus.”
“They seem to be minor,” came the prompt answer. “Less can be seen of the craft. I will need a moment for stereo interpretation to tell whether it has sunk or the pool risen.”
“It wasn’t even—in the pool last time I—knew!” Belvew’s attention was snatched even from his present flying task. “Why didn’t—you tell us? Did the pool—or the ship move?”
“Your statement disagrees with my records. The pool had spread to include the aircraft at the time of Sergeant Inger’s death. Have I been shut down without proper procedure for any significant time?”
“No, Status,” Marie replied at once. “Sergeant Belvew’s attention was distracted at the time, and his memory of the pool is unreliable. Do not attempt record-conflict resolution.”
“You were told to—report changes—”
“The command was much more specific than that, Gene,” Maria pointed out. “You know it would have to be, or Status would have been swamping us with unusable and probably meaningless data. Ginger has passed the site now, Status; do you have a stereo comparison?”
“Yes. The pool has risen. Its slope is even greater than the one by Lake Carver, within twenty meters or so of the jet.”
“But the hulls of the aircraft are of very different composition than the lab shells,” Seichi pointed out. “We could hardly have the same solution process occurring here.”
“What do your labs say?” returned the commander. “All the ones near the factory are still working, aren’t they? Or have we lost some here too?”
“All are reporting, including those on the pool itself.”
“Just don’t let Theia get—into it, Ginger,” Belvew seemed back to normal after a few minutes of silent thought in a background of turbulent flight; he couldn’t hold back the superfluous advice.
“I’m landing to the north. There’s a five-meter wind from that direction,” was the response. The direction was not surprising, but the speed was, and for just a moment Maria wondered whether she should have Belvew handle the landing. She decided against it, but was not sorry to realize that practically everyone’s screen was copying Theia’s and it was unlikely that the pilot would be allowed to overlook anything serious.
The wind, a gale for Titan, was producing ground turbulence in the heavy atmosphere. The accelerometers showed it as Ginger rode down the approach, and she felt rather grateful for the practice she had had so recently. Wings stayed almost perfectly level once she had set up her heading; pitch angle remained unchanged; she controlled her descent rate with thrust alone. She intended to touch down heel first, but the keel toes would be only a centimeter higher at that moment if she planned it right and the ground were really level. The nose drop would be barely perceptible, but lift would cease and keel drag start almost instantly. She was west of the factory and the remains of Oceanus, and had paid no particular attention to the latter as she passed over it on the wind check.
Neither, for some reason, had anyone else, and Status had no relevant orders.
She had picked the line to keep away from the ice cliff and the larger scattered fragments extending from its foot. The smaller ones should be harmless.
Rather to her own surprise, everything went exactly as planned; she was somewhat disappointed to realize that Belvew was far too busy to have been watching. Theia slid to a halt half a kilometer west of the factory, with a record low of reaction mass used during the rocket-driven part of the approach.
“Nice job, Major,” Maria remarked, referring to the tank readings.
“Just as well. I’ll need to use a lot of juice taxiing. Is the factory ready to deliver, Status?”
“It indicates so. You want the full complement of seismometers, of course. There are fifty unused labs also ready, and if you think it desirable you have room in the jet for a dozen more from those now active in the factory area. These will of course be harder to load.”
“Think we’ll need ‘em, Seichi?” asked the pilot.
“I can hope not,” was the dry answer. “I’ve picked up nearly fifty samples from this hill of Gene’s without losing the first one yet.”
“By first, you don’t mean the one which—” Martucci stopped in confusion; Yakama’s sentence had not really been that ambiguous.
“The lost one, assuming material diffused about equally in all directions, seems to be accounted for,” the chemist went o
n without seeming bothered by the interruption. “It appears to have dissolved completely, except perhaps for metal sampling heads. I find no trace of those. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of background material—polypeptides, carbohydrate polymers, and probably stuff which is similar to but not identical with either—so a lot of time will be needed to specify the mixture details.”
“Maybe we should call it protoplasm,” suggested Martucci, “just for the historical implication,” he added hastily. “Something sitting between the high side of low perception and the low side of high.”
Maria ruled against this without trying to find out how seriously the suggestion had been meant. The word would be far too likely to slant what should not be wishful thinking. “But it wasn’t a bad idea, actually, Peter,” she finished tactfully. “We do seem to be in a sort of in-between situation calling for that sort of metaphor.”
“Whatever it is, let’s keep the jet out of it.” This was Belvew rather than Maria, and the pilot allowed her irritation to show once more.
“Don’t worry. I’m down and stopped, and there’s plenty of juice for taxiing. Tend to your own driving, Sergeant.” Belvew detected the feeling both in her tone and her use of title rather than name, and said no more; but his attention did not go back entirely to his own jet. He set his Aitoff to copy Ginger’s, and flew with complete confidence by the other instruments.
This was very unwise, but he didn’t stop to think how similar riding two sets of instruments at once might be to trying to fly simultaneously by instrument and direct vision. Further, Status had no instructions about supplying occasional reality flashes to someone driving, in effect, two aircraft at once. It also lacked human common sense—the fact that one of the jets was on the ground did not affect its judgement—and made no attempt to supply such breaks. Belvew fell into the trap which had caught many instrument pilots on weather breakout before him. As Xalco started to swivel her charge toward the factory his reflexes for a moment responded to Theia’s attitude rather than Crius’.