Fossil (1993)

by Hal Clement

  He was still a kilometer above the hilltop, however, when he saw that one of the stars to the west was not motionless. It was not very bright, but easy enough to see. It was shifting very slowly upward and to his right.

  He had no way of judging its distance, and for a moment thought it might be one of the orbiting stations which four of the Six Races now maintained over Habranha. He discarded this idea almost at once; all of these satellites were in the planet’s orbital and equatorial plane, and the thing he was watching clearly was not. It must also, if in low orbit, be deep in Habranha’s shadow to be in that direction, and presumably too faint to see. Even before he considered the possibility of an approaching spacecraft his great wings had tilted and swung his small body toward it.

  Almost simultaneously its angular motion ceased.

  Straight away from him now? Or straight toward him?

  A few seconds gave the answer and eliminated the spacecraft hypothesis. It was growing brighter too quickly. It must already be close, and small, and approaching.

  Why straight toward him? There seemed only one reasonable explanation. It had detected him. How? He was carrying no light. Habra sense? What would Habras be doing here? His own companions had no lights, either. He called; like Hugh’s, his translator carried a minimum-power radio transmitter, and Rekchellet knew some Habra speech himself.

  “Walt! Crow! Can either of you hear me?”

  “Yes, Rek. Have you found something?” came Crow’s voice.

  “I don’t know. Do you see a faint light, getting brighter, approaching from nearly west?”

  “Yes.” There was some heterodyne squeal as both natives answered at once.

  “Can you see or sense anything about it? It’s still a little above my altitude, but seems to be descending slowly.”

  “I see only the light,” Walt spoke alone this time. “Should we go up to see, or keep searching down here?”

  “Come on up.”

  “Shouldn’t one of us tell Third-Supply-Watcher?”

  “Don’t spend the time now — one of you would have to land and get her attention. You can’t talk through the truck hull. If it turns out to be important, one of us can report when we know what to say.”

  That was a tactical error, and Habranha’s chaotic nature took full advantage of it-though, of course, the planet itself could not be blamed this time.

  The light seemed almost upon Rekchellet now, far brighter than before; bright enough to show him his own wings and body, bright enough to hide in its glare whatever might be carrying it. Walt and Crow were still far below, and could make out no details even with their nonvisual senses.

  “Who’s there?” called the Crotonite, transmitting on both his feeble Habra radio and the much louder sound waves of his translator’s speaker. Rather to his surprise there was an answer; less astonishingly, it consisted entirely of no-symbol-equivalent sounds. The speaker was using a language Rekchellet’s equipment couldn’t handle. The chances were that the same was true in the other direction. One definite fact had come through, however.

  The being carrying, or accompanying, or hiding behind the light was a Crotonite. The translators assigned a different class of tone patterns to each of the Six Races as standard policy. The information might or might not be helpful, since there were two or three thousand different Crotonite languages in use on more than that many worlds; since they were a flying species, a given Crotonite culture was usually at least planet-wide.

  Besides his own, Rekchellet could just make himself understood in one other. The existence of translating equipment had not helped general linguistic skill, though there were philological specialists who could produce translator modules for use with newly discovered races.

  He was not surprised a few seconds later to see the vague outline of a pair of Crotonite wings against the sky beyond the light. He gestured irritably to have the beam directed away from him; it was only much later that it occurred to him to be surprised that the gesture was obeyed. The lamp was not only aimed away from him but changed in ad-justment; it ceased to produce a blinding glare, and allowed him to see the other flier fairly clearly.

  There was little surprising about its appearance. Like Rekchellet, it was wearing a body sheath against the chill; unlike his, the protection seemed to include the wings, which reflected the dim Fafnir light with the sheen of polymer film. Wing protection which doesn’t interfere with flight is a new one, Rekchellet conceded to himself. Where is this fellow from?

  The newcomer made two more attempts to speak, apparently to convince himself or herself that it was futile, and then made a downward gesture.

  “Walt, Crow, it’s a Crotonite. He wants me to go down for some reason. I’m assuming he has something to show me, so I’m going. You two stay close enough to watch what’s going on, but not too close — if you can help it, don’t let him know you’re here. If you see any reason, get away fast; one of you warn Third-Supply-Watcher on the truck, the other head straight for Pitville and Hugh with the best report you can put together.”

  “Where is he taking you down?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to watch.”

  The stranger was leading the way in a long but quite steep dive, not merely gliding; there was evidence of a feeling of haste. Rekchellet followed. At about one kilometer altitude a group of natives appeared around them both, crowding as closely as wing freedom would permit. He could not see his own Habra companions, but trusted that they were following his instructions. Presumably, since anything they said to him would be broadcast in their own speech and only translated at Rekchellet’s end, it would be heard and understood by these people. This might be either quite harmless or quite awkward since there was no way to tell what the newcomers wanted or intended. Rekchellet was far from paranoid, especially by Crotonite standards, but he was fully as far from sharing Janice Cedar’s tendency to assume the best of everyone. She was insane, he knew; a very nice person, but quite out of contact.

  They were ten kilometers or more from the truck when the group at last swept over a low hilltop, touched down on the slope beyond, and folded wings. The Habras surrounded the two Crotonites in a close ring, barely leaving room for lift-off if Rekchellet had wanted to. The carrier of the light was facing him, once more attempting to communicate by voice, this time not using the translator. A few of his words — it was now evident that he was male — aroused a vague feeling of familiarity in Rekchellet; there might have been some historical affinity between their languages. No ideas got across, however. It was his actions which made the situation clearer.

  He took a small case from his harness and opened it. The light revealed fully a score of what appeared to be translator modules. Pulling one of these out from among the rest, he gestured for Rekchellet to hand over his own translator unit. It did not occur to the normally suspicious explorer until much later that it wouid have been easier for him to take the cartridge and insert it in his own equipment without detaching the latter; quite unthinkingly he obeyed the gesture, removed the device from his own harness and handed it to the other flier.

  At the same instant he felt his wings seized. Not painfully, not even very firmly, but solidly enough and for long enough. The modules flicked back into their case, his own translator unit was snapped to the stranger’s harness, the light went out, and the Crotonite, as his Habra cohorts opened out to give room, spread and raised his wings and with a combined downward beat and thrust of stubby legs went airborne.

  Rekchellet stood for just a moment in shocked surprise. In that moment another Habra snatched the tracker from his harness and was also gone. The remaining ones also left, each in a different direction, and the Deputy Safety Chief of Pitville found himself standing alone on a Solid Ocean hill with no means of judging what was occurring or why.

  It had been a long time since he had been so angry, and for several minutes he was incapable of clear thought. He could only wonder what the purpose behind this silly attempt at stranding was— silly, sinc
e obviously he could get back to the truck or to Pitville; they hadn’t done anything about his ability to fly. Was someone trying to annoy him for being friendly with Erthumoi?

  Not likely. He was certainly unpopular among some Crotonites — had been ever since he had exhibited his painting of an Erthuma with wings, widely regarded as obscene — but there were few who would translate that into concrete action. They were civilized people. Their very superiority over the un-winged would keep them above that level.

  There were Trueliners, of course — the ones who insisted fervently that Crotonites were direct descendants of the Seventh Race, and therefore were automatically entitled to all the relics of that species found by anyone anywhere. Could any of these be on Habranha and interested in Rekchellet? Conceivably; he had occasionally expressed disdain for their ideas quite publicly. But, again, what could even a Wildwinder expect to gain from this trick, however extremely and universally the colonists of that world might resent doubt of their mythical ancestry?

  Then, as his temper cooled, Rekchellet wondered what might have happened to his companions. Would his attackers have tried to do anything to them, too? There was no way to deduce this; it depended on the reasons for doing what they had done to Rekchellet himself, and he could only speculate on that. He could no longer call the Habras, and with his equipment gone they could sense him only from nearby. Walt and Crow — and perhaps Third-Supply-Watcher — would have to take care of themselves.

  No, that wasn’t quite true. He could warn the Locrian; he could get back to the truck — he certainly remembered the way! — and tell her what happened. Deciding what to do was, after all, the important thing; hunt for explanations and theories later, you hatchling; act now.

  Back to the truck.

  Or back to Pitville? The distances differed by only a few tens of kilometers; the backtrace had led them east along the road, but since then they had been heading pretty much northwest, though there had been jogs in the path. Rekchellet visualized the map. Yes, distance meant little. Would wind make any difference to flight time? No doubt it would, but there was no predicting how much or which way on Habranha.

  From Pitville, Third-Supply-Watcher could be warned by neutrino transmitter, but she’d still be alone. If Rekchellet went back to the truck, he’d be able to help physically and could report to Pitville just as well.

  But how much help could he actually be to the Locrian? He’d been of little use to himself just now.

  That thought made up his mind for him. He’d go back to the vehicle and try to make a better showing this time — if these whatever-they-were made trouble there. He didn’t know whether they’d try. and he— forget it. That’s back to premature theorizing. Get into action. Hatchling.

  He swept into the air, beat his way upward, and quickly spotted the truck light. It was many kilometers away, but he knew just where to look. He flew toward it with all the power his great wings could use, but before he had gone halfway Chaos put in its bit. The light vanished in another snow squall. This one was deep, dense, and extensive enough to hide the hill-and-dune patterns which he had memorized so thoroughly, and for long, long minutes he circled impatiently over the general area waiting for the inevitable clearing to take place. It seemed like hours, and might have actually been over an hour — he never knew — before the winds died and the ice powder settled enough to let him match his memory once more with the view below.

  The match wasn’t perfect, of course, less because the dunes had moved — they hadn’t, significantly— but because now Fafnir was almost at the horizon, shadows were far longer than they had been, and many of the smaller humps were no longer visible at all. Rekchellet had known what to expect; changing surface illumination was nothing new to him. Still, it took time to reorient himself, and to identify with fair certainty the valley which the truck should be traversing.

  When he had managed this, he had to face the fact that no light could now be seen. That forced still another decision: should he remain at altitude and examine the surrounding valleys since he could just possibly have picked the wrong one? Or should he go down and make a really close examination on the assumption that the truck had stopped and become buried, had lost its lights, or had been interfered with by his recent antagonists?

  The last possibility decided him. He went down.

  There were numerous bumps and ripples in the fresh-blown snow, many of them quite large enough to have buried the vehicle completely. For a while, Rekchellet feared he might have to dig into thirty or forty individual dunes, with no tools and no certainty that any of them was the right one. He almost reconsidered his decision against reporting first at Pitville. Then he noticed that a strong wind, unusually steady for Habranha, was blowing along the valley and sweeping the piles of ice dust before it at respectable speed. The larger ones, close examination showed, were traveling westward at a rate of a meter every three or four minutes. If the truck were actually inside any of them, it should be uncovered in half an hour at the most, and with any luck much less.

  Chaos helped this time. Ten minutes or so after he had started patrolling the most probable section of the valley, as figured from his memory of the original topography and the truck’s speed, the shallow upwind slope of one of the larger dunes began to display a small projection. A few more minutes revealed this to be the hind end of the truck, now being left exposed by the advance of the wind-driven powder. Why it should have stopped and allowed itself to be buried in the first place Rekchellet refused to consider; there were too many possibilities.

  He tried to land on it, but the smooth body offered nothing to grip; he was promptly blown away, and regained his equilibrium only after a second or two of mad fluttering. He did land behind it, and within a minute or two found that enough snow had gathered on his windward side and been scooped from his lee to topple him into a growing hole and start to bury him under a new embryonic dune. He was able to spread his wings and avoid burial only with difficulty. He settled finally on a nearby hilltop which seemed to be packed hard enough to promise some kind of permanence, and watched as the truck slowly emerged into view, or such view as there was; Fafnir had reached the horizon and the whole floor of the valley was now immersed in shadow.

  When the main hatch was clear, though the front of the vehicle was still buried almost to the control room windows, the Crotonite flew down to the truck again. He was worried; not only were the outside lights off, but the control chamber was dark.

  Total power failure in such a machine was rare enough so that he gave it only a passing thought. Why had Third-Supply-Watcher shut things down? Or had she been the one to do it? Were the ones who had stolen his communicators, or others of the same group, already inside, perhaps waiting for him? Maybe it wasn’t wise to show himself — no, forget that, they’d have seen him already and have been expecting him before that if they were there. All he could do was get in fast, if that were possible, and do whatever seemed in order. .

  A single wingbeat carried him to the door, and his small hands operated the opening mechanism. This was purely mechanical and should work even if the power had failed or been shut off. It did; the door swung out and downward, and Rekchellet was inside the lock instantly. He hit the switch which should close the door again, much less certain that this would work.

  The portal promptly closed, however; there was power. He groped in the darkness for the controls of the forward inner door — he had been in this vehicle only once before, and never in another like it, so he was not familiar with its detailed operation — and presently found them. Warm air, good air, with detectable traces of ammonia and hydrogen cyanide, enough to be homey without being dangerous to Erthumoi or Naxians, swirled around him as the way to the control room opened. The air had not been like that before, and he had no trouble guessing what sort of person would be in the control room.

  As he shuffled forward on his stumpy legs, lights suddenly went on. They were neither numerous nor very bright, but adequate to let his eyes confirm
his sense of smell. A Crotonite stood by the controls Whether it was the same one who had robbed him a little while before Rekchellet couldn’t tell, since he had never had a good look at the thief, but he was wearing the same sort of clothing.

  There was no sign of the Locrian, but the room was orderly; loose equipment was all where Rekchellet remembered its being. He could hope there had been no violence. There seemed only one way to be certain, however.

  “Where’s Third-Supply-Watcher, my driver?” he asked.

  There was a brief answer, of which he understood no word. The other gestured with a wing tip, however, toward the rear of the truck. It could be hoped this meant that the question had been understood and that the Locrian was back in the cargo section. It could also be hoped that she was unharmed; it should not have been necessary to use real violence on the relatively frail being. Of course, a typical Crotonite might not have been very careful with a nonflier; Rekchellet turned aft, determined to make sure. Third-Supply-Watcher was not a personal friend, but her welfare and safety were part of his job.

  A snarled monosyllable whose transmitted feeling was clear enough even if its precise meaning were not made him turn back to face the intruder. Two or three more sentences hissed and clacked from the other’s beak; then all question of his identity disappeared. A flight harness was dragged into view from a shelf which had been hidden by one of the film-covered wings. A hand groped in the pouch attached to it, and Rekchellet’s own translator unit was pulled into sight. He reached for his property, but the other gestured him back with another snarl, and groped once more in the pouch. A module was pulled out, examined in the dim light, and inserted in the equipment in place of one which the Crotonite extracted from its socket and tossed aside, to drift unregarded to the floor. Then the unit was handed to Rekchellet, who clipped it back in place on his own harness. It began to speak at once.

  “You will stay and listen to me until I dismiss you, crawler with aliens. I know who you are.”