by Hal Clement
None of this crossed her conscious mind but whatever feeling was underneath kept S’Nash quiet.
Hugh was thinking again, and for fully a minute no one spoke. It was he who finally broke the silence.
“All right. This machine’s points are speed and carrying capacity. It will take a small group of people and a good supply of food to the Cold Pole. Most or all of the group will be Habras, because I expect what we seek will be under the snow. It better be all, so we can concentrate on their food — no, I can’t do that. I’ll have to carry Crotonite supplies, too.
“The Crotonites will please study this chart— here, Kesserah — and use it as a guide. It may not be a very good one, but it’s all we have to go on for the great circle route to the place we hope Ennissee and Rekchellet were going. You will follow along that course, looking for signs of the two we hope we’re following. Every five hundred kilometers I’ll leave a cache of food for you, well lit so you can see it from a good distance and with a neutrino communicator so you can tell me when you’ve reached it and what you’ve found. You all have inertial trackers, don’t you?”
“Most of us.”
“And lights.”
“Of course.”
“All right, you can start now from here. Get your group together and tell them what I want, and look carefully. I’m not sure this Ennissee person really cares much what happens to Rekchellet once he’s sure we’re heading the way he wants. Third-Supply Watcher, did Rek have his translator when he left the truck?”
“Yes, definitely.”
“But not when he arrived, you said.”
“No. The other Crotonite apparently had it, and gave it back to him during their argument.”
“We don’t know how he got it away from Rek in the first place, though, so we don’t know he didn’t do it again. Kesserah, I’m more and more worried about Rekchellet all the time. Look carefully, please. I know that sounds silly along a four thousand kilometer search line, but I mean it.”
“We’ll do our best. I suggest you recruit more people — fliers — to help.”
“If I can get them. Everyone not in Safety supposedly has a job schedule which may interfere and which I can’t override, but I’ll do what I can.” The Crotonite gestured understanding and made her way to the air lock.
Once again Hugh’s hands were aching from code transmission, and once again he was wondering whether it might not be better to get out of the diving fluid filling his armor. It seemed likely that he would not be in the Pits for some time, as things were now going.
But such a move would waste time, and there might not be time. Rekchellet had no food or water.
Hugh turned to the Habra. “You heard all I said to Kesserah.”
“Yes.”
“Please have four of your people ready to come with me on this machine. You can all return to Pitville now; those who don’t accompany me had better stay there and resume routine duty. Things could still happen in town, after all. Please tell Ted he’s in charge until Rekchellet or I get back. Tell everyone to stay below one kilometer going back; I’ll be above three, at full speed until I’m near town. What’s your name?”
“I’m Holly.”
“Good. Thanks. If you’ll get outside and start spreading the word, we’ll go for supplies.” The Habra operated the air lock without assistance. Hugh waited until the indicator showed the outer portal safely closed, went to the controls, and lifted off cautiously. He was reasonably sure that none of his safety crew would be directly overhead, but had developed professional habits of his own.
At one kilometer he nosed upward and applied more power; at three, eight seconds later, he leveled and began to tear through protesting air. Even at Habranha’s nightside temperature, the feeble gravity kept air pressure and density from dropping quickly with height. The aircraft’s shell warmed significantly in the few minutes of the trip.
There was, of course, more delay than he had hoped at Pitville. This did not originate with Administration this time; Barrar was extremely cooperative, to the extent of deciding to come along himself, though a little later he reported that Spreadsheet-Thinker had issued a veto on that plan. Hugh, however, had forgotten to assign Pit safety duty to anyone. The only species who had developed the pressure fluid were Erthumoi and Habras, and the latter did not yet have protection against liquid air temperatures. The Naxians could stand the pressures reached so far in the digging. So could Cephallonians, but the only members of this race attached to the Project or, as far as Hugh knew, on Habranha were otherwise occupied and certainly elsewhere on the planet. Two of the Erthumoi in Pitville had expressed willingness to serve a pressure term, but Hugh didn’t consider them well enough trained yet; and after explaining this to them as tactfully as he could, he assigned a pair of Naxians to Pit safety. After all, a majority of the workers in the liquid air were of that species anyway, and would be until a depth of two or three kilometers had been reached. Erthumoi were being recruited for the remaining nearly five hundred kilometers, though it was hoped that adequately insulated armor for Habras could also be developed in time. The natives, at least the many who had worked at mud collection in their submarines, were by far the most experienced performers under high pressure.
But Hugh could not get Rekchellet out of his mind, and worked in a state of frantic irritation while he set matters up to take care of themselves, or be taken care of by Ted, or — reluctantly on his part — by higher administration officials while he was gone. The top office seemed perfectly content to allow Ted to take over the job; Hugh was not sure, down at the emotional level, how he should feel about this. Of course, if Spreadsheet-Thinker decided to make the change permanent, Hugh could always keep himself busy in the Pits.
At least there was no trouble about the food he was taking. Counter-of-Supplies did not, as far as Hugh could tell, even check with Administration; she set her muscular Erthumoi workers loading everything Hugh requested onto the aircraft, including transmitters.
Four Habras, presumably the ones Holly had been commissioned to locate, were orbiting over flier and building as the loading went on. Hugh paid no attention to them until the job was finished. He was learning another administrative skill, to avoid worrying about a task delegated to someone else. Only when the last of the food cartons and water tanks was aboard did he address the natives.
“Ready to go, I think.” They swept to the snow before the open air lock instantly, and the Erthuma gestured them inside.
Chapter Nine
Clear Sight May Not Provide The Clearest View
His four Habras came aboard happily enough. Early metal aircraft brought to the planet by the starfaring races had given them claustrophobia, since the walls had blocked their electrical senses; this machine had been built of nonconducting synthetics with natives in mind. As passengers, they chattered eagerly at the view from heights they could never reach under their own power, and admitted Janice and S’Nash freely into their discussion.
They worked quickly and efficiently at the first stop, setting up the light and transmitter Hugh had promised the Crotonites, stacking cases of food beside them, and flying around to scout the region within a forty or fifty kilometer radius to learn whether they could sense any evidence that Rekchellet and the other had actually come that way.
The Erthumoi were rather surprised when they did. A dozen kilometers north of the just completed cache a single empty Crotonite food package was detected just under the ice-dust surface, its material charged differently enough from the surrounding material to reveal it to Habra senses. The discoverer brought it in for detailed examination, assuring Hugh and Janice that nothing could be read from the surrounding surface. If S’Nash felt any skepticism, it/he kept it private.
The interesting part of the container itself was that it bore markings in addition to the machine-impressed label, markings definitely not made by machine, though they were more regular than either of the Erthumoi could have produced by hand.
S’Nash insi
sted after a glance that they were Crotonite writing in the same language Rekchellet had used in his earlier note. It/he could not read a symbol, but was completely certain of the pattern. Janice was willing to believe it/him; she had already been impressed by the Naxian pattern-analysis ability shown at the point on the road where the truck had stopped. It fit her favorite hypothesis about the way the emotion-reading worked, now all the dearer since the collapse of the one about Locrian deep-sight.
Hugh was less certain, but willing to accept S’Nash’s opinion as a working hypothesis. After a moment’s thought, he took the wrapping outside and carefully placed it under a food carton. When the Crotonite searchers got that far and reported to him, he could tell them where it was and ask for interpretation, meanwhile hoping that the group included someone familiar with Rekchellet’s language. The interpreting devices were designed for oral and to a lesser extent gestured speech, not for writing.
They had reached and were setting up the fourth cache, some two thousand kilometers from Pitville and not yet that close to their putative goal, when the flier’s communicator asked for attention. Janice answered.
“This is Velliah. We have reached the first food cache. We found it with no trouble, and there is plenty of food for all of us. I am sorry to say we found nothing on the way.”
“We may have,” answered the Erthuma. “Under the carton at the west end of the pile you will find the remains of what seems to be an ordinary Crotonite food pack, open and empty. There are marks on it which look to us like Crotonite writing. Would you examine them, tell us whether or not we are right, and if anyone in your group knows the language used, read it to us?”
“Of course. One moment.” There was a pause of only a few seconds. “It is a food package. I can’t read the marks, or for that matter the printed label, but there are universal standard symbols for the contents. I will ask whether any of the group can read it.” The pause was longer this time, and broken by a new voice.
“This is Reekess. I’m not from Takkish, Rekchellet’s hatching world, but I know its written language fairly well; it was colonized only a few hundred years apart from my own. This note is signed by Rekchellet. It says he has no tracker and no useful communicator, that he is extremely hungry and tired, that he knows Habras can find the wrapping and should be able to find him the same way. He will fly as long as he can to keep warm, going straight west by the stars. When he has to stop it will be in a valley to keep from being blown away, so he may be buried. Tell the Habras to scan carefully. That’s not verbatim, but is the sense of it.”
“Nothing about someone named Ennissee?”
“No. Strictly survival matters.”
“All right. Stay there, and stay on the ground. We’re coming back at high speed. We have four Habras on board with us, including the one who found that note. Watch for our lights.”
Janice did not sign off formally; with Hugh at the controls, there would be only a brief pause in the conversation. As the craft roared through the dense air, she brought the natives, who had been too far back in the cabin to hear everything, up to date on the results of their find.
“You found the wrapper because of its charge difference, I suppose, Fibb?” she asked.
“That’s right.”
“Is Rekchellet right in believing you can find him the same way?”
“Probably. I’d doubt it if he were flying, but buried in snow or with snow blowing against him he’d show a bright — I expect your translator will call it ‘color,’ but I’m sure you know that’s not the right symbol.”
“I know. It will have to do. The main thing is that you should be able to detect him.”
“I’d expect to. Very well, he said he’d fly straight west by the stars…”
“Straight west from where? I know where I found the wrapper, but am not at all sure that was where he left it. It could have blown far before being buried.”
“Drat. You’re right, of course. All right, wider pattern and slower search. I hope he’s not too close to starving or freezing.”
“As do we.” The native’s voice offered no suggestion of how much hope he really held. Not even the Habras knew this hemisphere of their planet at all well. As Hugh settled toward the light which marked the cache, all of them seized the opportunity to eat. Food was energy, needed both to travel and to keep warm.
As the air lock opened, Hugh restrained his winged assistants with a gesture and preceded them outside, where a small group of Crotonites waited.
“Is any of this food of yours liquid, or otherwise suitable for someone injured or unconscious?” he asked.
“It’s not liquid, but if you find him unconscious just push a pellet of…” the speaker indicated one of the containers…”this down his throat. It will digest quickly; it’s an aminated carbohydrate — quick energy.”
“There’s no risk of choking him?”
“Why? Oh, I remember — Erthumoi breathing passages are cross-connected with the swallowing channel. It would make one wonder about evolution if it didn’t make one wonder even more about the intelligence of the designer. No, no risk. Have each of your natives take one of these packages. That way…” the speaker gestured…”is west. I can’t guess how far Rekchellet might have flown; even if he were extremely tired and hungry, anger or desperation might have kept him going.”
“My Habras covered the region within forty kilometers of here pretty well at the time Fibb found the note,” Hugh pointed out, “but we don’t know what the weather has done. As Fibb says, the note may not have been where Rekchellet left it, and Rek himself may have had his course affected by wind, though I haven’t seen any signs of a real storm here lately. He had no tracker, remember.”
“Nor have we seen storm signs. But that proves little on this world.”
The natives were off, each carrying a package of restorative, within the minute. After another few minutes’ discussion, it was agreed that the Crotonites would also go aloft and keep somewhere near the Habras, carrying lights. Their translators would allow them to hear the natives’ radio speech, and most of them could understand it after a fashion even without the appropriate language modules— Crotonites had been on Habranha a long time. Hugh and the other two nonfliers took the aircraft aloft and went highest of all, hoping to keep all the lights in sight at once and be able to respond to any positive report.
With Fafnir gone, the landscape looked nearly featureless; the hills, wrinkles, dunes, or whatever one chose to call the irregularities simply didn’t show. The starlight was too nearly uniform to provide any distinct shadows; even clouds and high-blowing snow could not be distinguished from the snow-covered surface. Occasionally some pillar of white powder riding a topography-guided column of dense air — Coriolis force was negligible with Habranha’s slow rotation — would build up enough charge to reveal itself to Naxian and Erthumoi eyes by bolts of lightning. Sometimes there would be several of the whirlwinds in a few hundred square kilometers, some spinning in one direction and some in the other. They might either attract or repel each other, cancel or reinforce when they met. Hugh shook his head slowly as he watched. There were still Habras who hoped to be able to predict their world’s weather patterns in detail.
All he himself could hope was that Rekchellet was not hidden in one of the squalls, where even the Habras could hardly fly, or buried too deeply for his individual charge pattern to be perceptible to them.
The four natives had arranged a pattern reaching fifty kilometers to each side of the line running west from the point where the wrapper had been found. With their sensory range and flying speed, they were moving along it at less than ten kilometers an hour. This was a discouraging speed; it seemed quite possible that even a starving Rekchellet might have flown on for well over a hundred. Time and again Hugh felt tempted to suggest a narrower sweep, and each time told himself firmly that the Habras should know what they were doing. If anyone was qualified to suggest a change, it was the Crotonites, not he. They should be best able
to guess what the missing one might have accomplished; but even they could only guess, and the natives knew what their own senses could do.
Two hours. Three hours. Four. The low-flying searchers came in for food, finished it quickly, and launched themselves once more from the air lock; the Crotonites went back to the cache in shifts for the same purpose. Hugh had almost definitely decided to order that the pattern be narrowed when a message was relayed back through one of the Crotonites that the natives were widening it; they were now so far from the originally unsure starting point of the lost being that this was the only reasonable thing to do. The Erthumoi digested this for half an hour.
Hugh was about to enforce his own emotions anyway when a light blinked far to the flier’s left. Others repeated the signal closer to the aircraft and he dived toward the nearest, slowing to match velocities a few meters from a Crotonite. The latter’s voice was picked up by the outside microphones.
“They’ve found something. It’s buried. It can be uncovered faster if you get over there. Go to the farthest blinker, and follow its carrier down.”
Hugh obeyed without answering, hoping silently that all the Crotonites at this level were carrying lights, and was at the indicated one in a few seconds.
“Where?” he asked the single word. The broad wings tilted and began a steep glide even farther to the left of the original pattern. They were down to half a kilometer — two hundred meters — one hundred — a Habra was suddenly visible in their own lights, and the Crotonite spoke as he or she peeled away to circle, light blinking a new pattern, above the area.