by Hal Clement
“Follow Holly.”
The native led them only a few more meters, into a narrow cleft between two unusually steep hills. She paused, hovering, over a spot not much wider than the flier itself. Hugh settled the machine under her, and all three emerged. Holly’s voice had started before they opened the lock; the flier’s hull did not block radio.
“I’d almost bet this was the right place. The hills to either side are solid ice, as though a glacier had come up and split. The space between is snow which has blown in and not packed very closely. I guess Rekchellet decided that any snow which blew over him here could not bury him very deeply; any that piled past the top of the ice would blow away.”
“Doesn’t it look like Rekchellet?”
“It doesn’t look like anything. I can’t see it. It’s an area of different charge — it’s colored differently from what’s around it, but you know that’s a poor word. I don’t know the size; it could be very small with one sort of charge difference, and very large with others. I can only say it isn’t ice or snow, and we’ll have to dig to be certain.”
“Do we have any digging tools?” asked S’Nash, presumably remembering the incident at the waste hill. Hugh smiled grimly.
“We do. This isn’t just what I expected to use them for, but we have them.” He returned to the flier and emerged almost at once with two extremely broad-bladed shovels, one of which he handed to Janice. “Sorry, S’Nash, I don’t know what you could use for this purpose. We start — where, Holly?”
The native took a few steps and indicated. “The center of the field is immediately under this point. As I said, I can’t guarantee how far it spreads.”
The Erthumoi started moving ice dust with all the speed consistent with the possibility of a living body’s being at risk from their blades. After the first two or three scoops, Janice asked, “Where’s S’Nash?”
Hugh looked around; the Naxian had indeed disappeared.
“Back in the warmth, I suppose,” he answered. “He couldn’t have blown away now. Did you see him go, Holly?”
Before the Habra could answer, an armored serpentine head popped out of the snow directly in front of the Erthumoi.
“The ice is loose all the way down,” it/he said. “It’s Rekchellet, or at least a Crotonite, apparently unconscious. You can dig for about a meter and a half before there’s any risk of cutting him with your tools. Go to it.”
The shovels moved briskly, their wielders thankful for the brief lack of wind, and within minutes part of the hidden being could be seen. Hugh laid his shovel down, gestured to his wife to do the same, brushed ice dust away with his hands, and presently had uncovered enough of the body to provide a handhold.
Crotonites are light, even in decent gravity. Hugh needed no help, once he had his arms around the still form, though there were no projecting arms or legs to seize. It was completely wrapped in its wings. With a brief, “Come on!” he started back to the aircraft with his burden. Janice picked up the shovels and followed; the Naxian went ahead, finding a little trouble with the loose ice dust but managing to reach the air lock first.
Holly hesitated, then spoke. “Shall I tell the rest we’ve found him?”
“Yes, please,” answered Hugh without turning. “And please have someone stay near us. I’ll probably want everyone to go, or come, back to Pitville, but will be too busy to organize for a few minutes.”
“I understand. We will tell everyone.” Even Janice had forgotten the other Crotonite who must still be overhead. She did not know his or her name, but spoke aloud.
“Please come to the flier — you who led us down with your light. We need your help. Rekchellet may be in very bad shape.”
Moments later the broad wings of the Crotonite showed in the flier’s lights, and their owner settled at the air lock. Janice, who had remained outside, waved him or her in, and followed.
“Your name, please?” she asked as the hatch closed.
“I’m Reekess. We’ve talked before.”
“Yes. Thank you. Rekchellet may owe you his life, if we can save it. Hugh and I know little of Crotonite physiology, not enough for common-sense first aid.” She opened the inner panel, and both entered, halting abruptly at the sight meeting their gaze.
Rekchellet, if it were he, had been deposited as gently as Hugh could manage on one of the padded benches. He was still wrapped in his wings, and there was no obvious way to unwrap them; the membranes were stiff and brittle, and cracks up to several centimeters in length showed in them. A number of small detached fragments, the largest several centimeters square, had fallen to the seat and one to the floor in front of it.
“They’re frozen,” said Hugh, “so I can t unwrap them even to tell whether he’s alive. What can we do for him, Reekess?”
“The membranes will thaw in this temperature in a minute or two. If the cracked areas start to bleed within that time, he is certainly alive; if not, he still may be. He could have, and probably did, shut down circulation to the area before it froze. Until they thaw, there is nothing to do; we must not risk more wing damage — there has been too much already, though I could not expect you to appreciate that.”
“He is alive,” said S’Nash firmly.
“How do you know? Is he conscious? Can you sense his emotions?” asked Janice.
“Not exactly. He is not conscious, I am sure, but some of the factors I normally perceive in reading emotion are operating.”
Janice, grim as the situation was, couldn’t keep her mind from wandering to its beloved theory. She wasn’t sure how this fit, but at least it was more data.
Hugh kept closer to the main problem.
“Then we get him to Pwanpwan as last as this thing will go. We’ll have to get the Habras aboard — we can’t abandon them out of flying range of town — and Reekess can tell the Crotonites to go back to Pitville. There’s plenty of food for them to make the trip on at the cache. All right, Reekess? Can you tell me where the Crotonite medical center is at Pwanpwan, or should I call them as I go?”
“I’m not sure anyone can handle this,” was the slow answer. She seemed about to add something when S’Nash cut in.
“Get him to our facility. I’ll come along. They can take care of him. Tell your safety crowd, and let’s go.”
Erthumoi and Crotonite looked at the serpentine speaker with surprise, but Hugh hesitated only a moment.
He remained the pilot, but S’Nash, however informally, became commander. It/he said almost nothing during the trip back to Pitville, the disembarkation of the Habras, and Hugh’s terse reporting to Barrar, but those few words had carried weight, with one exception. Reekess refused to follow the suggestion that she, too, remain behind when the flier started for Pwanpwan. She declared her firm and complete indifference to what the administrative office might have to say about the matter if its members were told. Job responsibilities were real, but so were others, she insisted. The Naxian did not press the matter, and she was still aboard as Grendel appeared above the horizon ahead of them and iceberg-dotted open water began to show below.
Pwanpwan was fairly close to the cold, or growing, side of the ring-shaped ice “continent,” since the visitors from the stars were in no hurry to have it reach the warm side and be forced to move when this melted, but it was a long way north of Pitville’s latitude. The trip took several minutes, giving plenty of time to heat the flier’s hull by friction once more.
Most of the Iris, as organisms with Erthuma-type eyes called the ice continent, was a crazy-quilt of varicolored vegetation. Much, but not all, of this was cultivated by the Habras for food, but they deliberately left many patches running wild to provide a reference base for biological information and buffering. The Cedars had been told by natives that most of the “events” in the long but placid recorded history of the world had occurred when ecological oscillation had threatened its food supplies.
Pwanpwan was rendered fairly distinct on this landscape by its concentration of buildings; Hugh would have
had no trouble finding it even without the flier’s instruments. He set the craft down at S’Nash’s terse directions close to a shuttle of obviously Naxian build cradled in an open space among the structures. Reekess became visibly uneasy as an enclosed catwalk began to extend from the side of the shuttle toward their flier.
“You’re taking him off planet?”
“Yes. Our medical laboratories are in orbit, with available free fall.”
“But what can you do? Do you really know anything about Crotonite physiology?”
“A great deal, I guarantee. We can heal him, even to restoring the destroyed wing tissue. We can give similar help to any of the Six Races. I don’t mean that Naxians in general can, but my own world’s people are noted for such skills. That’s why we have a lab here; we are on the point — may have reached it by now; it’s not my personal field, and I haven’t checked for a while — of being able to do tissue regeneration for Habras, too.”
“Why should you be interested in the health of other races?”
“I’m not sure we are, in any personal sense. Why are you, yourself, on a world other than your own’.’ There are many kinds of exploration, and curiosity is an aspect of intelligence.” The Crotonite was silent for a time, while the air lock connection was sealed to the extended catwalk, and a powered stretcher accompanied by half a dozen lightly armored Naxians came through.
“I’ll have to go with him.”
“You will find the air unsuitable. We’re prepared to keep him in appropriate atmosphere, but not his entire surroundings.”
Hugh spoke for the first time since they had left Pitville. “They’ll take care of him, Reekess. Won’t it be better to go back to Pitville with us and let work ward off worry?”
“You’re going back?”
“Yes. I’ve done all I can for Rekchellet now, and have other responsibilities. What do you expect to do here, or up in the Naxian station?”
Crotonites tend to be outspoken beings where other races are concerned, especially nonflying ones, but this time Reekess actually seemed a little embarrassed. She didn’t quite want to follow her feelings and say that she distrusted the Naxians and regarded crawlers’ abilities with contempt, since her mind told her that neither remark would be justified. Her feelings, however, were hard to fight down, especially since she knew that every Naxian in sight was aware of them, and she couldn’t help resenting that fact. Erthumoi were not the only beings who resented invasion of privacy under some conditions.
S’Nash broke the impasse. “Did Rekchellet ever tell you that he was doing work for me — had responsibilities to me?”
“No.”
“Well, of course he wasn’t supposed to. However, he has done many things in the last Habranha year or two which should convince you of this if you think them over. I have responsibilities to him, myself.”
“I don’t know what he’s been doing. I don’t know him that well. We aren’t really close personal friends. I just don’t like seeing a flier helpless in the — you can’t even call them hands—of crawlers.” She hadn’t meant to be quite that free with her words, but she couldn’t apologize. Neither S’Nash nor any of its/his fellows seemed bothered, and they certainly could not have been surprised.
Hugh spoke more urgently.
“I think we’re delaying Rek’s treatment. Will you compromise? You can stay here in Pwanpwan and check in with your own people at the Guild. I can make that reasonable with Administration at Pitville. You can call me there when you’ve either found out enough to satisfy you, or decided that you want something else done, though I admit I don’t see what else it could be; could your own people repair Rekchellet’s wings?” The Erthuma nodded toward the cracked and torn membranes, now warmed and pliable, still wrapped around the unconscious figure. “Not as far as I know.”
“And even I know pretty well what losing wings means to you people. I think he’d want to take the chance. I would.”
Reekess shifted uneasily. “All right. With one other provision. I talk to Rekchellet as soon as he can talk.”
“How will you know?”
“I won’t unless I’m told. If I find out later that I was delayed, from Rekchellet or anyone else, there will be trouble. I’ll leave it at that.”
“But I don’t want you to be — wait a minute. I’m going to rule this a safety matter, and if Barrar and Spreadsheet-Thinker don’t agree they can give Ted my job, which they may be planning to do anyway. I’ll stay with you, and help you check at the Guild, and go up to the Naxian station myself if it seems indicated. Jan, you can fly this machine back so Ged won’t complain about our monopolizing it, and take S’Nash with you…”
“I have to stay and go up to the station. Rekchellet is my responsibility, too, as I told Reekess. Also, it will be pleasant to get out of armor for a while.”
Hugh gave up.
“All right. I don’t know how I can justify that as a safety problem, but you can probably take care of Administration yourself.”
“I’m sure I can.” Janice added the remark to her file.
“Is that all right, Reekess?” Hugh asked. “Yes.”
“Good. Let’s go.” Hugh pressed his faceplate briefly against his wife’s, not caring what the Naxians read, and followed the Crotonite out of the flier without waiting to watch the transfer of Rekchellet to the shuttle. This must have been done quickly. The two had not reached the Guild offices, only a few minutes away even in Pwanpwan’s maze, when the Naxian vessel began to lift.
The officials in the roofless Crotonite section of the offices were primly courteous to Hugh and extremely sympathetic with Reekess when they heard the story. It seemed to be true, they agreed, that some Naxians had a reputation for skill in tissue regeneration for other species as well as their own. An Erthuma at the Guild office, they said, often dis played a normal-appearing hand which, he said, had lost three digits in an accident only two Habranha years before. They were told of, and referred to if they cared to check with him, a Locrian chemist with a newly grown eye.
A Naxian whose function seemed to be to wipe raindrops or snow from the weather hoods of the office equipment listened with seeming interest while the visitors were told that Rekchellet was quite certainly safe and, if the crawlers in the orbiting hospital had given the assurance, almost as certain of complete cure. Even Hugh could guess at the conflict between reluctance to worry Reekess and reluctance to praise nonfliers which was bothering the speaker; his enthusiasm was plainly forced. Hugh could not tell whether Reekess observed this.
They left the office and started to discuss what should be done while they waited for word from orbit. Hugh was getting uneasy about matters at Pitville, while the Crotonite was starting to wonder aloud whether she shouldn’t have insisted on going up to the station. How would Rekchellet feel when he regained his senses and found no one around him but — she did cut the last word off.
Hugh was trying to reassure her about Rekchellet’s objectivity when they were interrupted. A Naxian stopped beside them and raised the forward third of its body with obvious intent to capture their attention.
“I heard your problem while you were inside,” it stated without preamble. It must have been using S’Nash’s language, as both personal translators handled the words. “I can offer you more than words as assurance that our laboratory can handle alien medical problems. There is a Cephallonian who suffered loss of his main swimming organ — his tail — in a recent accident, and who can show you what we did for him. Would it comfort you, Crotonite, to see our work?”
Hugh thought quickly enough to accept the offer before his companion could say anything.
“Yes. Can you tell us, or are you free to show us, where this swimmer may be found?”
‘Telling would be very complex. I can show you to the Dock of Deep Study, where he is often ashore.”
The trip itself was complex enough. Pwanpwan was far enough from the growing edge of the ring continent to be clearly of some age; and while Crotonit
es had discovered the world over a hundred Common Years before, the city predated the arrival of nonflying species. The concept of streets had not occurred to the Habras until nonflying aliens had introduced wheeled vehicles for transporting heavy loads. Roofs existed only when something particularly needed protection from weather. Walls, however, were universal, as the natives had a strong and complex territorial drive and territory was a variable on Habranha. Most of the openings in the walls were drains rather than doors, though the latter did exist— equipment too heavy to fly sometimes had to be moved. The air distance from the Guild office to the dock was something like three hundred meters; the path followed by the Naxian was over four times that long before they reached a real road on which a mud transport was passing. This still left them three hundred more to get to the dock area. Reekess was annoyed enough to forget Rekchellet for the moment; she could have flown to their goal in a few seconds if she had known where it was. Hugh wondered why the Naxian had not given her direction and distance, which would have been simple enough. He guessed later.
The dock area had probably occupied a bay in the ice at one time; it was now completely separated from the sea by bergs which had merged with the continent in later years. The only access to the ocean was downward, which did not bother the natives. The only seagoing craft they knew were submarines.
Four of these vessels were under construction on ways giving on the two-hundred-meter-wide open pool which was the Dock of Deep Study itself. More than a dozen others were moored at the edge of the ice. Two of these were unloading mud obtained five hundred kilometers below, to be spread on the ice for agricultural purposes. As far as aliens could tell, this was the Habras’ principal industry.
The Naxian spoke again.
“That ship.” it indicated with a straightened body, “is the research vessel which the Cephallonian you seek finds of greatest interest. You will recognize him easily; his tail is not yet quite of the same color as the rest of his body, and in any case I think he is the only one of his kind here just now. I stupidly forgot to suggest that you obtain translator units for his speech while you were at the Guild office. I must return there now; shall I have them sent to you?”