by Hal Clement
This time Reekess spoke first. “I’ll get them,” she replied tersely, and took to the air. Hugh added thanks, realizing that the fellow probably couldn’t follow his code but could presumably read the intent. It departed without even having introduced itself.
Reekess was back in two or three minutes with modules for both of them, and they approached the submarine indicated by their guide. This was of the usual open framework construction, with spherical containers for cargo, ballast, and buoyancy fluid spaced along its interior. It appeared to be old; the pods around its midsection contained simple electric motors — the natives were good enough chemists to have developed organic conductors; free metal had been almost unobtainable until the star travelers arrived — rather than the fusion thrusters the Habras had learned to construct from their alien visitors.
It also had a number of natives working around it, and Hugh asked one of these whether a Cephallonian might be found in the area. The fellow put down what appeared to be a piece of electronic gear and answered willingly.
“Yes. Shefcheeshee is working under the ship, but I’ll call him up if you like.”
“No, thanks. Let him finish whatever he’s at. Our wish is less important than his work.” This was standard Habra courtesy and the native would have ignored its literal meaning, but Hugh stopped his turn toward the water with another question.
“Is a ship of this age still in use for mining? I find this surprising.”
“It would more than surprising. The Peeker is far underpowered for modern needs. It’s a research vessel. The water dweller is helping us in a bottom study project.”
“Can he get to the bottom? I hadn’t heard that diving fluid had been developed for his kind.”
“To his great annoyance, it has not; his depth limit is only a few kilometers. He has provided much of our equipment, however, assists with its installation and maintenance, and spends much time publicizing results among both our people and aliens, and seeking material support for further research. He has great personal interest in this project. In fact, a large number of aliens seem to share it; there are some similar operations on, and I have heard in, the Solid Ocean as well as this ordinary sea bottom search.”
“Can you tell us more, or are you too busy?”
“I’m afraid I’m needed right now. When Shefcheeshee appears, I know he’ll be eager to explain — perhaps more than you’ll be to listen, after a while. Is there such a thing as overenthusiasm among your people?” Hugh’s translator had no difficulty with the word; he wondered briefly whether there were a Crotonite equivalent. Reekess remained silent, but the Erthuma keyed an emphatic affirmative, followed by appropriate thanks. The native picked up his burden and departed.
The two waited silently; both had plenty to ponder. So there was a sea bottom project having some connection with the work on Darkside — the Solid Ocean of the natives. It was probably wishful thinking, but was somebody actually looking For fossils in the bottom mud? Then was no obvious reason why they shouldn’t form there, if life existed at or bodies settled to such depths and got buried. There should be a constant, though slow, deposition of silicate material — not just from the traces the Habras constantly lost on the inner side of their melting continent, but from the much greater quantities scooped from the little world’s rocky core by glaciers of high-pressure ice flowing from Darkside and distributed as the ice dissolved, changed phase, and otherwise spread itself through the Liquid Ocean.
This should have been going on long before the Habras’ ancestors had arrived, if indeed the creatures were the descendants of colonists. There could reasonably be organic remains below the sea bottom; quite possibly someone was trying to find them. If the Cephallonian were indeed of the enthusiastic type, there might be more to learn here than how good the Naxian doctors were. Hugh did not want to interrupt any more Habras obviously at work, but there were two or three Naxians in sight with no obvious occupation. It might be worth asking them if they could communicate.
Hugh had almost made his mind up to ask, as one of them snaked its way more or less toward the dock where he and Reekess waited, when an interruption occurred. For a moment he almost felt at home.
The alarm was on radio, of course, but there was only one Habra language and his translator handled it perfectly.
“Help below bow section three! The alien swimmer is in trouble!”
Chapter Ten
The Closest Search May Furnish But A Hint
The local workers seemed well trained. People scurried in many directions, but Hugh could see the underlying organization. Every native who was carrying something put it down carefully and took time to make sure it wouldn’t slide, roll, or block pathways. All in diving armor headed for the edge of the water; those not so equipped took up stations at the mooring lines of the submarine, on the upper portions of the hull itself, or along the water’s edge next to mooring bitts, racks of emergency floats, and other items of less obvious but presumably rescue-oriented equipment.
Hugh himself hesitated only a moment before leaping toward the water. As usual, there was a tautness in his stomach as he remembered the five hundred kilometers through which he might sink if things went wrong, but he had spent enough time on and under Habranhan seas to be able to ignore this. Also his brain, if not his lower nervous system, knew that he was equipped for bottom pressures. He could survive down there for a long time, even if—
He pulled his mind sharply away from the thought of being lost in those depths.
He didn’t actually dive in, but sprang to the submarine’s side, obtained a firm grip on its skeletal structure, and began to climb downward. Reekess said nothing. Without breathing equipment she couldn’t follow him; she simply kept out of the way of scurrying natives and waited.
Once submerged, the Erthuma let go of the ship briefly. His buoyancy should still be slightly positive for the liquid air density of the Pits. A moment unsupported in the slightly denser water set him drifting upward and confirmed the belief. He juggled briefly with suit controls and began swimming downward again before they had finished responding. The effort decreased over the next few seconds as cylindrical tanks around his waist and hips drove their enclosed pistons upward, admitting water below and forcing some of the buffering oxygen on the other side back into its storage tank. Hugh could detect the change, and might even have returned to the surface if it had not occurred, but was more concerned with finding the Cephallonian.
He could see well enough. Water was appreciably less transparent to Grendel’s redder-than-Solar light than seemed normal to Erthumoi, but he was still close to the surface. The whole length of the submarine could be distinguished, but he didn’t have to look that far. The being he sought was under the hull beside one of the thruster pods, about as far back from the bow as Hugh had entered the water. It — no, he — did not seem to have panicked; there was no violent thrashing. The Cephallonian might have been doing something with his small and rather inefficient hands, but the great driving muscles of his flukes and after body were relaxed. Two armored Habras hung beside him, working with ropes. Hugh swam closer to get more detail. This revealed itself in slow-motion playback fashion.
The pod was sinking gently away from the hull frame, snapping a final support cable as Hugh watched. The streamlined form of the Cephallonian settled with it, the two-body system twisting slowly to bring the thruster underneath and conceal it from Hugh’s view. He could now see that the swimmer was wearing a fairly complex work harness, and got the impression that the pod had somehow become attached to this and was dragging him away from the surface.
The Habras had closed in and were now also partly hidden beneath their fellow worker, whose body was much longer than theirs — he was far larger than the Cephallonians whom Hugh and his wife had known earlier. Whether this was an individual peculiarity or racial characteristic implying a different world of origin was unimportant at the moment; the fact itself was what had to be faced. It might either help or hinder. Hugh s
et his own buoyancy a little further toward negative and approached the group as quickly as he could.
“Can’t they get you loose?” he keyed. The two stage code-through-Falgite-to-Cephallonian translation caused some delay in the response.
“Probably not,” the answer came. “I wasn’t expecting them to try very hard.”
“I have a good knife. Is cutting your harness acceptable?”
“No. We don’t want to lose the driver.”
“What can I do?”
“How much buoyancy can you furnish?”
“Only two kilograms-water-equivalent. You could swim upward with more force than that, I’m afraid.”
“Please try, anyway. More support lines are coming; the slower we sink, the easier it will be to get them to us.”
The Erthuma closed the remaining distance between himself and the Cephallonian and secured a one-handed grip on the harness. With the other he twisted his buoyancy control to full positive. As he had feared, the effect on their group sinking rate was very small, though he could feel the tension on his arm.
He wondered briefly how deep they could go before pressure endangered the other, but decided not to ask yet. If that problem became urgent, he could expect to be told. He coded what he considered a more immediate question.
“Can’t you swim upward yourself?”
“Not with the thruster where it is, ahead of my center of buoyancy; I can’t turn upward. The Habras arc trying to shift it closer to my tail without losing all hold on it. Your hands are much more dexterous than mine, and your arms longer than theirs; perhaps your best tactic would be to match buoyancies so as to free both arms, and help them with their rope work.”
Hugh tried following this suggestion, but found that even at greatest negative buoyancy he still sank less rapidly than the group. He would have to use one arm for holding on, at least at first — maybe he could lash himself to the cluster if there were enough cord, or put an arm through part of the harness. He reminded himself once more that he had no depth problem himself, since both he and the Habras could face sea-bottom pressure with their equipment, and strove to match the apparent calm of the Cephallonian who was being dragged toward an unpleasant death. His kind could stand several kilometers without technological assistance as a result of their evolution, and had never had any reason to develop the diving fluid.
The big swimmer had been right; human arms could reach between him and the pod far more effectively than the Habras. The thruster was firmly entangled in harness straps, but Hugh could, he was sure, work it loose in a minute or two. He reported this to the others. The Cephallonian repeated his earlier desire not to lose the equipment.
“Let them attach lines to both sides of my gear, long enough to let the pod hang three or four meters below me and fastened far enough from my head so I can direct myself upward. Don’t free the tangle, please, until you are sure they’ve finished this with at least four lines; I know they have that many. If you can see well enough underwater, please check their knots at both ends. They know I mean no offense by asking this.”
It was getting darker as they sank, but the light which had annoyed Rekchellet was still part of Hugh’s armor, and he switched it on. He was able to help with the knotting and, as a matter of tact as well as safety, asked the Habras to check his own work. There was no way for the Cephallonian to see that far back on his own body, but he seemed willing to accept the word of the others that the attachments were secure.
“All right, Erthuma, you may free the pod from my harness if you can. It will help if you are reasonably quick; I’m beginning to feel some slight need for air. I foolishly did not wear full work equipment, not expecting to go any distance from the surface, and had been working under the boat for some time when this incident occurred.”
Hugh reflected that if the swimmer could spend that much air in talk things couldn’t be very serious yet; then he remembered that the other’s vocal equipment was a tympanic membrane not driven by an air stream from his lungs, and bent hastily to his task.
His estimate had been a little optimistic, but it was less than three minutes before the thruster fell away from the streamlined body. None of the others had uttered a word during this time, though the water around them was growing frighteningly dark beyond the range of Hugh’s light.
As he felt freed of the weight, the Cephallonian nosed upward and set his swimming muscles into action. It turned out almost at once that he could not go straight up without having his flukes encounter the lines which held the pod. but he modified his climb angle slightly and continued to swim. Hugh could see after a moment that he was actually dragging motor, thruster, and housing upward, after another moment that the climb was faster than the Erthuma’s armor rose at full positive buoyancy; he had to swim. The ascent was uneventful and silent; nothing more was said even about oxygen shortage.
They were close enough to the surface to see the bright area of the port, where sunlight fell on open water, before they met a dozen descending Habras pulling lines behind them. The Cephallonian firmly refused to relinquish his burden until these were ail attached to the thruster, but the moment he was assured of this he spoke to Hugh with urgency obvious even through the translator “All right, cut me free!” Hugh managed this in four quick slashes, and the long, streamlined body surged upward. Hugh, the Habras, and the equipment followed much more slowly. By the time they reached the surface, the Cephallonian had almost finished replenishing his personal oxygen reserve, and was awaiting them impatiently. Hugh saw no reason to help remount the thruster, but wanted to get the swimmer somewhere where Reekess could see him, and suggested that they rest out on the ice for a while.
“I can relax better afloat,” the answer came. “It’s much harder to breathe without water to support one’s weight, even here. However, I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable ashore. By all means emerge, and I will stay as close as I can. I am interested in learning how you happened to appear so conveniently.”
Hugh told him frankly, while climbing a cross between a grooved ramp and a flight of stairs leading out of the water and presumably designed for armored Habras, that he and Reekess had been told about his recent accident, that they had a friend now undergoing Naxian treatment, and were interested in learning how effective this had been. He also introduced himself and the Crotonite, who had come to the edge of the water upon seeing Hugh emerge.
They quickly learned that willingness to talk about personal surgery was not confined to Erthumoi; the opportunity motivated the Cephallonian, who introduced himself as Shefcheeshee, to hurl himself onto the open ice after all and allow — actually, encourage — inspection of his personal repairs.
Since neither Hugh nor Reekess had known him before, they had to take the patient’s word for the state of things prior to the accident and the damage done by the latter. All either of them could see was that the skin of Shefcheeshee’s flukes and for half a meter forward of their point of attachment was visibly, though not strikingly, lighter than the blue-gray shade of his dorsal surface and the near white of the lower. The swimmer claimed that that entire part of his anatomy had been severed, that he narrowly escaped bleeding to death, that only heroic first aid measures by the natives had spared him from the latter fate, and that the Naxians who had arranged the regeneration of the lost body parts were benefactors of all galactic intelligence.
This was how Hugh summarized the account later, to Janice. The Cephallonian himself went into enormous detail, much of which he must have picked up from others since he had admittedly been unconscious almost from the moment of the accident itself. He was starting to go into factors leading up to this event when Hugh managed to change the subject. He later regretted doing this; it almost certainly cost him data which he had to seek out specifically and at some inconvenience afterward. He failed to realize this at the time, though, especially since the new discussion also proved useful.
This dealt with Shefcheeshee’s work with the sea bottom project in which the
submarine was being used, and found the swimmer still enthusiastic. There had to be fossils in the bottom sediments; they should be possible to find even by simple dredging and coring; the information they would supply would be of enormous interest and value to the Habras themselves, as well as to scientists from other worlds. Shefcheeshee himself held no strong opinions one way or the other about off-planet origin of the Habras, inclining casually like most people to the positive, and seemed to care even less about the possibility that they might be descendants of the Seventh Race. He was an enthusiast, but an unusually objective one.
“I’d like to hear as much as possible about any results you get,” the Erthuma finally tried to stem the word flow. “You’re publishing them, I trust.”
“Oh, yes. We’re keeping careful records, which the Guild maintains for us, and have published ten papers so far.” Hugh found that statement impressive and somewhat annoying; he had thought himself familiar with all the significant Habranhan paleontology in progress. More honestly, he had thought his own group was doing it all. First S’nash and Barrar had mentioned other work on the dark hemisphere, then whatever Ennissee was doing, and now this. He wondered briefly how Spreadsheet-Thinker would react to the news, and then whether she knew it already and hadn’t considered it worth mentioning to her safety chief. But the Cephallonian was talking on.
“I give regular talks here at the port on our results, and what they mean to the natives in both philosophical and practical ways. The next one is not yet planned in detail, but the Guild office will tell you a little later when it’s to be given; I’ll make a point of asking them.”
Hugh thanked him, suggested that he get back in the water and rest after his near-accident, and thanked him again more fulsomely than was really comfortable in code. The swimmer, unhampered by code constraints, returned even more voluminous gratitude for Hugh’s help and finally admitted that others must be waiting for him. Erthuma and Crotonite left the port area deep in thought.