Fossil (1993)

by Hal Clement

  “Yes,” admitted the Samian after a pause. “He left in the aircraft I had used to get there, shortly before you arrived. I still can’t believe he would have risked us.”

  “I’ve always been unhappy with coincidences,” answered Hugh, feeling a trace of smugness which presumably didn’t show in his key work. “After all, he must have had a flyer from somewhere. I’m sure you didn’t deliberately send him to Pwanpwan on one of the Pitville machines, but you might ask whoever piloted you out there last time just where he or she dropped the Crotonite off.” Ged made no answer.

  “And you didn’t know what happened to Rekchellet until afterward,” Janice remarked. The Samian seemed, if anything, grateful for the change of subject; Hugh felt he would have a lot to ask S’Nash at their next meeting.

  “Yes. I am friendly with many of the local Habras, just as you are, and had asked them to help me keep in touch with Ennissee whenever he was in the neighborhood. Some of them helped when we brought the frozen body back by air. The truck has never been very far from Pitville; Ennissee set up the autodriver and its record after he decided we were ready to get you people out to his dig and display the first body.”

  “You got it that long ago?”

  “Oh, yes. Several years. He was going to show you the mole, and all the other specimens he had collected, and his records — everything, he told me. That was why I was so upset when the mole was destroyed, and begged so hard for the material to be taken here for Janice to examine. How did he actually get the specimen? You say it’s faked somehow?”

  “Yes. You’ve wandered off the question of how you found out about Rekchellet.”

  “Oh. Sorry. When Ennissee asked them to help him take Rek’s translator and tracker, they complied because it seemed to fit my request but weren’t really happy about it. They decided to watch Rek, too. Unfortunately, only one of them at a time did this while the others reported back to me. She saw the two Crotonites leave the truck, followed them, saw them land together, and then start to fly once more with Ennissee drawing ahead. My instructions had been to watch Ennissee, so she lost track of Rekchellet fairly soon. However, she had a very good idea of his actual path. She also knew just what he was wearing and carrying, so that she knew what he — well, about the only word is ‘looked’ like to Habra electrical senses. She was in your search group, not by chance I assure you; I had managed to get instructions to my people by then. She was responsible for the change in search pattern which bothered you, I gather, but which resulted in Rekchellet’s being found.”

  “Why didn’t she just tell the story? We could have concentrated on the right area much sooner.”

  “She wanted to, and was bothered by the conflicting requests. She didn’t have a clear idea of what was going on, and did not want to upset either your plans or mine.”

  “She’s one of my people, too?”

  “Yes. Holly. A very capable person. You should tell your assistants more of the background when you have them out on missions. She could have decided much more quickly and easily.”

  “But if Ennissee wanted Rek found while he was still alive to serve as a test subject for the Naxians, he must have made some such arrangement, too. Didn’t you know about that?”

  “Of course not. I knew nothing about his plans then, or about what happened to Rekchellet after he and Ennissee separated until you told me you were looking for him. Then I got word to Holly through other Habras. Now let’s get back to my question, please. How was that primitive specimen made, if it wasn’t real?”

  “It’s an experimental tissue culture from the Naxian bio lab, part of their early work toward repairing Habras. Chen didn’t know how Ennissee got hold of it, but he’d been up there finding out about their repair methods, remember. Maybe seeing that thing scared him enough to make him unwilling to take a chance on being the first Crotonite to go through the line.”

  “Maybe. If that’s so, maybe he did want Rek found, too, after he’d been fairly well frozen, as you say, and would have made sure it happened even if I hadn’t. We’ll really have to talk to that (no-symbol-equivalent). But you should have told Holly and the others…”

  “You should. She knew we were looking for Rek, and that he might be in danger. Your secrecy was unimportant compared…”

  “Save it. please. Cultured Beings,” Janice cut in. “We have most of the picture now, and blame doesn’t seem useful. It’s happened, and at the moment Ged seems to be suffering most. He no longer has a subject for his paper, which means quite a lot to him, I gather.”

  “It shouldn’t take a Naxian to tell you that,” admitted Barrar.

  “It didn’t. S’Nash isn’t here, for once,” answered Hugh.

  “I know. It/he is here, to help me compare earlier duty arrangements with the ones I’m trying to set up. I thought some time ago it was time to put his communication and recording specialties to work, instead of using him mostly on safety watch, but he couldn’t get to me until now. I’ll have to pin its/his schedule down more firmly.”

  “Leaving, I hope, some spaces in your own,” keyed Hugh. “I did suggest to Chen that she and her friend might recover grace by helping you rebuild the mole. And who is on watch? My own job screen, which I thought I’d made out myself, shows blank for the next sixty hours.”

  “That’s one of the things I’ve been rearranging. Get some sleep. You start sentry in two and a half hours. Janice, I’m not scheduling you; I assume you’re planning lab work around your own need for sleep, and I don’t have you posted for anything else. If the two of you will let me get back to work, we can talk later.” The communication panel went blank, and Hugh’s schedule screen suddenly filled.

  “For once, I hope watch stays boring,” Hugh said slowly. “There’s too much here for me to get straight all at once. I wish I didn’t have to fill my mental chart one box at a time.”

  “Don’t change. At least, don’t turn Locrian. I prefer mammals. And don’t let it keep you awake,” replied his wife. “Get that sleep Ged advised. I’m going back to the lab.”

  She turned toward the door, but lingered while Hugh thought for a moment, then recorded a message to Barrar, to be taken at the latter’s convenience. She listened with interest.

  “Remember the submarine fossil hunt. I have contacts, if you want.” Janice grinned and left.

  No one was surprised that Ged did want, or that he scheduled Hugh for contact with the submarine group a very small fraction of a year later. For once, the latter spent no time wondering whether he should get rid of the diving juice. There had been some sort of breakthrough in Habra armor design, and he would, he hoped, have to be back in Pitville fairly soon to train native Pit workers. Janice, the Cold Pole material all dated and her regular work back at routine level, went with him.

  Bill was not at sea, though about to be under it, according to the word Hugh and Janice received in Pwanpwan. There was little difficulty in confirming that the submarine he commanded was in its usual port, and with a small flyer at their complete discretion — they wondered whether Spreadsheet-Thinker knew about it — the fact that the port was a thousand kilometers farther north meant nothing. There was no such thing as a large city on the planet. Even streetless Pwanpwan could be crossed by an Erthuma on foot in an hour or two, since the winged natives had no particular reason to assemble large aggregates of dwellings. Their principal industry was agriculture. Such devices as electric or fusion powered submarines with open framework hulls made of wood or plastic were merely an adjunct to farming, and the fact that Erthumoi science historians had trouble feeling right about this made it no less true.

  The Cedars decided to update initially from someone other than Shefcheeshee; it seemed a good idea to face the Cephallonian with ammunition which could provide leading questions.

  Bill would not be leaving port for another twenty hours or so, and responded happily within a few minutes to Hugh’s paging. Habranha’s social amenities did not include bars or anything very similar; few intellige
nt flying species went far in personal use of chemicals which interfered with either sensory acuity, motor coordination, or breathing efficiency. The Erthumoi, however, had foresightedly brought snacks for themselves, and the three ate on the ice beside Bill’s ship while talking.

  The sea bottom fossil hunt was still going on, but its personnel remained in touch with the Iris and were reporting positive results. Very positive. Organic remains, it seemed, occupied practically every cubic meter of the sediments. They were seldom well preserved, and so far had consisted almost entirely of species known to use ATP rather than azide. As deeply as had been probed so far, they were not truly fossilized; the material was mostly original tissue, though of course more decomposed than that found in Darkside ice. Mineralized remains might, of course, be found in deeper strata.

  This lent hope that Habra relics might turn up some time, but no one expected that it would be soon. The current hypothesis was that azide remains were destroyed by microorganisms of their own sort before or shortly after reaching the bottom; this was considered to lend some support to the idea that the Habras had come from elsewhere, too recently for really effective ATP scavengers to have evolved from the microorganisms they had presumably brought with them. Not even the sternest critic of Wildwind logic would call it proof, however.

  The philosophical implications were fascinating, but Bill lacked time to go into them deeply; he had to start pre-castoff checks for his submarine’s next trip. His farewells included best wishes for their planned interview with Shefcheeshee.

  “That alien’s not really a student,” the Habra remarked. “He’s helpful, knows a lot of the appropriate technology, but he’s extremely emotional, it seems to me. He gets very excited about things. He usually has several Naxian Snoop-players in tow.”

  ‘What’s a Snoop-player? That’s new to me,” said Janice.

  “You find them where people are doing dangerous or otherwise exciting or surprising things. You know Naxians read emotions.”

  “Of course.”

  “Some of the less usefully employed, to put it kindly, make a sport of finding excited or stressed beings and trying to read them in as much detail as possible. I gather they try to describe the emotions competitively, later, and I’ve heard that some of them try to recreate the feelings for themselves; but it’s hard to get a Naxian to talk about that. I only heard that much when I finally got very annoyed with one who wouldn’t get out of the way when I was preparing to launch. Apparently I frightened it/ him, thereby arousing gratitude in several others.”

  Hugh was very thoughtful as they left their winged friend, Janice even more so. Neither felt sure how closely the Habra version of Naxian amusement matched that mentioned by Barrar, but there could easily be a connection.

  After walking for a while through the maze of the port — in spite of the minimal Habras use for streets, their most recent settlements on the cold side of the Iris had made some concession to the presence of wingless aliens — Hugh asked slowly, with his translator off, “How do you feel about being used?”

  Janice looked surprised, but followed his example with her own instrument before answering. “I don’t suppose I’d like it, except when it’s mutual, of course.”

  Her husband shrugged impatiently. “I don’t mean that. Do you remember when S’Nash confessed to Rek about ‘using’ him, at that meeting it/he’d called with us and the robot?”

  “Of course. I wondered then why it/he admitted it in front of us. Some of the things said during the apology I thought must be aimed at us, but I couldn’t see any way to make sure.”

  “Neither could I. When S’Nash first asked us to that meeting it/he said something about making it look normal. I pointed out that we ski for fun, and Rekchellet flies for fun, but I didn’t know what Naxians did which would make good cover — well, I didn’t say it just that way, but you don’t always pick your words carefully talking with Naxians; they know what you mean most of the time anyway, from the feelings that go along with the words. Right?”

  “Supposedly,” Janice answered carefully. “I’ve wondered for years — and I don’t mean Habra years — how that sense of theirs works, and I’m sure it must have limits.”

  “They’re not supposed to be able to read thoughts.”

  “No. On the other hand, no rational beings would want it generally known if they could.” The woman was still coding slowly, as though her ideas were far ahead of her words and only a fraction of her mind were back keeping her sentences coherent.

  “You think they can?”

  “No. I’m almost sure they can’t. I’ve been trying to figure out how they do it for a long, long time, and I’ve set up situations where a Naxian would be put in an awkward position unless it could get my real thoughts, and they’ve always fallen into the trap.”

  “Have you ever set one of your traps so the Naxian would be badly hurt or killed?” “No. Of course not.”

  “Then you can’t be sure. They’d certainly go a long way to keep a secret like that. Risking ridicule or even pain would mean nothing. You or I could put up with it as long as we thought it was important. We have to credit them with as much guts as we have. As far as ridicule goes their own people would know the truth, and they wouldn’t care about our ridicule.”

  “True.” Janice thought for a moment. “I still don’t think they’re really mind readers, but I admit my reason’s a bit circular. I’ve been incubating a theory, and it doesn’t lead that way, and good deal has happened lately to support it, including what Bill said a few minutes ago.”

  “What’s your idea?”

  “I suspect that they sort of muscle read. That they perceive the tiniest motions and twitches and physical reactions in the people they see, and that some aspect of their nervous systems — some built-in wiring we’ll be a very long time understanding because we don’t have it — gives them a special facility in associating those reactions with fear or anger or libido or the feeling that goes with knowing you’ve just told a lie. Remember S’Nash’s pattern-spotting out on the road?”

  “But the reactions would be different for different species, and the Naxians can…”

  “I know they can. I’d bet they have to learn. I’m postulating something we can’t imagine in detail for the same reason we can’t imagine a dog’s universe of odor, except that I think the difference with the Naxians is more in processing than in perception. It fits with S’Nash’s remark that Samians were a particular challenge — remember?” Hugh nodded.

  “Look, you can learn fantastic, detailed things if you start early enough,” she went on. “You know your own language, which is complex enough. You can distinguish my voice from my sister’s, which is fantastic. The average human being can identify hundreds of people by face; with the right cultural start they apply the same ability to identifying tracks of people or animals they’re following — without conscious analysis, they dismiss the part of the landscape which is undisturbed and notice what has been upset in some way practically invisible to others. I’m not saying it very well, but…”

  “But you’re using extremely good analogies. All right, it’s at least testable. You think what Bill said about Snoop-players fits in?”

  “Yes, especially with the idea that it’s something they can learn, and improve with practice.”

  “I like it. It fits my thoughts, too.”

  “What part of them?”

  “My question of a few minutes ago: How do you like being used?”

  “But you wouldn’t say a Naxian was using you as long as it/he just read your emotions! That wouldn’t be any worse than,” she smiled, rather impishly, “girl-watching, would it?”

  Hugh let only a flicker of her smile cross his own face.

  “No,” he said slowly, “I wouldn’t mind, as long as it stays a — well, a spectator sport. If I ever had reason to suppose I were being manipulated to cause me to have special emotions, or if I got the idea that I had even the most remote resemblance to a gladiator in
an arena, I would certainly feel differently.”

  “Of course you would. So would I. But no one’s pushing us around. Who could?”

  “I don’t know, and hate to sound paranoid. I just can’t help wondering whether everyone associated with us who has caused us anxiety, worry, fear, or their opposites in the last few Habra years, let’s say, has been acting with complete, comprehensible common sense? That they’re not being pushed around?”

  “But we can’t expect them to! They’re not all Erthumoi…”

  “And only we have common sense?”

  “Don’t be silly. You know what I mean. Each race has different ideas of what makes for common sense.”

  “Or ethics? Down at the life-risking level?” Janice was silent. So was her husband, for a time, but before they reached the aircraft he keyed out one more notion, or part of one.

  “I was wondering how Shefcheeshee got his harness tangled in that thruster. I wish I’d examined it more closely, and not just worked them apart.” Janice said nothing.

  Finding the Cephallonian through the Guild office was not too difficult, but starting a conversation once he was found was another matter. The Cedars had worked with Cephallonians before and liked them — Janice, of course, liked everybody. It is, however, awkward to talk to someone from even a very low flying aircraft when the party is swimming, and apparently totally absorbed in doing gymnastics with the wave patterns of a singularly chaotic ocean dotted with ice floes. It is worse when the floes are punctuated by city-sized bergs and a conscientious autopilot insists on moving the aircraft tens of meters with very little warning.