The Nitrogen Fix

by Hal Clement

  About three hundred meters east and slightly downhill from the air lock was a clearings real clearing, with the ground almost completely bare. Not even the usual nitro slime was present, except in a few patches. The people led Bones to the center of this area.

  Then one of them approached, taking from her belt one of the bags which the Observer had hoped might contain a knife. As the youngsters had done, she brought it close to her captive and made it obvious that it contained more of the hellish bits of glass. Then, accompanied by another member of the group with the other bag, she began walking around the edge of the clearing scattering the stuff over the ground. They made several circuits, and when the bags were empty the soil in a ring fully three meters wide was, as far as Bones was concerned, untouchable. The sandalled people now walked out of the clearing. The three who were holding the ropes dropped the ends and started off with the rest, but a sharp voice uttered several syllables. They came back, detached the ropes from Bones, and took them away.

  It was close to midday; many hours had passed since the two Observers had fled the cell. Bones wondered what had become of the other unit — not the other one; no Observer could think of another as a different entity. They were all parts of one Self.

  There were plenty of other things to wonder about, too, and only inferences for answers — better than nothing, but not much better.

  Certainly not to be compared with Knowledge. Bones was very much in the position of a human being of the Age of Pleasure, surrounded by attractive and complaisant members of the opposite sex, but restrained from all action. The Tantalus legend was also appropriate, though different appetites were involved.The tentacular legs under the long body were capable of far more rapid running than would have seemed possible to their incredible slenderness, but jumping was another matter. Bones did consider this briefly, but decided that landing on the glass would be enough worse than walking on it to make the risk unacceptable. The ropes were gone — some people obviously thought more rapidly than others — and the slow-reacting person was gone too; the native regretfully filed what had seemed a promising plan.

  By this time the whole situation was starting to make sense. These people were, simply and rationally, trying to find out more about Bones. It was a perfectly sensible thing — just what an Observer would have done. Cooperation was obviously in order. It was too bad the communication effort with the young ones had been interrupted, and it was hard to see why. Did the people have some quicker method than the sound code, after all, for getting information? If not, why were they so willing to delay? Tantalizing mystery again, and again with nothing but inference possible for a solution so far. Unsatisfactory. Best to assume that this was a test, presumably of Bones’ ability to get out of this situation, and pass it as quickly as possible.

  Digging is very difficult with tentacles, but not impossible. The soil covering the bedrock here was shallow, but might suffice. Bones began to scrape it together and carry it to the narrowest part of the glass barrier. The splinters were easy enough to see by daylight, though the native would not have noticed them without experience.

  The original idea was to cover a pathway a meter or so wide across the danger strip, but it quickly became clear that there was not enough dirt for this. The Observer changed the plan to a better and quicker one, that of covering only a few small patches and being careful to step exactly on these while departing. It worked perfectly.

  Six human beings were waiting just inside the glass. One of them carried a broom, with which she scattered the dirt from the protected areas. Another person had a bag of the splinters, and renewed the places which Bones and broom had made safe.

  Without thinking, the Observer snatched the broom from its wielder, dashed across the clearing, and began to sweep a path to the outside. If the people had had to go around, this might have worked; but their feet were protected, and they could run across the glass without having to clear a way. Once more Bones was carried back, and the swept area restored to deadliness.

  So far the contest had been conducted very politely, with neither side using violence. Bones was more than ever convinced that the whole thing was a test, and still felt cooperative if slightly impatient.

  This attitude was modified on the second carry when one of the people, accidentally or otherwise, dropped the heavy end of his load onto the glass area. Once again the Observer felt agony much too great to be compatible with sympathy. For a moment the temptation to hurl the nearest human beings off their feet and onto the glass almost won out; but the realization that they were intelligent beings in some ways comparable to Observers, however different in detail, throttled the impulse.

  The glass this time was at the upper end of a fin and adjacent body, and could be reached with handling tendrils, so Bones ignored the test for a while and concentrated on removing the stuff.

  The injuries already sustained had, as expected, started the budding reaction, and nothing could be done about that; but there was no reason to suffer more pain than necessary.

  By the time the glass was gone and the pain reduced to a dull ache, the sun was well down in the west. Bones had decided to make no more attempts by daylight, in spite of the risk that people might take their test subject indoors for the night. This might even be helpful, if the same individuals held the ropes. Even if they didn’t, a chance of using the earlier plan might present itself; if this happened before they reached the air lock, the situation would be perfect. The moon would not rise for some hours after sunset, and the comet of course would be four hours later still.

  So Bones let night fall without giving the experimenters the pleasure of another contest. For some time after dark it looked as though the experiment were to run through the night — quite reasonably, the Observer considered — but at last there came a sound of human conversation from the direction of the air lock. Bones got “afoot” — the great body did need rest at times — and waited tensely.

  This silhouetted the tall form against the starlit sky, and there was more sound from the opposite direction. It was the quick intake of a human breath, followed by the exclamation, “Bones!” in a voicewhich even the native could recognize.

  “Bones!” Kahvi repeated. “Come on, quickly! The Hillers are coming, and they plan to hurt you — to kill you if they can! Come this way!”

  Bones, unfortunately, could do nothing of the sort. The glass was in the way. This was bad enough, though it seemed unlikely that the Hillers could actually kill the rather resilient Observer body; but there was something worse. The woman was approaching. With her unshod feet she would be as vulnerable to the glass as Bones — perhaps more so, considering the thin human skin. The Observer gestured frantically for her to keep back, but the detailed signals simply could not be made out in the darkness. She would be into the-splinters in a few seconds; and now it could be seen that little Danna was with her.

  XII

  Menace, Misunderstood

  The wait was short; the approached figures entered the water without a pause. Kahvi had been collecting spare cartridges by touch; now she added some slices of beef and bags of milk from the food plants, and wrapped the former in tissue. Some of the Hillers were swimming, now.

  “All right, Dan,” she whispered. “Plug in. Into the water, and hold onto my harness. I’ll swim, you stick!” The child gave her mother’s arm a silent squeeze of assent, and they slipped quietly into the sea together. Kahvi headed north as fast as she dared. The drag on her harness was lighter than it might have been; evidently the little one still wanted to feel useful, and was swimming with her feet. They stayed as close to the bottom as possible, keeping the wavering moon behind and to their left, though it was increasingly hard to see in the growing daylight.

  Presently the water became too shallow for swimming. Kahvi pulled Danna around in front of her, touched the child’s breathing mask in a gesture for silence, turned her face down, and then, indicating that they should stay side by side, began to crawl slowly and carefully onward. Th
eir course soon took them out of the water.

  They had reached the nearer of the Sayre islets. It was only a couple of hundred meters from the anchorage, but was heavily overgrown with all sorts of vegetation and offered excellent concealment.

  Kahvi did not intend to remain here indefinitely; she was hoping that the Hillers, not finding her at the raft, would assume she had gone toward the city. There were no air sources in this direction. She would get back home by darkness; there was enough air in their cartridges to last through the day. After nightfall she would move the raft behind the islets; Earrin would know where to look for it, and it could be hoped that the Hillers would not guess.

  Well into the jungle and away from the water, the two fugitives constructed a comfortable nest from the abundant vegetation and settled down.

  The mother wanted to sleep, but Danna wanted explanations. Kahvi made the situation as clear as possible, keeping her voice to a whisper which barely got through her mask, but didn’t try to explain what might happen to Danna if the Hillers caught her; considering Bones’ share in her upbringing, it was conceivable that the child’s curiosity would override her caution. She had occasion ally expressed curiosity about what it was like in cities.

  By the time the conversation was finished it was full daylight, though the sun was not quite up. The moon was almost invisible in the golden sky, and the comet had faded entirely from view. Kahvi stretched out to sleep, after whispering to her daughter, “You should sleep if you can, because there’ll be a lot to do later. I know it’s pretty bright for sleeping, though. If you can’t, at least stay close to the nest while I do. We’ll have to be rested before the sun goes down — maybe sooner.” With that, the mother closed her eyes and relaxed as completely as possible.

  The child soberly examined everything in sight. She looked closely at slime-saturated soil and plant-furred rocks, pulled branches, leaves, and bark from the larger growths surrounding the nest and compared them minutely, and even stood up to see what could be seen at greater distances. She was careful, however, to make sure that she could not be seen from the south; she kept as close as possibleto a densely-growing cordage bush taller than she was, peeping cautiously out from behind it. She even ventured a few meters from the nest, but obeyed the injunction to keep in sight of her mother. Her training had been effective. She found several objects, mostly pseudolife forms, which were new to her; these she collected carefully and brought back to the nest for her mother to explain when she woke up.

  One was an Evolution plant, the artificial organism which produced enzymes affecting the stable structures of most of the other pseudo forms. It was this fabrication which made it possible for humanity to continue to manipulate the artificial organisms in a rough trial-and-error fashion long after human technological culture had decayed, just as some of the “countercultures” of an earlier time had been able to use and even maintain and repair motor vehicles while not being able to make them.

  If Kahvi had seen that plant she would have left the island at once; she would have realized that it was not a safe hiding place. The thing itself was not dangerous to human biochemistry, but its presence would have told her the Hillers would be around. The Evolution plant never grew wild; it needed too much attention. It was completely symbiotic with the present human culture. But Kahvi never saw it. She didn’t have time after waking up.

  It was midafternoon when Danna was awakened by the sounds of people crashing through the jungle. Her reaction was the right one; she squeezed her mother’s bare shoulder with one hand, and laid a finger of the other over Kahvi’s mask where it covered the mouth. The woman was awake almost at once, and immediately grasped the situation. Nodding approval at the child, she rose cautiously and peered through the bushes in the direction of the sound.

  This was from the west, the nearest mainland, rather than the south from which the fugitives had come. It seemed possible to escape back toward the water, but at first she considered the chances of getting submerged unseen to be too small to be worth taking. The alternative, however, was to keep hidden in the jungle; and neither of them could be sure of moving around quietly enough for that to be practical policy. There was no way to conceal the nest, and even if these people were not already hunting for the fugitives, they would be once that was seen. If that did occur, it behooved Kahvi and her child to be well away from the site, preferably with a broad choice of travel plans.

  So the water was the best bet after all. Again warning Danna to silence, Kahvi led the way slowly and carefully back along the path they had made earlier. Behind them, voices and snapping branches grew louder — the Hillers were certainly not being subtle about their doings. It was tempting to go faster and get under water as soon as they possibly could, but the woman knew that a splash would be easy for the Hillers to distinguish among their own noises. She held herself to the slow pace, and Danna, frightened as she was, stayed with her.

  When the water was hip-deep on the child, they stopped and readjusted their burdens so as to give the little one a free hand with which to hold her mother’s harness. Then the woman lowered herself slowly and carefully until she was as nearly submerged as possible, crawled until the water was a little deeper, and finally began to swim. Within a few meters they were both submerged, and Kahvi could relax a little.

  She was heading back toward the raft; there was nothing else to do, though she had planned to wait until dark. A trip to the north around the peninsula to reach some of the west side jails would be possible, but risky given limited air and the child. If they could get back home without having to risk discovery by surfacing they would have more resources and a chance to think.

  Presumably they would also have warning of the approach of another search party. Finding such a goal under water would not be easy, but they could spend hours in the search if necessary. The sun was well up and would provide directional guidance, and the water depth would mean something. Kahvi was in no sense a professional diver, but in the earth’s present condition the difference between air and water was more one of seeing than of breathing: Danna thought of underwater as the part of outdoors where it was hard to see.

  The biggest problem was judging attained distance, but Kahvi felt sure that if they did not get too far out they should encounter raft or anchors easily enough. The gesture language was specific enough to let her tell Danna the plan, and presently she allowed the child to let go and swim separately a few meters to her right to help in the search. She could be trusted not to show herself above the surface.

  It was in fact the child who encountered an anchor line. She grasped it and waved eagerly to hermother. Kahvi responded, swam over, and led the way along the cord to the raft itself. Leaving Danna huddled on the bottom in the shadow of the floats, the woman cautiously approached the entrance, placed her feet on the bottom, and slowly stood up.

  Nobody could be seen inside the tent. The floats were bobbing in a heavy swell, and she could not tell by their heights whether any of them concealed extra weight. Finally, still unsure, she climbed cautiously up into the tent. Keeping her head below the general level of the air and food plants, she crawled slowly around among their trays checking the whole interior of the structure.

  Finally sure that there was no one else inside, she lifted her head slowly to see whether anyone was in sight on or toward the shore.

  There was, rather closer than she had expected. The head and very broad shoulders of a man seated at the shoreward end of the raft caught her eye and prevented her from rising far enough to see the rest of him. He was looking to his right, toward Sayre, at the moment. Kahvi felt an internal fluttering which might have been the baby but was probably her own nervous system readjusting. How could this fellow have failed to see the fugitives when they entered the water at the island? How had she failed to see him?

  The distance was only two hundred meters. Of course her own attention had been focused in the opposite direction, and maybe Hiller mask windows were even worse than those she was use
d to. Still…

  Why was he outside? It would have been smarter to hide in the tent if he wanted to intercept Earrin or Kahvi. Had he been inside? If so, he must know about Danna, whose toys and spare outdoor harness could not be mistaken for anything but what they were. Perhaps he had been inside, made the discovery, and decided to wait on the deck so that the Fyns might not guess what he had learned.

  There was no point in theorizing or guessing; long association with Bones had made the woman almost as impatient with speculation as the Observer. The important thing was for her and Danna to get away again unobserved. This meant a long underwater journey — the trip around the peninsula would have to be risked now. Going south was pointless; the shore curved cast, and they would be in view wherever they emerged for several kilometers unless they happened to find some small creek. That would be asking for too much from luck.

  Should they take more supplies? No. There were no more charged air cartridges, and they already had food to last as long as their air. Besides, crawling about the tent picking meat and drink pods from the plants would be asking for the attention of the guard.

  As she reached this conclusion, Kahvi saw the fellow suddenly lean forward. She tensed; was he about to leave the raft? Or come inside? Then the anxiety was replaced by a mixture of relief and sympathy. The fellow was actually removing his mask, and his torso and shoulders were heaving unmistakably. Every few seconds he held his mask to his face — he was evidently not entirely out of control — but it was evident why he had not seen the fugitives and why it might even be safe to collect more food. The unfortunate fellow was seasick.

  Firmly quelling the reflex urge to help — there should obviously be someone nearby to manage the mask if he did lose control — Kahvi eased back into the water. After all, if these Hiller oxygen junkies were such idiots as not to have one of their own people on hand — she stopped that thought firmly. She knew perfectly well that jobs had to be done and chances sometimes taken to do them.