by Hal Clement
Benj was still speaking.
“The sound wasn’t on, of course, since no one had been talking with Reffel, and no one has any idea what happened. This was just before my mother called you, less than half an hour ago. That would make something like two and a half hours between the two disappearances. We’ll have to wait for your other answer, since Mr. Cavanaugh isn’t back yet.”
Barlennan was a little bewildered by the arithmetic, since the boy had used Mesklinite number-words with human number-background, but got it straight with a few seconds of thought.
“I’m not complaining,” he returned, “but I gather from what you say that over two hours passed between the Kwembly’s freezing in and Kervenser’s disappearance, and our being told about it. Do you know why that might have happened? I realize, of course, that there was nothing I could have done, but there was some understanding about keeping me up to date with the land-cruisers. Of course, I don’t know just what your job is at the station, and you may not have that information; but I hear from my communications man that you have been talking a lot to the Kwembly, so you may be able to help. I’m waiting.”
Barlennan had several motives behind his closing remark. One was obvious enough; he wanted to learn more about Benj Hoffman, especially since the latter was good with the Mesklinite language and, if Guz were right, seemed to want to talk to Mesklinites. Maybe he would be like the other Hoffman, a second sympathy-center in the station. If so, it would be important to know just how much weight he could swing.
Also, the commanded wanted to check unobtrusive on Guzmeen’s notion that Benj ad been chattering with Kwembly crew members. Finally, even Barlennan could tell that Benj was young for a human being doing serious work — his selection of words and general narrative style had been a giveaway. That fact might well be put to good use if a reasonably close relationship could be established.
The boy’s answer, when it finally came, was inconclusive one way, but promising in another.
“ I don’t know why you weren’t told about Kervenser and the freeze-up right away,” he said. Personally, I thought you had been. I’d been talking a lot with Beetchermarlf — I guess you know him; one of Don’s helmsmen; the one can talk with and not just listen to — and when I heard he’d disappeared I was concentrating on what could be done about it. I wasn’t here in the comm room quite all the time; it’s not my duty station — I just come when I can talk with Beetch. I admit someone should have told you sooner, and if you like I’ll try to find out who should have and why he didn’t. My mother ought to know, or Mr. Mersereau.
“I don’t know how much explaining I’d better supply about the background to my job here. On Earth, when someone finishes basic education — the sort of thing everyone has to get, like reading and physics and sociology — he has to work as unskilled labor on some essential job for two or three of our years before he is eligible for either specialises or general higher education. Nobody says it right out, but everyone knows that the people your work for have the main say in what you can do afterward. Nominally I’m assigned to the aerology lab here as a sort of picker-upper and hey-you; actually anyone in the station who yells first and loudest gets me. I must admit they don’t make my life very hard. I’ve been able to spend a lot of time talking to Beetch the last few days.”
Barlennan was able with fifty years experience to translate without effort the thought behind a human being’s use of the word day.
“Of course,” the boy went on, knowing your language helps. My mother’s a language nut, and I picked it up form her. She started on yours ten years ago when Dad was first connected with the Dhrawn project. I’ll probably be doing comm work semiofficially a good deal of the time form now on. Here comes Mr. Cavanaugh with one of the astronomers whose name I think is Tebbets. They’ll answer your question about seeing lights, and I’ll try to find out about the other business.”
Benj’s face was replaced on the screen by that of the astronomer — a set of broad, dark features which rather surprised Barlennan. He had never, as it happened, seen a bearded human being, though he was used to wider variations in cranial hair. Tebbetts’ was a small Vandyke adornment quite compatible with a space helmet, but it made a drastic difference to the Mesklinite’s eye. Barlennan decided that asking the astronomer about it would be tactless; it might be better to get the information from Benj later. There was nothing to be gained by embarrassing anyone.
The facial extension, to the commander’s relief, did not interfere with its owner’s diction, and Tebbetts had evidently been given the question already. He started to talk at once, using the human speech.
“We can detect from here any of the artificial lights you have, including the portables, though we might have trouble with beamed ones not pointed our way. We’d used regular equipment — photomultiplier mosaics behind appropriate objective; anything you’re likely to need could be set up in a few minutes. What do you want us to do?”
This question caught Barlennan by surprise. He had, in the few minutes since discussing the matter with this scientists, been going more and more certain that the men would deny being about to detect such lights. Certainly if the commander had been a little more foresighted he would not have answered as he did — in fact, he was regretting what he said well before the words reached the station.
“You should have no trouble spotting our land-cruiser Kwembly; you already know its location better than I do, and its bridge lights would be on. Its two helicopters have disappeared, and they normally carry lights. I’d like to have you scan the area, within, say, two hundred miles of the Kwembly as carefully as you can for other lights, and tell bother me and Dondragmer the positions of any you find. Would that take long?”
The message lag was quite long enough to let Barlennan realize how he had slipped. There was nothing to be done about it now, of course, but to hope, thought that word is a bad translation of the nearest possible Mesklinite attitude. The answer did cause him to brighten up a little; maybe the slip wasn’t too serious — as long as the human beings didn’t find more than two other lights near the Kwembly!
“I’m afraid I was thinking of merely detecting lights,” said Tebbetts. “Pinpointing the sources will be harder, especially from here. I’m pretty sure we can solve your problem, though… that is, if your missing helis are shining their lights. If you think they may have crashed, I shouldn’t think there’d be much chance of light, but I’ll get right to it.”
“How about their power plants?” asked Barlennan, demanded to learn the worst now that he had started. “Aren’t there other radiations than light given off in nuclear reactions?”
By the time this question reached the station Tebbets had left according to his promise, but fortunately Benj was able to supply the answer — the information happened to be basic to the Project, which had been carefully explained to him right after his arrival.
“The fusion converters give off neutrinos which we can detect, but we can’t spot their source exactly,” he told the commander. “That’s what the shadow satellites are for. They detect neutrinos, which are practically all coming from the sun. The power plants on Dhrawn and up here don’t count for much against that, even if it isn’t much of a sun. The computers keep track of where the satellites are, and especially wheter the planet is between a given one and the sun, so there’s a measure of the neutrino absorption through different parts of the planet. In a few years we hope to have a statistical X ray of Dhrawn — maybe that isn’t a good analogy for you. I mean a good idea of the density and composition of the planet’s insides. They’re still arguing, you know, wheter Dhrawn should be called a planet or a star, and wheter the extra heat is from hydrogen fusion in the middle or radioactivity near the surface.
“But I’m sure as can be that they couldn’t find your missing fliers from their neutrino emission, even if all their converters are still on.”
Barlennan managed to conceal his glee at this news, and merely answered, “Thanks. We can’t have ev
erything. I take it you’ll tell me when your astronomer finds anyth9ng, or when he is sure he’ll find nothing; I’d like to know if I have to stop counting on that. I’m through talking for now, Benj, but call here if anything comes up on either the fliers or those friends of yours — after all, I’m concerned about them, though perhaps not the way you are about Beetchermarlf. Takoorch is the one I remember.”
Barlennan, with more direct contact with human beings and, to be honest, more selfish reasons to develop such skills, had been able to read more accurately between the lines of Benj’s talk and obtain a more nearly correct picture of the boy’s feelings than Dondragmer had. It would, he was sure, be useful; but he put it from his mind as he turned away from the communicator.
“That could be bother better and worse,” he remarked to the two scientists. “It’s certainly just as well we didn’t set up that blinker system for night communication; they’d have seen us certainly.”
“Not certainly,” objected Deeslenver. “The human said they could spot such slights, but there was no suggestion that they made a habit of looking for them If it takes instruments, I’d bet the instruments are busy on more important things.”
“So would I, if the stakes weren’t so high,” returned Barlennan. “Anyway, we wouldn’t dare use it now, because we know they’ll be looking this way with the best machines they have. We just asked them to.”
“But they won’t be looking here. They’ll be searching the neighborhood of the Kwembly, millions of cables from here.”
“Think of yourself back home looking up at Toorey. If you were supposed to examine one part of it closely with a telescope, how much of a slip would it take to make you glance at another?”
Deeslenver conceded the point with a gesture.
“Then we either wait for sunrise, or fly a special if we want to use the Esket as you suggested. I admit I haven’t thought of anything else. I haven’t even thought of what we might do there which would make a good test.”
“It shouldn’t matter too much. The real question would be how soon, and how accurately and completely, the human beings do report whatever we set up for them to see. I’ll think of something in the next couple of hours. Aren’t you researchers setting up for a flight to leave soon, anyway?”
“Not that soon,” said Bendivence. “Also, I don’t agree with you that details don’t matter. You don’t want hem to get the idea that we could possibly have anything to do with that they see happen at the Esket, and they certainly aren’t stupid.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean that they should. It will be something natural, making full allowance for the fact that the human beings know even less than we do about what’s natural on this world. You get back to the labs and tell everyone who has equipment to get onto the Deedee that departure time has been moved ahead. I’ll have a written message for Destigmet in two hours.”
“All right.” The scientists vanished through the door, and Barlennan followed them more slowly. He was just beginning to realize how valid Bedivence’s point was. What could be made to happen, in range of one of the Esket’s vision transmitters, which would not suggest that there were Mesklinites in the neighborhood, but which would attract human interest — and tempt the big creatures to edit their reports? Could he think of such a thing without knowing why the reports were being held up? Or, for that matter, without being quite sure that they were?
It was still possible that the delay on the Kwembly matter had been a genuine oversight; as the young human had suggested, each person might have thought that someone else had attended to the matter. To Barlennan’s sailor’s viewpoint this smacked of gross incompetence and inexcusable disorganization; but it would not be the first time he had suspected human beings — not as a species, of course, but on an individual basis — of these qualities.
The test certainly had to be made, and the Esket’s transmitters must surely be possible tools for the purpose. As far as Barlennan knew, these were still active. Naturally, care had been taken that no one enter their field of view since the “loss” of the cruiser, and it had been long since any human being had made mention of them. They would have been shuttered rather than avoided, since this obviously left the Mesklinites at the place much greater freedom of action; but the idea of the shutters had not occurred until after Destigmet had departed with his instructions to set up a second Settlement unknown to the human beings.
As Barlennan remembered, one of the transmitters had been at the usual spot on the bridge, one in the laboratory, one in the hangar where the helicopters were kept — these had been out on routine flights when the “catastrophe” occurred — and the fourth in the life-support section, though not covering the entrance. It had been necessary to take much of the equipment from this chamber, of course.
With all the planning, the situation was still inconvenient; having the lab and life rooms out of bounds, or at best possible to visit with only the greatest care, , had caused Destigmet and his first officer caused Destigmet and his first officer, Kabremm, much annoyance. They had more than once requested permission to shutter the sets, since the technique had been invented. Barlennan had refused, not wanting to call human attention back to the Esket; but now — well, maybe the same net could take two fish. The sudden blanking of one, or perhaps all four, of those screens would certainly be noticed from above. Wheter the humans would feel any inclination to hide the event from the Settlement there was no way of telling; one could only try.
The more he thought it over, the better the plan sounded. Barlennan felt the glow familiar to every intelligent being, regardless of species, who has solved a major problem unassisted. He enjoyed it for fully half a minute. At the end of that time, another of Guzmeen’s runners caught up with him.
“Commander!” The messenger fell into step beside him in the nearly dark corridor. “Guzmeen says that you should come back to Communications at once. One of the human beings — the one called Mersereau — is on the screen. Guz says he ought to be excited, but isn’t, because he’s reporting something going on at the Esket — something is moving in the laboratory!”
10
Keeping in phase with Barlennan as he switched direction took some doing, but the messenger managed it. The command took his continued presence for granted.
“Any further details? When, or what was moving?”
“None, sir. The man simple appeared on the screen without any warning. He said, ‘Something is happening at the Esket. Tell the commander.’ Guzmeen ordered me to bring you back on hurricane priority, so I didn’t hear any more.”
“Those were his exact words? He used our language?”
“no, it was the human speech. His words were—” the runner repeated the phrase, this time in the original tongue. Barlennan could read no more into the words than had been implicit in the translation.
“The we don’t know wheter someone slipped up and was seen, or dropped something into the field of the lens, or—”
“I doubt the first, sir. The human could hardly have failed to recognize a person.”
“I suppose not. Well, some sort of detail should be in by the time we get back there.”
There wasn’t, however. Boyd Mersereau was not even on the screen by the time Barlennan reached Communications. More surprising, neither was anyone else. The commander looked at Guzmeen suspiciously; the communication officer gave the equivalent of a shrug. “He just went, sir, after that one sentence about the lab.”
Barlennan, mystified, squeezed the “attention” control.
But Boyd Mersereau had other things on his mind. Most, but not quite all, were concerned with events on Dhrawn, but not with the Esket; and there were a few matters much closer than the giant star-planet.
The chief of these was the cooling down of Aucoin. The planner was annoyed at not having been brought into the exchanges between Dondragmer and Katini, and the captain and Tebbets. He was inclined to blame young Hoffman for going ahead with policy-disturbing matters without official approv
al. However, he did not want to say anything which would annoy Easy; he regarded her, with some justification, as the most nearly indispensable member of the communications group. In consequence, Mersereau and others received some fallout form the administrator’s deflected ire.
This was not too serious, as far as Boyd was concerned. He had years before pigeonholed the pacifying of administrators along with shaving — something which took up time but did not demand full attention, and worth doing at all only because it was usually less trouble in the long run. The real attention-getter, the thing which kept even news from the Esket in the background, was the state of affairs at the Kwembly…
By himself he might have been moderately concerned, but only moderately. The missing Mesklinites weren’t close personal friends of his. He was civilized enough not to be any less bothered by their loss than if they had been human, but it was not as thought they were his brothers or sons.
The Kwembly herself was a problem, but a fairly routine one. Land-cruisers had been in trouble before, and so far had always been extricated sooner or later. So, all in all, Mersereau would have been merely absorbed, not bothered, if left to himself.
He was not left to himself. Benj Hoffman felt much more strongly about the whole matter, and had a way of making his feelings clear. This wasn’t entirely by talking, though he was perfectly willing to talk. Even when silent he empathized. Boyd would find himself discussing with Dondragmer the progress of the melting-out plan, or the chances of another flood in terms of their effect on the missing helmsmen, rather than with reasonable proper professional detachment. It was annoying. Beetchermarlf and Takoorch, and even Kervenser, just weren’t that central to the work, and the real question was the survival of the crew. Benj, sitting silently beside him, or, at most, interjecting a few remarks or questions, somehow managed to make objectivity seem like callousness; and Mersereau, who had never raised any children of his own, had no defense against that particular treatment. Easy knew perfectly well what was going on, but she did not interfere because she shared almost perfectly her son’s feelings. Partly because of her own background she felt a very intense sympathy for Beetchermarlf and his companion, and even for Takoorch. She had been caught in a rather similar situation some twenty-five years before, when a concatenation of errors had stranded her in a n unmanned research vessel on a high-temperature, high pressure planet.