Fossil

Chapter Nine Clear Sight May Not Provide The Clearest View

His four Habras came aboard happily enough. Early metal aircraft brought to the planet by the starfaring races had given them claustrophobia, since the walls had blocked their electrical senses; this machine had been built of nonconducting synthetics with natives in mind. As passengers, they chattered eagerly at the view from heights they could never reach under their own power, and admitted Janice and S’Nash freely into their discussion.

They worked quickly and efficiently at the first stop, setting up the light and transmitter Hugh had promised the Crotonites, stacking cases of food beside them, and flying around to scout the region within a forty or fifty kilometer radius to learn whether they could sense any evidence that Rekchellet and the other had actually come that way.

The Erthumoi were rather surprised when they did. A dozen kilometers north of the just completed cache a single empty Crotonite food package was detected just under the ice-dust surface, its material charged differently enough from the surrounding material to reveal it to Habra senses. The discoverer brought it in for detailed examination, assuring Hugh and Janice that nothing could be read from the surrounding surface. If S’Nash felt any skepticism, it/he kept it private.

The interesting part of the container itself was that it bore markings in addition to the machine-impressed label, markings definitely not made by machine, though they were more regular than either of the Erthumoi could have produced by hand.

S’Nash insisted after a glance that they were Crotonite writing in the same language Rekchellet had used in his earlier note. It/he could not read a symbol, but was completely certain of the pattern. Janice was willing to believe it/him; she had already been impressed by the Naxian pattern-analysis ability shown at the point on the road where the truck had stopped. It fit her favorite hypothesis about the way the emotion-reading worked, now all the dearer since the collapse of the one about Locrian deep-sight.

Hugh was less certain, but willing to accept S’Nash’s opinion as a working hypothesis. After a moment’s thought, he took the wrapping outside and carefully placed it under a food carton. When the Crotonite searchers got that far and reported to him, he could tell them where it was and ask for interpretation, meanwhile hoping that the group included someone familiar with Rekchellet’s language. The interpreting devices were designed for oral and to a lesser extent gestured speech, not for writing.

They had reached and were setting up the fourth cache, some two thousand kilometers from Pitville and not yet that close to their putative goal, when the flier’s communicator asked for attention. Janice answered.

“This is Velliah. We have reached the first food cache. We found it with no trouble, and there is plenty of food for all of us. I am sorry to say we found nothing on the way.”

“We may have,” answered the Erthuma. “Under the carton at the west end of the pile you will find the remains of what seems to be an ordinary Crotonite food pack, open and empty. There are marks on it which look to us like Crotonite writing. Would you examine them, tell us whether or not we are right, and if anyone in your group knows the language used, read it to us?”

“Of course. One moment.” There was a pause of only a few seconds. “It is a food package. I can’t read the marks, or for that matter the printed label, but there are universal standard symbols for the contents. I will ask whether any of the group can read it.” The pause was longer this time, and broken by a new voice.

“This is Reekess. I’m not from Takkish, Rekchellet’s hatching world, but I know its written language fairly well; it was colonized only a few hundred years apart from my own. This note is signed by Rekchellet. It says he has no tracker and no useful communicator, that he is extremely hungry and tired, that he knows Habras can find the wrapping and should be able to find him the same way. He will fly as long as he can to keep warm, going straight west by the stars. When he has to stop it will be in a valley to keep from being blown away, so he may be buried. Tell the Habras to scan carefully. That’s not verbatim, but is the sense of it.”

“Nothing about someone named Ennissee?”

“No. Strictly survival matters.”

“All right. Stay there, and stay on the ground. We’re coming back at high speed. We have four Habras on board with us, including the one who found that note. Watch for our lights.”

Janice did not sign off formally; with Hugh at the controls, there would be only a brief pause in the conversation. As the craft roared through the dense air, she brought the natives, who had been too far back in the cabin to hear everything, up to date on the results of their find.

“You found the wrapper because of its charge difference, I suppose, Fibb?” she asked.

“That’s right.”

“Is Rekchellet right in believing you can find him the same way?”

“Probably. I’d doubt it if he were flying, but buried in snow or with snow blowing against him he’d show a bright — I expect your translator will call it ‘color,’ but I’m sure you know that’s not the right symbol.”

“I know. It will have to do. The main thing is that you should be able to detect him.”

“I’d expect to. Very well, he said he’d fly straight west by the stars…”

“Straight west from where? I know where I found the wrapper, but am not at all sure that was where he left it. It could have blown far before being buried.”

“Drat. You’re right, of course. All right, wider pattern and slower search. I hope he’s not too close to starving or freezing.”

“As do we.” The native’s voice offered no suggestion of how much hope he really held. Not even the Habras knew this hemisphere of their planet at all well. As Hugh settled toward the light which marked the cache, all of them seized the opportunity to eat. Food was energy, needed both to travel and to keep warm.

As the air lock opened, Hugh restrained his winged assistants with a gesture and preceded them outside, where a small group of Crotonites waited.

“Is any of this food of yours liquid, or otherwise suitable for someone injured or unconscious?” he asked.

“It’s not liquid, but if you find him unconscious just push a pellet of…” the speaker indicated one of the containers…”this down his throat. It will digest quickly; it’s an aminated carbohydrate — quick energy.”

“There’s no risk of choking him?”

“Why? Oh, I remember — Erthumoi breathing passages are cross-connected with the swallowing channel. It would make one wonder about evolution if it didn’t make one wonder even more about the intelligence of the designer. No, no risk. Have each of your natives take one of these packages. That way…” the speaker gestured…”is west. I can’t guess how far Rekchellet might have flown; even if he were extremely tired and hungry, anger or desperation might have kept him going.”

“My Habras covered the region within forty kilometers of here pretty well at the time Fibb found the note,” Hugh pointed out, “but we don’t know what the weather has done. As Fibb says, the note may not have been where Rekchellet left it, and Rek himself may have had his course affected by wind, though I haven’t seen any signs of a real storm here lately. He had no tracker, remember.”

“Nor have we seen storm signs. But that proves little on this world.”

The natives were off, each carrying a package of restorative, within the minute. After another few minutes’ discussion, it was agreed that the Crotonites would also go aloft and keep somewhere near the Habras, carrying lights. Their translators would allow them to hear the natives’ radio speech, and most of them could understand it after a fashion even without the appropriate language modules— Crotonites had been on Habranha a long time. Hugh and the other two nonfliers took the aircraft aloft and went highest of all, hoping to keep all the lights in sight at once and be able to respond to any positive report.

With Fafnir gone, the landscape looked nearly featureless; the hills, wrinkles, dunes, or whatever one chose to call the irregularities simply didn’t show. The starlight was too nearly uniform to provide any distinct shadows; even clouds and high-blowing snow could not be distinguished from the snow-covered surface. Occasionally some pillar of white powder riding a topography-guided column of dense air — Coriolis force was negligible with Habranha’s slow rotation — would build up enough charge to reveal itself to Naxian and Erthumoi eyes by bolts of lightning. Sometimes there would be several of the whirlwinds in a few hundred square kilometers, some spinning in one direction and some in the other. They might either attract or repel each other, cancel or reinforce when they met. Hugh shook his head slowly as he watched. There were still Habras who hoped to be able to predict their world’s weather patterns in detail.

All he himself could hope was that Rekchellet was not hidden in one of the squalls, where even the Habras could hardly fly, or buried too deeply for his individual charge pattern to be perceptible to them.

The four natives had arranged a pattern reaching fifty kilometers to each side of the line running west from the point where the wrapper had been found. With their sensory range and flying speed, they were moving along it at less than ten kilometers an hour. This was a discouraging speed; it seemed quite possible that even a starving Rekchellet might have flown on for well over a hundred. Time and again Hugh felt tempted to suggest a narrower sweep, and each time told himself firmly that the Habras should know what they were doing. If anyone was qualified to suggest a change, it was the Crotonites, not he. They should be best able to guess what the missing one might have accomplished; but even they could only guess, and the natives knew what their own senses could do.

Two hours. Three hours. Four. The low-flying searchers came in for food, finished it quickly, and launched themselves once more from the air lock; the Crotonites went back to the cache in shifts for the same purpose. Hugh had almost definitely decided to order that the pattern be narrowed when a message was relayed back through one of the Crotonites that the natives were widening it; they were now so far from the originally unsure starting point of the lost being that this was the only reasonable thing to do. The Erthumoi digested this for half an hour.

Hugh was about to enforce his own emotions anyway when a light blinked far to the flier’s left. Others repeated the signal closer to the aircraft and he dived toward the nearest, slowing to match velocities a few meters from a Crotonite. The latter’s voice was picked up by the outside microphones.

“They’ve found something. It’s buried. It can be uncovered faster if you get over there. Go to the farthest blinker, and follow its carrier down.”

Hugh obeyed without answering, hoping silently that all the Crotonites at this level were carrying lights, and was at the indicated one in a few seconds.

“Where?” he asked the single word. The broad wings tilted and began a steep glide even farther to the left of the original pattern. They were down to half a kilometer — two hundred meters — one hundred — a Habra was suddenly visible in their own lights, and the Crotonite spoke as he or she peeled away to circle, light blinking a new pattern, above the area.

“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 Crotonites 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?”

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!”