Noise

V Quality

The gesture might, of course, have meant merely “Good,” or “All right,” or “Fine”; there was a fairly broad spectrum of possibilities. Mike’s confidence in the exact meaning was not yet very high. However, as he currently understood Finger, it had been very emphatic indeed, and he couldn’t see why.

He found himself almost on the point of asking questions, but there was no time. Wanaka was issuing orders. Also, he was feeling more and more as though he should already know some of the answers.

“Keo, surface the sails. Lucky they’re already out of drag mode. Mike, help me deploy the leaf; we might as well stock up on oxygen while we’re waiting, and it’ll keep us closer to the current.”

“Waiting? Shouldn’t we be looking for the kid—and the ship?” he added. He certainly didn’t know those answers.

“No. They’ll have to find us, which means we’ll have to stay as nearly right here as possible. Lucky the storm’s passing. Surface current will be about the only variable they’ll have to allow for.”

“They?” The word had seemed reasonable when child and ship had been the subject; now it sounded odd. However, Wanaka’s hands were too busy with the roll of leaf-equivalent to allow her to answer, and her face was not visible at the moment. She might have made a slip of the finger, no doubt; the gloves of the sound armor were not heavily padded, but were hard-shelled, exquisitely jointed to permit any finger movement, and depended on impedance mismatch rather than padding to keep dangerous noises out. They permitted Finger communication easily. Mike felt a distinct suspicion that she had deliberately given him meaningful information, possibly to see whether he’d wind up more or less confused than before.

Of course, the plural might still have included the ship, but that made two questions rather than one. He glanced at where Keo had been, but the mate was already in the sea carrying out his orders. Hoani felt like a student who had just been handed a surprise quiz with the question in an unfamiliar language. He didn’t even have time to think; helping pay out the long ribbon of pseudolife without harming it took too much of his attention. So did the the constant reminder that the storm had not completely passed, that there were plenty of ordinary waterspouts in sight, and that the hull was no steadier than usual.

When helmets could once more be removed, he had another surprise: Wanaka was taking what looked like position sights on the suns and Kaihapa. The instrument she used had no real optical parts; it was basically a simple cross staff, the arms modified with double sights to allow aiming it at both suns at once, with a tray of viscous fluid serving as a horizontal reference. Mike did manage to solve that one after a few seconds; he had, he remembered, used the trick himself when no horizon was visible, measuring the sun’s angular separation from its reflection in a horizontal surface. He could even see why no lenses were being used here. It was not just that silicon was virtually unobtainable from Kainui’s highly acidic ocean—carbon-based optics could have been grown, presumably—but because the hazy, ripply atmosphere made really precise sighting on celestial objects impossible anyway. Magnifying optics would have done nothing for accuracy.

What he didn’t see clearly was why such observations were worth making at all. True, the captain had said something about “waiting” for ’Ao, so it was obviously important to try to stay put in some sense or other; but if they were yielding to the current anyway…

Maybe it would be more profitable to go back to just who “they” might be—Wanaka had certainly used the plural gesture. Most likely “they” were ’Ao and the growing ship; but that, as he had already noticed, posed two major questions. It was just believable that the child could swim back—if she knew the right direction. The storm was not a frontal disturbance; Mike had seen no such phenomenon yet on Kainui. It was simply a local convective instability resulting partly from temperature and partly from humidity. Its winds were mostly short, random gusts and the child shouldn’t be far out of sight. Mike had no idea, however, how ’Ao could possibly know the direction.

If “they” did mean child and ship, it was even harder for him to see how the latter could be propelled, even granting that the direction was known. Though the vessel was only part-grown, the thought of a ten-year-old swimmer towing it any distance was hard to accept, not to say utterly ridiculous even granting her background. So was the idea of her separating the growing sections, assembling them properly—including attaching the deck, stepping the mast, and setting sail—and sailing.

Hoani was now, however, firmly determined not to ask; if he were being tested, he was not going to give up without trying. It didn’t occur to him that the captain must know him pretty well by now and might be doing a little research of her own.

The rest of that day, and most of the next, were as close to completely idle time as he had experienced since Malolo had left her home dock. For the first time, Wanaka and Keo left Mike alone on the hull, essentially in charge of everything, while they caught up on sleep. The closest to a general instruction he received was a “Keep your eyes open”—from Keo, not the captain. Hoani had gestured agreement, and was left alone with mist, the suns, Kainui’s twin planet, and the usual microtsunamis, waterspouts, and thunder. He had not even been told what to do about the leaf-strip if another storm were to find them.

Common sense suggested that it should be reeled in. Or did it? It had drag, Wanaka had mentioned the need for them to stay in position with respect to the ocean, and hail shouldn’t do much damage to the band of tissue. Besides all that, it would probably be impossible to reel it all in between the time the need was evident and the arrival of spout or storm.

Mike thought about it all for a while, smiled suddenly behind his mask, got to his feet with the usual difficulty, and began scanning the surrounding sea carefully for one partly grown replica of the Malolo. No, not yet a replica—probably. He couldn’t be sure about that, but at least he could watch without asking silly questions.

Some hours passed. Astronomy distracted his attention for a while as the suns disappeared behind Kaihapa while in mutual eclipse, but his attention was eventually rewarded.

Malolo junior—he wondered fleetingly, whether his suggestion would really be followed—had come quite near before he spotted it; he had allowed for its being much less than full size, but had no way to guess at its state of assembly. It was hard to see how that could possibly have changed since he had last seen it, and he was somewhat relieved to see that it hadn’t.

The growing hulls still floated in contact, on their sides, with the still very small deck sandwiched between them. Part of this was catching wind, obviously; the other part, submerged, must be playing the part of a keel. ’Ao was in the water at the near end, apparently pushing the pair of hulls to one side in order to alter its heading. They were almost exactly upwind from Mike, but not so nearly up current. The man was impressed to see how precisely the “ship” moved toward him when the child stopped her efforts. He watched entranced while it drifted to the end of the hull where he was standing. He almost failed to catch the line ’Ao tossed him, and almost as absently moored the immature vessel while the child, paying him no other attention, swam to the cabin, pulled herself out of the sea, and disappeared into the air lock.

Mike, once more alone, stayed where he was; perhaps he should have called the others when the little ship first appeared, but he had simply not thought of it. Reporting ’Ao’s return was now obviously superfluous, and anyone could see that having no one at all on watch was a bad idea.

Bad even with an apparently empty ocean, as a microtsunami immediately reminded him.

No one emerged from the cabin for some time. He spent the interval making sure the little ship was secure, and in brooding. He was mystified, and wanted in the worst way to ask questions, but could not get rid of the feeling that Wanaka had already provided at least part of an answer; and he was almost neurotic about making a fool of himself. Ship and child had arrived safely, which seemed to confirm the implication of Wanaka’s “they,” but still left unanswered several questions Mike didn’t quite want to ask because he feared he should know the answers already—she had, after all, been right about the return.

The most mysterious of all, and incidentally the most reasonable excuse for simply starting to ask questions regardless of personal face, was of course: How had ’Ao found her way back?

What could the sighting on the suns have had to do with it? There had been no way to get results to the child on a planet where the loudest sound of a bullhorn would be drowned out by thunder in a few hundred meters, the brightest portable signal light stopped by haze in a kilometer or two, and constant lightning and ionized haze made essentially all electromagnetic communication equipment useless. Hoani had no confidence in the concept of telepathy, and was quite sure that if it really occurred and the people of Kainui had reduced it to engineering practice, either their culture would be very different from what he had seen so far or the range of the phenomenon was disappointingly short.

Best to wait for more orders. One could hope that Wanaka, with the responsibilities of a captain, wouldn’t merely give him a detail-free command like, “Start it growing again,” just to see how much Mike had figured out for himself. He could answer that one with some confidence, of course, since he was quite sure the little ship was still growing—but maybe it wasn’t! How could he be sure?

Stop it, Mike Hoani. She can’t expect you to know everything.

Or would she?

With nothing, as far as he knew, left to watch for, Mike immersed himself more and more deeply in his brooding. Speculations that centered more and more, as the minutes went by, around that word “they.”

And around the natural near-total absence of silicon in a highly acid ocean. And the long-obvious fact that the doll contained some sort of data-handling gear. And the fact that a good quiz answer might, after all, consist in asking a straightforward question.

Which, of course, might still make him look silly.

Equally of course, the principal set of generally silly questions consisted of those not asked. The only specific exceptions he could think of at the moment were “Are you crazy?” and “Can I trust you?” Maybe he’d get the first for an answer. It would be nice to be able to show he wasn’t, and maybe nicer to have someone else appear silly.

Mike made up his mind at last, and brought his attention back to Malolo’s surroundings. He could only guess how long he had been musing, but began to wonder why no one had emerged from the cabin. Was ’Ao in real trouble from hunger or possibly oxygen lack? That seemed unlikely. While almost certainly concerned about such matters, judging by her haste in getting to the cabin, she had been active and well coordinated when she arrived.

No doubt she was reporting in detail to the captain. Mike would like to have heard the details of that report, but had, after all, been ordered to stay on watch.

So he watched. No ships. No patches of metal-reducing pseudolife, as least any that he could recognize. Nothing to run into, presumably; Malolo was essentially motionless with respect to the surrounding water. No waterspouts with constant bearing; keeping sure of that took more of his attention, now that he had really decided to ask a question, than anything else.

Occasional spells of doubt about the wisdom of asking that particular question at all, or whether to do it inside the cabin or out, or which of the group it would be best to have listening when he asked it, did occur; but he held firm to the basic decision and settled the corollary details one by one.

Outside. With everyone present. With all helmets off, especially the child’s; Mike was pretty good now at reading expressions around breathing masks, he felt sure. So what were they all doing? When would they come out for whatever needed to be done next?

He had completely forgotten again that the child had probably had little food or sleep for at least a day and a half, until he began to feel sleepy himself, and that raised a new if minor question. Just when would he be relieved? Should he use the signal bell? Wanaka would never have forgotten such a matter. Never. She was, after all, a rated ship’s master. For some reason, even Mike was unable really to worry about such a slip on her part.

He was, however, very tired and almost hungry enough to nibble on his suit’s emergency food before anyone appeared from the cabin. Then it was only the adults, reasonably enough, so he couldn’t ask his question right away.

The little catamaran was inspected thoughtfully, with no comments that Mike could catch—it was moored now to the cabin, and he was still on the old hull. Then time was spent resetting the submerged sails, with both Wanaka and Keokolo in the water. Then another sight was taken, this time by Keo, on the suns and on the twin planet, which even without instruments was now visibly lower in the western sky. So much for any possibility that the other sighting had somehow been transmitted to ’Ao.

Then Mike was dismissed with the unneeded advice to eat, sleep, and check breathing gear while Wanaka took over the control lines and Keo began reeling in the “leaf.”

Inside the cabin there was nothing surprising. ’Ao was asleep, not in her hammock as expected but on one of the cots. Her back was turned toward anyone in the room, and it was obvious even to Mike that the pattern between her shoulders was more complex. Since she was deeply asleep, he decided not to congratulate her just yet. Very briefly he considered asking his question of the others anyway, but thought better of it. After all, he wanted to check everyone’s reaction, whether or not he got an answer. All he could think of now to worry about was whether, with routine pretty well restored, he would have to wait for another emergency before everyone would be on deck again.

He didn’t. The half-grown ship called for nonstandard activity, he found almost immediately on being roused himself. He was told that it was still growing, and that the process would cease only when the first coat of protective paint was applied. This would have to be done quickly enough so that one hull wouldn’t outgrow the other too much, though actually this would probably happen to some very slight extent. Even though the process was not actually a painting job but merely a planting of very sticky seeds along each keel, the growth of the “paint” was never perfectly uniform.

This was all interesting, but to Mike the good point was that everyone would be outside the cabin for a lot of the time even before the growing was ended. It was less than a day, in fact, before the chance came to ask his planned question.

He was back on the control lines, with ’Ao beside him still giving occasional advice in Finger. The weather was calm enough to allow helmets to be open. The only problem at first was that both captain and mate were on the old hull, too distant for a question asked in a normal voice to be audible above the thunder, even allowing for the usual effect of the thunder on a “normal” voice.

Then for some reason the officers both went to the growing ship, not yet noticeably larger than when ’Ao had brought it back. It was still moored to the cabin, but had been brought between that structure and the old hull to render it more accessible, so Wanaka and Keo were only a couple of meters away.

For just a moment Mike’s determination wavered, but he managed to keep control of himself. He got the question out.

“’Oloa, how did you know which way to tell ’Ao to steer?”

Only the child looked startled. She glanced at her elders, obviously wanting advice. The captain gave a very slight nod.

“Tell him, ’Oloa.” It was ’Ao who spoke, not Wanaka.

“I have an inertial system,” piped the doll. Mike’s mind raced.

“Of course, you can’t guide us to Muamoko.” He made it a statement, not a question.

“Of course. I don’t know where it is.”

“You couldn’t estimate?” The doll was silent.

“I don’t think she knows that word,” said ’Ao. “I’m just guessing at it myself.”

“Too many variables, anyway,” the captain interjected. Mike nodded thoughtfully.

“Silicon?” he asked. Wanaka smiled visibly around her mask.

“Yes. Imported. ’Ao’s parents are quite wealthy, and are very fond of her. ’Oloa cost more than Malolo did. They very much want to get ’Ao back, properly educated, of course.”

“Did I get those points just for waiting?” ’Ao asked.

“More for knowing when to stop waiting, and most for the general recovery,” was the answer. “You’ll have to wait longer before I can post them all, though. I promise that’s the first thing I’ll do when we have the cabin installed on—what should we call the new ship?”

“Humuhumunukunukuapua’a ?” suggested the child.

“It won’t be very small when it finishes growing, remember.”

“Well—it has to be some kind of fish. That’s the rule, since there aren’t any real ones on Kainui.”

“How about Mata’italiga ?” suggested Mike again. He was beginning to get a grasp of some of the more abstract customs. The hammerhead shark was a variety whose name might not have survived very well in the Kainuian language mixture, and therefore be less an everyday name since Samoan seemed to form a rather small fraction of the evolved tongues.

“Kumu,” suggested the captain.

“Pilikia,” was Keo’s rather cynical suggestion.

“We have trouble enough,” retorted the child and the captain, almost together.

“I know. Sorry. I’ll settle for Mike’s suggestion.”

’Ao approved immediately, perhaps out of courtesy, and the other suggestions were dropped, partly because a converging spout and thunderstorm made maneuvering necessary and upset the sea-anchor arrangement once more. ’Ao scurried back to Mata with an armful of oxygen canisters to replace the ones she had used while away, and lashed them and herself in place. Very seldom does only one thing happen at a time.

But practically nothing hectic occurred for several days—at least, nothing out of the ordinary, though no one had reason to be bored, especially when at the sea-anchor controls.

Mata’italiga grew visibly. The captain checked over the seeds that would provide its protective coatings and stop its own growth. She, Keo, ’Ao, and even Mike held several discussions over the best order for applying them, all realizing that any given selection could be wrong. Mike became very fluent in Finger, and while no formal declaration about it was yet made, effectively reached the status of able-bodied seaman. Even ’Ao came to trust him at the sea-anchor lines.

Mata’s growth would have to be stopped at a rather precise size, in order to install the old cabin properly. They were, Wanaka and Keo judged, within two or three weeks of this point when temptation reared its head.

And the captain yielded.

Wanaka was a highly skilled sailor and a more than competent trader; she had contributed significantly to the general wealth of the city of Muamoku in recent years. For reasonable decisions, one needed reliable data, and she knew this perfectly well. She became less sure of herself when data seemed less than reliable, but usually made decisions anyway, as she did this time—quite aware that doing so might be expensive or fatal. She knew, in other words, that life was sometimes a gamble, and accepted the fact. She also accepted the fact that failure to decide was itself a decision, and therefore a gamble.

The decision this time was clear enough, considering both the available and unavailable facts. What was left of Malolo drifted into contact with a patch of weedy jelly rather similar to the iron source that had given Mike his first experience with Kainuian metal recovery. It was not quite a collision; the mine, or fish, whose species no one on board could recognize offhand, was riding the poleward surface current, while the ship was holding against this as well as could be managed with the sea anchors. The current itself was not very strong, however, by this time. They were much farther south than Wanaka liked; their “navigation” had been far from perfect.

The pseudoorganism was much larger, apparently, than the iron and copper sources Mike had seen before. Like those creatures, this one’s body was a huge and gelatinous expanse floating a meter or so below the surface of the sea, covered even more completely with the energy-drinking “leaves” than the iron-fish had been. Its total size could not be made out from any one spot. Leaf shape and color were markedly different from the others.

Wanaka didn’t consider this at first, however; the immediately meaningful fact was that the sea anchor, or at least its control lines, had been trapped in the jelly. Malolo’s remaining pieces as well as the growing Mata had essentially become part of the drifting organism.

Specifically, they were drifting with it, away from the equator as if they weren’t already farther than anyone wanted. No sun-sighting was needed to know that; ’Oloa confirmed the fact when asked. The doll was being consulted much more frequently now; Mike suspected that he had not been told about its nature and uses earlier because he had had no need to know, and might have said something unwise when mixing with the crew of another ship. Neither Wanaka nor Keo had confirmed or denied this suspicion because, being Mike, he hadn’t asked.

The drift of the organism was not rapid, and would presumably become less so as the low-salinity current weakened and grew saltier with changing latitude. They would not, Hoani supposed, be carried too far from the latitude where they had met this fish; he guessed they could separate themselves from the thing in a day or two at the most, perhaps much less.

Like Wanaka, he had reached a conclusion with inadequate data. Unlike her, he didn’t know it.

Just how long it would have taken to get untangled from the pseudoorganism he never found out. Wanaka issued no orders on the subject. She questioned Keo intensively—excessively, Mike felt—about his certainty that he had never seen or heard of this particular species of fish. She even asked ’Ao. She sent the mate overboard, and even went herself, to collect leaves and leaf stems and bits of the thing’s tissue, and to look for pods of water and metal. She spent time in the cabin consulting a voluminous reference work, one of the few items of written material aboard, apparently without result.

There were plenty of water pods to be found, but no metal.

And that was the lack of data that guided Wanaka’s decision.

Well, Mike thought quietly, it was her profession.

“We don’t need to worry about drifting away from this thing,” the captain remarked slowly, after much fruitless trying to identify it. “Mike, you stay on the ship in case anything does happen. Keo, ’Ao, and I will examine every bit of it we can reach, for however long it may take us, to find out just what besides water it gives. For a start, though, you and Keo deploy the leaf; you’ll have to pull it out, of course, since there’s no relative current now to drag on it. ’Ao, check the food; we won’t be in motion, and we may have to do something about getting new sea water into the growth tanks.”

Mike ventured a question, not seeing how this one could be silly.

“How long do you think we’ll stay with this thing?”

What he could see of her face looked determined. “We have no idea yet about how big it is, but we’re not leaving until we’ve either checked every square meter of it or found out what metal, or metals, it traps. It’s got to be something really rare, or we’d know already.”

“It couldn’t be something designed just to desalt water?” The question popped out before he meant it to, but Mike decided that it couldn’t be regarded as silly, either. She evidently didn’t; she paused before answering.

“I doubt it. The drinkable water is usually incidental to reducing metal ions, and I don’t see much use in building a creature only for water and turning it loose at sea. Even for a city, there’s usually enough hail from storms to keep people in drink and baths. That’s one reason cities don’t usually let themselves drift too far north or south of the temperate storm belt. I suppose you could think of some excuse for a simple desalter, but this one is big enough for a city, it seems to me, and surely wouldn’t be floating free. Anyway,” she admitted frankly, “just the possibility of rare metals is enough to keep me right here. We’re staying ’til we’re sure, one way or the other. I hope you’re not too bored after the first few weeks.”

Hoani was a little startled at the suggested time, but tried not to show it. He had the sense not to say it, but still hoped they’d encounter another ship now and then; his own project could always use more language data.

He wondered how Wanaka and Keo would react to another ship’s appearing. The captain was clearly feeling possessive about this creature, just as the crew they had met earlier had seemed to feel about their copper mine. Wanaka had left this to them without argument, presumably as a matter of custom. If this creature were as potentially valuable as she seemed to hope, custom might not be enough for others—or conceivably, he suddenly thought, for her. He remembered the captain’s mentioning people “with a one-sided notion of trading.” This was a remarkably gentle description of piracy, after all.

And certainly there would be no question of escaping from anyone on Malolo’s remains even if they could be disentangled from the jelly.

Of course, if they were given time, Mata would be grown and assembled, and a new, smooth set of hulls might outsail—

No, it wouldn’t. Ships didn’t grow barnacles on Kainui.

He wondered briefly whether traveling away from the equator would make any change in their chance of meeting other vessels, but couldn’t bring himself to ask this question. He should know enough to answer it himself. He probably did; but some of the things he thought he knew suggested one answer, and some the other.

Anyway, he told himself, knowing chances didn’t mean much. They were only chances. Wanaka certainly knew them, and had not, apparently, let them influence her decision.

Mike did briefly wonder whether the crew might have some sort of weapons no one had mentioned. After all, he had been left to solve the ’Oloa problem pretty much by himself, and weapons would likely be another item they wouldn’t want him to mention at the wrong moment. On that one, though, he couldn’t even decide which way even to hope.

In the meantime, there were other things to do. Fifty meters in from the edge of the unknown patch of pseudolife, there was much less effect from the tsunamis and other surface disturbances. He asked the captain about the fresh water supply and, with her permission, took advantage of the absence of the crew overboard to doff noise armor and enjoy a bath.

The others had, after all, done the same from time to time. He was pretty sure of this, though he had always been in the cabin when it happened. He tried, in his mind, to connect this privacy attitude with Earthly Polynesian customs, and wasn’t sure he’d made any sense of it.

At least, it gave him something to think about besides the current shortage of language data.

Mata grew, and grew, and grew. Wanaka ceased examining the whatever-it-was, though the others did not, and spent most of her time making measurements. The seeds for the protective coating that would stop the growth were ready. Hoani had been told how they were to be used, but didn’t expect to be allowed to help with the operation. He was right about this, but they did let him watch.

The seeds were far smaller than the one that had carried Mata’s specifications or the one that had controlled the division of the iron-fish. In shape and size, they were coinlike disks about Mike’s index finger joint across, and apparently very sticky, and of four different colors—black, bright red, pale green, and deep yellow. Keo and the captain worked together applying them along the still deck-to-deck hulls, about five meters apart, being careful to work from bow to stern and to apply a given pair of seeds at the same moment on each side. They made no effort to plant a given color at the same moment; Mike guessed that the colors represented different protective coatings, and that it must make no difference in which order these were applied.

The seeds lost their coloring almost at once, and seemed to spread out and become too thin and/or transparent to stay visible. Whether they were simply changing shape or taking nutrition from the water and actually growing Hoani couldn’t judge at first.

However, the moment the “planting” was done, captain and mate separated the hulls from the deck sandwiched between them, lifted the latter into position, fastened it with obvious haste, and then began briskly splashing sea water on the sides of the hulls that had been mostly above the surface. Mike decided the stuff must be growing.

The next step was to work the cabin up onto the new deck and into position, deflate its floats, and fasten its numerous quick-disconnects along the hulls.

’Ao had been responsible for the newly grown mast and boom while this had been going on. She had lashed them along Mata’s port hull, but stayed with them just in case. Now all four lifted the mast onto the deck, finally got it upright, and stepped and stayed it.

Mike had supposed that the original sails would be recovered and used, and was wondering how they would be retrieved from under the jelly. It turned out, however, that a budlike growth he had not really noticed before, about half a cubic meter in volume and now trailing in the water below the deck attached to the latter by a meter-long stem, contained a new set.

Keo examined this object carefully and reported that it was not quite ripe. The intense activity tapered off. Water had been resupplied from the mysterious growth. Equipment and supplies that had been crowding the cabin were relocated to their former positions on the new deck. The “leaf,” now in its proper place aft of the cabin, was again deployed; there was now room for more charged oxygen cartridges, and at this latitude the leaf was getting less effective; the suns weren’t rising as high in the north.

Mike Hoani resumed his lonely watch, on a thankfully much more stable deck, and the other three went back to their researches with the apparently lonely water pods.

And the suns made their noontime passages lower and lower across the northern sky.