Star Light

3: NERVE CENTER

Perhaps it was unkind for Dondragmer to have given his report in the human language. The time taken for translation might have eased the shock a trifle for McDevitt. The worst part, as the meteorologist said later, was realizing that his own prediction was on its way to Dhrawn and nothing could stop it. For a moment he had a wild notion of getting a ship and racing the radio waves to the planet so as to shadow them from the Kwembly’s receivers. The thought was only a flicker; only so much can be done in thirty-two seconds. Besides, none of the tenders then at the station was capable of faster-than-light flight. Most of them were used in servicing the shadow satellites.

Easy, in the next seat, didn’t seem to have noticed the discrepancy between the prediction and Dondragmer’s report; at least, she hadn’t glanced at him with the expression which nine out of ten of his friends would have used. Well, she wouldn’t, he thought. That’s why she’s on this job.

The woman was manipulating her selector switch again, with her attention focused on a smaller screen above the Kwembly’s four. At first an indicator beside it glowed red; as she worked her switches it turned green and the image of an office-like room with fully a dozen Mesklinites in view appeared on the screen. Easy began her report instantly.

She was brief. All she could give was a repetition of Dondragmer’s few sentences. She had finished long before there was any evidence on the screen that her words were being received.

‘When the response came, however, it was satisfying. Every caterpillar-like body in sight looped toward the pickup. While Easy had never learned to read expression on the Mesklinite “face,” there was no misunderstanding the wildly waving arms and snapping pincers. One of the creatures raced toward a semicircular doorway at the far side of the room and disappeared through it. In spite of the creature’s red and black coloration, Easy found herself reminded of the sight, a few years before, of one of her daughters inhaling a strand of spaghetti. A Mesklinite in a hurry under forty Earth gravities appears legless to human eyes.

The sound was not on yet from the Dhrawn end, but there was a rising buzz of conversation in the human communication room. It was not unusual for exploring land-cruisers to run into difficulties. In general the working Mesklinites took such difficulties more calmly than the human beings who were watching helplessly. In spite of the lack of intercom in the station, people began entering the room and filling the general seats. Screen after screen in the front monitoring areas was tuned to the “headquarters” unit in the Settlement. Meanwhile Easy and Mersereau were dividing their attention among the four sets reporting from the Kwembly, with only an occasional glance at the other picture.

It was not obvious on the screens that the vehicle was afloat because the transmitters shared any motion it might have, and there was little loose equipment whose motion might have betrayed a pitch or a roll. The bulk of the crew were sailors by training. Lifelong habit prevented them from leaving things unsecured. Easy kept closest watch on the bridge screen hoping to spot something outside which could give a clue to what was occurring, but nothing recognizable could be seen through the windows.

Then the panes were blotted out once more as Dondragmer came back into the foreground and expanded his report.

“There seems to be no immediate danger. The wind is pulling us along fairly rapidly, judging by our wake. Our magnetic course is 66. We are floating level, submerged to about deck two. Our scientists are trying to compute the density of this liquid, but no one has ever bothered to work out displacement tables for this hull as far as I know. If you human beings happen to have that information, my people would be glad to get it. Unless we run into something solid, and I can’t guess at the chances of that, we’ll be safe. All machinery is functioning properly, except that the treads have nothing to bite on. They race if we give them power. That’s all for now. If your shadow satellites can keep track of our location, we’ll be glad of that information as often as you can manage. Tell Barlennan everything is all right so far.”

Easy shifted microphone connections and repeated the captain’s report as nearly verbatim as she could. She saw, in due course, that it was being taken down in writing at the other end. She rather hoped that the writer would have some question to ask: not that she was likely to be able to answer it, but she was beginning to get a helpless, useless feeling again. The Mesklinite, however, merely acknowledged the information and headed for the door with his notes. Easy was left wondering how far he had to go to get them to the commander. No human being had a very good idea of the layout of the Mesklinite base.

As a matter of fact, the trip was brief Most of it appeared to be outdoors because of the settlers’ attitude toward massive objects overhead:

an attitude hard to overcome even on a world where gravity was only a fraction of its normal Mesklin value. The roofs of the Settlement were almost all of transparent film brought from their home world. The only departure from a common, city-wide floor level was dictated by terrain. The thought of either a basement or a second story would never have occurred to a Mesklinite. The many-decked Kwembly and her sister vehicles were of basically human and Paneshk design.

The messenger wove through a maze of corridors for some two hundred yards before reaching the commander’s office. This was at the northern edge of the cluster of foot-high structures which formed the greater part of the Settlement. The Settlement itself was close to the edge of a six-foot cliff extending almost a mile east and west, broken by a dozen or so artificial ramps. On the ground below the cliff, but still with their bridges looming above the transparent coverings of the “city,” were two of the huge land-cruisers. The wall of Barlennan’s room was also transparent and looked directly out on the nearer of these vehicles; the other was parked some thousand feet to the east. A few air suited Mesklinites were also visible outside, dwarfed by the monstrous vehicles they were tending.

Barlennan was watching this group of mechanics critically when the runner entered. The latter used no formality, but burst into Easy’s relayed report as he entered the compartment. By the time the commander had swerved around to receive the written version, he had heard it all orally.

It was not satisfactory, of course. Barlennan had had time to think up a number of questions since the first messenger had arrived, and this message answered none of them. The commander controlled his impatience.

“I take it there hasn’t been anything useful from the human weather experts yet.

“Nothing at all, sir, to us. They may have been talking to the Kwembly without our hearing, of course.”

“True enough. Has word gone to our own weather people?”

“Not as far as I know, sir. There’s been nothing very useful to tell them, but Guzmeen may have sent a message there, too.

“All right. I want to talk to them myself anyway. I’ll be at their complex for the next half hour or more. Tell Guz.”

The messenger made the affirmative nipper gesture and vanished through the door he had entered by. Barlennan took another, making his way slowly westward through building after building and over the enclosed connecting ramps which made the Settlement a single unit. Most of the ramps on his course sloped upward, so that by the time he turned south away from the cliff he was some five feet higher than his office, though not yet on a level with the bridges of the land-cruisers behind him. The roof fabric bulged a little more tautly above him, since the nearly pure hydrogen in the station did not drop as rapidly in pressure with increasing altitude as did Dhrawn’s much denser gas mixture. The Settlement had been built at an elevation which was quite high for Dhrawn. The total outside pressure was about the same as that at Mesklin’s sea level. It was only when the land-cruisers descended to lower elevations that they carried extra argon to keep their internal pressure balanced.

Since Dhrawn’s air carried about two per cent oxygen, the Mesklinites were careful about leaks. Barlennan still remembered the awkward results of an oxygen-hydrogen explosion shortly after he had first encountered human beings.

The research complex was the westernmost and highest side of the colony. It was fairly well separated from most of the other structures and differed from them in having a solid, though still transparent, roof. It also came closer than any other part of the Settlement to having a second story, since a number of instruments were mounted on the roof where they could be reached by ramps and liquid-trap air locks. By no means all the instruments had been furnished by the alien sponsors of the Settlement; the Mesklinites had been using their own imaginations and ingenuity for fifty years, although they had not really felt free about doing so until reaching Dhrawn.

Like the exploring vehicles, the laboratory complex was a mixture of crudeness and sophistication. Energy was supplied by hydrogen-fusion units; chemical glassware was home-made. Communication with the orbiting station was by solid-state electromagnetic beam transmitter; but messages were carried physically about the complex by runners. Steps were being taken to change this, unknown to the human beings. The Mesklinites understood the telegraph and were on the verge of making telephones able to transmit their own voice range. However, neither telephone nor telegraph was being installed in the Settlement because most of Barlennan’s administrative effort was being concentrated on the project which had provoked Easy’s sympathy for the Esket crew. It takes a lot of work to lay cross-country telegraph lines.

Barlennan was saying nothing about this to his sponsors. He liked human beings, though he did not go as far in that direction as Dondragmer: he was always aware of their amazingly short life span, which prevented him from getting to really know the people he worked with before they were replaced by others. He was rather concerned about the possibility of human, Drommian, and Paneshk finding out just how ephemeral they all were, for fear it might depress them. It had, in fact, become Mesklinite policy to evade discussion on the matter of age with aliens. It was also policy not to depend more heavily than could be avoided on them. You never knew whether the next ones to take over would have the same attitudes. They were intrinsically undependable, most Mesklinites felt; Dondragmer’s confidence in them was a glaring exception.

All this was known to the Mesklinite scientists who saw the commander arrive. Their first concern was with the immediate situation. “Is someone in trouble, or are you just visiting?”

“Trouble, I’m afraid,” replied Barlennan. He briefly outlined Dondragmer’s situation. “Collect anyone you think may be useful and come to the map.” He made way to the forty-foot-square chamber whose floor was the “map” of Low Alpha, and waited. Very little of the area had been “mapped,” so far. He felt, as he had so often before, that there was a long, long job ahead. Still, the map was more encouraging to him than its human counterpart some millions of miles above was to its human viewers. Both showed the arc covered by the land cruisers and something of the landscape. The Mesklinites had indicated this in spidery black lines suggesting a sketch of human nerve cells, complete with cell bodies.

The specific Mesklinite data centered mostly around the spot where the Esket lay. This information, marked in red, had been obtained without direct human assistance. This was one place in the Settlement where there would be no vision transmitter as long as Barlennan was running things.

Now, however, he focused his attention several feet to the south of the Esket, where there was discouragingly little data in either red or black. The line representing the track of the Kwembly looked lonesome. Barlennan had raised his front end as high as was comfortable, bringing his eyes six or seven inches from the floor, and was looking at the map gloomily when the scientists began to arrive. Bendivence was either very optimistic or very pessimistic. The commander couldn’t decide which was the more likely reason for his having called nearly twenty people to the conference. They gathered a few feet from him, reared up and waited politely for his information and questions. He started without preamble.

“The Kwembly was here at her last report,” he indicated. “It had been crossing a field of snow, water snow, nearly clear of dissolved material but quite dirty according to Don’s science people.”

“Borndender?” queried someone. Barlennan gestured affirmatively and went on.

“The snow field started here.” He crawled to a spot nearly four feet northwest of the position marker. “It lies between a couple of mountain ridges, which we have indicated only roughly. Destigmet’s balloons haven’t gotten this far south yet, or at least word hasn’t reached us and Don’s fliers haven’t seen much. Just now, while the Kwembly was stopped for a routine maintenance check, a heavy wind came up, and then a dense fog of pure or nearly pure ammonia. Then, quite suddenly, the temperature rose several degrees and they found themselves afloat, being blown roughly eastward by the wind. We would like explanations and we badly need constructive advice. Why did the temperature go up, and why did the snow melt? Is there any connection between the two? Remember that the highest temperature they mentioned was only about a hundred and three, twenty-six or -seven degrees below the melting point of water. Why the wind? How long is it likely to last? It’s carrying the Kwembly toward the hot regions inside Low Alpha south of the Esket site.” He gestured toward a heavily red-marked section of the floor. “Can we tell how far they’ll be carried? I didn’t want Dondragmer to go out on this trip, and I certainly don’t want to lose him even if we don’t agree completely.

“We’ll call for what help we can get from the men, but you’ll have to use your brains, too. I know some of you have been trying to make sense out of Dhrawn’s climatology; do you have any worthwhile ideas which might apply here?”

Several minutes of silence followed. Even those in the group most given to uttering rhetorical speeches had been working with Barlennan too long to risk them now. For some time no really constructive ideas came up. Then one of the scientists scuttled toward the door and vanished, with “Just a moment, I have to check a table” floating behind him. He was back within thirty seconds.

“I can account for the temperature and melting,” he said firmly. “The ground surface was water ice, the fog ammonia. The heat of solution as they met and mixed would have caused the temperature rise. Ammonia-water solutions form eutectics which can melt as low as seventy-one.

Mild hoots of appreciation and approving gestures of nipper-equipped arms greeted this suggestion. Barlennan went with the crowd, though words had been used which were not entirely familiar to him. But he was not through with his questions.

“Does that give us any idea how far the Kwembly will be carried?”

“Not in itself We need information about the extent of the original snow field,” was the answer. “Since only the Kwembly has been in the area, about the only hope is the photo maps made by the humans. You know how little we can get from those. Half the time you can’t differentiate between ice and clouds. Besides they were all made before we landed here.”

• “Give it a try, anyway,” ordered Barlennan. “With luck, you can at least tell whether those mountain ranges to the east are blocking the Kwembly’s present path. If they are, it’s hard to see how the craft could be carried more than a few hundred thousand cables.”

“Right,” answered one of the investigators. “We’ll check. Ben, Dees, come along; you’re more used to the photos than I am.” The three vanished through the door. The others broke up into small groups, muttering arguments to each other and waving excitedly, now at the map underfoot, now at items presumably in the nearby laboratories. Barlennan endured this for several minutes before deciding that a little more guidance was needed.

“If that plateau Don was crossing was such pure water, there couldn’t have been any ammonia precipitation there for a long, long time. Why should things have changed so suddenly?”

“It almost has to be a seasonal effect,” answered one of the men. “I can only guess, but I’d say it had something to do with some consistent change in the wind pattern. Air currents from different parts of the planet will be saturated with water or ammonia according to the nature of the surface they pass over, mostly its temperature, I suppose. The planet is nearly twice as far from its sun at one time as at another and its axis is much more inclined than Mesklin’s. It’s easy to believe that at one time of year only water is precipitated on that plateau and at another it gets supplied with ammonia. Actually, the vapor pressure of water is so low that it’s hard to see what situation would get water into the atmosphere without supplying even more ammonia, but I’m sure it’s possible. We’ll work on it, but it’s another of those times when we’d be a lot better off with world-wide, year-round information. These human beings seem to be in an awful hurry; they could have waited a few more years to land us here, I should think.”

Barlennan made the gesture whose human equivalent would have been a noncommittal grunt. “The field data would be convenient. Just think of yourself as being here to get it instead of having it given to you.

“Of course. Are you going to send the Kalliff or the Hoorsh out to help Dondragmer? This is certainly different from the Esket situation.”

“From our point of view, yes. It might look funny to the humans, though, if I insisted on sending out a rescue cruiser this time after letting them talk me out of it before. I’ll think it over. There’s more than one way of sailing upwind. You do that theoretical work you’ve just been talking about, but be thinking about what you’d want to take on a field trip up toward the Kwembly.”

“Right, Commander.” The scientist started to turn away, but Barlennan added a few more words.

“And Jemblakee. No doubt you’ll be strolling over to Communications to talk to your human colleagues. Please don’t mention this, what was it, heat of solution and eutectic business. Let them mention it first, if they’re going to, and be properly impressed when and if they do. You understand?”

“Perfectly.” The scientist would have shared a grin of understanding with his commander if their faces had been capable of that sort of distortion. Jemblakee left, and after a moment’s thought Barlennan did the same. The remaining researchers and technicians might possibly be the better for his presence to keep their centerboards down but he had other things to do. If they couldn’t hold course without his pincers on their helms, they’d just have to drift for a while.

He should talk to the human station soon; but if there was going to be an argument, as seemed rather likely, he had better do a little course-plotting himself Some of the two-legged giants, Aucoin, for example, who seemed to have a great deal to say about their policy, were reluctant to expend or even risk any sort of reserve equipment, no matter how important the action seemed from the Mesklinite viewpoint. Since the aliens had paid for it, this was perfectly understandable, even laudable. Still there was nothing immoral about talking them around to a more convenient attitude if it could be done. If he could arrange it, the best plan would be to work through that particularly sympathetic female named Hoffman. It was too bad the human beings kept such irregular hours; if they had set up decent, regular watches in their communication section Barlennan would long since have worked out their schedule and been able to pick his party. He wondered, not for the first time, whether the irregular schedule might not be deliberately set up to block that very action, but there seemed no way to find out. He could hardly ask.

The Settlement’s comm center was far enough from the laboratories to give him thinking time en route. It was also close enough to his office to encourage a pause for making a few notes before actually opening the verbal fencing match.

The central theme would have to be the question of rescue, if Dondragmer’s trouble wound up crippling his cruiser. If the previous situation involving the Esket months before were any indication, the tightwads up above would be basically against sending the Kalliff Of course, there was nothing they could do if Barlennan chose to go his own way in that matter, or in any other, but the commander was hoping to keep that fact cushioned in the decencies of polite conversation. He would be happiest if that aspect of the situation never came up at all. This was one reason he hoped to work Easy Hoffman into the other end of the discussion. For some reason, she seemed prone to take the Mesklinite side when disagreements arose. She was certainly one reason that there had been no open argument during the Esket incident, though a more important reason was that Barlennan had never had the slightest intention of sending a rescue cruiser before and had therefore actually been siding with Aucoin.

Well, he could at least go as far as the comm room door and find out who was on duty above. With the rippling equivalent of a shrug, he lifted his sprawled eighteen inches from the office floor and made his way into the corridor. It was at that moment that the wind reached the Settlement.

There was no fog at first or for some minutes thereafter. Barlennan, promptly changing his plans as the roof began rippling, got all the way back to the laboratories; but before he had a chance to get any constructive information from his scientists the stars began to fade. Within a few minutes the lights showed a solid gray ceiling a body-length above the Mesklinites. The ceilings here were rigid and did not vibrate in the wind as those in the corridor had, but the sound outside was loud enough to make more than one of the scientists wonder how stable the buildings actually were. They didn’t express the thought aloud in the commander’s presence but he could interpret the occasional upward glances when the whine of the heavy outside air increased in pitch.

It occurred to him that his present location was about the most useless possible one for a commander who was not a scientist, since the people around him were about the only ones in the Settlement to whom he could not reasonably give orders. He asked just one question, was informed in reply that the wind speed was about half that Dondragmer had reported some ten thousand miles away, then headed for the communication room.

He thought briefly of going back to the office on the way, but knew that anyone wanting him would find him almost as quickly at Guzmeen’s station. Meanwhile a question had crossed his mind which could probably be answered by relay from the human station faster than any other way, and that question seemed more and more important as the seconds passed. Forgetting that he wanted to make sure that Easy Hoffman was on duty above, he shot into the radio room and politely nudged aside the staff member in front of the transmitter. He began to speak almost before he was in position and the sight of Hoffman’s features when the screen lit up was a pleasant surprise rather than a major relief.

“The wind and fog are here, too,” he began abruptly. “Some people were outdoors. There’s nothing I can do about them at the moment; but some were working in the cruisers parked outside. You could check through their communicators as to whether everything is all right there. I’m not too worried, since the wind speed is now much less than Don reported. Besides, the air is much less dense at this height; but we can’t see at all through this fog, so I’d be relieved to know about the men in the cruisers.

Easy’s image had started to speak part way through the commander’s request, obviously not in answer, since there had not been time enough for the speed-of-light round-trip. Presumably the human beings had something of their own to say. Barlennan concentrated on his own message until it was done, knowing that Guzmeen or one of his crew would be writing down whatever came in. Message crossing under these circumstances was a frequent event and was handled by established routine.

With his own words on the way, the commander turned to ask what the humans had wanted but the question was interrupted. An officer shot into the room and began reporting as soon as he saw Barlennan.

“Sir, all groups but the two who checked out at the north gates are accounted for. One of these was working in the Hoorsh, the other was leveling ground for the new complex twenty cables north, on the other side of the parking valley. There were eight people in the first group, twenty in the second.”

Barlennan made the gesture of understanding, all four nippers clicking shut simultaneously. “We may have radio reports from the space station shortly on the Hoorsh group,” he replied. “How many who were actually outside after the wind and fog arrived have come in? What do they report on living and traveling conditions? Was anyone hurt?”

“No one hurt, sir. The wind was only a minor inconvenience; they came in because they couldn’t see to work. Some of them had trouble finding their way. My guess is that the ground-leveling crew is still groping its way back, unless they just decided to wait it out where they were. The ones on the Hoorsh may not even have noticed anything, inside. If the first bunch stays out of contact too long, I’ll send out a messenger.

“How will you keep him from getting lost?”

“Compass, plus picking someone who works outside a lot and knows the ground well.”

“I’m not—” Barlennan’s objection was interrupted by the radio.

“Barlennan,” came Easy’s voice, “the communicators in the Hoorsh and the Kalliff are all working. As far as we can see, there is no one in the Kalliff and it’s just sitting there; nothing is moving. There are at least three, and possibly five, men in the life-support section of the Hoorsh. The man covering those screens has seen as many as three at once in the last few minutes but isn’t too confident of recognizing individual Mesklinites. The cruiser doesn’t seem to be affected. The people aboard are going about their business and paying no attention to us. Certainly they weren’t trying to send an emergency message up. Jack Bravermann is trying to get their attention on that set now but I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. As you say, slower wind and thinner air should mean that your settlement is in no danger if the Kwembly wasn’t hurt.”

“I’m not worried, at least not much. If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll find out what your last message but one was and try to answer it,” returned Barlennan. He turned to the duty officer whose place at the set he had taken. “I assume you got what she said.”

“Yes, Sir. It wasn’t urgent, just interesting. Another interim report has come up from Dondragmer. The Kwembly is still afloat, still drifting, though he thinks it has dragged bottom once or twice and the wind is still blowing there. Because of their own motion, his scientists won’t commit themselves to an opinion on whether the wind velocity has changed or not.

The commander gestured acceptance, turned back to the communicator, and said, “Thanks, Mrs. Hoffman. I appreciate your sending even ‘no change’ reports so quickly. I will stay here for a while, so if anything really does happen I will know as soon as possible. Have your atmospheric scientists come up with predictions they trust? Or explanations of what happened?”

To the other Mesklinites in the room it was obvious that Barlennan was doing his best to keep his expression unreadable as he asked this question. His arms and legs were carefully relaxed, chelae neither too tightly closed nor gaping open, his head neither too high nor too close to the floor, his eyes fixed steadily on the screen. The watchers did not know in detail what was in his mind, but could tell that he attached more than face value to the question. Some of them wondered why he bothered to control himself so, since it was most unlikely that any human being could interpret his body expression anyway; but those who knew him best realized that he would never take a chance on a matter like that. After all, there were some human beings, of whom Elise Rich Hoffman was emphatically one, who seemed to think very easily from the Mesklinite viewpoint, besides speaking Stennish as well as human vocal equipment would permit.

All watched the screen with interest, wondering whether the human being on it would show signs of having noticed the commander’s attitude when her answer came back. All communication room personnel were reasonably familiar with human facial expressions; most of them could recognize at least a dozen different human beings by face or voice alone, the commander having long ago expressed a strong desire that such abilities be cultivated. Barlennan, his glance leaving the screen for a moment and roving around the circle of intent listeners, was amused at their expressions even while he was annoyed at his own obviousness. He wondered how they would react to whatever answer Easy returned, but he never found out.

The human female had evidently received the question and was starting to form a sentence in reply, when her attention was distracted. For several seconds she was obviously listening to something and her eyes shifted away from the pickup of the Settlement communicator. Then her attention came back to Barlennan.

“Commander. Dondragmer has reported again. The Kwembly has stopped, or almost stopped, aground. They are still being dragged a little, however; the flow of liquid has not slowed. They have been tipped so that the trucks are out of contact with whatever surface is below them. If they aren’t dragged free by the river, the/re there to stay; and Dondragmer thinks the level is going down.”