Fossil isaacs universe, p.15
Fossil: Isaac's Universe, page 15
The power, in spite of what had been said, was still on; it had not been a matter of some emergency exit device operating. The outer hatch closed behind them as Hugh tripped the switch, and the forward lock door opened with equal docility. The inside was comfortably warm by both Erthumoi and Locrian standards; it was only as this fact tapped on the door of his consciousness that Hugh realized what a chance Third-Supply-Watcher had taken. If the power had actually been cut, she could easily have frozen before being rescued.
There was only one difference that Hugh could see from the way things had been when he had previously examined the vehicle, not too much more, he realized with a start, than a Common Day before.
This was a sheet of printing fabric half a meter long and a third as wide fastened to a set of clips on a side panel. He looked at it closely.
It bore a zigzag pattern of short, straight, continuously connected line segments. From one end of this pattern there extended a longer line for a distance of about three centimeters; from the other a still longer one, nearly the length of the sheet, almost parallel to but diverging slightly from the first and broken into dashes for about the middle third of its length. Each segment was marked with tiny characters, and close examination showed that the lines themselves were made of almost microscopic writing. After a few seconds, Hugh decided that this must be the chart Rekchellet had persuaded the autodriver to print and which he and his companions had been trying to follow back to its end. The larger symbols were presumably location data and the tiny ones a continuous record of height. The spot near the Cold Pole which Rekchellet had mentioned was presumably the terminus of the longest of the lines, and the second longest must end at Pitville if the Crotonite's interpretation had been sound.
He turned to the two fliers and told them his suspicions. He knew the Crotonite slightly though he was not sure whether she hailed from Rekchellet's home world.
"Kesserah, can you read these? Rekchellet said they must be numbers, and claimed they were enough like his own to be legible. He said this point," Hugh indicated, "was near the center of the dark hemisphere. That means this thing can't be all to one scale."
"It isn't," replied the Crotonite. "The dashed section implies ellipsis. Rekchellet was probably right. I interpret the characters as he did." She turned the sheet over. "That's Rekchellet's writing."
"What does it say?"
"It makes no sense to me. Just, 'Make Ennissee pay before you tell him that date'."
"Who is Ennissee?"
"Ed say it was a Crotonite name, but it doesn't call up a wing pattern to my memory. Has Rek met any Crotonites since you saw him last?"
"Apparently yes, Walt told me. Something funny has happened to him, and it started in the air, I'm told. But if that involved this Ennissee, Rek must have been back on the truck since. I hope Third-Supply-Watcher has finished eating; I'll have to ask her right now."
Hugh emerged as quickly as the lock system allowed, followed by his winged helpers. All entered the flier, where there was plenty of room for everyone. Third-Supply-Watcher was still eating, Hugh saw, and he made suitable apologies, but could not wait with his question.
"Please! I'm sorry to interrupt, but I must know. Did Rekchellet come back to the truck after you reported his absence to me?"
"Yes, but not at once. The outside hatch controls were operated by someone of whom I only caught a glimpse. That showed a Crotonite, and I looked only casually, assuming it was Rekchellet. Then the one who entered came to the driver's cabin and dragged me away from the controls. He stopped the truck, then pushed me back to the cargo section and locked me in. Then he waited, while snow covered the truck. Presently another Crotonite, who did prove to be Rekchellet, found the buried vehicle and entered. He met the first one, and they talked—argued, it seemed to me—for a long time, though I could neither hear nor understand. Rekchellet was not at first carrying his translator, but the other gave him one.
"Eventually, after much discussion, they set the truck going again. The other Crotonite adjusted the autodriver, and while he was doing that Rekchellet wrote something on the back of the map we had been using. Then he came back and unlocked my door and said that he had been told what I told you—that the autodriver had been set to shut off the main power if it were interfered with. Otherwise, the truck was supposed to follow where the other Crotonite was taking him. The other was listening, and his translator could certainly handle Rekchellet's language, so I judged Rek didn't want to say more, and I waited for a chance to read what he had written.
"They opened the main hatch and set it to close after them, and left by wing while the truck was in motion. I looked at Rek's note, but couldn't read it, and saw nothing to do except stop while I was still reasonably near Pitville and hope I'd be found before I starved or froze. When the truck didn't cool down, I tried some of the light circuits and realized the story about total cutoff was false, but I still couldn't see what to do except wait. I could have driven without the automatic, but wasn't sure which way to go, and staying here seemed to offer the best chance of being found before I starved. I'm not sure I would have been if I'd wandered at random."
"Nor I," answered Janice. "Rek must have been pretty sure we'd be along, though. I know he's a Crotonite and you're not a flier, but he's a pretty good fellow."
"Perhaps. What now'" asked Plant-Biologist. Hugh pursed his lips again.
"If both you Locrians are willing to come, we're looking for Rekchellet and then for something a bit north of the Cold Pole," answered Hugh, "and we can certainly use you."
But heading for the Grendelian antipodes wasn't quite that easy, and not yet the right thing to do. Hugh saw his wife's raised eyebrows through the faceplate of her armor and paused to think.
The cold pole of Habranha was nearly 4900 kilometers from the terminator, over 4500 from their present position. That meant nothing to the machine they were flying, but a great deal to two other groups—their winged and unwinged helpers, and Rekchellet and Ennissee, if the unknown Crotonite had actually been that individual. Rekchellet could not have flown the distance equipped as he was. The other—
"Third-Supply-Watcher, could you see clearly what sort of equipment the other Crotonite was carrying when they left the truck?" Hugh asked.
"Just ordinary Crotonite warmth harness, with very little decoration, and one or two small items of equipment. A translator, of course."
"Any sort of breathing mask?"
"No."
That disposed of recycling equipment; Crotonites, like Erthumoi, exhaled large amounts of water with their breath, and any efficient recycler had to trap that.
"Was there anything else noticeable about him?"
"Yes, definitely. His wing membranes were artificial. He had lost the natural ones in some way, and those he had were of artificial film."
"How about the bones—the framework?"
"Quite natural. He had lost only the membrane."
Hugh turned to Kesserah. "Have you ever heard of such an injury, or how it could have been suffered? Do you know of anyone who has been injured that way?"
"No to the first and last. Wing membranes are tough but not impossible to tear. Also, they carry blood. If one were torn, I can imagine a surgical need to replace it completely if it failed to heal properly—and possibly to treat the other side to match, though I'm no medic and don't know that that would always be needed. It's also possible that they could be lost to frostbite, though we have alcohols in our blood which give it a low freezing point."
"Thanks. At least, even I should be able to recognize this one if we meet him. The trouble is, there's no way he and Rekchellet could fly on their own over four thousand kilometers over this dark hemisphere, is there?"
"None that I can imagine. I certainly wouldn't try it."
"Then either he lied about where he was going, as he did about shutting down the autodriver; or he had another vehicle hidden somewhere within flying distance of here; or he had caches of supplies which would let him stock up along the way. In any case," Hugh chewed his lower lip reflectively, and looked around at the others, "in any case he's told us in too many ways about this place near the Cold Pole to leave me in much doubt that he wants us to go there. I wonder why. Any ideas?" He glanced around once more.
"The note Kesserah read for us mentioned a date we might tell him," Janice said slowly. "I can think of only one date we could know which has any connection at all with that truck. That's, of course, assuming the Crotonite with the damaged wings is the Ennissee Rek wrote about; nothing seems to make sense otherwise."
"What is the date you mean?" asked S'Nash.
"The age of the frozen specimen we found on the truck. I don't see anything special about it; I took samples, and made the usual checks, and it's not as old as the wing we found in one of the Pits a while ago, but it's certainly not current."
"What is the age?" asked the Naxian.
"I'm wondering why it's important, and why Rek wrote that we should make this Ennissee pay for the knowledge," the woman answered obliquely. "I wonder if he meant simply payment in the ordinary, literal sense of exchange tokens or service obligations, or in some more Figurative fashion—as though this person had already contracted an obligation, and owed us something because of whatever he'd done to Rek or to us or to someone else."
S'Nash did not repeat his question. He must have known that, whatever her reason, Janice did not intend to answer it right then and didn't care how obvious she made the fact. She was quite sure he didn't know her reason; she wasn't completely sure she knew it herself yet. She could not sec what harm the information would do, but intended to follow Rekchellet's guidance until the matter became clearer. It boiled down to the fact that she trusted the Crotonite more than the Naxian, though she could give no objective basis for the feeling. She certainly did not dislike snakes—at least, no more than bats. She had never seen either in the original, but their ecological niches were well filled on Falga and traditional images from the mother planet had carried over. She did not think of Naxians as snakes and Crotonites as bats, or of Locrians as mantises or Cephallonians as fish or dolphins; she had grown up regarding them all as people.
None of this crossed her conscious mind but whatever feeling was underneath kept S'Nash quiet.
Hugh was thinking again, and for fully a minute no one spoke. It was he who finally broke the silence.
"All right. This machine's points are speed and carrying capacity. It will take a small group of people and a good supply of food to the Cold Pole. Most or all of the group will be Habras, because I expect what we seek will be under the snow. It better be all, so we can concentrate on their food—no, I can't do that. I'll have to carry Crotonite supplies, too.
"The Crotonites will please study this chart— here, Kesserah—and use it as a guide. It may not be a very good one, but it's all we have to go on for the great circle route to the place we hope Ennissee and Rekchellet were going. You will follow along that course, looking for signs of the two we hope we're following. Every five hundred kilometers I'll leave a cache of food for you, well lit so you can see it from a good distance and with a neutrino communicator so you can tell me when you've reached it and what you've found. You all have inertial trackers, don't you?"
"Most of us."
"And lights."
"Of course."
"All right, you can start now from here. Get your group together and tell them what I want, and look carefully. I'm not sure this Ennissee person really cares much what happens to Rekchellet once he's sure we're heading the way he wants. Third-Supply Watcher, did Rek have his translator when he left the truck?"
"Yes, definitely."
"But not when he arrived, you said."
"No. The other Crotonite apparently had it, and gave it back to him during their argument."
"We don't know how he got it away from Rek in the first place, though, so we don't know he didn't do it again. Kesserah, I'm more and more worried about Rekchellet all the time. Look carefully, please. I know that sounds silly along a four thousand kilometer search line, but I mean it."
"We'll do our best. I suggest you recruit more people—fliers—to help."
"If I can get them. Everyone not in Safety supposedly has a job schedule which may interfere and which I can't override, but I'll do what I can." The Crotonite gestured understanding and made her way to the air lock.
Once again Hugh's hands were aching from code transmission, and once again he was wondering whether it might not be better to get out of the diving fluid filling his armor. It seemed likely that he would not be in the Pits for some time, as things were now going.
But such a move would waste time, and there might not be time. Rekchellet had no food or water.
Hugh turned to the Habra. "You heard all I said to Kesserah."
"Yes."
"Please have four of your people ready to come with me on this machine. You can all return to Pitville now; those who don't accompany me had better stay there and resume routine duty. Things could still happen in town, after all. Please tell Ted he's in charge until Rekchellet or I get back. Tell everyone to stay below one kilometer going back; I'll be above three, at full speed until I'm near town. What's your name?"
"I'm Holly."
"Good. Thanks. If you'll get outside and start spreading the word, we'll go for supplies." The Habra operated the air lock without assistance. Hugh waited until the indicator showed the outer portal safely closed, went to the controls, and lifted off cautiously. He was reasonably sure that none of his safety crew would be directly overhead, but had developed professional habits of his own.
At one kilometer he nosed upward and applied more power; at three, eight seconds later, he leveled and began to tear through protesting air. Even at Habranha's nightside temperature, the feeble gravity kept air pressure and density from dropping quickly with height. The aircraft's shell warmed significantly in the few minutes of the trip.
There was, of course, more delay than he had hoped at Pitville. This did not originate with Administration this time; Barrar was extremely cooperative, to the extent of deciding to come along himself, though a little later he reported that Spreadsheet-Thinker had issued a veto on that plan. Hugh, however, had forgotten to assign Pit safety duty to anyone. The only species who had developed the pressure fluid were Erthumoi and Habras, and the latter did not yet have protection against liquid air temperatures. The Naxians could stand the pressures reached so far in the digging. So could Cephallonians, but the only members of this race attached to the Project or, as far as Hugh knew, on Habranha were otherwise occupied and certainly elsewhere on the planet. Two of the Erthumoi in Pitville had expressed willingness to serve a pressure term, but Hugh didn't consider them well enough trained yet; and after explaining this to them as tactfully as he could, he assigned a pair of Naxians to Pit safety. After all, a majority of the workers in the liquid air were of that species anyway, and would be until a depth of two or three kilometers had been reached. Erthumoi were being recruited for the remaining nearly five hundred kilometers, though it was hoped that adequately insulated armor for Habras could also be developed in time. The natives, at least the many who had worked at mud collection in their submarines, were by far the most experienced performers under high pressure.
But Hugh could not get Rekchellet out of his mind, and worked in a state of frantic irritation while he set matters up to take care of themselves, or be taken care of by Ted, or—reluctantly on his part—by higher administration officials while he was gone. The top office seemed perfectly content to allow Ted to take over the job; Hugh was not sure, down at the emotional level, how he should feel about this. Of course, if Spreadsheet-Thinker decided to make the change permanent, Hugh could always keep himself busy in the Pits.
At least there was no trouble about the food he was taking. Counter-of-Supplies did not, as far as Hugh could tell, even check with Administration; she set her muscular Erthumoi workers loading everything Hugh requested onto the aircraft, including transmitters.
Four Habras, presumably the ones Holly had been commissioned to locate, were orbiting over flier and building as the loading went on. Hugh paid no attention to them until the job was finished. He was learning another administrative skill, to avoid worrying about a task delegated to someone else. Only when the last of the food cartons and water tanks was aboard did he address the natives.
"Ready to go, I think." They swept to the snow before the open air lock instantly, and the Erthuma gestured them inside.
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