Hal Clement - Cycle of Fire

“I don’t know. He hasn’t any flight instruments, by our standards.”

“Did he ever get up near the top of the usual cumulus clouds?”

“Yes. I’ve been with him. He gets as high as he can whenever he can on long-distance flights.”

“All right. I don’t think terrestrial pressure will hurt him. You’d better explain the risks to him if you can, though, and let him make his own decision.”

Kruger was never actually sure whether Dar completely understood him or not, but he was standing beside Kruger when the Alphard’s landing tender settled into the clearing of the geysers. The Teacher had been informed of what was going on, and the boy had promised to resume contact with him on the ship’s radio equipment as soon as was practical. The hidden being had made no objection, though he must have realized that the move was taking Kruger out of his reach.

The flight back to the Alphard , which was circling safely beyond Abyormen’s atmosphere, was uneventful to all except Dar Lang Ahn. He did not ask a single question while it lasted, but his eyes took in everything there was to see. One peculiarity of his behavior was noticed by most of the human crew. In most cases when a more or less primitive creature is taken for a ride off his planet he spends most of the time looking at the world as seen from outside. Nearly all Dar’s attention, on the other hand, was devoted to the structure and handling of the tender. The only time he looked down for more than a moment at a time was when circular velocity was reached and the tender went weightless. Then he looked back at the surface for nearly a minute and, to the sincere astonishment of all watchers, took the phenomenon in his stride. Apparently he had convinced himself that the falling sensation did not represent an actual fall or, if it did, that the pilots would take care of the situation before it became dangerous. Major Donabed developed a healthy respect for Dar Lang Ahn in that moment; he had experienced too many educated human beings who had become hysterical in like circumstances.

Of course, reflected the boy, Dar is a flyer and gets plenty of brief low-weight jolts when he hits downdrafts or reaches the tops of updrafts, but they never last more than a second or two. The fellow was good; Kruger himself, after nearly an earthly year on the ground, was feeling a trifle queasy.

In due course the monstrous bulk of the Alphard was sighted, approached, and contacted, and the tender eased into the hull through its special lock. The group disembarked and a conference was called at once.

The meeting was held in the ship’s largest lounge, since everyone wanted to hear Kruger’s story. By common consent he made his report first, passing briefly over the way he had escaped death at the time he was abandoned and dwelling on his experiences as they applied to the plants, animals, minerals, and people of Abyormen. The lack of anything resembling fruit, the fact that the stems of many plants were edible but not very nourishing, the chances he had taken to find that they were at least not poisonous, and his determination to leave the hot, volcano-ridden area where he had been left and make his way to the pole, where it might be more comfortable, were woven into a reasonably concise account. Everyone who listened had some question or other when he was finished, however, and it was necessary for the Alphard’s commander to act as chairman.

“You must have had a bit of trouble setting up your direction, when you first started to travel.” This was one of the astronomers.

“It was a bit confusing.” Kruger smiled. “If the red sun had merely kept changing in size it wouldn’t have been bad, but it wobbled back and forth, at the place where I landed, from southeast to southwest and back again, in a way that took me quite a while to get used to. The blue one was easier — Alcyone rises in the east and sets in the west the way things ought to. At least, it does that far from the pole, and it was easy enough to see why it didn’t when I got further north.”

“Right. The red dwarf’s motions are natural enough, if you remember how eccentric the planet’s orbit is. How much does the libration amount to, in your experience? I’ve only seen the planet through about one revolution.”

“I’d say about sixty degrees each side of the mean.”

The astronomer nodded, and yielded the floor. The captain gave the nod to a geologist.

“You say nearly all the country you saw was volcanic?”

“On the continent where you found me, yes. Actually I didn’t cover too much of the planet, remember. The long peninsula I followed north…”

“About three thousand miles,” interjected a photographer.

“Thanks. Its full length was actively volcanic, and the continental region it projected from is largely covered with lava flows of various ages. Near the ice cap it’s mountainous but not obviously volcanic.”

“Good. We’ve got to map some stratigraphic sequences as soon as possible, if we’re to get any idea of the age of this world. I don’t suppose you saw any fossils near the ice?”

“I was only on the ground near the settlement; I flew over the rest. Dar Lang Ahn, here, could probably help you, though.”

“Would he be willing to?”

“Probably. His curiosity bump is quite prominent. I gave you an idea of what he wants knowledge for — he puts it in books for the next generation, since his own won’t last much longer.” Kruger did not smile as he said this; the prospect of losing Dar was weighing on him more and more heavily as time drew on.

“Would your friend tell us a little more about this alternation-of-generations business?” asked the biologist. “We have animals on Earth that do much the same, though usually the two forms are not adapted to such drastically different environments, but the thing that bothers me right now is the question of these Teachers. When they finally do die, is the result a crop of the alternate-type descendant, or nothing, or what?”

“I don’t know, and neither does Dar Lang Ahn. You’d better ask that ‘hot’ form Teacher I was talking to when you heard me. I don’t even know whether there is one offspring or a number of them in the normal state of affairs.”

“That’s obvious enough — if there were only one, with no other method of reproduction the race would have died off long ago. There must be occasional accidental deaths.”

“Well, the person to ask is the Teacher, anyway. I’ll do it for you when I talk to him.”

“Why do the Teachers keep most of their people in ignorance of this business, anyway?” Another questioner took over.

“You’ll have to ask them. If I were in their place I’d do it to keep the peace, but this one claims that they don’t mind having a definite death date.”

“I’d like to talk to your friend about it.”

“All right. I suspect someone will have to set up a schedule sheet, though.” The questions and answers went on and on, until Kruger gave up trying to stifle his yawns. The commander finally broke up the meeting; but even then the boy did not rest for some time. He proceeded to show Dar Lang Ahn over the Alphard , answering his little friend’s questions as best he could.

He finally slept, enjoying weightlessness for the first time in many months. He did not notice whether or not Dar was able to sleep in the circumstances, but the native appeared adequately refreshed in the morning, so Kruger assumed that he had. Dar refused to try human foods, insisting he was not hungry, but Kruger consumed a breakfast so huge as to move some of his acquaintances to warn him. The relatively low nourishment value of Abyormenite plants had gradually accustomed him to eating far larger quantities at a meal while he was on the planet.