Hal Clement - Heavy Planet

“How about the bag?”

“That’s another question. We may have to cut it free. Depends whether it acts more like a sea anchor or a sail. Dondragmer, we must be heading your way. I can’t guess how long we’ll be getting there.”

“We’re watching, Captain. If you have to free the bag, we’ll try to capture it, and you of course. The slush is still slush down here, but we’re watching for liquid, too. If the thing we think is the ship starts to move, I’ll take swimmers to do what we can.”

“Good. We’re going to be busy here, but one of us will keep in touch. If you don’t hear from us for more than a few seconds, you’ll know something we didn’t expect has happened. In that case, send some people up this way to give any help they can. We’re going faster, I think. The bag is dragging behind us, whether it’s touching bottom or feeling wind I don’t know. Probably wind, I think; there’s an upstream component to that now, and the bag itself is pulling a little toward the fog. It’s pulling us that way too.”

“Hadn’t you better cut loose, then, Captain?”

“Not until we can see whether moving in toward the rock is good or bad. We’re standing by to cut if we have to. There doesn’t seem to be anything yet for us to hit.” Barlennan kept a running comment going, as he had promised, while basket and bag headed downstream. The nearest motionless objects were now either too distant — features on the land away from the cliff — or too vague, like the fog, to allow a trustworthy estimate of speed. It was one of the Flyers who pointed out that the tracker was moving downstream surprisingly fast. He didn’t seem really sure that it was surprising; all earlier estimates of the river current had come from direction measurements of the communicator outputs, which were not very reliable with the line of sight to the moon practically horizontal. This was not the tracker’s first trip to the lower ground, but was its first ride on what had become a surface vehicle. One of the watchers remarked audibly that he was surprised the vehicle wasn’t in white water; another, not bothering to correct the name of the liquid, suggested that the first speaker think gravity. Just what would “white” imply about the current’s speed on Mesklin? The twelve-plus kilometers an hour was several times any earlier estimate, however unreliable that might have been. It implied a source of liquid unrelated to what had been seen of the upstream areas from earlier balloon flights. This was not merely methane which had found its way, after some delay, around the recent rockfall. The people on the basket finally observed this, too. The drag toward the rocks had been maintained as wind kept its grip on the now rapidly flattening bag. The sharp rocks were suddenly passing uncomfortably close to a structure which had been designed for lightness. Contact could be awkward even if the pieces continued to float, as they no doubt would. Barlennan heard himself commenting on this as part of his running report, and interrupted the monologue with a sudden, sharp order. “All of you! Cut it free!” Simultaneously the bag caught on a sharp, solid rock corner, jerking the basket to a halt; anywhere near the equator the crew would have been hurled overboard. Karondrasee, in fact, did get jerked over the side. For just a moment the cook could be seen borne away from the suddenly anchored car; then, as the others finished cutting the dozen cords which had held basket and bag together, the former resumed its downstream rush even more rapidly than before. It was now relatively motionless with respect to the swimmer, and he had no trouble wriggling back to what might or might not be safety. He needed no help getting aboard through one of the gunwale crenellations, and the fact that he brought a good deal of methane with him made no real difference. In spite of the total absence of spray, the footing on board was already extremely wet. During the brief halt, the river had spilled over the upstream gunwale and nearly washed several more objects into the river. The communicator was high enough above the deck to stay clear, but the inertial tracker was not. Neither were the three remaining natives. It was Hars, perhaps more concerned with all things connected with flying, who curled his long body about the sphere, gripping it with every leg which could be brought to the task. Sailor and instrument washed rapidly across the deck in the direction from which Karondrasee was swimming, but they did not go overboard. Hars’ own display of personal strength surprised no one, but his fellows and the watching Flyers were all rather startled that the gunwale seized by one of his chelae did not tear loose from the rest of the basket. He uncoiled partly, still retaining his grip on the tracker, and spread the load on the gunwale with more pincers; by the time the cook was safely aboard, the sloshing of liquid across the deck had ceased and the tension had eased. “It would have been easy enough to find,” Barlennan remarked. “I know it would have sunk, but the river’s pretty clear.”

“Is the bottom solid?” a Flyer voice — again, not Jeanette’s — asked pointedly. “I don’t know, but it looks—” the captain paused, then went on, “Just a moment.” He vanished over the rail. His crew watched with interest but no great concern; the aliens were highly concerned but couldn’t watch. The long body reappeared and moved in front of the lens. “It might have been serious at that. It’s the same slushy stuff, and it’s travelling — not as fast as the river, but if the tracker had sunk we’d never have found it. Good work, Hars.” The exhaled breaths were audible through the communicator, but carried no meaning to the natives. Dondragmer could not see anything nor hear everything, but had been able to infer what was happening. “Is anyone watching ahead, Captain? You must be travelling pretty fast. We’re getting ourselves and the radio back from the river; it seems from what you said it’s a lot wider and faster where you are now, and that it became so very suddenly. All of us are staying with the radio as we move it; I’m sure the Flyers know that faster-moving methane carries things more easily.”

“Sixth-power law,” a barely audible alien voice muttered. The words were not in Stennish, but the mate understood both them and their mathematical implications. Barlennan got the former only, but no order was needed to drive the mate to greater haste. The captain had heard the question about looking ahead, and without acknowledging the words was doing so. Actually, looking aside was more worrisome; the basket was still closer than he liked to the edge of the rockfall. Worse— much worse — it could be seen that much of the finer waste from the cliff was being washed away by the current, leaving widening spaces between the larger fragments. Well, the Flyers weren’t always wrong, of course. He could not see what was happening to the loosened stuff. The surface was too turbulent to offer a clear view below it. He remembered his earlier promise and began describing the new phenomenon to Dondragmer. Sherrer, his flexible body partly overside, rotated the basket to let the communicator eye look ahead. His chelae were poorly shaped for the work, but his paddling did have results. “You seem to be approaching a bend to the right, in both fog and river,” Jeanette remarked. “I’d guess it’s that kink — that point — in what used to be the cliff, a couple of miles or so upstream from where Don is.” Barlennan saw no reason to disagree, and the possibilities which a quick change in flow might offer were enough to focus his attention. “Dondragmer, is your part of the river widening at all rapidly? It should be if the Flyer’s right. How well are you moving the radio? Can you keep it moving and also let it look upstream?”