Hal Clement - Heavy Planet

“All right,” the sailor affirmed, “but couldn’t someone start calling from where we are? Then they could be looking for me and have the spot marked a lot better when they see me.”

“Good. Right. We’ll do that. Over with you; they’ll still have to see you; they certainly won’t see us.” The crewman vanished with no more words. The line paid out slowly, occasionally going slack for a moment. Dondragmer suspected that the sailor was occasionally losing contact with the bottom, a forgivable offense since the Mesklinite body averaged just barely denser than liquid methane and there was certainly a current. He didn’t want to ask, since one of his other men was, in response to orders, hooting as loudly as he could to get the attention of the downstream party. The mate concentrated on keeping track of the length of line paid out. This eventually reached its end. Rather than have it jerked from his grip and possibly even from the rail to which it had been secured, the mate tightened his own grip and began gently tugging as the end approached. An answering set of tugs came almost at once, and the sailor’s voice was audible between the bellows from the Bree’s deck. “Located, sir. I’m only about a hundred lengths or a little more from shore. I’m off the slush, and there’s plant stuff here I could tie the line to, but I want to make sure it’s solid first.”

“Right. Carry on. I’m sure you can hear Felmethes calling. Can you see the others? Can you tell whether they hear him?”

“Can’t see them, sir, but I think I can hear them. Can’t you?” Dondragmer gestured to Felmethes to be silent for a moment. The fellow had, of course, been pausing to listen for answers at regular intervals, but was glad enough to wait a little longer. After a few seconds a long roar that seemed like a Mesklinite voice was audible, but no words could be distinguished. The sound ended eventually, and Dondragmer called to Kentherrer at the other end of the line. “Could you hear that? Could you understand them?”

“Yes, sir. They keep asking if it’s you, and say they can’t understand you. There must be something about echoes along the rock faces.”

“Could be. See if you can make them understand you. If so, tell them what’s happened, and have them come back here.” A perfectly comprehensible pattern of hoots in Kentherrer’s voice was the response; evidently he was more or less in touch with the other party but having trouble with clear communication. Dondragmer was patient. He was not exactly worried about the captain; there was very little hope that he and his fellows were alive, and rather less that they were sane. It was better not to rush into anything until there was at least a vague idea of where to rush. Besides, it was not likely that anything at all could be done about the missing balloonists until the Bree could be brought ashore and rigged again. Even then, it was far from clear just what could be done. The most obvious technique, searching among and under the fallen rocks, was unpromising even if there were some way of telling where to start the search. Come to think of it, there was a way for that. Barlennan had described in a good deal of detail the area downstream from the point where the eddy started. The point should still be there, and maybe even the eddy. If necessary, they could leave the ship where she was and search as a climbing or a swimming parry. Under the rocks? Well, maybe. Kentherrer’s voice had faded, but could still just barely be heard. The party must be coming back. It seemed to the mate better to wait until they arrived, rather than attempt a three-cornered conversation through the echoes. He felt just a little foolish when Felmethes went overboard and began talking in an ordinary voice, submerged, first to Kentherrer and then, only a little louder, to the downstream party. He hadn’t heard, or at least distinguished, the message from the latter saying that they were going to submerge; but that, by his standards, was no excuse for not remembering that words could be made out much farther in methane than in air. He had had no experience with complex echoes under the surface, and it would be a long time before he knew about the speed/wavelength relation and such phenomena as diffraction, but Dondragmer went overboard anyway, and listened to the conversation for a moment. The downstream party was indeed on the way back. He joined in loudly. The group had made out and acknowledged his order to get the communicator. Then another pattern of hoots, as blurred and devoid of meaning as the first sounds in air along the rocks, interfered with the conversation. Words were indistinguishable. So were individual voice patterns. But the one other party under Dondragmer’s orders should be on land, and a quick flow to the Bree ’s deck and back into the methane — Mesklinite hearing was not confined to any one part of the body surface — made it obvious that this noise too was originating in liquid. The same body of liquid which was flowing along the face of the rock fall. And into it. The sound must be coming from the captain’s group. At least one of them was alive. Barlennan could make out neither words nor individual voices either, but the leading fringe of the noise pattern, before the echoes ruined its structure, left him no doubt that it was a voice. He didn’t have to think. Words or no words, if he could hear the speakers, they should be able to hear him. If they heard him, they would know he was still alive. If they knew he was alive, they wouldn’t give up on him and his party. He and his men were as good as rescued. Except, of course, for minor factors such as how anyone could find them in this lightless maze where sounds came from all possible directions at once, that they had practically no food with them, and were in about the last place on Mesklin where anything edible could be expected to turn up unless it were washed in from outside. Come to think of it, why shouldn’t food wash in from outside? There were plenty of fish in the river, and the current was coming from that direction. Why were they lying here hungry instead of fishing? Well, they couldn’t see, of course, and you can’t hear fish — but it was something to think about. Hard. He ordered his men to think about it, and went back to the basic problem. Barlennan’s group knew, in a sense, where they were; the inertial tracker was readable. But there was no way to get its readings to anyone else; if the radio was blocked as it seemed to be, the tracker’s signals to Toorey must be equally unreadable to the Flyers. The echoes in the maze ruined any highvolume talking even if Dondragmer knew he was alive, and what else could lead rescuers close enough for quiet, echo — free talk? The captain could think of nothing. Could the mate, or the Flyers? Jeanette didn’t need to relay Dondragmer’s report to the other Flyers; enough people were already with her in the com room. The relief that the captain might still be alive and sane — however garbled, the sound had been brief and seemingly better then raving — was tempered by the same doubts that Barlennan himself felt. Could that noise source be found? Could Mesklinites deliberately search, personally or otherwise, the maze under the rock fall? How long could the captain and his people live and remain sane to be rescued? On a more cold-blooded level, could the tracker be salvaged if he didn’t? The Drommian who voiced this question had the grace to show embarrassment, but even the human and other beings present couldn’t dismiss the thought completely from their minds. There were still Mesklinites at work salvaging the rocket contents, but there were no more trackers. Dondragmer thought of that aspect very fleetingly, and only to wonder about and dismiss at once the chance of using the tracker somehow to find its holders. It seemed far more practical to examine the area where the basket had disappeared. There might be meaningful clues among the rocks. He left a watch of four men on the Bree, and with everyone else not at the rocket set out upstream, carrying the radio. Some of the group had been sent that way earlier, and the rest did not catch up with them until reaching the point level with the eddy, days later. From this position they could see much farther up-stream, and the balloon bag which had been caught and separated from the basket was easily visible. The mate sent half a dozen sailors to salvage it, and with the rest took to the river, swimming across below the eddy and spreading along the foot of the tumbled fragments to look for other traces. There didn’t seem to be any. If the basket had brushed against anything on the way inside, either nothing had scraped off or, if it had, had vanished down river. The loudest possible hoot in air brought no response from the rocks, but when it was repeated from below the surface it was answered at once, more loudly than before. Several of the sailors muttered satisfaction; but all fell silent when they saw the mate looking thoughtfully into the widest of the gaps where methane was still flowing in. The eddy seemed as strong as the captain had reported. He had said nothing about the speed of flow into the rocks, but all could see that it was faster than anyone could be expected to paddle anything. It didn’t seem faster than a person could swim, but if one were too far inside to see daylight there would be no way of knowing which way to swim. “They’re in there somewhere,” the mate said slowly. No one disagreed; no one said anything. “Kentherrer, use a safety line and check how deep it is here. Don’t go inside. Three of you, hold his line.” He paused until Kentherrer was submerged. “Tell me if you have any trouble holding on,” he added. He did not specify whether this meant to the rope or to the rock, and the sailors didn’t ask. The line was paid out for about four body lengths before it went slack. It was not pointing straight down; the swimmer had been carried a short distance into the cleft by the current, but seemed calm enough when he reappeared. “The bottom hasn’t any of that slush,” he reported. “It seems to be sort of gravel. I suppose really fine stuff would be carried inside.”