Hal Clement - Heavy Planet

“The orders, yes, sir. What you’re expecting, no.”

“I may be wrong, and if I’m right there’s probably nothing to do anyway. I don’t like the idea of going outside to clear the treads manually. Just hope.”

“Yes, sir.” Kervenser turned to his task, and as the fusion engines in the Kwemb/y’s trucks came to life, the captain turned to a block of plastic about four inches high and wide and a foot long, which lay beside his station. He inserted one of his nippers in a small hole in the side of the block, manipulated a control, and began to talk.

His voice traveled fast, but it was a long time on the way. The radio waves carrying it sped through Dhrawn’s heavy but quickly thinning atmosphere and through the space beyond for second after second. They weakened as they traveled, but half a minute after they had been radiated their energy was still concentrated enough to affect a ten-foot dish antenna. The one they encountered was projecting from a cylinder some three hundred feet in diameter and half as long: it formed one end of a structure resembling a barbell, spinning slowly about an axis perpendicular to its bar and midway between its weights. The current induced by the waves in the antenna flicked, in a much shorter time, into a pinhead-size crystal which rectified it, enveloped it, used the envelope to modulate an electron stream provided by a finger-sized generator beside it, and thus manipulated an amazingly old-fashioned dynamic cone in a thirty-foot-square room near the center of the cylinder. Just thirty-two seconds after Dondragmer uttered his words they were reproduced for the ears of three of the fifteen human beings seated in the room. He did not know who would be there at the time, and therefore spoke the human tongue he had learned rather than his own language; so all three understood him. “This is an interim report from the Kwembly. We stopped two and a half hours ago for routine maintenance and investigation. Wind was about 200 cables at the time, from the west, sky partly cloudy. Shortly after we got to work the wind picked up to over 3,000 cables—” One of the human listeners was wearing a puzzled expression, and after a moment managed to catch the eye of another. “A Mesklinite cable is about 206 feet, Boyd,” the latter said softly. “The wind jumped from about five miles an hour to over sixty.”

“Thanks, Easy.” Their attention returned to the speaker. “Fog has now closed us in completely, and is getting ever thicker. I don’t dare move as I had planned; just in circles to keep the treads from icing. The fog is supercooled ammonia according to my scientists, and the local surface is water snow. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to my research people, but with the temperature in the seventies it seems to me there?s a chance of the fog?s dissolving some of the water-ice to make a liquid. I realize this machine is supposed to float, and I don?t suppose the surface would melt very deeply anyway, but I?m wondering whether anyone has thought much about what will happen if a liquid freezes around our treads. I have to admit I never have, but the thought of chipping the ship loose by muscle power isn?t inviting. I know there?s no special equipment on board to handle such a situation, because I assembled and loaded this machine myself. I?m simply calling to report that we might possibly be here a good deal longer than planned. I?ll keep you informed, and if we do get immobilized we?ll be glad of projects to keep our scientists busy. They?ve already done most of the things you set up for an ordinary stop.? “Thanks, Don,” replied Easy. “We’ll stand by. I’ll ask our observers and aerologists whether they can make a guess about the size of your fog bank, and how long it’s likely to stay around you. They may have some useful material already, since you’ve been on the night side for a day or so. For that matter, they may even have current pictures; I don’t know all the limits of their instruments. Anyway, I’ll check and let you know.” The woman opened her microphone switch and turned to the others as her words sped toward Dhrawn. “I wish I could tell from Don’s voice whether he’s really worried or not,” she remarked. “Every time those people run into something new on that horrible world, I wonder how we ever had the gall to send them there or how they had the courage to go.” ‘They certainly weren’t forced or tricked into it, Easy,” pointed out one of her companions.”A Mesklinite who has spent most of his life as a sailor, and covered his home planet from equator to south pole, certainly isn’t naive about any of the aspects of exploring or pioneering. We couldn’t have kidded them if we’d wanted to.”

“I know that in my head, Boyd, but my stomach doesn’t always believe it. When the Kwemb/y was bogged in sand only five hundred miles from the settlement, I was grinding enamel off my teeth until they worked her loose. When Densigerefs Smof was trapped in a cleft by a mud flow that formed under it and let it down, I was almost the only one who backed up Barlennan’s decision to send another of the big land-rovers to the rescue. When the Esket’s crew disappeared with a couple of very good friends of mine, I fought both Alan and Barlennan on the decision not to send a rescue crew. And I still think they were wrong. I know there’s a job to be done and that the Mesklinites agreed to do it with a clear understanding of its risks, but when one of those crews gets into trouble I just can’t help imagining myself down there with them and I tend to take their side when there’s an argument about rescue action. I suppose I’ll be fired from this place eventually because of that, but it’s the way I’m made.” Boyd Mersereau chuckled. “Don’t worry, Easy. You have that job just because you do react that way. Please remember that if we do disagree strongly with Barlennan or any of his people, we’re six million miles and forty g’s of potential away and he’s probably going to do what he wants anyway. Whenever it gets to that point, it’s very much to our advantage to have someone up here whom he can regard as being on his side. Don’t change a bit, please.”

“Humph.” If Elise Hoffman was either pleased or relieved, she failed to show it. “That’s what Ib is always saying, but I’ve been writing him off as prejudiced.”

“I’m sure he is, but that doesn’t necessarily disqualify him from forming a sound opinion. You must believe some things he says.”

“Thanks, Easy,” Dondragmer’s answer interrupted the discussion. He was using his own language this time, which neither of the men understood very well. “I’ll be glad of any word your observers can supply. You needn’t report to Barlennan unless you particularly want to. We aren’t actually in trouble yet and he has enough on his mind without being bothered by maybes. The research suggestions you can send down straight to the lab on set two; I’d probably mix them up if I relayed. I’ll sign off now, but we’ll keep all four sets manned.” The speaker fell silent, and Aucoin, the third human listener, got to his feet, looking at Easy for a translation. She obliged. “That means work,” he said. “We had a number of longer programs planned for later in the Kwembly’s trip, but if Dondragmer may be delayed long where he is, I’d better see which of them would fit now. I got enough of that other speech to suggest that he doesn’t really expect to move soon. I’ll go to Computation first and have them reproduce a really precise set of position bearings for him from the shadow satellites, then I’ll go to Atmospherics for their opinion and then I’ll be in the planning lab.”

“I may see you in Atmospherics,” replied Easy. “I’m going now to get the information Dondragmer wanted, if you’ll stand watch here, Boyd.”