Hal Clement - Heavy Planet

“It will all help. I’m on my way,” replied McDevitt as he slid from his seat and headed toward the door. As he reached the exit he looked back thoughtfully, paused, and called, “Benj, I hate to pull you from the screens right now, but I think you’d better come with me for a while. You can check me on the input, then you can bring the preliminary run back to report to Dondragmer while I do the recheck.” Easy kept her approval to herself as Benj silently followed his superior. The approval was divided between McDevitt, for turning the youngster’s attention in a safer direction, and her son for showing more self-control than she had really expected. Aucoin paid no attention to the exchange; he was still trying to clarify his picture of the current state of affairs. “I take it that none of the missing personnel have turned up,” he said. “All right, I’ve been thinking it over. I assume that Barlennan has been brought up to date, as we agreed a few hours ago. Is there anything else which has happened, which he has been told about but I haven’t?” Easy looked up quickly, trying to catch evidence of resentment on the administrator’s face, but he seemed unaware that his words could possibly be interpreted as criticism. She thought quickly before answering. “Yes. Roughly three hours ago, Cavanaugh reported action on one of the Esket screens. He saw a couple of objects sliding or rolling across the floor of the laboratory from one side of the screen to the other. I started watching, but nothing has happened there since. “Then an hour or so later, the search party Don had out for the missing helicopters met a Mesklinite which we of course assumed at first to be one of the pilots; when he got close to the transmitter I recognized Kabremm, the first officer of the Esket.”

“ Six thousand miles from where the Esket’s crew is supposed to have died?”

“Yes.”

“You told this to Barlennan?”

“Yes.”

“What was his comment?”

“Nothing specific. He acknowledged the whole report, but didn’t offer any theories.”

“He didn’t even ask you how sure you were of the identification? Or on what you based it?”

“No.”

“Well, if you don’t mind I’d like to. Just how did you know this Kabremm, and how certain are you that you were right?”

“I knew him, before the loss of the Esket, well enough to make it difficult to say what I went by; he’s simply distinctive, in color pattern, stance and walk, just as you and Ib and Boyd are.”

“The light was good enough for color pattern? It’s night down there.”

“There were lights near the set, though most of them were in front of it, in the field of view, and Kabremm was mostly backlighted.”

“Do you know the two missing men well enough to be certain it was neither of them; do you know that neither one looks much like Kabremm?” Easy flushed. “It certainly wasn’t Kervenser, Don’s officer. I’m afraid I don’t know Reffel well enough be sure; that possibility hadn’t occurred to me. I just saw the man, and called out his name pretty much by reflex. After that I couldn’t do much but make a report. The Settlement microphone was alive at the time, and Barlennan or whoever was on duty could hardly have helped hearing me.”

“Then there is a reasonable chance that Barlennan’s lack of comment was a polite attempt to avoid embarrassing you, to gloss over what may have seemed to him a silly mistake?”

“I suppose it’s possible.” Easy could not make herself sound anything but doubtful, but even she knew that her opinion was unlikely to be objective. “Then I think,” Aucoin said slowly and thoughtfully, “that I’d better talk to Barlennan myself. You say nothing more has happened at the Esket since Cavanaugh saw those objects rolling?”

“I haven’t seen anything. The bridge set, of course, is looking out into darkness, but the other three are lighted perfectly well and have shown no change except that one.”

“All right. Barlennan knows our language well enough, in my experience, so that I won’t need you to translate.”

“Oh, no; he’ll understand you. You mean you’d rather I left?”

“No, no, certainly not. In fact, it would be better if you listened and warned me if you thought there might be any misunderstanding developing.” Aucoin reached for the Settlement microphone switch, but glanced once more at Easy before closing it. “You don’t mind, do you, if I make sure of Barlennan’s opinion about your identification of Kabremm? I think our main problem is what to do about the Kwembly, but I’d like to settle that point too. After you have brought the matter up with him, I’d hate Barlennan to get the idea that we were trying to, well, censor anything, to phrase it the way Ib did at the meeting.” He turned away and sent his call toward Dhrawn. Barlennan was in the communicator chamber at the Settlement, so no time was lost reaching him. Aucoin identified himself, once he was sure the commander was at the other end, and began his speech. Easy, Ib, and Boyd found it annoyingly repetitious, but they had to admire the skill with which the planner emphasized his own ideas. Essentially, he was trying to forestall any suggestion that another vehicle be sent to the rescue of the Kwembly, without suggesting such a thing himself. It was a very difficult piece of language manipulation, even though the matter had been uppermost in Aucoin’s mind ever since the conference, so that while it was anything but an impromptu speech, it certainly had merit as a work of art, as Ib remarked later. He did mention Easy’s identification of Kabremm to the commander, but so fleetingly that she almost failed to recognize the item. He didn’t actually say that she must have been mistaken, but he was obviously attaching no importance to the incident. It was a pity, as Easy remarked later, that such polished eloquence was so completely wasted. Of course Aucoin had no more way of knowing than did the other human beings that the identification of Kabremm was Barlennan’s main current worry, that for two hours he had been concerned with nothing else. Faced with the imminent collapse of his complex scheme and, as he suddenly realized with embarrassment, having no ready alternative, he had employed those hours in furious and cogent thought. By the time Aucoin had called, Barlennan had the first steps of another plan. He was waiting so eagerly for a chance to put it into operation that he paid little attention to the planner’s beautifully selected words. When a pause came, Barlennan had his own speech ready, though it had remarkably little to do with what had just been said. The pause had not actually been meant as time for an answer; Aucoin had taken a moment to review mentally what he had covered and what should come next. Mersereau, however, caught him as he was about to resume talking. “That break was long enough to let Barlennan assume you had finished and wanted an answer,” he said. “Better wait. He’ll probably have started talking before whatever you were just going to say gets down there.” The administrator obediently waited; a convention was, after all, a convention. He was prepared to be sarcastic if Mersereau were wrong, but the Mesklinite commander?s voice came through on the scheduled second?closer to it than they would have been willing to bet, Ib and Easy thought later. “I’ve been thinking deeply ever since Mrs. Hoffman told me about Kabremm,” he said, “and I’ve been able to come up with only one theory. As you know, we’ve always had to carry in mind the possibility that there was an intelligent species here on Dhrawn. Your scientists were certain there was highly organized life even before the landing, because of the oxygen-rich air, they said. I know we haven’t run into anything but simple plants and practically microscopic animals, but the Esket had ventured farther into Low Alpha than any of the other cruisers, and conditions are different there; certainly the temperature is higher, and we don’t know how that may change other factors. “Until now, the chance that the Esket had met intelligent opposition was only one possibility, with no more to support it than any other idea we could dream up. However, as your own people have pointed out repeatedly, none of her crew could have lived this long without the cruiser’s support system or something like it. They certainly couldn’t have travelled from where the Esket still is, as far as we can tell, to Dondragmer’s neighborhood. It seems to me that Kabremm’s presence there is convincing evidence that Destigmet’s crew has encountered and been captured by natives of Dhrawn. I don’t know why Kabremm was free enough to meet that search party; maybe he escaped, but it’s hard to see how he would have dared to try under the circumstances. More likely they sent him deliberately to make contact. I wish very much that you’d pass this idea along to Dondragmer for his opinion, and have him find out what he can from Kabremm, if he is still available. You haven’t told me whether he was still with the search party or not. Will you do that?” Several pieces fell into place in Ib Hoffman’s mental jigsaw puzzle. His silent applause went unnoticed, even by Easy.