Hal Clement - Heavy Planet

“It boils down to this,” Aucoin said from the head of the table. “We have the choice of sending down the barge, or not. If we don’t, the Kwembly and the two Mesklinites aboard her are lost, and Dondragmer and the rest of her crew are out of action until a rescue cruiser such as the Kalliff can reach them from the Settlement. Unfortunately, if we do try to land the barge there’s a good chance that it won’t help. We don’t know why the ground gave under the Kwembly, and have no assurance that the same thing won’t happen anywhere else in the vicinity. Losing the barge would be awkward. Even if we first landed near Dondragmer’s camp and transferred him and his crew to the cruiser, we might lose the barge and there is no assurance that the crew could repair the Kwembly. Beetchermarlfs report makes me doubt it. He says he has found and sealed the major leaks, but he’s still getting oxygen inside the hull from time to time. Several of his life-support tanks have been poisoned by it. So far he has been able to clean them out each time and restock them from the others, but he can’t keep going forever unless he stops the last of these leaks. Also, neither he nor anyone else has made any concrete suggestion for getting that cruiser loose from the muck or whatever it’s stuck in. “There is another good argument against landing the barge. If we use remote, live control, there is the sixty-second reaction lag, which would make handling anywhere near the ground really impossible. It would be possible to program its computer to handle a landing, but the risks of that were proved the hard way the first time anyone landed away from Earth. You might as well give the Mesklinites a quick lesson in flying the thing for themselves!”

“Don’t try to make that last sound too silly, Alan,” Easy pointed out gently. “The Kwembly is merely the first of the cruisers to get into what looks like final trouble. Dhrawn is a very big world, with very little known about it, and I suspect we’re going to run out of land-cruisers for rescue or any other purpose sooner or later. Also, even I know that the barge controls are computer-coupled, with push-the-way-you-want-to-go operators. I admit that even so, the chances are ten to one or worse that anyone trying a ground-to-ground flight with that machine on Dhrawn without previous experience would kill himself, but do Beetchermarlf and Takoorch have even that much chance of survival on any other basis?? “I think they do,” replied Aucoin quietly. “How, in the name of all that’s sensible?” snapped Mersereau. “Here all along we’ve—” Easy held up her hand, and either the gesture or the expression on her face caused Boyd to fall silent. “What other procedure which you could conscientiourly recommend would stand any real chance of saving either the Kwembly herself, or her two helmsmen, or the rest of Dondragmer’s crew?” she asked. Aucoin had the grace to flush deeply, but he answered steadily enough. “I mentioned it earlier, as Boyd remembers,” he said. “Sending the Kalliff from the Settlement to pick them up.” The words were followed by some seconds of silence, while expressions of amusement flitted across the faces around the table. Eventually Ib Hoffman spoke. “Do you suppose Barlennan will approve?” he asked innocently.

“It boils down to this,” Dondragmer said to Kabremm. “We can stay here and do nothing while Barlennan sends a rescue cruiser from the Settlement. I assume he can think of some reason for sending one which won’t sound too queer, after he failed to do it for the Esket. ”

“That would be easy enough,” returned the Esket’s first officer. “One of the human beings was against sending it, and the commander simply let him win the argument. This time he could be firmer.”

“As though the first time wouldn’t have made some of the other humans suspicious enough. But never mind that. If we wait, we don’t know how long it will be, since we don’t even know whether there’s a possible ground route from the Settlement to here. You came from the mines by air, and we floated part of the way. “If we decide not to wait, we can do either of two things. One is to move by stages toward the Kwembly, carrying the life equipment as far as the suits will let us and then setting it up again to recharge them. We’d get there some time, I suppose. The other is to move the same way toward the Settlement to meet the rescue cruiser if one comes or get there on foot if it doesn’t. I suppose we’d even get there , eventually. Even if we reach the Kwembly, there is no certainty that we can repair her; if the human beings have relayed Beetchermarlf’s feelings at all adequately, it seems rather doubtful. I don’t like either choice because of the wasted time they both involve. There are better things to do than crawl over the surface of this world on foot. “A better idea, to my way of thinking, is to use your dirigible either to rescue my helmsmen if it is decided to give up on the Kwembly, or to start ferrying my crew and equipment over to where she is.”

“But that—”

“That, of course, sinks the raft as far as the Erket act is concerned. Even using Reffel’s helicopter would do that; we couldn’t explain what happened to the vision set he was carrying without their seeing through it, no matter what lie you think up. I’m simply not sure that the trick is worth the deliberate sacrifice of those lives, though I admit it’s worth the risk, of course; I wouldn’t have gone along with it otherwise.”

“So I heard,” returned Kabremm. “No one has been able to make you see the risk of being completely dependent on beings who can’t possibly regard us as real people.”

“Quite right. Remember that some of them are as different from each other , as they are from us. I made up my mind about the aliens the time one of them answered my question about a differential hoist clearly and in detail, and threw in my first lesson in the use of mathematics in science, gratis. I realize the humans differ among themselves as we do; certainly the one who talked Barl out of sending help to the Esket must be as different as possible from Mrs. Hoffman or Charles Lackland — but I don’t and never will distrust them as a species the way you seem to. I don’t think Barlennan really does, either; he’s changed the subject more than once rather than argue the point with me, and that’s not Barlennan when he’s sure he’s right. I still think it would be a good idea to lower the sails on this act and ask directly for human help with the Kwembly, or at least take a chance on their finding out by using all three dirigibles there.”

“There aren’t three, any more.” Kabremm knew the point was irrelevant, but was rather glad of a chance to change the subject. “Karfrengin and four men have been missing in the Elsh for two of this world’s days.”

“That news hadn’t reached me, of course,” said Dondragmer. “How did the commander react to it? I should think that even he would be feeling the temptation to ask for human help, if we’re starting to lose personnel all over the map.”

“He hasn’t heard about it, either. We’ve had ground parties out searching, using trucks we salvaged from the Erket, and we didn’t want to make a report until it could be a complete one.”

“How much more complete could it be? Karfrengin and his men must be dead by now. The dirigibles don’t carry life-support gear for two days.” Kabremm gave the rippling equivalent of a shrug. “Take it up with Destigmet. I have troubles enough.”

“Why wasn’t your flyer used for the search?”