Hal Clement - Still River

The argument ended as the gray-blue patches that had to be liquid made themselves obvious. The Kantrick aimed his own screen downward as their horizontal motion practically ceased, and began calling out to the others.

“It looks as though we had some liquid here—lakes, ponds, whatever—I don’t see any rivers, so ponds may be it, though they’re pretty big; one is a dozen or more kilometers across, I estimate. Any new colors, Molly?”

“Yes, right around the edges, but so uniform I can’t help suspecting it just means the ground is wet.”

“Is the surface the salt-sand we’re used to, or bare rock, or something different?” asked Joe.

“It looks pretty much like the former, but I can’t be sure. We’ll be down in a moment. Will you get my armor, too, Charley?”

The Kantrick did even more. By the time the boat was grounded and controls safely capped, he was back in Con with his own armor, the Human’s, and a coil of rope. Molly decided not to ask him the purpose of the last until she had finished checking the gas tightness and temperature controls of her own equipment. She then started for the main lock and, as she had expected, was stopped by her companion.

“Wait, Molly. We’d better fasten ourselves together. I know there doesn’t seem to be any wind, and I don’t see any holes, but we don’t know what it’s like out there. If the ground is wet, there might be quicksand or something like that.”

“And if we both got pulled in?”

“We stay safely apart. One of us goes out first, and goes the full length of the rope before the other follows, then we keep that length apart until we’re reasonably sure the surface is trustworthy.”

“That still doesn’t answer what we do if we both get in trouble.”

“The others—oh.”

“Yes. The others aren’t here. Sorry, Charley. You stay inside and take the boat back to the tent for help if I get in trouble.”

The spheroidal figure stood motionless for several seconds, passing the coil of rope from one four-digited hand to the other, its forward eye fixed on Molly’s at about the same level and the two others that she could see roving aimlessly about the con room. Then the rope was tossed to one side and the transparent helmet dome of the armor slowly removed. “You’re right, of course. I’ll watch. Please keep talking whenever you think I may not be able to see you.”

“That would only be right next to the boat. I’ll keep a running report, though, anyway. And I’ll be careful of quicksand; did you have some special reason to be afraid of that?”

“Well—nothing special. It was the first thing I could think of that wouldn’t be as obvious as high winds or holes.”

“Have you ever had experience with such a thing?” asked Joe.

“Not personally. I’ve read about it.”

“All right,” said Molly, “I’ll step carefully, and in this gravity I don’t think I need really worry about that, either. No, don’t say it, I know I’d sink just as deeply into any liquid here as on my home world, but I can use inertial effects more constructively here, I’d think. We’ll hope I don’t have to find out, though. I won’t be long; I’ll get water and mud for analysis and be right back.”

Charley made no answer, but settled down at his dimly lit screen and keyed it to cover the area just outside the nearest lock. Molly quickly rechecked her armor and went out.

There was more light than before; the clouds seemed to be thinner for a moment. She had already mastered the coordination needed for walking in seven-percent gravity, of course, and required no conscious thought for that problem, so she could focus full attention on the landscape before her.

The nearest lake was about two hundred meters away. There was just enough wind to make its liquid state obvious by ruffling the surface into small waves, which moved with eye-catching slowness in Enigma’s gravity. Considering the temperature and pressure, its main constituent was presumably ammonia, but there was no reason to suppose it was very pure.

The ground at her feet was mostly the light-colored material that Jenny claimed to be ammonium salts, but now it could be seen that smaller, darker pebbles were scattered through it. Molly collected several of these, finding that they were filled with tiny, sparkling metallic-looking particles when examined closely. She reported this to Jenny, and walked slowly on toward the lake.

“Everything all right?” asked Charley.

“Eh? Oh, yes. Sorry—I promised to keep reporting, didn’t I? So far nothing special. The surface holds me up well enough and seems perfectly dry so far. As you can see, I’m heading toward the lake now.”

“Not too fast. You don’t have Jenny’s traction, and you want to be able to stop.”

“True. I’ll watch it, though getting wet with ammonia shouldn’t hurt me in this suit. My batteries are up, and I could boil a lot of it away from around me before getting frostbite.”

“But I couldn’t see you under the surface.”

“I’m not sure I’d sink; I’ve never stopped to figure out my density in armor, and would have to look up that of the ammonia. In any case, if I go under for any reason, I’ll keep talking to you. In fact, now that I think of it, getting mud from the lake bed might be a good idea; if there’s any sort of microlife on this world, the bottom of a shallow body of liquid with some decent light shining on it would seem to be the best place to look for it. Now stop worrying, Charley. I can’t guarantee there’s nothing dangerous, but I’m not going to take any unreasonable chances. I want to see my husband and little boy again, the sooner the better as long as this job is properly done. Do calm down.”

“All right. I didn’t mean to be giving orders. It’s just that I was so surprised when Joe blew…”

“So was I, and so was he. The universe is full of surprises, thank goodness. Some of my ancestors believed in an evil god they called Satan, but his real name was Boredom. Hold on a minute, here’s a patch of something that looks different. Sort of pink, no, more orange, with little veins of yellow. Its texture is slimy, of all things. This is encouraging; maybe we have Jenny’s life already. I’ll can some of it ... there. It sticks to my gloves. Probably I can rinse them off in the lake. Wait a minute.” She took a long, gliding step that brought her ankle deep in the liquid. “It doesn’t shelve off too quickly. I’ll get some of the bottom stuff in another can while I’m here. There; at least the gloves look clean. I’ll rinse them off again with a couple of different solvents when I get back to the boat, and Jenny can play with those washings, too. Now I’ll go out a little farther and get some deeper tuff.”

“Do you have to?”

“Why are we here? If it will make you feel better, I’ll come back to the boat and let you do it, but that seems a waste of time with me here already.”

“Well—I’ll go out next time.”

“Fine. I was going to suggest that anyway.”

Molly waded away from shore and boat, occasionally pushing her faceplate below the surface to get a clearer view of the bottom. It looked like plain mud or sand; there was nothing that suggested living beings, plant or animal, protist or argilloid, though she could hardly expect to see either of the last two except in colony form. She Finally reached waist depth.

“I’m going to get some stuff from the bottom. One liquid sample, one mud or whatever. I’ll be down less than fifteen seconds, if I can get down at all.”

“All right.” Charley tensed himself at his station. He was extremely uneasy in one way at losing sight of his partner, though he still had faith in the Faculty that had set their problem.