Hal Clement - Fossil

He was still a kilometer above the hilltop, however, when he saw that one of the stars to the west was not motionless. It was not very bright, but easy enough to see. It was shifting very slowly upward and to his right.

He had no way of judging its distance, and for a moment thought it might be one of the orbiting stations which four of the Six Races now maintained over Habranha. He discarded this idea almost at once; all of these satellites were in the planet’s orbital and equatorial plane, and the thing he was watching clearly was not. It must also, if in low orbit, be deep in Habranha’s shadow to be in that direction, and presumably too faint to see. Even before he considered the possibility of an approaching spacecraft his great wings had tilted and swung his small body toward it.

Almost simultaneously its angular motion ceased.

Straight away from him now? Or straight toward him?

A few seconds gave the answer and eliminated the spacecraft hypothesis. It was growing brighter too quickly. It must already be close, and small, and approaching.

Why straight toward him? There seemed only one reasonable explanation. It had detected him. How? He was carrying no light. Habra sense? What would Habras be doing here? His own companions had no lights, either. He called; like Hugh’s, his translator carried a minimum-power radio transmitter, and Rekchellet knew some Habra speech himself.

“Walt! Crow! Can either of you hear me?”

“Yes, Rek. Have you found something?” came Crow’s voice.

“I don’t know. Do you see a faint light, getting brighter, approaching from nearly west?”

“Yes.” There was some heterodyne squeal as both natives answered at once.

“Can you see or sense anything about it? It’s still a little above my altitude, but seems to be descending slowly.”

“I see only the light,” Walt spoke alone this time. “Should we go up to see, or keep searching down here?”

“Come on up.”

“Shouldn’t one of us tell Third-Supply-Watcher?”

“Don’t spend the time now — one of you would have to land and get her attention. You can’t talk through the truck hull. If it turns out to be important, one of us can report when we know what to say.”

That was a tactical error, and Habranha’s chaotic nature took full advantage of it- though, of course, the planet itself could not be blamed this time.

The light seemed almost upon Rekchellet now, far brighter than before; bright enough to show him his own wings and body, bright enough to hide in its glare whatever might be carrying it. Walt and Crow were still far below, and could make out no details even with their nonvisual senses.

“Who’s there?” called the Crotonite, transmitting on both his feeble Habra radio and the much louder sound waves of his translator’s speaker. Rather to his surprise there was an answer; less astonishingly, it consisted entirely of no-symbol-equivalent sounds. The speaker was using a language Rekchellet’s equipment couldn’t handle. The chances were that the same was true in the other direction. One definite fact had come through, however.

The being carrying, or accompanying, or hiding behind the light was a Crotonite. The translators assigned a different class of tone patterns to each of the Six Races as standard policy. The information might or might not be helpful, since there were two or three thousand different Crotonite languages in use on more than that many worlds; since they were a flying species, a given Crotonite culture was usually at least planet-wide.

Besides his own, Rekchellet could just make himself understood in one other. The existence of translating equipment had not helped general linguistic skill, though there were philological specialists who could produce translator modules for use with newly discovered races.

He was not surprised a few seconds later to see the vague outline of a pair of Crotonite wings against the sky beyond the light. He gestured irritably to have the beam directed away from him; it was only much later that it occurred to him to be surprised that the gesture was obeyed. The lamp was not only aimed away from him but changed in ad-justment; it ceased to produce a blinding glare, and allowed him to see the other flier fairly clearly.

There was little surprising about its appearance. Like Rekchellet, it was wearing a body sheath against the chill; unlike his, the protection seemed to include the wings, which reflected the dim Fafnir light with the sheen of polymer film. Wing protection which doesn’t interfere with flight is a new one, Rekchellet conceded to himself. Where is this fellow from?

The newcomer made two more attempts to speak, apparently to convince himself or herself that it was futile, and then made a downward gesture.

“Walt, Crow, it’s a Crotonite. He wants me to go down for some reason. I’m assuming he has something to show me, so I’m going. You two stay close enough to watch what’s going on, but not too close — if you can help it, don’t let him know you’re here. If you see any reason, get away fast; one of you warn Third-Supply-Watcher on the truck, the other head straight for Pitville and Hugh with the best report you can put together.”

“Where is he taking you down?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to watch.”

The stranger was leading the way in a long but quite steep dive, not merely gliding; there was evidence of a feeling of haste. Rekchellet followed. At about one kilometer altitude a group of natives appeared around them both, crowding as closely as wing freedom would permit. He could not see his own Habra companions, but trusted that they were following his instructions. Presumably, since anything they said to him would be broadcast in their own speech and only translated at Rekchellet’s end, it would be heard and understood by these people. This might be either quite harmless or quite awkward since there was no way to tell what the newcomers wanted or intended. Rekchellet was far from paranoid, especially by Crotonite standards, but he was fully as far from sharing Janice Cedar’s tendency to assume the best of everyone. She was insane, he knew; a very nice person, but quite out of contact.

They were ten kilometers or more from the truck when the group at last swept over a low hilltop, touched down on the slope beyond, and folded wings. The Habras surrounded the two Crotonites in a close ring, barely leaving room for lift-off if Rekchellet had wanted to. The carrier of the light was facing him, once more attempting to communicate by voice, this time not using the translator. A few of his words — it was now evident that he was male — aroused a vague feeling of familiarity in Rekchellet; there might have been some historical affinity between their languages. No ideas got across, however. It was his actions which made the situation clearer.

He took a small case from his harness and opened it. The light revealed fully a score of what appeared to be translator modules. Pulling one of these out from among the rest, he gestured for Rekchellet to hand over his own translator unit. It did not occur to the normally suspicious explorer until much later that it wouid have been easier for him to take the cartridge and insert it in his own equipment without detaching the latter; quite unthinkingly he obeyed the gesture, removed the device from his own harness and handed it to the other flier.

At the same instant he felt his wings seized. Not painfully, not even very firmly, but solidly enough and for long enough. The modules flicked back into their case, his own translator unit was snapped to the stranger’s harness, the light went out, and the Crotonite, as his Habra cohorts opened out to give room, spread and raised his wings and with a combined downward beat and thrust of stubby legs went airborne.