Hal Clement - Fossil

He turned to the two fliers and told them his suspicions. He knew the Crotonite slightly though he was not sure whether she hailed from Rekchellet’s home world.

“Kesserah, can you read these? Rekchellet said they must be numbers, and claimed they were enough like his own to be legible. He said this point,” Hugh indicated, “was near the center of the dark hemisphere. That means this thing can’t be all to one scale.”

“It isn’t,” replied the Crotonite. “The dashed section implies ellipsis. Rekchellet was probably right. I interpret the characters as he did.” She turned the sheet over. “That’s Rekchellet’s writing.”

“What does it say?”

“It makes no sense to me. Just, ‘Make Ennissee pay before you tell him that date’.”

“Who is Ennissee?”

“Ed say it was a Crotonite name, but it doesn’t call up a wing pattern to my memory. Has Rek met any Crotonites since you saw him last?”

“Apparently yes, Walt told me. Something funny has happened to him, and it started in the air, I’m told. But if that involved this Ennissee, Rek must have been back on the truck since. I hope Third-Supply-Watcher has finished eating; I’ll have to ask her right now.”

Hugh emerged as quickly as the lock system allowed, followed by his winged helpers. All entered the flier, where there was plenty of room for everyone. Third-Supply-Watcher was still eating, Hugh saw, and he made suitable apologies, but could not wait with his question.

“Please! I’m sorry to interrupt, but I must know. Did Rekchellet come back to the truck after you reported his absence to me?”

“Yes, but not at once. The outside hatch controls were operated by someone of whom I only caught a glimpse. That showed a Crotonite, and I looked only casually, assuming it was Rekchellet. Then the one who entered came to the driver’s cabin and dragged me away from the controls. He stopped the truck, then pushed me back to the cargo section and locked me in. Then he waited, while snow covered the truck. Presently another Crotonite, who did prove to be Rekchellet, found the buried vehicle and entered. He met the first one, and they talked — argued, it seemed to me — for a long time, though I could neither hear nor understand. Rekchellet was not at first carrying his translator, but the other gave him one.

“Eventually, after much discussion, they set the truck going again. The other Crotonite adjusted the autodriver, and while he was doing that Rekchellet wrote something on the back of the map we had been using. Then he came back and unlocked my door and said that he had been told what I told you — that the autodriver had been set to shut off the main power if it were interfered with. Otherwise, the truck was supposed to follow where the other Crotonite was taking him. The other was listening, and his translator could certainly handle Rekchellet’s language, so I judged Rek didn’t want to say more, and I waited for a chance to read what he had written.

“They opened the main hatch and set it to close after them, and left by wing while the truck was in motion. I looked at Rek’s note, but couldn’t read it, and saw nothing to do except stop while I was still reasonably near Pitville and hope I’d be found before I starved or froze. When the truck didn’t cool down, I tried some of the light circuits and realized the story about total cutoff was false, but I still couldn’t see what to do except wait. I could have driven without the automatic, but wasn’t sure which way to go, and staying here seemed to offer the best chance of being found before I starved. I’m not sure I would have been if I’d wandered at random.”

“Nor I,” answered Janice. “Rek must have been pretty sure we’d be along, though. I know he’s a Crotonite and you’re not a flier, but he’s a pretty good fellow.”

“Perhaps. What now’” asked Plant-Biologist. Hugh pursed his lips again.

“If both you Locrians are willing to come, we’re looking for Rekchellet and then for something a bit north of the Cold Pole,” answered Hugh, “and we can certainly use you.”

But heading for the Grendelian antipodes wasn’t quite that easy, and not yet the right thing to do. Hugh saw his wife’s raised eyebrows through the faceplate of her armor and paused to think.

The cold pole of Habranha was nearly 4900 kilometers from the terminator, over 4500 from their present position. That meant nothing to the machine they were flying, but a great deal to two other groups — their winged and unwinged helpers, and Rekchellet and Ennissee, if the unknown Crotonite had actually been that individual. Rekchellet could not have flown the distance equipped as he was. The other—

“Third-Supply-Watcher, could you see clearly what sort of equipment the other Crotonite was carrying when they left the truck?” Hugh asked.

“Just ordinary Crotonite warmth harness, with very little decoration, and one or two small items of equipment. A translator, of course.”

“Any sort of breathing mask?”

“No.”

That disposed of recycling equipment; Crotonites, like Erthumoi, exhaled large amounts of water with their breath, and any efficient recycler had to trap that.

“Was there anything else noticeable about him?”

“Yes, definitely. His wing membranes were artificial. He had lost the natural ones in some way, and those he had were of artificial film.”

“How about the bones — the framework?”

“Quite natural. He had lost only the membrane.”

Hugh turned to Kesserah. “Have you ever heard of such an injury, or how it could have been suffered? Do you know of anyone who has been injured that way?”

“No to the first and last. Wing membranes are tough but not impossible to tear. Also, they carry blood. If one were torn, I can imagine a surgical need to replace it completely if it failed to heal properly — and possibly to treat the other side to match, though I’m no medic and don’t know that that would always be needed. It’s also possible that they could be lost to frostbite, though we have alcohols in our blood which give it a low freezing point.”

“Thanks. At least, even I should be able to recognize this one if we meet him. The trouble is, there’s no way he and Rekchellet could fly on their own over four thousand kilometers over this dark hemisphere, is there?”

“None that I can imagine. I certainly wouldn’t try it.”

“Then either he lied about where he was going, as he did about shutting down the autodriver; or he had another vehicle hidden somewhere within flying distance of here; or he had caches of supplies which would let him stock up along the way. In any case,” Hugh chewed his lower lip reflectively, and looked around at the others, “in any case he’s told us in too many ways about this place near the Cold Pole to leave me in much doubt that he wants us to go there. I wonder why. Any ideas?” He glanced around once more.

“The note Kesserah read for us mentioned a date we might tell him,” Janice said slowly. “I can think of only one date we could know which has any connection at all with that truck. That’s, of course, assuming the Crotonite with the damaged wings is the Ennissee Rek wrote about; nothing seems to make sense otherwise.”

“What is the date you mean?” asked S’Nash.

“The age of the frozen specimen we found on the truck. I don’t see anything special about it; I took samples, and made the usual checks, and it’s not as old as the wing we found in one of the Pits a while ago, but it’s certainly not current.”

“What is the age?” asked the Naxian.

“I’m wondering why it’s important, and why Rek wrote that we should make this Ennissee pay for the knowledge,” the woman answered obliquely. “I wonder if he meant simply payment in the ordinary, literal sense of exchange tokens or service obligations, or in some more Figurative fashion — as though this person had already contracted an obligation, and owed us something because of whatever he’d done to Rek or to us or to someone else.”