Hal Clement - Fossil

“This is it,” he said at last. “Do you know what it is?”

“No. Like you, I’d guess it’s Mother Planet. Shall we take them with us when we get back, and try to find out?”

“Strictly speaking, we have no business doing anything of the sort. They’re not our property.”

“They’re probably Ennissee’s,” the woman pointed out.

“If either of us were Rekchellet. that would probably be an excuse. Tell you what. We’ll write down the ident code, and call the Guild office when we get back. We might even want a copy of that module; couldn’t you use some information from that Erthuma on collection details? Ged said that one of them usually went with Ennissee in the mole, and you were worried about some of the sample labels. They weren’t helpful out at the site, but maybe talking to them without Ged around would be different.”

“We could ask Ennissee himself.”

“We could, but I’d rather not, for several reasons.

The way he treated Rek is only one, though it’s the basis of the others, I suppose. I know Rek plans to find him and settle matters…”

“You mean a duel or something like that?”

“I don’t think so. Crotonites are civilized. He wants revenge, but not violence; he wants to embarrass the fellow. It will complicate things for Rek if he finds us dealing on friendly terms with his enemy, and maybe complicate his feelings for us.”

“I think he’s safely our friend now, regardless. He’s known us a long time, and makes allowances of all sorts for our being crawlers and Erthumoi.”

“You may be right, but let’s not strain it. We’ll try those Erthumoi assistants first, until Rek finishes his business; after all, he may get the knowledge we want. Making Ennissee come crawling to us with information would be a very satisfactory revenge, I suspect.”

“So you said before. All right, let’s get in touch with this Chen person.”

Nothing further relevant to the problem occurred on the way back to Pitville, and with the truck parked by the still undisturbed Habra corpse they went to Hugh’s office.

The Guild was able to help them. Mahare Chen was indeed, according to their records, a native of Earth, and the office had translator modules of her language. If Explorer Cedar would load his communicator appropriately, a duplicate would be transmitted for his own unit at once. A Falgite module would be provided for Engineer Chen, and the office would attempt to locate her, deliver the module, and request that she make contact with Explorer or Chemist Cedar at Pitville. No trouble.

Janice went back to her lab. Hugh called Ged and tactfully tried to find out what progress had been made on his article, especially in the matter of getting information from Ennissee. The Samian replied ruefully that he had had no time for either the article or Ennissee, that some of Spreadsheet-Thinker’s chart sections needed serious modification, and that he hoped Hugh would not need fliers or large numbers of people for the next few Common Days. Hugh promised to do his best but mentioned the intrinsic nature of his job. It sometimes called for— “I had noticed that,” interrupted Barrar, and ended the conversation. Again, Hugh found himself wondering unhappily how much of what he had been told could be believed, and intensely disliking the sensation.

S’Nash came in, and Hugh wondered whether the Naxian had sensed his emotions from outside. Janice’s theory, which she had not yet explained in detail, implied that the beings had to see the subject of their analysis. She was not, however, sure of this and Hugh was even less so. S’Nash seemed to turn up very often when it/he could be of help; maybe people broadcast, something more subtle than a visual image.

It was nearly two more hours, and the Naxian was still in the office being useful, before Mahare Chen returned his call. It was five minutes after he had started talking to her, just after Janice had also come in, that he discovered with shock what the words “Palaksee” and “Pill-dahn” meant, and decided with relief that he could probably trust the Samian after all.

Ennissee, however was another problem. Hugh could only hope that he was safely immobilized.

And S’Nash was still another, but he tried to put this out of his mind for the moment.

Hugh asked several more questions, which Chen answered, but sometimes rather hesitantly.

“Are Jayree and I in trouble?” she asked bluntly, after one of them. Hugh shrugged.

“Not with the Guild, as far as I’m concerned. Most of your work for Ennissee was legitimate. All anyone could object to is this joke, if that’s what it was. If your consciences bother you, tell the story to Rekchellet. He should be very much on your side.”

“We thought it would affect only a few Crotonites who didn’t seem to be flying with both wings and were about ready for a correspondence course in astrology anyway. And the pay was good,” she added.

“If you mean extra pay for the joke, that should have warned you of something. Never mind, though; we’ll try to calm down the rest of the population. I suggest you stay around Pwanpwan, or leave a very specific forwarding address if work takes you elsewhere. It will make a much nicer picture with the Guild than disappearing, and I’m sure Rek will be delighted to take your side if any Trueliners get indignant about your telling me the story. I don’t suppose there are many of them on Habranha anyway, and you could make Ennissee look pretty foolish among the ordinary Crotonites if he tried to make trouble for you.”

The woman still looked slightly uneasy, but admitted that Hugh was probably right. He hoped her trouble was conscience, but couldn’t be sure under the circumstances that she had one.

He was about to break the connection when another thought struck him.

“You might get a lot more people on your side,” he pointed out, “if you and your friend helped reconstruct that mole. You must know a good deal about it, and I know at least one person who is already very upset about what happened to it, and is going to be a lot more so when he finds out about the faking. You know him, too; it’s the Samian who was out there with you.”

“Didn’t he know about the trick?” The question startled Hugh; it was a possibility which hadn’t occurred to him.

“I don’t think so, but I can find out pretty reliably, I think. Keep in touch with the Guild, anyway.”

Janice and he took brief counsel, but there seemed only one decent thing to do, and that at once. They asked S’Nash whether he could and would tell them whether Barrar was hearing something new when Hugh told him about the fossil, as he proposed to do immediately.

“From here, even if I can watch him on the screen, I doubt it,” was the answer, “but if you’ll give me time to get over to his office so I can watch him first hand, probably yes. Samians are something of a challenge, but it will be fun to try. Give me time to get over there before you call him.” The Naxian left the safety office without waiting for an answer.

The Erthumoi allowed what seemed a reasonable time to pass, and called the administration center. They thought at first they had gotten Barrar directly but realized almost at once that they were talking to another Samian wearing a similar walker. Ged, they were informed, had left firm orders that he was not to be interrupted; perhaps his recent complaint about his work load had been based on fact. Hugh wrestled briefly with his own conscience, won, and stated that the call was an emergency one from the safety office, glad that the being on the other end was not a Naxian and rather happy that S’Nash had left. Of course, it/he would presumably not have betrayed him, but Hugh was embarrassed at lying before anyone but his wife. She would understand.