Hal Clement: Fossil

“But you won’t really — but you will! Why? You don’t feel any strong emotion that I can find. Neither of you does, most of the time. You’ve been very disappointing that way, though you’ve been very helpful in — why do you intend so firmly to tell Barrar what I just confessed.”

“Call it an experiment,” Janice replied, as expressionlessly as she could. She wondered whether the Naxian were telling the truth about her and Hugh’s being hard to read, but for the moment didn’t care much, since she had made up her mind. “Come along, S’Nash. You wouldn’t want to miss it, would you?”

The Naxian watched as the Erthumoi couple turned toward the central office. It/he started to follow them, hesitated and turned away, shivered the length of its/his serpentine body, reached a decision, and followed once more. The Erthuma was right; this would be something no one had ever read from a Samian — though what the Samian would do next—

He was civilized, of course. There would be no risk of violence. But he was in charge of work assignments.

It would certainly — almost certainly — be worth it.

It wasn’t, S’Nash insisted later to Hugh and Janice. It was, in fact, very disappointing. Ged Barrar was far too objective, and his internal simmerings were just barely readable. They had been a real challenge, to look at the bright side. The Naxian’s eyes had remained fixed on his unwaveringly and the snakelike body might have been cast as a tight coil of metal. The Erthumoi had watched with equal intensity.

“I can’t decently complain,” Barrar said after some moments of silence. “Iwas doing very much the same thing for my own plans. Still, we can’t have this sort of thing going on too freely among people who need to trust each other, can we?” He paused thoughtfully, and might have been examining the charts on his walls, though not even S’Nash could tell where he was actually looking.

“The Pits are getting pretty deep,” he said at length. “Spreadsheet-Thinker feels we need a communication center at the bottom of each. It will, of course, have to be manned by an Erthuma or a Habra eventually, but until the pressure becomes excessive a real communication specialist would probably be best to set things up. Don’t you agree?”

“Well…” began S’Nash.

“There’s really no one but a Naxian I can assign, anyway. Please spread the word. I’d prefer volunteers, of course. You will have to tell me just what equipment will be needed — remember it will have to stand liquid air temperatures. I know you Naxians already have good armor for that. I’ll need a listing in, oh, six hours or so. I can tell you in two more when the gear will be available, and set up a watch schedule. I’m sure I won’t have to draft someone who just happens to be handy; there will be plenty of volunteers, won’t there? Let me know.”

The Naxian maintained its/his tension for another half minute, though the Erthumoi could only guess why. Something was holding its/his attention, and did so until Barrar finally said rather loudly, “That’s it, S’Nash. Any questions?”

It/he shivered, relaxed, intimated understanding, and accompanied Hugh and Janice out of the office.

“You’re still alive,” the woman remarked. “Oh, yes. It was interesting, but not inspiring.

What are you folks going to do for the next few hours’?”

“Do you care?”

“Not for the reason you suspect. I’ve already said you two are rather disappointing as subjects; you don’t seem to have very intense emotions. Janice now was just cold-bloodedly trying to observe the results of the ‘experiment’ she was performing. There was none of the nice anger or satisfaction of revenge feeling which some of my less artistic acquaintances would have expected.”

“And maybe even wanted?” cut in Hugh.

“Conceivably. But that would call for a rather— well — crude observer. What are you planning?”

“Work, of course,” keyed Hugh. “We’ve been letting that slide for much too long. I’m surprised Ged didn’t have something to say about it. Maybe he’s too bothered by what happened to his own hopes. At the rate the Pits are going, digging and emplacement routines are going to have to be changed pretty quickly now, and we’re not ready for it. I wasn’t really expecting to get enough Erthumoi able to do the job; there aren’t enough of us on the planet, and most of them can’t seem to learn enough personal control to work safely with diving juice. I was hoping we could solve the Habra armor problem before we had to go recruiting on other Erthumoi worlds.”

“Just what’s the difficulty?” the Naxian asked.

“Thermal insulation. They never bothered with it for their wings, which aren’t living tissue. In their undersea equipment they just make sure their diving fluid doesn’t leak around the wing roots, and flap at their pleasure — an experienced Habra submariner talks casually of ‘flying’ under water. If they tried that in the Pits, their wings would shatter almost at once at liquid air temperatures. Ted said something about a breakthrough not long ago; I’m calling him again as soon as we get to the office.”

“I thought he was just one of your safety people.”

“He is, but he really wants to do Pit work himself, and has been keeping in touch with the Habras who are doing the armor development. Stay with us; you may get a kick out of watching me get good news — or bad.”

“Even second hand, I would prefer the former.”

Some hours later, he expanded on that remark.

“Hugh, I’m still refining my skills with Habras, but right now they seem even happier than you. I’ve watched six of them now in the Pits, and while the analogy may not be good, I’d say they were dancing. Even you must be getting some sort of impression — if your own glee isn’t drowning it out.”

“I am. I knew they’d like it; Ted’s frustration at being able to watch the work there only from above was clear long ago even to me. I expect the excitement will die down a bit when they settle into routine, but they have a good, solid interest in the work over and above its novelty. That’s part of the reason you’re sensing so much happiness from me.”

“And Jan, I notice. She is less directly affected; I can’t understand why her feelings should match yours so closely.”

“You probably will. Ten hours from now we’ll be rid of this diving fluid for at least two years, Ged promises. We’ll be able to eat. We’ll be able to talk. We’ll…”

“Is it that uncomfortable? And why would he have made such a change in his charts — oh. You persuaded him; your self-satisfied triumph is blatant. How?”

“It’s not so much uncomfortable as inconvenient.” Hugh went back to the first question. “You should have listened to my words instead of trying to read my feelings. You should have stayed here for the last few hours instead of going off to watch Habras, too. You missed a lot.

“Just after you left, I had an idea, and got back in touch with Ennissee’s Erthumoi helpers. I knew they’d been present when the body in the truck, was originally found, because the female mentioned the circumstances. It was one of a group of natives who seemed to have died at the same time and place. I asked if either of the two could find the actual site again, and after some back-and-forth between them that I couldn’t follow because they cut the sound off, they decided they could, within two or three kilometers, and maybe closer when they got another look at the locale. Ennissee, they assured me, could get us there more precisely, but I didn’t want to get in touch with him before Rek’s had his chance.

“To make it brief, Ged now plans to make a study of the mass-kill site, and try to work out just what happened to the group, and why apparently none escaped to get their adventure into Habra history. With his original fossil disqualified — you know what that did to his feelings — he jumped at the chance for another paper, and will be with us on the search trip. I don’t know or care what he said to Spreadsheet-Thinker.”