Hal Clement: Natives of Space

This action on the part of one of the oldest of the group produced results; when Jackie clambered out of the water again, none of the others was visible. He called his brother.

“Come on and dress, fathead!” was the answer of that youth. Jackie made a face. “Why so soon?”

he called back. “It can’t even be four o’clock yet. I’m going to swim a while longer.” He suited action to the word, climbing up the heaped blocks of granite at the side of the quarry and diving from a point higher than had any of the others that day.

“You’re yellow, Jim!” he called, as his head once more broke the surface. “Bet you won’t go off from there!” His brother reappeared at the water’s edge, dressed except fox the undershirt he had used as a towel — which would be redonned, dry or otherwise, before he reached home.

“You bet I won’t,” he replied as Jackie clambered out beside him, “and you won’t either, not today. I’m going home, and you know what Dad will do if you go swimming alone and he hears about it. Come on and get dressed. Here’s your clothes.” He tossed them onto a block of stone near the water.

A voice from some distance up the road called, “Jim! Jackie! Come on!” and Jim answered with a wordless yell.

“I’m going,” he said to his brother. “Hurry up and follow us.” He turned his back, and disappeared toward the road. Jackie made a face at his departing back.

In a mood of rebellion against the authority conferred by age, he climbed back up to the rock from which he had just dived, forcing Thrykar, who was making his best speed down the hill with a load of equipment in his tentacles, to drop behind the nearest cover. Jackie thought better of his intended action, however; the dan-gers of swimming alone had been well drilled into him at an early age, and there was a stratum of common sense underlying his youthful impetuousness. He clambered back down the rocks, sat down on the still warm surface of the block where his clothes lay, and began to dry himself. Thrykar resumed his silent progress downhill.

As he went, he considered the situation. The human being was sitting on the stone block and facing the water; at the moment, Thrykar was directly to his left, and still somewhat above him.

Tes was more nearly in front, and still further above. If there was any wind at all, it was insufficient to ripple the water; and Thrykar had recourse to a method that was the equivalent of the moistened finger. He found that there was a very faint breeze blowing approximately from the east — from the rear of the seated figure. Thrykar felt thankful for that, though the circumstance was natural enough. With his skin still wet, Jackie felt the current of air quite sharply, and had turned his back to it without thought.

It was necessary for Thrykar to get behind him. This entailed some rather roundabout travel through the bushes and among the blocks of stone; and by the time the alien had reached a position that satisfied him, the boy had succeeded in turning his shorts right side out and donning them, and was working on the lace of one of his shoes — he had kicked them off without bothering to untie them.

Thrykar, watching him sedulously with one eye, set the tiny cylinders on the ground, carefully checked the single nozzle for dirt, and began to adjust the tiny valves. Satisfied at last, he held the jet well away from his body and toward Jackie, and pressed a triggerlike release on the nozzle itself. Watching carefully, he was able to see faintly the almost invisible bubble that appeared and grew at the jet orifice.

It was composed of an oily compound with high surface tension and very low vapor pressure; it could, under the proper conditions, remain intact for a long time. It was being filled with a mixture composed partly of the anaesthetic that Thrykar had compounded, and partly of hydrogen gas — the mixture had been carefully computed beforehand by Thrykar to be just enough lighter than air to maintain a bubble a yard in diameter in equilibrium.

He watched its growth carefully, releasing the trigger when it seemed to have attained the proper size. Two other tiny controls extruded an extra jet of the bubble fluid, and released another chemical that coagulated it sufficiently in the region near the nozzle to permit its being detached without rupture; and the almost invisible thing was floating across the open space toward Jackie’s seat.

Thrykar would not have been surprised had the first one missed; but luck and care combined to a happier result. The boy undoubtedly felt the touch of the bubble film, for he twisted one arm behind his back as though to brush away a cobweb; but he never completed the gesture. At the first touch on his skin, the delicate film burst, releasing its contents; and Jackie absorbed a lungful of the potent mixture with his next breath. For once, the book appeared to be right.

Thrykar had been able, with difficulty, to keep the bubble under observation; and as it vanished he emerged from behind the concealing stone and dashed toward his subject. Jackie, seated as he was with feet clear of the ground, collapsed backwards across the block of granite; and by some miracle Thrykar managed to reach him and cushion the fall before his head struck the stone. The alien had not foreseen this danger until after the release of the bubble.

He eased the small body down on its back, and carefully examined the exposed chest and throat.

A pulse was visible on the latter, and he gave a mutter, of ap-proval. Once more the handbook had proved correct.

Thrykar opened the small, waterproof case that had been with the equipment, and extracted a small bottle of liquid and a very Earth-appearing hypodermic syringe. Bending over the limp form on the rock, he opened the bottle and sniffed as the odor of alcohol permeated the air. With a swab that was attached to the stopper, he lightly applied some of the fluid to an area covering the visible pulse; then, with extreme care, he inserted the fine needle at the same point until he felt it penetrate the tough wall of the blood vessel, and very slowly retracted the plunger. The transparent barrel of the instrument filled slowly with a column of crimson.

The hypodermic filled, Thrykar carefully withdrew it, applied a tiny dab of a collodionlike substance to the puncture, sealed the needle with more of the same material, and replaced the apparatus in the case. The whole procedure, from the time of the boy’s collapse, had taken less than two minutes.

Thrykar examined the body once more, made sure that the chest was still rising and falling with even breaths and the pulse throbbing as before. The creature seemed unharmed — it seemed unlikely that the loss of less than ten cubic centimeters of blood could injure a being of that size in any case; and knowing that the effects of the anaesthetic would disappear in a very few minutes, Thrykar made haste to gather up his equipment and return to the place where Tes was waiting.

“That puts the first waterfall behind as,” he said as he rejoined her. “I’ll have to take this stuff down to the ship to work on it — and the sooner it’s done, the better. Coming?”

“I think I’ll watch until it recovers,” she said. “It shouldn’t take long, and — I’d like to be sure we haven’t done anything irreparable. Thrykar, why do we have to come here, and go to all this deceitful mummery to steal blood from a race that doesn’t know what it’s all about, when there are any number of intelligent creatures who would donate willingly? That creature down there looks so helpless that I rather pity it in spite of its ugliness.”

“I understand how you feel,” said Thrykar mildly, following the direction of her gaze and deducing that of her thoughts. “Strictly speaking, a world such as this is an emergency station.