Hal Clement - Close to Critical

Nick himself had the task of contacting Fagin. He alone of the group was just a trifle unclear on how he was to accomplish his job. Tentatively, he planned to approach the cave village at night, and play by ear thereafter. If Swift’s people had gotten into the habit of moving around at night with torches, things would be difficult. If not, it might be easy—except that his own approach would then be very noticeable. Well, he’d have to see.

The journey was normal, with enough fights to keep him in food, and he approached the cliff on the evening of the second day. He had circled far around to the west in order to come on the place from the cliff top; but even so he halted at a safe distance until almost dark. There was no telling where hunting parties might be encountered, since there was a path up the cliffs in nearly constant use by them.

As darkness fell, however, Nick felt safe in assuming that all such groups would be back at their caves; and checking his fire-lighting equipment once more, he cautiously approached the cliff top. He listened at the edge for some time before venturing to push his crest over, but no informative sounds filtered up and he finally took the chance. The cliff was some three hundred fifty feet high at that point, as he well knew; and he realized that even a single spine would be quite visible from below by daylight. It might be somewhat safer now, since no fires appeared to have been lighted yet.

When he finally did look, there was nothing to see.

There were no fires, and it was much too dark for him to see anything without them.

He drew back again to think. He was sure the village and its inhabitants lay below, and was morally certain that Fagin was with them. Why they had no fires going was hard to understand, but facts were facts. Perhaps it would be safe to try to sneak up to the village in the dark—but the rain would come soon, and that would be that.

Then he had another idea, found some small wood, and went to work with his fire-making tools, a drill and spindle made from tough wood. He rather expected some response from below when he got a small blaze going, since it lighted up the sky more effectively than daylight; but nothing happened until he executed the next portion of the idea, by tossing a burning stick over the edge of the cliff. Then everything happened at once.

The light showed Fagin, standing motionless fifty yards from the foot of the cliff. It showed an otherwise empty expanse of rock and vegetation; the people were in their caves, as usual. That, however, was only temporary.

With the arrival of the fire, a rattle of voices erupted from the caves. Evidently, if they ever slept, they weren’t doing it yet. After a moment Swift’s tones made themselves heard above the others.

“Get it! Get wood to it! Don’t just stand there as if you were wet already!” A crowd of figures emerged from the rock and converged on the glowing twig; then they spread out again, as though they had all realized at once that no one had any wood and it would be necessary to find some. Plants were wrenched up from the ground by a hundred different hands and carried, or sometimes thrown, toward the spark. Nick was far more amused than surprised when it went out without anyone’s succeeding in lighting anything from it, and was only academically curious as to whether it had burned out of its own or been smothered by its would-be rescuers. His attention was not allowed to dwell on the problem for long; Swift’s voice rose again over the disappointed babble.

“There’s a glow on top of the cliff, and that’s where the fire came from! Someone up there still has some; come and get it!” As usual, obedience was prompt and unquestioning, and the crowd headed toward the trail up the cliff. Nick was a trifle surprised; it was close to rainfall time and the cave dwellers were carrying no fire. Something drastic must have happened, for them to overcome their lifelong habit of keeping to the caves at night. However, it was hardly the time to speculate on that subject; the cave men were seeking fire, and Nick happened to have all that there was around at the moment.

It took him about five seconds to dream up the rest of his idea. He lighted a stick at his small blaze and started toward the head of the trail from below, lighting all the plants he could reach as he went. When he reached the trail he tossed aside the nearly spent torch he had been using, made himself another which he hoped was small enough to shield with his body, and headed on along the cliff top. If the cave men were satisfied to take some fire, well enough; if they wanted him too, perhaps they’d look along the fire trail he had laid, which would lead them in the wrong direction. He wasn’t really hopeful about this, knowing their skill at tracking, but anything seemed worth trying once.

He kept on along the cliff top, toward a point some two miles away where the cliff broke gradually away to the lower level. He was out of direct view from the head of the trail when Swift reached it, but did not let that fact slow him down. Once at the broken-rock region he picked his way carefully down, dodging boulders loosened by a sharp quake, and started back, hiding his little torch as well as he could from anyone overhead. Fifteen minutes after the disturbance had started he was beside Fagin, apparently unnoticed by any of Swift’s people.

“Teacher! Do you hear me? It’s Nick.”

“I hear you, all right. What are you doing here? Did you start this fuss? What’s going on, anyway?”

“I threw the fire down the cliff, yes; I had to make sure you were here. The rest was a by-product. I’m here because we’ve found a way to get you out of Swift’s hands without having to worry about his getting hold of you again afterward.”

“That’s encouraging. I thought I had a way, too, but troubles have arisen in that direction. I need badly and quickly all the help I can get, and I can’t see Swift being very helpful for some time. Let’s hear your idea.”

Nick described the doings of his people since Fagin had been kidnapped, and dwelt particularly on the geography of the spot where they had spent their first night at the sea.

“We assume,” he said, “that you can live under the sea the way you can in rain; so we thought if you fled to this hill, and Swift followed you, he’d be trapped there at night; and while he was asleep you could take away all the weapons of his people—which would be a help anyway, since we’re getting so short—and if we couldn’t figure out anything else to do with him, just shove him downhill to a point which stays submerged all day.”

“Would he last long in such a place?”

“Probably not, as there are animals in that sea that ate some of our cattle; but who cares? He didn’t mind killing Tom and Alice, and would have done the same to the rest of us if he’d felt it necessary.”

“How about the rest of his people?”

“They helped him. I don’t care what happens to them.”

“Well, I see your point, but I don’t entirely share your view. There are reasons which might make you feel differently, but I can’t go into them yet.

“Your plan, if it really rates the name yet, has some good points, but it also has some weak ones. If this place of yours is a day and a half’s journey from here even for you, I’m not at all clear how I can keep ahead of Swift long enough to let me reach it; remember, you can travel faster than I. Also, now that you’ve brought them back the fire they’d lost, I’ll be very surprised if it’s as easy to get away at night as it would have been before.”

“What do you mean? They brought fire with them from our village.”

“They brought it, but didn’t know how to make one fire except from another. They let what they had go out during the day after we arrived, and have been fireless ever since. They’ve been doing their best to teach me their language so I could show them how to make more, but I’m having a lot of trouble—for one thing, I can’t make some of their shriller noises. Swift’s been remarkably patient, though, I must say. Now he’ll be even easier to get along with, I should imagine; but he certainly’ won’t be easier to get away from.”