Hal Clement - Close to Critical

The cave dweller, of course had been unable to follow the conversation between Nick and the Teacher, and after the first minute or so of silence he asked for a translation. Somehow he managed to make the request in such a way that Nick felt he was repairing an omission rather than granting a favor when he provided the requested information.

“Fagin is deciding what is best to do. He says that we must not kill you.”

“Have him tell me that himself. I will understand him.”

“One does not interrupt the Teacher when he is thinking,” replied Nick. The cave dweller seemed impressed; at least, he said nothing more until the robot came back on the air.

“Nick.” Raeker’s voice boomed into the dense atmosphere, “I want you to translate very carefully what I have to say to this fellow. Make it word for word, as nearly as the language difference will allow; and think it over yourself, because there will be some information I haven’t had time to give you yet.”

“All right, Teacher.” Everyone in the circle switched attention to the robot; but if the scout in the center realized this, he at least made no effort to take advantage of the fact. He, too, listened, as intently as though he were trying to make sense out of the human speech as well as Nick’s translation. Raeker started slowly, with plenty of pauses for Nick to do his job.

“You know,” he began, “that Swift wanted me at his place so that I could teach him and his people to make fires, and keep herds, and the other things I have already taught my own people. I was willing to do that, but Swift thought, from something Nick said, that my people would object, so he came fighting when it wasn’t necessary.

“That’s not really important, now, except for the fact that it delayed something important to Swift as well as to us. Up until now, all I’ve been able to give is knowledge. I was the only one of my people here, and I can never go back where I came from, so that I couldn’t get more things to give.

“Now others of my people have come. They are riding in a great thing that they made; you haven’t any words for it, since I never gave them to Nick’s people and I don’t think Swift’s people have any such things. It was something we made, as you make a bucket or a spear, which is able to carry us from one place to another; for the place from which I came is so far away that no one could ever walk the distance, and is far above so that only a floater could even go in the right direction. The people who came were going to be able to come and go in this machine, so that they could bring things like better tools to all of you, taking perhaps things you were willing to give in exchange. However, the machine did not work quite properly; it was like a spear with a cracked head. It came down to where you live, but we found that it could not float back up again. My people cannot live outside it, so they aren’t able to fix it. We need help from Nick’s people and, if you will give it, from yours as well. If you can find this machine in which my friends are caught, and learn from me how to fix it, they will be able to go back up once more and bring things for you all; if you can’t or won’t, my people will die here, and there will not even be knowledge for you—for some day I will die, too, you know.

“I want you to take this message to Swift, and then, if he will let you, come back with his answer. I would like him and all his people to help hunt for the machine; and when it is found, Swift’s people and Nick’s can help in fixing it. There won’t need to be any more fighting. Will you do that?”

Nick had given this talk exactly as it came, so far as his knowledge of Swift’s language permitted. The scout was silent for half a minute or so at the end. He was still holding his spears firmly, but Raeker felt that his attitude with them was a trifle less aggressive. It may have been wishful thinking, of course; human beings are as prone to believe the things they wish were true as Drommians are to believe what occurs to them first.

Then the scout began asking questions, and Raeker’s estimate of his intelligence went up several notches; he had been inclined to dismiss the fellow as a typical savage.

“Since you know what is wrong with your friends and their machine, you must be able to talk to them some way.”

“Yes, we—I can talk to them.”

“Then how is it you need to look for them? Why can’t they tell you where they are?”

“They don’t know. They came down to a place they had never seen before, and floated on a lake for five days. Last night they drifted down a river. They were at the bottom, and couldn’t see where they were going; and anyway they didn’t know the country—as I said, they never saw it before. The river is gone now, and they can see around, but that does no good.”

“If you can hear them talk, why can’t you go to them anyway? I can find anything I can hear.”

“We talk with machines, just as we travel. The machines make a sort of noise which can only be heard by another machine, but which travels very much farther than a voice. Their machine can talk to one in the place where I came from, and then that one can talk to me; but it is so far away that it can’t tell exactly where either of us is. All we can do is let them tell us what sort of country they can see; then I can tell you, and you can start hunting.”

“You don’t even know how far away they are, then.”

“Not exactly. We’re pretty sure it’s not very far—not more than two or three days’ walk, and probably less. When you start looking for them we can have them turn on their brightest lights, like these—” the robot’s spots flamed briefly—“and you’ll be able to see them from a long distance. They’ll have some lights on anyway, as a matter of fact.”

The cave dweller thought for another minute or so, then shifted the grip on his spears to “trail.” “I will give your words to Swift, and if he has words for you they will be brought. Will you stay here?”

The question made Raeker a trifle uneasy, but he saw no alternative to answering “yes.” Then another point occurred to him.

“If we did not stay here, would it take you long to find us?” he asked. “We noticed that you got to this side of the river and into sight of our group much more quickly than we had expected. Did you have some means of crossing the river before day?”

“No,” the other replied with rather surprising frankness. “The river bends north not far inland from the place where you walked through it and goes in that direction for a good number of miles. A number of us were sent along it, with orders to stop at various points, cross as soon as it dried up, and walk toward the sea to find traces of you.”

“Then others presumably crossed our trail—all those who were stationed farther south—and located us.”

“No doubt. They may be watching now, or they may have seen you attack me and gone off to tell Swift.”

“You knew about the bend in the river. Your people are familiar with the country this far from your caves?”

“We have never hunted here. Naturally, anyone can tell which way a river is going to flow and where there are likely to be hills and valleys.”

“What my people call an eye for country. I see. Thank you; you had better go on and give the message to Swift before he arrives with another crowd of spears to avenge the attack on one of his men.”

“All right. Will you answer one question for me first? Sometimes you say ‘I’ and sometimes ‘we’ even when you obviously don’t mean yourself and these people here. Why is that? Is there more than one of you inside that thing?”

Nick did not translate this question; he answered it himself.

“The Teacher has always talked that way,” he said. “We’ve sometimes wondered about it, too; but when we asked him, he didn’t explain—just said it wasn’t important yet. Maybe Swift can figure it out.” Nick saw no harm in what he would have called psychology if he had known the word.