Hal Clement - Close to Critical

The instructions were heard, the villagers’ own maps were checked, weapons were examined, and the parties set out. Nick and Betsey, standing beside the robot, watched them go; and far away, Raeker finally left the observing room to get some sleep. The diplomats stayed awake, chatting with their children as the latter described the animals which came into sight from time to time. In this relatively dull fashion the rest of the ship’s day, a night, and part of another day were spent, while the search teams plodded sturdily toward their assigned areas.

This was the twenty-seventh ship’s day since the accident to the bathyscaphe, the afternoon of the seventh day as far as Nick and his people were concerned. The children were understandably impatient; both fathers had to explain again and again how small were their chances of being found at the very beginning of the search. On this day, at least, human and Drommian were in remarkably close accord. In spite of this unity of effort, however, the children tended to spend more and more tune at the windows as the day drew on, and from time to time even Easy brought up the subject of using the spotlights to guide the searchers who should be approaching. Her father kept reminding her that Raeker had advised against it; but eventually Raeker withdrew his objection.

“It’ll make the kid feel more a part of the operation,” he said in an aside to Rich, “and I can’t see that there’s much, if any, more chance of Swift’s sighting them than of our own people’s doing it at the moment. Let her play with the lights.”

Easy happily made full use of the permission and the bathyscaphe blazed far brighter than daylight—since daylight was utter darkness to human eyes—at Tenebra’s surface. Rich was not too happy about the permission; it seemed to him encouraging the youngster in her unreasonable hope of an early rescue, and he feared the effects of disappointment.

“Listen to them,” he growled. “Yelling to each other every time something moves within half a mile. If they could see any farther it would be still worse—thank goodness they’re using their eyes instead of the photocells of the robot. That’ll last until they get sleepy; then they’ll start again when they wake up—”

“They should be under water by then,” pointed out Raeker mildly.

“And drifting again, I suppose. That’s when everything will go to pieces at once, and we’ll have a couple of screaming kids who’ll probably start hitting switches right and left in the hope some miracle will bring them home.”

“I don’t know about the Drommian, but I think you do your daughter a serious injustice,” replied Raeker. “I’ve never known much about kids, but she strikes me as something pretty remarkable for her age. Even if you can’t trust her, you’d better not let her know it.”

“I realize that, and no one trusts her more than I do,” was the weary answer. “Still, she is only a kid, and a lot of adults would have cracked before now. I can name one who’s on the edge of it. Listen to them, down there.”

Aminadorneldo’s piercing tones were echoing from the speaker.

“There’s something on this side, Easy! Come and see this one.”

“All right, ’Mina. Just a minute.” Easy’s small form could be seen for an instant on the screen, passing through the control room from one side of the ship to the other, calling as she went, “It’s probably another of those plant-eating things that are about as big as Nick’s people. Remember, the ones we want stand up on end.”

“This one does. Look!”

“Where?” Aminadorneldo must have been pointing; there was a moment of silence; then the girl’s voice, “I still don’t see anything; just a lot of bushes.”

“It looked just like Nick. It stood beside that bush for a moment and looked at us, and then went away. I saw it.”

“Well, if you were right, it’ll come back. We’ll stand here and watch for it.”

Rich looked at Raeker and shook his head dismally.

“That’ll—” he began, but got no further. His sentence was interrupted by a sudden shriek from the speaker, so shrill that for a moment neither of them could tell who had uttered it.

John and Nancy made steady progress into the west. Their journey so far had not been particularly difficult, though most of it had been made over ground not yet surveyed. They had fought with floaters and other carnivores a reasonable number of times, eaten the fruits of their victories when they felt hungry enough, and talked more or less incessantly. The talk was mostly speculation; they had learned more about the nature of their Teacher in the last few days than in the preceding sixteen years, but what they had learned seemed only to give rise to more questions. They were young enough to be surprised at this; hence the steady conversation, which was interrupted only by their reaching a region which seemed to match part of their map.

“We must have kept our direction pretty well,” Nancy said after comparing the hills around them to those indicated on the sheet. “We were trying to hit the mapped region about here,” she pointed, “and seem to be only a dozen miles to the north. Oliver mapped this place; it hasn’t changed enough to be really doubtful. We can head south, and be sure of ourselves in a few more miles.”

“All right,” agreed John. “You know, even if we are still a good many miles from either of our search areas, it wouldn’t actually hurt to keep our eyes open for the machine.”

Nancy sent the ripple that passed for a shrug flickering down her scales. “It’s hardly worth making a special effort. We’ll be able to see it miles away, if it’s as bright as Fagin said. I think we’d better concentrate on the map, just now, until we’re sure we’re where we’re supposed to be.”

“Fagin would have had something to say about that sentence,” muttered John, “but I suppose you’re right. Let’s get on.”

Two miles, twenty-five minutes, one brief fight, and one longisb quake later they were in a position to feel sure of themselves. Uniform as the solution-molded surface of Tenebra was, and rapid as its changes were, the present region matched the maps too closely to be coincidence. They spent a few minutes deciding whether it would be better to start gathering firewood for the night which was not too many hours away or move closer to their first search area so as to waste less time in the morning, settled on the second alternative, and went on.

Nightfall was even closer when they stopped simultaneously. Neither needed to speak, since it was quite evident to both that they had seen the same thing. Far to the south and somewhat to the west a light was shining.

For several seconds they stood looking at it. What they could see was not particularly brilliant—it was just enough to be noticeable; but light other than daylight on Tenebra can be explained only in a certain very few ways. So, at least, Fagin’s students supposed.

After a moment’s staring, they got out the maps once more and tried to judge where the source of the light might be. This was difficult, however, because it was next’to impossible to estimate the distance. The source itself was not directly visible, just the glow which fires, spotlights, and Altair itself produced in Tenebra’s soupy envelope. The direction was plain enough, but it seemed likely that the actual source was either outside mapped territory altogether or in the poorly covered region Nick had done during the trip which had discovered the cave village. It seemed equally likely that they could not possibly reach the place before rainfall, but after the briefest of discussions they agreed to start out.

The going was normal at first, but it gradually got rougher. This agreed with what they remembered of Nick’s report on his trip. They also recalled his mention of a life form which lived in holes and was dangerous to passers-by, but they encountered no sign of it just then. The light kept getting brighter, which was encouraging, but for several hours they failed to get any better idea of what was making it.