Hal Clement - Close to Critical

The climb bore some resemblance to a scientific experiment, in that its completion eliminated both of the hypotheses and left them completely without ideas for a moment. It was only for a moment however; as the two loomed up beside the small fire, which had quite obviously been laid by intelligent hands, a shout sounded from the next hilltop, three hundred yards away.

“John! Nancy! Where did you come from?” The startled investigators recognized simultaneously the voice of Oliver and the fact that they had been a little hasty in eliminating possibilities; obviously they had missed a trail, since neither Oliver nor Dorothy could fly. Neither said anything about it aloud; each decided in private that the different vegetation of the area was responsible.

When Oliver and his companion came back to the fire from the separate hilltops to which they had taken on sighting John’s torch, it quickly transpired that they, too, had seen the light of the volcano and had come to investigate it. Their adventures had been very similar to those of John and Nancy, except that neither of them had tried hiding in raindrops. Oliver and Dorothy had been an hour or so ahead of the others, and had found a good supply of fuel, so they were well set for the night.

“I’ll bet Jim and Jane will be with us before the night’s over,” remarked Nancy when both parties had completed thek exchange of information. “Their search areas were even closer to this place than yours, Oliver, and unless they went ’way off course coming across country they must have seen the big light, too.”

“Maybe they thought it was better to stick to their assigned job,” remarked John.

“Isn’t investigating bright lights part of the job?” retorted his partner. “As for me, if they’re not here in an hour or two I’m going to start worrying about them. This fire-hill couldn’t possibly be missed or ignored, and you know it.”

No one had a suitable answer for this, but no one was really impressed by the reasoning, since they had all spent some time in discussion before coming to check the mountain. At any rate, the hours passed without the predicted appearance. If Nancy was worrying, she failed to show it; certainly none of the others were. It was a very quiet night, and there was nothing to worry about. The hours were passing, but that was normal; the light was getting brighter, but there was the peculiar hill to account for that; the rain was decreasing, but the hill might account for that, too. The fire was using up its fuel with unusual speed, but there was plenty of fuel. Doubtless the wind was responsible—none of them had ever experienced such a wind, and an air current one could actually feel would no doubt do many queer things. The four explorers stood by their fire and dozed, while the wind grew fiercer.

“Daddy! Dr. Raeker! ’Mina’s right; it’s Nick!” Easy’s voice was close to hysteria. The men glanced at each other, worried frowns on their faces. Rich gestured that Raeker should do the answering, but his expression pleaded eloquently for care. Raeker nodded, and closed his own microphone switch.

“Are you sure it’s actually Nick, Easy?” he asked in as matter-of-fact a voice as he could manage. “He’s supposed to have stayed at the camp, you know. There are six others actually searching, supposedly in pairs; do you see two of them, there?”

“No,” replied Easy in a much calmer voice. Her father sank back in his chair with a thankful expression on his face. “There was only one, and I saw him just for a second. Wait—there he is again.” Raeker wished he could see the girl’s face, but she was shouting her messages from one of the observing chambers and was well out of pickup range of the vision transmitter. “I can still see only one of them, and he’s mostly hidden in the bushes—just his head and shoulders, if you can call them that, sticking up. He’s coming closer now. He must see the ’scaphe, though I can’t tell where he’s looking, or what he’s looking with. I’m not sure whether he’s the same size, but he certainly is the same shape. I don’t see how you’d ever tell them apart.”

“It isn’t easy,” replied Raeker. “After a few years, you find there are differences in their scale and spine arrangements something like the differences in human faces. Maybe you can tell me what this one is wearing and carrying; that should be a lot easier to describe.”

“All right. He has a sort of haversack slung over what would be his right hip if he had any hips; it’s held by a strap running up around the other side of his body, over the arms on the left. The front of the sack has a knife hanging from it, and I think there’s another on a sort of complex strap arrangement on the other side, but he’s been working toward us at an angle and we haven’t had a good look at that side. He’s carrying four spears that look just like the ones Nick and his people had, and the more I see of him the more he looks like them.”

“Does he have an axe, or anything looking like one?” asked Raeker.

“If he has, it’s hanging from his straps at the left rear, where we can’t see it.”

“Then I’m afraid you’re going to have to make good on your claim that you can get on all right with Swift’s people. Mine carry only two spears, and the search teams took their axes with them. If that were one of our searchers he’d have an axe in one of his left hands, almost certainly. That means we’ll have to change our plans a bit; we were hoping our folks would find you first. That’s just luck; I suppose this is some hunter of Swift’s. They’d hardly have had time to get an organized search going, even if he decided to run one on his own.”

“Isn’t it going to be a long time before any of your search teams get back to the camp?” asked Easy after some seconds of thought.

“I’m afraid so; over a week of our time. Swift’s answer should be back to Nick before then, though.”

“I wish the time didn’t stretch out so on this darned four-days-for-one world. Didn’t I hear you say you’d learned a little of Swift’s language during the time he had the robot at his caves?”

“We did. Not very much, though; it’s extremely hard for a human being to pronounce. We recorded a lot of it; we can give you the sounds, and as much as we could get of the meaning, if you think it will be any help. It’ll help time to pass, anyway.”

Easy’s face appeared in the screen, wearing an impish expression.

“I’m sure it will be very helpful. Won’t it, Daddy?”

Even Rich was grinning. “It will, Daughter. She’ll learn any language she can pronounce nearly as fast as you can give it to her, Doctor.”

“Really? I’ve never heard her talk anything but English to her young friend there.”

“What human being can pronounce Drommian? She understands it as well as I do, though.”

“Well, I wouldn’t bet very much that she could pronounce Tenebran, either. It’s got some sort of pitch-inflected grammar, and a lot of the pitch is above human vocal range. Of course, she’s young and female, but I’ll bet she confines herself to understanding.”

“You may be right. Hadn’t we better get back to the matter in hand? What’s that native doing now, Daughter?”

“He’s walking around, thirty or forty yards from the ’scaphe, looking it over, I suppose. If he’s seen us through the ports he hasn’t shown any sign of it. He’s still alone —I guess you’re right, Dr. Raeker; I remember you sent your people out in pairs, and if anything had happened to one of a pair the other would surely report back to camp before going on with the search.”

“I’m not sure you’re right there, but I am certain it’s one of Swift’s people,” replied Raeker. “Tell us when and if he does anything new.”