Hal Clement - Close to Critical

“Don’t let them stop trying!” the first one said earnestly. “Get down everything they say and relay it to us, whether you understand it or not. And we were going to use Raeker’s students to learn the crustal dynamics of this planet!”

This irrelevance was the last straw, as far as Aminadabarlee was concerned. Without regard to rules of courtesy, either human or Drommian, he plowed into the communications room, his streamlined form dividing the human occupants as a ship divides water. He brought up in front of the screen and, looking past Easy’s imaged face as though the girl were not there, he burst into an ear-hurting babble of his own language, directed at his son. None of the men interrupted; the creature’s size and the ten-clawed limbs would have given most of them ideas of caution even if they had known nothing of Drommians. As it was, Councillor Rich had spread some very impressive bits of information through the complement of the Vindemiatrix, so ideas weren’t necessary.

The shrill sounds were punctuated by others from the speaker; apparently the son was trying to get an occasional word into the conversation. He failed, however; the older being’s speech only stopped when he appeared to have run out of words to say. Then it was not Aminadorneldo who answered.

It was Easy, and she answered in her own language, since even her vocal cords couldn’t handle Drommian speech.

“We’ve already told him, sir. Dr. Raeker asked me to let you know when you showed up; you had just left his room when we got the information to him, and I didn’t see you until just now. He’s told Nick, and the boat should be as close as they can bring it on the sea well before night. They’ll start to bring it inland then; Swift says they should be able to see our lights from the sea, so the robot has started back to the camp to meet the others and start them on the way here.”

The Drommian seemed stunned, but remembered enough of his manners to shift languages.

“You had already asked Swift to tell the way from the camp to where you are?” he asked rather lamely.

“Oh, yes. ’Mina thought of it some time ago. I should have told Dr. Raeker or one of you sooner.” The news that it had been his son’s idea calmed Aminadabarlee considerably; privately, most of the men in the room wondered how much truth the girl was speaking. They knew the effective age of the young Drommian, and they were coming to know Easy.

“How long will it take to get to you—for Nick, that is?” asked Aminadabarlee.

“Swift thinks by mid-afternoon, on foot; he doesn’t know how fast the boat goes, though.”

“Did you tell him about the boat?”

“Of course. He was wondering how he could get over closer to the ship here; this pool we’re in the middle of is too deep for his people to wade, and they don’t seem to swim. I suggested floating over on a raft made of wood, but the wood on this crazy planet sinks, we found out.”

“You seem to be getting in a lot of talk with those people. Are you really good at their language?”

“Pretty good, but we’re still very slow. If there’s anything you want to ask Swift, though, let’s have it.”

“No—nothing right now,” said the Drommian hastily. “You didn’t suggest that your friend Swift make a raft of the sort Nick has?”

“I did, but he can’t do it. His people can get all the skins they’d need, of course, but they can’t make tight enough—I was going to say air-tight—bags out of them. They don’t know how to make the glue Nick used, and neither do I. He’s waiting until Nick gets here with the boat.”

“And then will take it away from him, of course.”

“Oh, no. He has nothing against Nick. I’ve told him who Nick is—how the robot stole the eggs from the place where Swift’s people leave them to hatch. I think he may be a little mad at the robot, but that’s all right. I’ve said I’d teach him anything he wanted to know, and that Nick had learned a lot and would help. We’re getting along very well.” The Drommian was startled, and showed it.

“Did Dr. Raeker suggest all this to you?”

“Oh, no; I thought of it myself—or rather, ’Mina and I did. It seemed smartest to be friends with these cave people; they might not be able to hurt the ship if they got mad at us, but we couldn’t be sure.”

“I see.” Aminadabarlee was a trifle dazed. He ended the conversation casually and courteously—he had never used toward Easy the mannerisms which were so natural with him when he talked to other human beings—and started to make his way back to Raeker’s observation room. The scientists were questioning the girl once more before he was out of the room.

He seemed to be fated to choose bad times to move, that day. He had been in the corridors when Easy had given the bathyscaphe’s location to Raeker and Nick; he was in them when the four explorers who had discovered the volcano returned and made their report to their teacher. He had stopped to eat, as a matter of fact, and didn’t get back to the observation room until the report was finished. By that time the four natives and the robot were heading south with the cart in tow, answering a ceaseless flood of questions from the scientists, some of whom had been content to use the relay system while others had come down to the observation room, The bewildered Drommian found the latter compartment almost as crowded as the communication room had been a while earlier, and it took him some tune to get up to date from the questions and comments flying around.

“Maybe we could get the distance by triangulation— the wind at camp and ’scaphe must be blowing right toward it.”

“But we don’t know absolute directions at either place. Besides, the wind might be deflected by Coriolis action.”

“Not much, on a world like Tenebra. You have it backward, though; the mountain is already on the maps. With a little more data we could use the wind direction to pin down the ’scaphe—That was what the Drommian heard as he came in; it confused him badly. A little later, when he had deduced the existence of the volcano, it made a little more sense; he could see how such a source of heat could set up currents even in Tenebra’s brutally compressed envelope. By then it was another question that was perturbing him.

“How strong do you suppose the wind will get? If it brings the sea farther inland each night, and the sea carries the bathyscaphe with it, how close will those kids be carried to the volcano?”

“I don’t think we need worry for quite a while. Wind or no wind, the sea that far inland will be mostly water, and won’t float them very far. I’ll bet if that thing keeps on, too, there won’t even be liquid water wihin miles of it, by night or day.”

“Liquid or gas, it might still move the ship. The difference in density isn’t worth mentioning.”

“The difference in viscosity is.” Aminadabarlee heard no more of that one, either; it had given him something to worry about, and he was good at worrying. He started back to the communicating room at top speed, which for him was high; he didn’t want anything else to happen while he was out of touch. He managed to reach his goal without hurting anyone, though there was a narrow escape or two as his long form flashed along the corridors.

The scientists had left Easy for the new attraction, and the bathyscaphe screen was blank for the moment. Aminadabarlee didn’t pause to wonder whether the children were asleep or just talking to the cave-dwellers; also, he didn’t stop to wonder whether the question he had in mind should be mentioned in their hearing or not. He would have berated Raeker soundly for such a thing; but this, of course, was different.

“Miss Rich! ’Mina!” he shrilled unceremoniously into the microphone. For a minute or so there was no answer, and he repeated the call with what another member of his race would have recognized as overtones of impatience. Few human beings would have caught any difference from his normal tones. This time Easy appeared on the screen rubbing sleep out of her eyes, a gesture which either meant nothing to him or which he chose to ignore.