Hal Clement - Close to Critical

He was cut off, but not by words. A rending crash sounded from the speaker, and a number of loose objects visible on the screen jerked abruptly toward a near wall. They struck it loudly and rebounded, but without obeying the laws of reflection. They all bounced the same way— in the direction which Raeker recognized with a sinking feeling as that of the tender’s air lock. A book flew past the pickup area in the same direction, and struck a metal instrument traveling more slowly.

But this collision went unheard. No more sound came from the speaker; the tender was silent, with the silence of airlessness.

Nick Chopper stood in the doorway of his hut and thought furiously. Behind him the seven other survivors of the raid lay hi various stages of disrepair. Nick himself was not entirely unscathed, but he was still able to walk— and, if necessary, fight, he told himself grimly. All of the others except Jim and Nancy would be out of useful action for several days at least.

He supposed that Fagin had been right hi yielding to Swift as he had; at least, the savage had kept his word about letting Nick collect and care for his wounded friends. Every time Nick thought of the attack, however, or even of Swift, he felt like resuming the war. It would have given him intense pleasure to remove Swift’s scales one by one and use them to shingle a hut in full view of their owner.

He was not merely brooding, however; he was really thinking. For the first time hi a good many years, he was questioning seriously a decision of Fagin’s. It seemed ridiculous that the Teacher could get away from the cave village without help; he hadn’t been able to fight Swift’s people during the attack, and if he had any powers Nick didn’t know about that was certainly the time to use them. Getting away at night didn’t count; he’d be tracked and caught first thing in the morning.

But wait a minute. What could the cave-dwellers actually do to Fagin? The hard white stuff the Teacher was covered with—or made out of, for all Nick knew—might be proof against knives and spears; the point had never occurred to Nick or any of his friends. Maybe that was why Fagin was being so meek now, when his people could be hurt; maybe he planned to act more constructively when he was alone.

It would be nice to be able to talk it over with the Teacher without Swift’s interference. Of course, the chief couldn’t eavesdrop very effectively, since he couldn’t understand English, but he would know that a conference was going on, and would be in a pretty good position to block any activity planned therein. If it were practical to get Swift out of hearing—but if that were possible, the whole thing would be solved anyway. The meat of the problem was the fact that Swift couldn’t be handled.

Of course, it was night, and therefore raining. The invaders were being protected by the village fires, at the moment; however, Nick reflected, no one was protecting the fires themselves. He glanced upward at the thirty- to fifty-foot raindrops drifting endlessly out of the black sky, following one of them down to a point perhaps three hundred yards above his head. There it vanished, fading out in ghostly fashion as it encountered the updraft from the village fires. It was not the drops straight overhead which were troublesome—not to Fagin’s village.

Another, larger drop beyond the glowing protective double ring accomplished more. It settled to the ground fifty yards beyond one of the outer fires. The ground had been cooled enough by its predecessors to let it remain liquid, so for a short time it was visible as it drifted toward the blaze under the impulse of the fires’ own convection currents. Then radiated heat made it fade out; but Nick knew it was still there. It had been crystal clear, free of suspended oxygen bubbles; it was now pure steam, equally free of combustion’s prime necessity. Nick would have nodded in satisfaction, had his head been capable of free movement, when the fire in the path of the invisible cloud suddenly began to cool and within a few seconds faded from visibility.

If any of the attackers noticed the incident, they certainly did nothing. None of them moved, and the fire remained out. Five seconds later Nick had his plan worked out.

He emerged fully from the hut and walked over to the main fuel magazine. Here he loaded himself with as much as he could carry, and took it back to the building where the wounded were lying. None of the raiders stopped or questioned him; none had spoken to him since the truce had been concluded. Inside the hut, he quickly built and lighted a fire. When it had come to an even glow he lighted a torch from it and walked back to the woodpile. Casually he stuck the cold end of the torch into the pile, as though to illuminate his work; then he made several more trips carrying fuel to the hut, leaving the torch where he had placed it. Eventually the building could hold no more wood, so he ceased his labor.

But he left the torch.

Tenebran wood glows like punk; it does not flame. It took some time for the stick to burn down to its base, and still longer before the increase in brilliancy of the region around the village showed that the main stack had properly caught. Even then, there was no reaction from the invaders. These had gathered into a tight group surrounding the robot, which had remained in its usual position at the center of the village.

By this time, more than half of the peripheral fires were out, most of them in the outer ring. One or two of the inner ring had also been smothered, and Nick began to get an impression of uneasiness from the clustered cave-dwellers. When the last of the outer fires died, a mutter began to grow from their ranks, and Nick chuckled to himself. Swift just might have a little trouble handling his men as their protection from the rain vanished, and no caves were available. If the muttering continued, the chief would certainly have to take some action; and all he could do, as far as Nick could see, would be to ask Nick himself for help. That should put quite a dent in his authority.

But Nick had underestimated the big fellow. From the vicinity of the robot his voice suddenly rapped out a series of orders; and obediently a dozen of his men ran from the outskirts of the group toward one of the fires which was still burning. There, to Nick’s disgust, they seized sticks from the small woodpile at its side, lighted their ends, carried the torches to the dead fires, and rekindled these without the slightest difficulty. Evidently the cave-dwellers didn’t sleep all night in their holes; someone had watched his fire-technique long enough to get at least some of the idea. If they also knew about replenishing… They did. More wood was being put on all the fires. Nick noted with satisfaction, however, that it was far too much wood; he wouldn’t have to wait too long before the small woodpiles beside each fire were extinguished. The cave-dwellers seemed to have taken the now fiercely glowing main pile as another bonfire; Swift was going to have to do some fast thinking when the reserves disappeared.

This he proved able to do. It was fortunate that Nick had been able to keep awake, for Swift’s men did not announce their coming. They simply came.

They were unarmed, rather to Nick’s surprise, but they approached the hut door without hesitation, almost as though they expected him to stand aside for them. When he didn’t, they stopped, the foremost half a spear’s length away. He may have intended to say something, but Nick spoke first.

“What do you want? My friends are all wounded and can’t help you. There is no room in the hut. Go to the others, if you want shelter.”

“Swift sent us for wood.” It was a calm statement, with no “or else” concealed in it, as far as Nick could tell by the tone.