Hal Clement - Noise

Everyone was helmeted at the moment. Mike flipped his own back when he did realize what had occurred, but no one could hear him—they might not have in the storm even if their own helmets had been off—and it was a minute or more before Keo saw him bareheaded and realized something must be wrong. By that time the cords were dipping deeply even at the cabin and hull ends, and the wake had vanished. Malolo had clearly ceased to buck the surface current.

Keo was at Mike’s side, helmet also flipped back, in a few seconds, and seemed to understand the situation. He selected the line connected to the upper corner of the smaller sail, removed it from Hoani’s grasp, and pulled on it hard. There was no obvious result; certainly the slope of the remaining lines did not improve. After perhaps half a minute Keo relinquished his hold on the cord and casually dropped it into the sea. Then he took one of the lower-spar ones and, yelling that Mike should follow his example with the one left to him, began hauling it in. By then it was fairly evident even to the passenger that the whole system had dipped too low, bitten too much into the deep current, and would have to be pulled up and realigned. He wondered whether anything had actually torn loose, but saw no sign of cordage, booms, or sails on the surface.

Meter after meter of tow line came in. Mike’s stronger arms brought his side along more rapidly, and his corner of the big sail brought up against the deck and was stopped by its guide ring before Keo had finished with his. The native didn’t seem bothered by this. When his own line was in he handed it also to Mike, and bellowed as loudly as he could over the thunder and hail, “Hold ’em both. When I wave hard, up and down, start letting them out together. And I mean together .” Without waiting for an answer, he flipped on his helmet and dived toward the deck half a dozen meters away.

The captain and the child had by this time realized what was happening, but continued with their own duties. Mike realized that there was now no relative current to sweep a swimmer away, and wondered whether Keo had thought about that problem when the sea anchor would be back in place. He would probably not have dared say anything even had it been possible, but couldn’t keep the thought entirely out of his mind, since even the most professional of professionals sometimes slips up. There seemed nothing to do, however, but keep tight hold of both lines as he had been ordered, and a close eye on the swimmer.

The latter soon ceased to be possible; Keo dived before he reached the deck, and was gone for several minutes. Mike could feel occasional tugs, first on one of his lines and then on the other, so he didn’t worry as badly as he might have; but when the mate appeared well over a hundred meters beyond the deck—the blinding hail had almost ceased for the moment—the relief at seeing him at all greatly outweighed any anxiety over his distance. The latter feeling disappeared completely when it became obvious that the swimmer was still in contact. At least, he was clearly holding on to a cord, and gradually a sail itself became visible between him and the deck. It must be the small one; its backup float line could just be seen at its far corner, and Mike now realized that the two sinkers at the ends of the larger sail’s boom were also against the edge of the deck where the control lines he was still holding entered the sea.

Keo now began pulling himself closer hand over hand. He reached the appropriate sail corner quickly enough and seemed to be examining something for a moment; then he let go of everything and began to swim toward where Mike crouched at the rear of the cabin. The two lines Hoani was holding were too far apart at the deck to be reached by one person at the same time, and he appreciated Keokolo’s thoughtfulness. His climbing along one of them would have made it very hard to keep the pair paid out equally as his order had implied.

Of course, Keo might merely have distrusted Mike’s ability to manage both. The latter decided, of course, not to ask about this when the swimmer clambered up beside him.

“A float got popped by something,” Keo reported as his helmet flipped back. He added a short phrase composed entirely of words unfamiliar to the other. “Nothing we can blame on you, Mike. We’ll have to make another as soon as possible. Belay your lines where they are. You might as well go inside and charge up your breather while I get something from the cargo line. I wonder if Wanaka will be able to bring herself to dump a unit of iron.”

The implication here was obvious enough; the float from one of the cargo units would have to be put to a new use. Mike said nothing as Keo reentered the sea.

Neither did Wanaka, now close enough to have heard the mate and with her helmet off. Her attenion was otherwise occupied. She gestured ’Ao to approach, and issued some instructions in Finger. She pointed first, which helped the man tell that the orders concerned the floating seedling, but his increasing grasp of the gesture language was not yet up to getting all the details. Apparently she was supposed to take care of it somehow, but Mike had no idea of what danger it might be in.

The child entered the water and flippered toward the little torpedo shape while pulling the now slack line that had been towing it. Reaching her goal, she submerged with it, and Hoani lost track of both in the once more rising storm. He returned his attention to the mate while the latter freed an iron unit from the cargo line and brought it back to the cabin. He received, rather to his surprise, a nod of appreciation from the other; he had expected his watchfulness to be taken for granted. The nod was not accompanied by words as thunder still discouraged speech even out of water, but a few gestures got across; Mike obediently belayed both the cords he had been holding, appreciating Keo’s failure to check his knots, and accompanied the latter to the air lock.

Keo insisted by a few Finger symbols and some less formal gestures that Mike use it first, but they were both inside the cabin in moments. The captain stayed outside for obvious reasons. ’Ao had not yet reappeared. Keo kept silent, busy detaching the float from the unit he had brought in. This seemed not to be a very demanding task, and Mike ventured to ask what ’Ao had been told to do.

“She’s under the cabin, keeping the new ship from the hail and making certain nothing happens to its tow line. The danger isn’t really very great, but that’s the only ship seed we have. If we lose it, we have a long swim in a direction we’d have to guess.”

“I suppose the captain is watching the kid, then.”

“Probably not. ’Ao knows what’s going on. She’s no more immune to mistakes than either of us, but Wanaka has a lot of other things to do. So have we. Could you check our life support while I’m at this? I’ll have to go outside again to install this float as soon as it’s ready, because right now there’s no way to maneuver if a spout crowds us. I won’t be able to watch you, but I know the little one has shown you about some of it, at least.”

Hoani nodded and complied. The psuedoliving intake stage oxidized carbon monoxide with sodium peroxide from the “leaf,” getting enough energy from the process to feed its own intake pump. This kept the inside pressure slightly above Kainui normal even after the carbon dioxide had also been precipitated. There was no reliable way to keep even self-healing machinery completely leakproof, and it was much more than merely desirable that all leakage be outward. Given the length of a typical human generation, it would be a long, long time before the Kainuian human subspecies’ tolerance for CO increased usefully.

Keo had left long before Mike finished his assignment.