Hal Clement - Noise

’Ao accompanied Hoani. So did Keokolo. Safety lines connected them—’Ao and Keo to Mike, the heaviest—but not to the ship, where Wanaka remained. The three reached the nearly level area that Mike had examined earlier and took turns applying the lens to the rods of coral that were close enough to the ice surface to be inside its focus. None could see anything running from any one of them to another; either the connections, if they existed at all, were too fine to be seen, or were of some more subtle type. All of them, including ’Ao, were familiar enough with pseudobiology to know the possibility of solute gradients around one “organ” controlling the growth and even the orientation of the next. They finally reported their lack of success, and even the obvious conclusions, to the captain, and without consulting either her or each other began to climb. Mike used the spicules he had collected earlier as ice axes. Keo and the child imitated him with ones they had picked up from the sea before climbing aboard the berg.

’Ao went first, again without any discussion. It was obviously safer for the far heavier men to be in a position to stop her if she slipped, though this may not have been her main reason for displaying her superior agility.

They had estimated the height of the object very roughly as four hundred meters. As they climbed, Mike felt more and more certain that it was a good deal less; the viewpoint from below had been deceptive.

Unless, of course, it was the viewpoint from above.

There was no way to determine yet the object’s horizontal dimensions since they had seen it from only one direction, though all of them held a vague mental image that assumed it to be roughly circular and therefore, from the visible curvature, something like a kilometer across.

It quickly appeared that ’Ao might be hoping to settle this point by reaching the top as quickly as possible. Somehow she was managing to keep her feet and practically run. However, the length of her safety line to Mike soon restrained her.

He sympathized but continued to crawl as before, using his coral tools carefully. He glanced back at the ship from time to time, but they were already out of reach of Finger communication or, except for occasional brief moments, voice. Thunder remained as usual.

So, it suddenly occurred to Mike, did lightning. Four hundred meters up might be within that danger zone; perhaps getting to the top wouldn’t be such a good idea. After waiting a short time in the hope that the other would mention it first, he finally suggested this to Keo, who agreed at once. Hoani was never sure whether the point had simply not occurred to the mate or whether he, too, had been waiting for his companion to speak.

Of course, both of them had had much of their attention on travel-and-traction problems. On Earth, something like lightning calls for thought or attention at specific times ; on Kainui, it’s at all times when far enough above the sea. Very seldom during a voyage does one get that far above sea level, and traveling up an ice slope tends to focus the climber’s attention on other matters.

Focus it too hard, apparently. When the men stopped and looked up to see how far above them ’Ao might be, the child was not in sight.

They weren’t worried at first. It was not the first time; the surface was very irregular, much less rounded than Mike had thought from below, and occasional humps and hollows had repeatedly put one or another of them out of the others’ line of direct vision. Even Mata could not always be seen. However, the safety line still led upward, and a very gentle tug on it presumably caught ’Ao’s attention; it was returned at once.

Perhaps it had not been quite gentle enough, however, though the possibility was not at once evident to either man. As well as attracting her notice, it might also have overloaded the girl’s already feeble friction connection with the ice. For whatever reason, she began to slip toward them.

It was two or three seconds before this became evident below, and then not as a result of sight. Mike felt the safety line slacken and took it up gently so as to maintain communication; but almost at once he realized that gently wasn’t working.

“She’s falling! Get ready to stop her as she goes by!” he bellowed as loudly as he could. Keo heard him, locked himself in position with one point, and held the other ready to stab into the ice and pull him in whatever direction might be needed. His own location at the moment was on a fairly level stretch at the foot of a steeper-than-usual slope; maybe the little one would appear directly above him, but he was as ready as possible to shift either way. Mike, on a slightly steeper area ahead and to one side, was in a poorer position for this, but did his best while also trying to get the slack out of the child’s safety line. He didn’t dare pull too hard; it might interfere with any efforts she might be making to stop herself. Just how fast was the poor kid coming, anyway? Would it be possible for either of the men, or both together, to stop her? Or would all three end up whirling helplessly into the sea?

Keo, Mike noticed, had already seized a moment to flip his helmet shut. Should he do the same? No. Stopping ’Ao was more important; when they all were going down together there’d be plenty of time for helmets. The sea was now several hundred meters away. He lacked Kainui reflexes, and was just as glad of it.

He felt tension on his rope and eased his pull. Then he stopped pulling altogether; the slack had disappeared. She’d stopped herself.

Or had been stopped by something.

“Keo! She’s stopped coming! We’d better get up this slope and find out why!” The mate flipped his helmet back to answer vocally.

“Hoping all the time she sticks her head over the edge and tells us.”

“She’s been stopped for whole seconds. Don’t wait for that!”

Keo nodded, and the two resumed clawing their way upward. Mike, by far the heavier, began to fall behind. Then the mate’s grip failed at an especially steep point, and he slid back almost to Hoani’s level before getting his coral spikes to hold again. This happened twice more before they reached the edge of the shelf or bulge or whatever it was that was blocking their upward view; even on ice, lower weight gives poorer traction when the local temperature is close to freezing.

Or does it? Should it? Mike’s mind started to wander slightly in spite of the situation, though not badly enough to interfere with his climbing, and was pulled back to reality only when he could see where ’Ao’s rope was leading. The men came almost at the same moment to the top of the slope, and found themselves looking slightly downward onto an almost white, nearly circular level area some ten meters across. A little beyond the center from where they were looking, ’Ao was getting to her feet. Her noise armor appeared intact, and the child herself unhurt.

She saw them the moment their heads appeared and spoke in Finger—the thunder was too much at the moment for even the half-dozen meters separating them.

“Sorry if I scared you. I slipped up there”—she gestured up the slope, which resumed even more steeply on the far side of the circle—“and couldn’t stop ’til I hit this level. It looks funny, doesn’t it? Like a lot of hailstones piled up on the deck before I could clear them off.”

Mike decided that if she could ignore what had just happened, he might as well do the same. He had intended to apologize for pulling her off her feet with the safety line, but of course he couldn’t be sure that was what had actually occurred. The coincidence of pull and fall could have been just that, after all; he hadn’t been able to see her.

Also, her remark about the surface she was standing on seemed to deserve attention. The men pulled themselves over the low rim that surrounded the nearer half of the level area, but didn’t bother to stand up; they could examine the surface better from a near-prone position.