Hal Clement - Noise

“I know many of the tongues the people of the islands used when our ancestors were still on Earth. The captain has formed the habit of having me greet strangers first. The languages in the different cities of Kainui have changed through the years.”

“True. But how is it you’re so far south? It has been many years since we spoke to a crew from Muamoto.”

“Our original ship was lost, and we drifted with an unfamiliar metal-fish while the new one’s seed grew. That’s why our banners say that we don’t know some of what we’re carrying—at least, so the captain told me; I haven’t learned to read them myself. Perhaps you can tell us what we are carrying, and whether it’s worth the trouble. If not, maybe the people in the approaching ships can do it for us. We also have some iron, copper, and titanium.”

“If we can’t I doubt that they can. The ships are of our own city, Aorangi.”

“Your eyes are keen.” A compliment never hurt, even Mike knew.

“Not that keen. We recognize them because we expected them now.”

Mike was not as quick as some, but not entirely stupid. Something said earlier suddenly clicked into place in his mind.

“This is Aorangi where we are standing? On Mata we had not recognized it as a city, though we made the opposite mistake about some other coral-and-ice structures we met farther north.” The listeners seemed more amused than indignant, Mike noted with some relief. “I—we had never thought of using ice for anything that big. You must have grown it much farther south than this. Might I ask why you are so far from the pole now? Isn’t the sea here pretty warm for your city?”

Glances were exchanged among the others, and Hinemoa’s answer was hesitant.

“The reason is somewhat embarrassing. It has to do with faulty rigging.”

“I apologize, and will restrain my curiosity. I assume you are now heading south intentionally.”

Actually, Hoani had been able to read a good deal into Hinemoa’s words. For one thing, she was speaking the least altered Maori that he had so far heard on the planet. The term “rigging” meant a great deal more to him now than it had before Malolo ’s session with current-riding and controllable sea anchors. Aorangi might be a good deal more maneuverable than any of the floating metropoli nearer the equator. Why? More specifically, why would the ability be useful? Was there something about the polar regions that made precise position of importance to a city and its inhabitants? Was the city’s ice-based construction a cause, an effect, or a coincidence?

Also, was Hinemoa telling the whole truth? If the ships now drawing near were making a rendezvous planned in advance, how could the planning have been worked? Hinemoa had claimed, or at least implied, that the city had been out of full control long enough to get this far north—so far north that it was losing a lot of its structure to melting. Could that possibly be true?

Quite suddenly, in spite of Wanaka’s permission to be frank, Mike began to feel just a little uneasy. One of her hopes, that of getting the traders of the approaching ships to bid against the people of the iceberg for her cargo, seemed gone (well, maybe not; traders were likely to be traders rather than government agents). There was still no evidence that the people of Aorangi were piratically inclined, but Mike suddenly felt uneasy. He decided to pass the conversational buck to the captain. She might know no more about this city and its people than he did, but at least she knew the planet’s general customs that, considering the universal trading background, were probably fairly uniform. She should certainly have a clearer idea than did Mike of just where the boundary between ordinary trading and piracy generally lay.

He hoped.

He shifted the conversation as unobtrusively as he could back to the question of Mata ’s cargo. Hinemoa and all her companions listened intently as Mike described the metal-fish where they had spent so much time while their replacement ship was growing. Some of the details were accepted with no visible surprise, though fairly obvious interest, including the fact that vast amounts of drinkable water were produced compared to the tiny amount of metal, the location of metal pods in the same pockets as the water, and the fact that so few of the pockets contained metal at all. It began to look as though Wanaka’s cargo might have only curiosity value here; none of the listeners seemed ready to suggest what it might be.

“I’ll ask the captain to bring a pod for you to see,” he finally said. He turned, took a couple of steps toward the water, and called out the suggestion.

“They can’t identify the metal from my description. We’d better show them a sample.” Wanaka nodded and spoke to the child, who disappeared briefly into a hold and returned with one of the pods, which she proffered to the captain. The latter gestured that she should keep it, said a few words inaudible to Mike over the thunder but apparently telling the child to accompany her ashore. Both flipped their helmets closed and stepped from Mata ’s deck. The child had to swim, of course, but her burden didn’t seem to interfere.

Mike suddenly suspected what had caused the disturbance when he had come ashore himself; he had waded in open water with his helmet unclipped. The space had, it was true, been narrow enough to cross in a few steps, but he wondered how many points that would have cost him with Wanaka, and what the natives of the ice city had thought. The latter, he suspected, might have the more serious effect. He hoped his alien origin might be regarded as an excuse, but didn’t dare count on it.

Kainui’s people were not, as far as he had been able to tell, any more xenophobic than his own; but it might be unsafe to assume they were much less, and human beings have a tendency to be less tolerant of, or at least less empathetic toward, actions they regard as stupid than toward merely hostile ones.

’Ao, who had carried the pod ashore, now handed it to Wanaka, who held it up to give the local group its first close look. They had appeared expectant, Mike judged; now their talk stopped completely, though he was slow to realize that the cause was irrelevant to the specimen. One of the group gave a loud call, and pointed out to sea. Mike let his own gaze follow.

There were now seven of the local ships in sight, not four. More interesting, a wave two or three meters high was sweeping in just beyond the three newcomers; and as everyone watched, the eight vessels including Mata were lifted on it and borne toward the berg, swept past the watchers on the ice hummock, and came to rest in what had just become a shallow bay.

The wave receded. Water poured back out the channel. The bay was now a lake. No one but Mike seemed in the least surprised; Wanaka, of course, had a trader’s face.

Personnel from the Aorangi ships slid overboard and waded toward the party on the hill, helmets open. Keo, the only one still aboard Mata , followed their example, but snapped his helmet shut before he went overside. The term “shallow water,” used outdoors, was to him among the silliest of oxymorons.

Wanaka, concealing any surprise she might have felt, now handed the pod to Hinemoa, and there was silence while it was passed around among the others. Each time it was handed along, a single word was uttered by the passer. Mike had trouble making it out over the background thunder; it sounded like waru , but he could see no relevance in the number eight.

The pod was returned to the captain, but she was none the wiser about its identity. She was able, with practically no help from Mike, to suggest that it might nevertheless be of some trading value. Hinemoa agreed.