Hal Clement - Noise

The suns were still well up, and Mike suggested that they now follow Wanaka’s advice, or order, to separate. Keokolo could go back to their quarters, make a preliminary report, and come out again on his own if the captain wanted; Mike would get into conversations, which they hadn’t managed yet though it had not occurred to either of them that the locals might be avoiding them for some reason.

It did cross Hoani’s mind that by himself he might more plausibly be asking questions in a Kainuian city than when accompanied by one who was not obviously a stranger. It did not occur to him that at least some of the natives of Aorangi might hope that Mike himself might be more willing to talk about other cities on the planet, such as Muamoku, than would people who lived in them. His grasp of intercity attitudes and politics of Kainui was decidedly incomplete, though he was coming to understand Wanaka’s personality better every day. He also had, though in not too serious a form, the ordinary human tendency to stereotype—to assume, in this case, that he could talk to any citizen of Aorangi about any part of the city or aspect of its life and get informed and useful answers.

He had, of course, attracted the attention of the men he and Keo had been following. When he looked around alternately at the icescape and the tunnel entrance after the mate’s departure, simulating indecision about his next step, both of them approached him.

Neither seemed at all suspicious of anything, as far as Mike could tell. Certainly they were talkative enough and could tell him a great deal about Aorangi. It had indeed grown from a ship of that name, which had arrived on the antarctic ice cap. Its friction-heated hull had melted its way inward far enough to trap it when the water refroze, and the colonists had had no choice but to build where they were, using what was available in ship and surroundings. The latter, of course, had been mainly liquid and solid water, and heat energy at a rather low concentration. He asked about the cap, of which he had heard no details in Muamoku though it had been visible enough from space, and was told that for some degrees of latitude around the pole itself there was a continuous floating ice sheet, its edge disturbed by storms often enough and violently enough to form temporary inlets some kilometers in length, and to send floes drifting for large distances northward. Mike could see why this might call for maneuverability of any local vessels. Less happily, he could also see that it might call for speed. Escape might be even more difficult than Wanaka hoped. Some Aorangi lived on the cap in experimental stations, working on projects such as designing better ice-coral structures. The speakers had a low opinion of this work, which seemed to produce mostly expensive failures. Mike suspected a possible source for the deserted ice-coral masses they had encountered earlier.

“Is either of you a sailor?”

“No. We’re not much of anything; we graduate from messenger status in about half a year. There aren’t enough ships to need many sailors, and neither my cousin nor I like the idea of going to sea anyway.” This remark slightly jolted Mike’s stereotyping of Polynesians but opened another possibly useful line of questioning.

“Were you outside when we arrived today?”

“Yes. Watching a landing is interesting, and anyway we were both on salvage standby. Ships sometimes ground too hard when they land.” Mike jumped at the chance.

“How about when they leave?”

“That’s safer. The port is filling up then, so they rise instead of grounding.”

Mike was uncharacteristically quick on the uptake. “My captain will want to see that. She’ll probably need to be told just how to maneuver. Do you know when the next departure should be?”

“They launch at sunrise every day for the regular search.” Mike decided not to ask what was regularly being sought and surrendered the conversational ball. Maybe he had learned enough along that line already. Wanaka would certainly be interested.

“You’re from Muamoku, aren’t you?” asked one of the others.

“The captain and the others are. You can see I’m not from Kainui at all.”

“We’d noticed, yes. Does your world have oceans?”

“We call them that. They average only about four kilometers deep, and cover scarcely three-quarters of the planet. A major sailing problem there is to keep from running into land, or worse, into land that doesn’t show above the surface.”

This started a lengthy period of what would have been shop talk if any of the speakers had been sailors. Hoani might have learned more but decided not to ask further leading questions; he had already heard enough to demand deep and detailed thinking.

A mutual eclipse of the suns gave him a chance to change the subject, and after a brief description of the locally rare solar eclipses of Earth he bade his informants a casual farewell and entered the city. He did not quite need help finding Wanaka and Keo’s assigned living space, and in a relatively few minutes was reporting to her. Keo had gone out again.

The captain was thoughtful. “Sunrise. Just when I’m supposed to start auctioning, if I really am. Maybe I’d better see Hinemoa—but maybe I’m not supposed to know about this launch business; how do I get around that, I wonder?”

“I’d expect her to come to you, if there’s anything about the launch to affect the auction.”

“If another wave is going to come into that lake, it will affect where I have to lay out the metal. I think we’d all better be there awhile before sunrise and start setting up, and let her hold the tiller. Presumably something would have to be done to keep Mata from getting washed out with the others—or maybe—” She fell silent for fully a minute. “I’ll see her now and ask—no, tell her that I’ll need ’Ao at the ship half an hour before sunrise to help unload, and let her take it from there. You may as well get to your own quarters. Take care of your life support, sleep if you want. Keo or I will get you when we need you. No, wait. Stay here until he gets back, tell him what you told me and what I’m doing, then you’re on your own.”

The mate returned first, so Mike didn’t hear what might have transpired between Wanaka and Hinemoa. ’Ao wakened him, presumably the next morning although there seemed to be no clock in his quarters, by rapping on the coral door and calling his name. They were on the way to the city entrance, armored, within minutes.

The suns weren’t up yet, as Wanaka had planned. There were, however, people already at the lake, or port, or whatever it should be called, and one of these approached Mata ’s crew.

“Hinemoa advises that you bring your metal up there as quickly as you can, and then man your ship. We will be launching in a few minutes, there are no real mooring facilities, and it will probably be washed out with the others. Would you like help moving your metal?”

If there was any hesitation in the captain’s answer, Mike failed to spot it.

“No, thanks. We’ll do what we can before your launch. Give us five minutes’ warning and we’ll get aboard. Afterward, we’ll get out the rest, and see customers. Will that fit your routine?”

“Perfectly, I think. Hinemoa will arrive shortly, I expect.”

Mike and Keo began carrying pods of metal ashore. The only clue to what the captain had in mind was her brief order, in Finger, not to hurry, but not to dawdle obviously. They obeyed. Perhaps a fifth of Mata ’s gold had been off-loaded and a smaller amount of the other metals when a larger group appeared at the lake, Hinemoa among them, and the crews who had been readying the Aorangi ships stood to their posts. Someone ashore began what turned out to be a countdown, though the counts were fully half a minute apart. Wanaka was at Mata ’s tiller, the men were ready to hoist sail, but ’Ao had not yet taken her masthead post. One of the suns was just up, though not really visible through the haze.