Hal Clement - Noise

As far as the visitor could tell, it was simultaneous all around the opening, though he had no idea why this should be important. For several seconds nothing more happened. ’Ao’s hand remained steady—unbelievably so, to Mike. Then a ring-shaped film of tissue pouted away from the opening and contracted around the first three or four rows of hooks. ’Ao let go, and almost instantly the spiky “fish” was swallowed and the opening closed. Thirty seconds later the smaller bulge had flattened to match the curvature of the big one, and the child relaxed visibly.

The job was not quite done, it seemed; the two knowledgeable watchers kept on watching, and Mike followed their example.

Nothing really obvious happened for something like a quarter of an hour. Then the top of the big bulge began to sink, along with a meridian stripe now visible on each side of it. Soon even Mike could tell that the bulge was dividing, and guess what was happening. The meridional groove grew deeper and wider, and when its depth had reached ten or fifteen centimeters Keo rested a hand on the child’s armored shoulder and waved presumably toward Malolo , though Mike was no longer sure of direction. He did not yet keep mental track of the sister world or the suns as a matter of habit.

They began swimming. The dividing bulge vanished behind them and presently the ship could be seen ahead. The Terrestrial wondered, as he had several times in the last day or two, whether the Kainuian sense of direction was simply an incredible memory for details, a habit of keeping aware of the few visible celestial bodies, or something more subtle.

He had no reason to believe that there was any local technology unknown on the older human-inhabited worlds, and ordinary communication equipment worked very poorly indeed on this planet; the ubiquitous thunderheads and charged haze droplets blocked or quickly damped out all electromagnetic transmission of much longer wavelength than visible light, even when frequency modulated. Only Muamoku had lights bright enough to guide a space craft to a specific point on the surface from directly above; none of the other floating cities could, or wanted to, spare the energy. He had not asked Wanaka or Keo why even Muamoku bothered—probably the reasons were economic—and didn’t plan to. The miners might not know, and might dislike showing ignorance as much as Mike himself did. He had no wish to make himself unwelcome, at least until his own project was done. Tact, he often pointed out when the subject arose, would have been his middle name if he had had one, and to him tact meant talking as little as possible when he wasn’t sure what to say.

They climbed aboard and doffed helmets.

Keo redonned his again almost instantly, joined promptly by the captain and a little less so by Mike. Even he had felt the jar, feeble as it was, as something struck one of the hulls, but having no knowledge of the appropriate response he imitated the rest.

The helmets, unlike the rest of the armor, were extremely transparent; how they were soundproof at the same time was a question Mike had not considered. Even now, it simply flashed through his mind as a suggestion that Kainuian technology might have something to offer after all; right now the fact that he couldn’t read the captain’s lips because of her breathing mask and was still left out of the conversation by his ignorance of Finger was his principal conscious thought. He could only guess at her orders by the actions of the crew.

“Mike, hold a safety line for ’Ao. I’ll take Keo’s.” That was obvious enough from what she did with the ropes. “’Ao, starboard hull; Keo, port. One quick runover, then repeat with all possible care, covering as much as you can while there’s daylight. Start from the stern.”

The child seized the end of the light rope the captain was holding out to her, clipped one end to her belt, threw her doll at one of the mast’s climbing rungs that it caught firmly, and disappeared overboard. By the time Mike had secured a good grip on his end of the line and decided it was long enough to let her reach both bow and stern of the thirty-meter hull if he stayed amidships, Keokolo had gone also. Mike looked questioningly at the captain.

She hesitated a moment, then removed her helmet. He assumed it was permissible for him to do the same, and heard the endless thunder once more. Wanaka’s voice came over it; he had not had to ask any question.

“It could be any of several things,” she said. “We’re still drifting, so we didn’t run into anything small—not that hard; we did feel the impact. We’d have seen anything really large on the surface, like floating coral. The most worrisome guess is a tracer, something jammed against the ship deliberately which will emit chemicals a smeller can follow. It’s not quite the most likely explanation; usually, such a gadget would attach itself too quietly for us to notice.”

“Why would it be done at all?” asked Mike.

“There are people who have a one-sided idea of what trading means. Not many of them, because cargo is always printed when one takes it aboard—”

“Printed?”

“Scented might be a better word. Identified with the growth code of the harvesting ship. I took care of that as each iron pod came aboard. If anyone took some of it without our consent, the fact could be proved.”

“Not the water?”

“No. That or oxygen would be shared with anyone in need, however little we had. Of course, if pirates took our iron and used it up themselves, in batteries or growth tanks or what have you, nothing could be proved later. That’s why piracy, when it is proved, carries the same penalty here as it did on old Earth.”

“And why, I’d guess, pirates would also tend to dispose of the crews they’d overcome.”

“Not always. ’Ao would be safe; she’d simply be adopted, swapped with other ships a few times so her story wouldn’t do anyone much good, and wind up in a city sooner or later. They might do the same with Keo and me, depending on their food and oxygen resources; how they’d feel about you is anyone’s guess. You’re decidedly unique.”

Mike, whose body mass and personal strength were twice those of the much taller Keokolo, nodded. He felt no urge to learn all about Kainui’s customs firsthand, but saw no need to take the worst for granted.

Judging by the motion of her line, ’Ao had finished one examination and gone back aft to start a second. Keo was almost through with his first check; whether he was a slower swimmer or was just being more careful was anyone’s guess. Mike noticed that the captain was glancing back and forth between the two cords and suspected that she was thinking along the same lines. Being Mike, however, he didn’t comment. He devoted most of his attention to the child’s cord, providing her with slack or drawing it in as seemed in order. Hence, he failed to see Keo’s attachment jerk tight twice, less than a second apart, until the captain called out to him.

“Call ’Ao aboard! Give short pulls on her line, and keep doing it until you can tell she’s coming!” The man obeyed without question or comment; he’d learn the details as quickly as anyone else, he assumed. Keo, who had apparently discovered something, should be aboard before the child.

He wasn’t, however. ’Ao surfaced at a set of climbing rungs five meters forward of the stern and ascended them nimbly without using her flippered feet. Mike reminded himself once more that her weight here was less than seven kilograms. She stood dripping for a moment, looking at Wanaka; the latter gestured her toward the spot where Keo’s line disappeared over the gunwale, and said something more detailed in Finger.