Hal Clement - Noise

“Is it all right if I use a bunk until Keo comes in?” she asked. Wanaka looked a little surprised, but nodded permission. Mike guessed the reason for the request; the little one lay down on her side so that anyone else in the cabin could see the new pattern. This would not have been practical in the hammock. The adults glanced at each other, but said nothing. The captain, after a few more minutes of writing, also retired; Mike still had much to do with his own records, and also doubted that the hammock would support him even in the local gravity.

Nothing further happened for some hours. Malolo ’s motion was as usual, and as long as he was seated Mike wasn’t bothered by its unpredictability. A bell whose tongue was mounted on a flexible but still airtight section of the wall signified the end of Keo’s watch, and the captain woke up and went on deck. Two or three minutes later, presumably after reporting status details to his commander, Keo came in. He took in the situation at a glance, smiled, and gently lifted the sleeping child and her doll into the hammock. The doll piped, “Good night, Keo.” The man answered, “Good night, ’Oloa,” dropped onto the shelf left vacant by the captain, bade Mike good night as well, and was asleep in moments. Mike, using the bunk from which ’Ao had been removed, followed suit a few minutes later.

It was presumably still night when he woke again. Some hours must have passed, since the other bed was now occupied once more by the captain, but she, too, was sitting up.

“What was that?” she asked. Mike had no answer, and no idea what had awakened him. Before he could say anything, the bell sounded—not the single tone that signified change of watch, but three sharp notes, louder than usual.

“Ni’ui kanaau!” Wanaka leaped for the door. It took Mike a moment to work out her meaning, slightly because of the shifted glottal stop, more because of the mixture of Tahitian and Samoan, more still because he had not expected such language from the captain, and perhaps mostly because he himself was probably the only person now on Kainui who had ever actually seen a shark and might be expected to mention its entrails as a curse. He hesitated for a moment, wondering whether he would be any help on deck or would merely be in the way; then curiosity won. He left the child still asleep in the hammock. Whatever had awakened him and the captain had apparently failed to disturb her.

Or the doll, he thought in passing.

On the deck he could see that dawn was in the sky, though neither sun was yet visible. Kaihapa’s foggy disk showed plainly enough, a little less than full, almost imperceptibly lower than before in the west. Whatever Keokolo had to report to his captain must already have been said; she was giving orders, and included her passenger in them the moment she saw him.

“Mike, take the tiller when Keo has us hove to. You can keep us that way well enough. We’re both taking lights overboard. We hit something, certainly not very big but we need to know if there are any nicks or scratches. Keo didn’t see anything, but we’ll check as completely as we can from bow to amidships. Even small scratches can get infected, and with that whatever-it-is sticking to the port hull we need to be really careful. I don’t like stopping even at night when we’re on the run like this, but—”

“But we may not be running from anything, after all,” cut in Keokolo. “In any case, the quicker we make this check the sooner we can use the wind again. I’m ready, Wan.” Without waiting for an answer he flipped his helmet into place, latched it, strode forward, and went over the port bow. The captain also sealed herself and took the starboard hull. Mike followed orders, keeping the boom straight aft and watching the sail ripple.

He could tell the approximate positions of the divers by the diffused glow of their hand lights. They moved very slowly indeed, apparently seeking something that might be hard to find. The passenger had some idea of why; the hulls, like the Kainuian cities and most other human artifacts, had been grown rather than manufactured. They were pseudolife, subject to infection by other pseudoorganisms. Like the crew’s armor they had four biologically very different protective coatings, each supposedly vulnerable to only a limited variety of microbes, but even a quite small nick or scratch could decrease Malolo ’s biological protection by a quarter, or a half, or three-quarters, or completely.

Mike could only guess how serious a worry the little bump, which had barely awakened him, might represent.

He made no attempt to keep track of time, but both suns could be seen through the ubiquitous haze and Kaihapa had shrunk to obviously gibbous phase, though of course not moving visibly in the sky, before the two divers regained the deck and flipped back their helmets. Both shook their heads negatively.

“Think we ought to start over, Captain? It’s daylight now.”

Wanaka considered briefly, then vetoed the suggestion. “No. Get us under way again, but change course thirty degrees back for an hour or so. We can afford the time to tack if we need to. If that thing on the port hull is putting out scent, there should be a good fog of it all around us by now, and if anyone really is following us it’ll take ’em a while to pick up the new track. After an hour, we’ll—never mind; I’ll be back on watch by then. Maybe I’ll have a different idea after I’ve finished sleeping. At least, we have plenty of oxygen; we can afford a few days at search-only speed, with the leaf not out.”

Mike ventured a suggestion, rather reluctantly. He was sure the likelihood was that his ignorance would make it a silly one.

“Could we go back for a while and then change course to cross whatever trail we might have left? Would that be more confusing to anyone following?”

Keo nodded approvingly, to Mike’s relief. “Could work, if no one’s close enough behind to see us at it.” Wanaka also nodded, but disappeared into the cabin with no further words.

Mike could also have used more sleep, but decided not to bother. There was always a chance of seeing something new even with the haze, or hearing it through the continuous thunder, and as a passenger he could sleep at any time—almost. Also, walking around on the ever-heaving deck was still important practice. He wished what rails there were, were just a little higher; even under Kainuian gravity, there might not be time to lock his helmet if he lurched overboard.

Eventually the captain reappeared, accompanied by ’Ao, and took the tiller. Keo started for the cabin, then paused.

“Maybe we should check below. If anything did get to us, it might be easier to see from inside—and if anything is through either hull we’d better know it.”

Wanaka merely nodded. The man disappeared through the forward hatch of the starboard hull, the child taking the port without comment. Mike, who had been on the point of retiring himself, decided to remain out for at least a little longer. It would be nice not to have to worry whether he should be worried or not.

There seemed nothing unusual away from the catamaran. Thunderheads still showed their endless lightning as far as could be seen through the haze, the bumps and hollows of microtsunamis and wind-driven swells could still be felt, and occasional waterspouts were visible. The frequency of these had surprised Mike at first. The low gravity made for a high atmospheric scale height, only partly countered by high molecular weight, and the sea-level pressure was more than twice Earth’s to begin with; convection currents, whether driven by heat or humidity, tended to be far taller than at home and much more effective at lifting things. And, most decidedly, much more electrically violent.