Hal Clement - Noise

No vessels could be seen, though this meant little; sails and even running lights would not be visible a third of the way to the distant horizon.

’Ao reappeared and reported the starboard hull apparently tight. There was a little bilgewater, but no more than usual. The captain nodded, and suggested that the child eat and then take the masthead. Mike expected no objection to this, and was quite right. ’Ao didn’t mind the motion, and there was always a chance of glory in spotting potential cargo. Even if the captain didn’t want to stop for it this time—Mike had no idea how much the little one knew or could infer about their present course—merely sighting a potential mine would be to her credit.

She was out again in a few minutes, and Mike looked away uncomfortably as she hand-over-handed her way up the rungs of the mast with ’Oloa clinging to her shoulder, and settled with seeming comfort into the broad strap that formed Malolo ’s crow’s nest. It was not too hard to look at her just now, the sky offering little distinct background. Later, when the suns neared the meridian, her wiggling and wobbling as the hulls shifted this way and that would become hard on the passenger’s stomach, especially as the deck underfoot would be affecting the line of sight from his own end. He wished there were some way of cutting his semicircular canals out of his nerve wiring—temporarily, of course. It would be worse, he reminded himself, if the horizon were visible, but this fact offered little comfort.

He deliberately looked down and began walking around the deck, keeping safely away from the railing where there was one and even more carefully away from the verge where there was neither rail nor grab lines. He seemed to be getting some sort of sea legs at last; he didn’t fall or even stumble once, this time. Keo nodded approval at one point, when their glances met.

’Ao occasionally called a “nothing in sight” from her masthead, to show she was still awake, Mike assumed. He sometimes heard fainter voices from above and wondered whether she were talking to the doll or the latter were keeping her alert. Otherwise there was practically no conversation, and the passenger found his mind wandering among evolved Polynesian vocabulary and grammar rules. He wondered whether Wanaka would have used the term she had if ’Ao had been awake. Some cultures were highly critical of bad language, others had no grasp of the concept; the latter usually expressed annoyance more physically, he had noticed. He thought fleetingly of experimenting, but of course decided against it.

His attention was recalled to the real world by a cry from the masthead.

“Keo! Ship, starboard quarter, hove to. Mining, I think. Only one person on deck.”

“Banners?” asked the helmsman.

“Can’t see yet.”

Keo brought Malolo into the wind, gestured Mike to the tiller, and leaped to the marked flexible section of the cabin wall. Wanaka emerged in seconds. She took in the situation at once, glanced at her own masthead to recheck which banners were flying, took Keo’s place, ordered him to take in some sail, and slowly approached the other vessel—not driving straight at it, but keeping Malolo ’s bows some degrees to one side so they approached in a slow spiral.

There was still only one person visible on the other deck; ’Ao’s probable inference that the rest were mining seemed valid. Wanaka called to the child.

“Can you tell what they’re getting?”

“Copper, I’m pretty sure.”

Mike had by now spotted a field of leaves not, to him, significantly different from those on the iron-fish, but the captain seemed to accept the youngster’s judgment. The Earth native could see several pennons strung down a line from the other craft’s masthead, but could read none of them. He memorized as much of what he could see as possible; maybe ’Ao’s next explanation would be more comprehensible. Keo guessed some of his problem, and translated the flags.

“They have copper and titanium, enough to trade.” He glanced at Wanaka, who nodded without saying anything, and the man ran up a flag Mike had not seen before.

“Requesting permission to approach.” This time it was the captain who translated for him.

The figure on the other deck beckoned the newcomers, then turned to the farther gunwale of its own craft and pulled up a collecting bucket familiar to Mike. It gestured at the invisible bearer, and another figure lifted itself into sight from the ocean. Mike couldn’t tell whether either was man or woman.

Wanaka glanced up at her own masthead and called ’Ao down, and the three waited while the vessels, now essentially both hove to, drifted closer together. Keo, Mike, and the child stood motionless until Malolo ’s port hull was less than two meters from the other’s single outrigger. Mike had been examining the vessel with interest. It was single-hulled with an outrigger, the breathing cabin only a little larger than their own, and the passenger, still allowing for his own inexperience, guessed that the crew could hardly number more than four or five.

Wanaka must have reached the same conclusion. She said a few words to ’Ao and gestured toward the other vessel. The child promptly sealed her helmet and went overside. She reappeared at the other’s hull and was helped up by the one who had originally been on deck.

In the next quarter hour two more swimmers emerged from the sea and doffed helmets. Mike had now realized with no surprise that he was a subject of close interest to all four of the other’s crew. He knew he was an impressive sight. An adult of Kainui looked quite ordinary to a Terrestrial when wearing sound armor, and more like a skeleton only when indoors where one could breathe properly. Mike, in armor, was frighteningly bulky.

When the two crews finally mixed, he judged that the others were rather surprised that he could talk at all, and even more so when he proved, after a few minutes of listening, to be more at ease than any of Wanaka’s crew with the language of the others.

It was, to his comfort and pleasure, much richer in Maori, though still far from pure. The languages of even the most literate cultures evolve, sometimes even more rapidly than their religions. He added much to his notes during the next few hours.

The others were quite willing to trade. All four were male, and Mike never did feel quite sure which was the captain. Most of the talk, to which he listened carefully, was bargaining. He found that titanium was cheaper than copper, which might have told a planetologist something, and both were far cheaper than iron. The dealing concluded with a polite exchange of foods, since every ship had its own varieties of pseudovegetables, and a formal-sounding query to ’Ao whether she would care to be adopted by the other crew. She declined very politely and no one seemed to take offense.

The other vessel still had cargo space, and was remaining to do some more copper mining when Malolo hoisted sail. There had been no suggestion that she stay and share this particular treasure; Mike had already gathered that finders-keepers was an accepted custom. This “fish” seemed far larger than the one he had seen before, and it seemed to him that there must be more than enough metal for both, again allowing for his own ignorance. But maybe copper-fish were less productive. He didn’t ask.

Once under way again, Wanaka was visibly relieved, and made no secret of the reason.

“If anyone really was smelling after us, they’ll lose interest when they see those others. We’ll get that thing off our hull in the morning, but we don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“Did you tell the others about that problem?” asked Mike.

Wanaka and Keo both looked surprised. “No. Of course not. It wouldn’t have made them any more careful than they would be anyway, or any better able to fight if pirates did come along. With that much wealth already aboard, they probably won’t stay much longer anyway, and I expect they’ll be looking for a city by this time tomorrow.”