Hal Clement - The Nitrogen Fix

“The someone is one of the Invaders,” one of the young women said patiently. “Maybe you don’t know about them and their danger to people — we only learned a few years ago ourselves, and haven’t had much chance to pass on the knowledge. We’d like to, but no one from the city could get to another, and there aren’t many Nomads to take messages. We need you to bring supplies — no one else has ever been able to get us copper. Maybe when we have a good stock you’d carry news for us to Beehive and Providence and other cities.”

“I don’t know what ‘invader’ means either,” Earrin pointed out. “I’ve never seen anything following me around except a native — in fact, I’ve never seen anything which could follow anyone but people and natives. I’ve heard that you city folk don’t like natives much, but they’re certainly not dangerous. What we call ‘natives’ you’ve always called ‘animals,’ as I remember. Is that what you mean now by ‘invaders”‘ The woman’s reaction to Earrin’s word choice was much less emotional than Endrew’s would be to Kahvi’s an hour or so later. Of course, masks hid most facial expression, but it was still light enough to make out body attitudes. She appeared quite calm as she answered; so did the rest.

“Yes, we used to call them animals. No doubt you learned that name in Surplus school — what was your city?”

“Beehive.”

“Ah, yes — down East some distance. Well, there was some excuse for calling the creatures natives, of course, when it was thought they were simply animals. They seemed to do no damage. They hung around eating wild vegetation and watching people without hurting them. It was strange that they spent so much time watching, and we wondered if they did have some intelligence and might really be pests if we tried to store air or food outside as I’ve heard some cities do.”

“They do,” interjected Earrin.

“Well, we don’t, so we didn’t worry about that.”

Earrin wondered who “we” might be; all of this group were far too young to represent the general thought of the city. “Then, two or three years ago — ”

“More like five,” cut in one of the young men.

“Some years ago we discovered that they ate other things, and were dangerous.”

“What else did they eat? What else is there for them to eat?” Fyn asked naturally.

“I–I don’t like to say it-but-well, I suppose I’ll have to or you won’t be convinced. A few years ago one of my friends was outside, and saw one of the things watching a work group she wasn’t with. After a while it turned away and went off by itself, to a hollow on the hill where it was hard to see. She’d never seen one act that way, and found a place where she could watch. It was standing up, and seemed to be peeling a very thick layer of skin from its front. It put this on the ground when it was all separated, and presently the skin thickened and narrowed and turned into one of them. It had-it had-”

“All right, it produced a child. What’s so deadly about that?” Earrin, who had never seen thephenomenon, was interested but had no sympathy with the city attitude toward everything connected with childbirth. These youngsters seemed to be trying to be independent, but had a long way to go.

“It wasn’t that. There’s nothing wrong with having children, even when they’re surplus — we know that. But after a while this thing picked the baby up and handled it, and held it close —”

“That’s still all right. We’ve — go on.”

“Then-then it-it-the creature ate the child!

Earrin had nothing to say. It did not even occur to him that the young woman could be exaggerating, much less actually lying, though he realized that Hiller morals did not quite match those of Nomads. He was silent for several minutes while the darkness deepened and the group walked steadily southward.

The woman said nothing either, evidently satisfied with the effect she had produced. Earrin could not decide what to think, much less what to say; his mind kept sheering off the implications. Bones had taken care of Danna many times while her parents were out of sight.

Finally the man remembered another point. “You said something about not considering them animals any more. I should have thought this would make them seem more like animals, if what I’ve heard about animals is true.”

“This was something quite different. Actually, only a few of us know about the child-eating — we tried to tell some of the older people and they wouldn’t let us get past the first part. They’re just stuck in the slime.”

Earrin was quite willing to agree with this, but suggested that she come back to the subject.

“All right. I suppose you never learned much about scientific instruments.”

“I’m surprised you had a chance to.”

“Well, you naturally read books when people tell you not to. A lot of us have — in fact, since you certainly won’t tell anyone who matters, all of us and some others have read a lot about — well, such things. Experiments — ”

One or two of the others murmured disapprovingly at the word-”and things like that.” She paid no attention to the sounds. “We work at such things, too, even though some of my less dedicated friends prefer not to use the real words. A few months ago we were setting up something outside, away from the locks and usual work areas where we weren’t likely to be found. It was a big sundial; we’d been reading about the way the sun moves in the sky during the year.

“Anyone knows that,” remarked Earrin.

“You see it more than we do. Beside, we wanted to — ” even the speaker hesitated a little this time — ”to measure what was happening.” There were no reactions this time from the others. “One of the creatures was watching while we put it together — we’d made the parts in our shop inside.

The outside part took several days. On the second day some of the parts had been moved, and a piece I had been going to put in place had been installed by someone else — not one of us.”

“We checked very carefully the third day, but couldn’t be sure anything had been handled. The next day, though, it was really certain. One of us remembered putting a piece in wrong. It was right the next morning.”

“How do you know the-the native had done it?”

“Who else could have? It wasn’t our group. No one else from the city would have known how.

Neither would any Nomad.”

“But you didn’t see it happen.”

“Not then.” The voice was distinctly triumphant. “We set up another situation — ”

“You mean an experiment,” Earrin couldn’t help remarking.

“Watch it!” growled a male voice.

“Oh no. Just a trial to see that no one from the city could have done it.” Darkness and mask saved Earrin from giving away his feelings. These were really children. He hoped Danna could be steered through this stage in a minimum of time.

The illogic bothered him; if these youngsters had really rejected the dogma that science had changed the world’s air, and were now blaming Bones’ people, why did they still feel that scientific words were dirty? The city hangups, evidently, were pretty strong; maybe he should be sorry for the kids.”How did you do it, and what did you find out?” he asked.

“We started a more complicated dial, got it partly set up, and went inside. A couple of watchers went out through another lock, hid near the work place, and watched-it was still daylight. The Invader waited only a few minutes. Then it went over, put the dial all together, looked at the shadow it made, and then took it apart and put the pieces back where they had been.”

“Pretty conclusive, I have to admit.” Earrin was not, of course at all surprised, knowing Bones as well as he did — that was just what any of the natives would have done.