Hal Clement - The Nitrogen Fix

“All right, so you’re afraid of them. They’re smart, and eat their own children. But they’re nitro-life, you know; how could they eat a person?”

“Maybe they couldn’t, but anyone who would — ” the voice trailed away in a shudder, and Fyn again had nothing to say for a time. At last he changed the subject again.

“I don’t see yet what you want me for.”

“We’ll use you to help catch it,” a male voice boomed out of the darkness. “We need more of them to learn how to get rid of the things.”

“More of them? You already have some? And why do you want to get rid of them, even if they have unpleasant ways?”

The first woman took up the conversation again.

“Yes, we caught the other one. The night after the test, we sent out a large group from the other lock and surrounded it. It didn’t try to get away when we drove it inside. We thought the oxygen would bother it, but it didn’t seem to notice any difference. The trouble is that with only one we can’t make tests likely to kill it, because then we couldn’t learn any more. When we catch this other one we won’t have to be so careful.”

“You’d be willing to kill one? Just because you — ”

“It’s not because they disgust us. There’s a much more important reason. We have a plan, and we can do it if the Invaders aren’t here to stop us.

“I suppose you want to change the world’s air back.” The woman seemed a little startled, and became defensive.

“Why not? And how did you know?”

“I’m a Nomad. I’ve been through Surplus school. Most of us get that idea while we’re learning how to make air for ourselves.”

“Well, why not?”

“Because you can’t. The more photosynthetic oxygen makers you have working, and the more oxygen they make, the more and faster the nitrate-makers will work. You never get ahead on the oxygen, except in spaces so small that you can control which growths are around. The idea that there used to be an all-oxygen atmosphere is a pleasant myth, but if you’d spent all your life trying to keep yourself breathing, you’d know that’s all it ever was.”

“Wrong.” The woman sounded very sure of herself. “That’s the trouble with having been afraid of science for hundreds of years; even people like you, who at least know it’s useful, don’t really know anything about it. You never had a chance to learn. We’ve been reading, and we have learned. I couldn’t explain things like equilibrium constants to you, or the way they apply to ecological systems, but we’ve found out that if you set up a system of oxygen-producers and enough growths that act as parasites on the nitro-makers, that system will spread provided it gets a good enough start. That start is the hard part; we’ll have to have a lot of help, a lot of people, to spread the growths in a lot of places at once; and we’ll have to get rid of the Invaders, because they must have done the same thing the other way to make the world the way they wanted it. They’d spoil what we were doing, so we’ll have to get rid of them. That’s why we need more specimens — we don’t know how to kill them yet.”

“You’d really kill them if you caught them?”

“Only one, just now, so as to learn. We don’t want to, of course, but until we’re rid of them we can’t get the world back the way it was, with air you can breathe, and no need to count children as Surplus and abort them out into the world as we have to do now. Wouldn’t you like to breathe air that wasn’t so thin it barely kept you alive?”“No, thanks.” Earrin didn’t have to think about that answer. If these people were all oxygen-wasters, he wanted no part of their plans. “The air I breathe is the kind people were made for. The stuff your friend was breathing is wasteful, and makes people silly after a while. Not for me; I have to be able to take care of myself — and one or two other people.”

“But can’t you imagine walking around wherever you want, without having to wear masks and other protection?”

Earrin could not, in fact, imagine anything of the sort. He didn’t believe the world had ever had breathable air, and didn’t believe it was possible to change it to such a condition; and he was not at all convinced that it would be a good idea to try. He did not have the intensely religious opposition to everything scientific which characterized the typical city-dweller, but he knew that any new line of action could have unforeseen results. He was willing to test a new air plant, but only one tray at a time. Had he been born a few thousand years earlier into an oxygen-rich atmosphere and grown up with the same attitude, he would have been intelligently cautious about large-scale burning of wood or coal.

He mumbled some answer at the woman without remembering later what it was, and continued to think. The others seemed willing to let him do so; perhaps they hoped he had been impressed.

He was, but not the way they hoped. The main point in Fyn’s mind at the moment was a straight piece of logic: the Hillers wanted to use him to help capture Bones. They wanted to kill, or try to kill, the native. Therefore, Earrin Fyn should get himself out of the hands of these Hillers, the sooner the better.

He did not add a mental Q. E. D. because his reading background was negligible.

How to get away? There were five of them, some walking ahead and some behind. Whether they were following a real path could not be ascertained in the darkness. In any case, the Hillers must know the area far better than Earrin himself did. He had been to one of the Blue Hill locks a few times, but always by the same route.

Simply starting to run one way or the other was senseless. There would be bushes, and thorn branches, and slime, and rocks to run through, slip and trip on, and be slashed, torn and bruised by. The others wouldn’t even have to run to get him.

And if he did get away they could still intercept him. He had enough air to last through the night, probably, if he were not too active. He would have to get to an oxygen supply before his cartridges were done. There were of course many jails scattered about Great Blue Hill, but it would be pure luck if he managed to find one in time even after the moon came up; all he could really count on locating were the jail at the landing place, his own raft at the same spot, and the city itself. His captors, who presumably knew the area, could get to any of these places before he could, if they knew which one he had in mind.

Would they take the raft, where his wife was, for granted?

Would they consider the city, or assume that he wouldn’t think of it, or wouldn’t want to face the troubles he would encounter inside — Nomads were easily recognizable and very unwelcome in civilized communities which kept track of their air. There really was no good and practical reason to justify, his going anywhere but home. It was becoming obvious why they weren’t bothering to tie him up or hold him tightly, even if they weren’t that confident of their powers of persuasion.

He couldn’t go back to the raft or jail; they’d get him easily. In the city-well, even if Nomads weren’t welcome, there was something which might be worth doing. Earrin was a slow thinker, but a plan began to form.

“Are we going all the way to the Hill tonight,” he asked suddenly. “We rowed a long way today, and I’m tired.” This was the truth, though not his principal reason for asking the question. His Nomad no-deceit hangup almost made him blurt out the latter as well, but he controlled himself rather unhappily.

He felt even worse when one of the men answered with no sign of suspicion.

“No, we’ll stop for rest and air soon — about half way. There’s a jail just before the slope gets steep.”

“Good. Thanks.” Earrin lapsed back into thought. There would be cartridges at the jail. No matter what the air status of his captors, they could restock quickly and, probably, beat Fyn back to the raft.