Hal Clement - The Nitrogen Fix

Nothing was changed there.

If he merely got out of their sight, that was probably what they would do; and even if they caught him later, one thing might be accomplished. If Bones were actually following, it would be possible to give hima warning about the new and more serious intentions of these Hillers.

If, as seemed more likely, he were not, then Fyn could go on to the city and do something about the other native. Bones was the only one of the beings he knew, but he was prepared to regard them all as friends in spite of the woman’s horror story; he couldn’t attach much weight to the words of these young people even though he couldn’t bring himself to believe that they would lie. He knew it was an inconsistent attitude, but every time he tried to resolve it one way or the other his head refused to work.

It was easiest to believe that the kids had misunderstood something.

So he would go to the city, which seemed easy enough as long as his present captors could be persuaded to go elsewhere, and maybe something could be done about the other captive. Fyn’s general background doomed him to a certain naivety; it also inclined him to unhesitating action once he had decided what had to be done. There was only one thing to wait for, and that should come before they reached the jail.

It did. They were long out of sight of the bay — unlike Bones’ captors a few hours later, this group had gone to the west of the low hills near the base of the Canton peninsula — so moonrise itself could not be seen; but the sky framing the high ground to their left gradually brightened, and at last Earrin felt that he could travel without actual disaster.

“Nearly there?” he asked.

“A couple of hundred meters,” came an answer.

“You’ll see it when we get by that patch of brush.”

They did. As might have been foreseen by anyone familiar with jail construction, they were near the bottom of a small gully, and as usual its brook had been applied to the arrangement of an air lock. Details were a little different; the stream seemed to run right under the building, and he wondered for a moment whether this one had two locks. He did not waste time trying to find out.

“Breathe Freely!” he cried suddenly, and at the same moment he broke to his left up the hill.

Moonlight showed fairly clear ground, and he made good speed. He had told the truth about being tired, of course, but he was in better physical condition by far than the city people. Two of the men sprang after him, but lost ground rapidly.

The woman’s voice sounded after them. “Let him go, idiots! Come in here and recharge. We can get him easily enough! “ Flyn didn’t bother to look back to see whether the order was obeyed.

It was as he had guessed, they would replace their breathing cartridges and go back to the raft area to wait for him. They might even go to the raft itself and wake up Kahvi, but they wouldn’t search it. She could say truthfully that he wasn’t there. Fyn himself could continue without interference eastward over the hilltop as long as he was in sight of the Hillers, and then on the other side turn south. He had air for most of the night, he knew. Even though he didn’t know the area well, Great Blue Hill could not be missed, and he knew there were several entrances. After finding one he could improvise.

It actually took a good deal longer than he had expected to find an air lock, though he came at the hill from what he believed was the same direction he had always come before. The moon was high, the comet up, and he was starting to feel a little tense about breathing before he finally saw a pool which had to be an entrance to the city. There was no one around it, at least outside, as was to be expected at this hour.

For a few minutes he hesitated. He suddenly realized how little he knew about what might lie ahead.

Bones had not appeared — no surprise; Fyn had been sure the Hillers were wrong about his “follower.” It would be nice to have the native for company, though. Of course, there was nothing to be afraid of; the worst they would do would be to eject him, and even then they would give him enough air to reach the raft. His former captors would be there, but at least he would be no worse off.

He glanced back at the bay, over two kilometers away, and wondered whether he could actually see the dark spot of the raft on the brightening water. He wondered why he sometimes did things without thinking them through, decided it was because there was so seldom sufficient time for that when emergencies arose.

Then he entered the pool.

The other unit was lying on a pad of some material, presumably one of the pseudolife products so freely used by the human beings. It saw Bones at once, and in a single smooth movement came to its full height. This was little more than three quarters that of a typical human being; evidently this unit had been a bud not long before.

It took two or three steps toward the newcomers and was stopped by the bars. Bones tried to wriggle free and cross the rest of the gap, but for some seconds had no luck. The bearers were unable to hold on, and allowed the suddenly not-so-limp form to drop to the stone floor, but they promptly piled on, seizing every available limb and preventing travel. Bones’ emotions did not match human ones very closely, but the howl of pain emitted by one of the people who grasped a glassstudded walking tentacle was rather satisfying even though the agony was mutual.

Then a brief burst of human words sounded. “Let it go. See what they do. Keep the doorway blocked.” Bones couldn’t tell whether a male or a female was speaking, partly because of hearing system deficiencies and partly because the difference still meant nothing whatever to Observers, but three or four of the monosyllables carried meaning. It was no surprise when the human beings let go and stood back.

The Observer could not stand; the pain in the rear walking tentacles was too great. The other limbs, however, were able to drag the streamlined form toward the bars and, when these were reached, to lift it nearly upright.

The smaller figure’s upper tentacles lashed around Bones’ body; the larger one reciprocated. The rubbery forms could not actually squeeze between the bars, but were flexible enough for what was needed.

On what corresponded to the human chest of each of the fishlike forms was a disc of specialized tissue a dozen centimeters across. Its color was little different from the olive green and brown mottling of the rest of the bodies; neither Earrin nor Kahvi had ever noticed it.

Now the two discs pressed together as the tentacles tightened. Neither Observer felt the pain from the bars also being squeezed between them; neither felt anything but ecstasy. Neither had communicated for a long time. Memory cells flowed from one body to the other through the discs for more than a minute before the embrace relaxed, and for many more seconds the two held motionless while the transferred memories spread through their bodies, duplicated and reduplicated, and gradually as the glow faded rose to conscious level.

When they finally separated, each was as nearly identical to the other in mind and memory as living creatures can ever be. Bones remembered everything that had led up to the smaller unit’s capture, and what had happened to it since then.

The other remembered Bones’ experience with the Nomads for the last several years; it knew Earrin and Kahvi and their child; it would, on meeting any of them, be able to use the sign language which they and Bones had worked out to supplement oral speech, and it would understand human words as well as Bones, with the same auditory limitations, could.

It knew Bones’ pain, and immediately on emerging from the pleasant daze which accompanied memory transfer the smaller being dropped to the floor and began removing with its fine-handling mouth tendrils the glass splinters which Bones had been unable to reach.