Hal Clement - The Nitrogen Fix

It hurt.

The jail was not very well lighted. There were a few trays containing the luminous pseudolife, but they were scattered among the tables rather than arranged on wall panels as was usual in the cities.

In a way this was bad for Kahvi, since lights which covered the inside of the building effectively would have made her less visible. If she had been at all careless, the moonlight would have revealed her easily. She almost made one mistake; the golden bracelet on her left wrist clicked against the stone as she reached the top of the wall. She quickly pushed it farther up toward her elbow until it was too tight to move freely, and carefully kept the arm itself toward the outside of the wall. Moonlight glinting from the metal to an eye inside could hardly help being noticed.

There were six people in the building. She had no way of being sure whether or not any of them was Endrew, though it seemed likely. Who the others might be she could only guess, with no real basis even for that; and since she distrusted guessing almost as much as Bones did, she simply listened. The roof tissue did not block sound effectively, and the excitement of high oxygen made the voices of those below quite loud by Nomad standards anyway. One of them, in fact, was mentioning this very point.

“We can’t afford to get too happy,” he was saying. “It should take that idiotic Nomad at least half an hour to get back here, cutting around the way he would have to, but at least two of us should be outside to spot him when he does.”

“Why?” asked another. “I’m tired, I haven’t been able to relax in decent air all night or all yesterday, and I don’t see why it’s important if he gets back to his raft. If one of those creatures is around, even if it’s following him, there must be better ways to catch it. We could make traps with Barefoot’s Bane all around, instead of just by the lab.”

“The former lab, if you can’t remember to call it the Learning Center,” remarked another male voice.

“You could have done your objecting earlier!” snapped a woman. “I’m just as tired as you are, and if you really had a better plan to offer — you know there isn’t enough Bane either harvested or growing to cover the whole countryside — you could have mentioned it and saved all of us all this outdoor travel.”

“I did suggest another and you laughed at it,” was the retort. “I pointed out that if an Invader were really following the Nomad around it would mean that its curiosity had focussed on him, and there wouldn’t be any way to distract it. I said — ”“That’s enough!” the first male voice cut across the rapidly rising tones of the second. “You and Wilma get your gear on, go outside, and start sorting that cargo — get the glass separated and opened where we can use it. We need the new lab as soon as possible. We’ll build it right there to save carrying time; we’ll get the other material as soon as the sun’s high enough tomorrow. You two have had enough straight oxygen for now.”

“But — ” came the woman’s voice.

“But nothing. Both of you. Now. Get dressed!”

Kahvi rather expected more effective resistance to the command, though she had never heard a full-grown argument between authority and subordinate. It was hard for her to believe that citydwellers could display as much discipline as a normal Nomad, and even harder to credit the notion that oxygen junkies could have any discipline at all. When two of the figures stood up and began to don outdoor equipment she was so surprised that for some seconds she failed to consider how this might affect her own situation. The two were entering the air lock when she suddenly realized how visible she would be the moment they got to the north of the jail.

She thought quickly, weighing necessities. If she left her present place of vantage she would hear no more, and information was really vital.

She had, on the other hand, already learned enough to guide a good deal of action, and being seen would complicate matters most undesirably.

Further information would have to wait.

She descended the wall quickly and silently, and lay down in its shadow-standing, she would show in silhouette against the moonlit ridge. She heard the people emerge from the air lock pool, and a moment later saw them pass. Neither looked in Kahvi’s direction. The few words of their conversation she heard added nothing to her fund of useful knowledge.

What should she do now? There was no worry about Earrin for the moment; she had been with him for over seven years, and was perfectly certain that he was not going to come back to the raft very soon.

She had no idea why he had gone with the Hillers or why he had left them, but after the latter move he would certainly have known that they could intercept him if he came home. She could not guess what he might be up to, but until he accomplished it, or decided that he couldn’t accomplish it, her obvious job was to maintain control of the situation here — keep Danna safe, and keep the raft available and functioning as a breathing place.

With these facts worked out clearly, it became obvious that she had made a tactical error. The two oxygen junkies were between her and the raft.

The night was clear, the moon high, and the vegetation not nearly heavy enough to conceal a human figure attempting to cross the beach and enter the water unseen. Worse, if for any reason they decided to visit the raft itself, she could not possibly get there ahead of them and they would certainly find Danna.

That would be undesirable. Twice during Kahvi’s own time in Surplus school she had seen children of Nomads brought in. The Hillers, of course, had been perfectly certain that they were doing the children and their parents a favor, and that the education they supplied would improve life duration and quality for the former; but the captives had felt otherwise.

The first child had been about ten, had lived all his life as a Nomad, had been very well supplied with the proper hangups for Nomad existence, and had been an extremely disruptive influence in the Surplus classes. Kahvi had always suspected that the teachers themselves had collaborated in the parents’ successful effort to recapture him.

Since becoming a Nomad herself, she had always hoped to meet that family.

The other child, also a boy, had been only about three, but even he had had well-developed Nomad habits to bother the Surplus teachers. As far as Kahvi knew, he might be still in the Hill.

In any case, she had no intention of allowing her daughter to be taken away, no matter how well intentioned the kidnappers might be. Danna was already well on the way toward good Nomad self-sufficiency, and her mother was sure she would be badly confused by the things the Hillers would try to teach her-especially with all these oxygen-wasters around.

Also, and almost as serious, if the Hillers took over control of the raft they would for all practicalpurposes be in control of the Fyn family. Neither of its adult members was prepared to tolerate that; the urge for independence was still strong in what remained of humanity. Earrin and Kahvi distrusted city-dwellers on principle, and had often talked over possible situations which might threaten child or home.

None of this went through Kahvi’s conscious mind at the moment; it was all background to be taken for granted. The current question was how to get to the raft without being noticed, and how to keep control of it after she had reached it. The former was the more pressing; there were various plans already made up to cover the latter, though it remained to be seen whether any of them were practical.

She was a much quicker thinker than her husband, as Earrin himself was ready to admit, and it did not take her long to set up a plan of action. She didn’t like it — she was not, in fact, certain that she could do it — but like her husband she executed decisions quickly. Too much time spent thinking could, as she had told the jailbird earlier, be deadly. She had not, as a Nomad, faced enough unexpected situations to realize that lack of thought could be equally so. Right now, dawn could not be far away, and too much light would certainly spoil things.