Hal Clement - The Nitrogen Fix

The spear hurt, and pulling it out hurt a good deal more. Bones expected another flight of the weapons as the process was tried, but the human beings watched with interest as the handling tentacles pulled the long shaft on through and dropped it on the floor. The flow of nearly colorless blood ceased quickly. The Observer body was by no means either immortal or invulnerable, but most of the organs which would be vital to a human being were decentralized. There was no single heart, but hundreds of far smaller pump muscles along the blood vessels; nerve cells used internal information storage instead of the human method of coding connections, and travelled freely though the body both in the circulatory system and among the cells of the other tissues. Even muscles were not connected groups of tissue-forming cells but protean structures which could change their shapes and regroup as needed. The Observer muscle could actually push.

Bones, therefore, was extremely uncomfortable, but not incapacitated. The fact that such major damage usually stimulated the long body to a budding reaction was a nuisance, but not a catastrophe; buds were sometimes even convenient, if they actually duplicated properly. Usually, of course, they didn’t.

The fishlike form’s failure to fall down startled the human witnesses, and a buzz of conversation broke out.

Bones could not, as usual, understand enough of the syllables to make any sense, and human facial expressions had never been very meaningful to the Observer. It was necessary to wait for overt actions before the thoughts of these people could be guessed. The one they had made so far was mystifying, butwas at least a datum to remember.

Until they made another, it seemed reasonable to eat some more. This would be useful even if it did not stimulate the witnesses to some informative reaction. Bones removed the bubble from another planter and reached for the contents. The reaction, unfortunately, was too quick to allow a taste of the material; there was a single, sharp syllable barked by one of the tallest of the people, and six more spears were poised for throwing.

Bones did not have combat-type reflexes, but was a reasonably intelligent being. The basic idea of throwing things at beings whose actions were undesirable was new, but not essentially difficult Actual execution of it might take practice — Bones suspected that making the spear which had already been thrown return point first to its senders would be more difficult than it appeared; but some things could be thrown without knowing about their travel attitude.

The planter was heavy, but not too heavy. Two strong tentacles lashed out, and the box of dirt and plants went flying toward the spearsmen.

Two of them had time to launch their weapons, while the other four dropped theirs and ducked, in one case too slowly. More spears were raised.

Bones, who had had no trouble dodging the pair just thrown once it was obviously the thing to do, reached for and raised another planter.

The voice which had given orders before sounded again, this time in a monosyllable that Bones was able to understand.

“Stop!”

Bones stopped, not because of the word but because of its effect on the others. Spears were lowered, and their holders were looking at the speaker; even the Observer could tell that they were waiting for more instructions — that the one who had called out was for some reason the controlling mind of the group.

The speech went on, but lapsed into incomprehensibility as far as Bones was concerned. How much information was being conveyed, why the leader had stopped the violence — there was no way to tell. If only Earrin or Kahvi, or even little Danna, had been there. No use in wishing; it was less useful than inference, or even than guessing. Watching what the people did was all that could be done now.

The speaker finished. His listeners seemed relaxed, and divided their attention between him and the Observer; they showed no signs of further violence as far as the latter could judge.

Only two of the human beings were doing anything. These moved slowly and steadily toward a table not very far from Bones. Neither carried a weapon or anything else. Their slow, very controlled actions captured the Observer’s attention more and more completely as the seconds passed.

Both the people were much smaller than usual, though not nearly as small as Danna — they were about the height of the other Observer unit which had been in the prison. Earrin or Kahvi would have guessed them as being thirteen or fourteen years old; Bones had no basis for judgment. Both were males, another fact unknowable and unimportant to the nonhuman.

They stopped two or three tables away from the tall watcher, and removed a light cover from a glass tank which covered most of the top of the furnishing. One of them dipped in with a fabric net which interested Bones greatly; it was the first woven material the Observer remembered seeing.

The pocket of the tool went into a layer of milky-looking, thin mud which filled the lowest third of the tank; it was withdrawn, held to drain for a moment, and brought toward Bones.

The latter wondered whether food were being offered, but as the net continued to drip the upper part of its contents cleared to a snowy white; and when it came close enough the nature of the substance was clear — too clear. It was a fluffy pile of the glass splinters which had made so effective a trap back at the fire site.

For the first time, Bones noticed that all the human beings were wearing sandals. Evidently satisfied that the material had been recognized, the small human being walked toward a nearby door and began to spread the stuff over the floor in its area. The other youngster had dipped up another load, and was doing the same at another door. It took no great deductive power to see what was happening, but there wasnothing obvious the Observer could do about it.

The larger beings still held their spears. Within five minutes, every door in the room was unapproachable, as far as Bones or any bare-footed human being was concerned.

The Observer was interested, but not worried. This was certainly a better method of restraint than the bars, except for one factor. It was fascinating that the people seemed not to have considered that factor; unless and until they did, other matters could be studied.

The tank from which the glass had come, for example. There were several more like it, some containing layers of gray mud like the first, others with lumps of spongy tissue in various stages of solution. It was obvious enough that the glass spicules were being grown in some form of pseudolife, and the supporting tissue was merely dissolved away when mature. Earrin would be interested, though he would probably have no use for the material.

Now the human beings put their spears down, except for half a dozen who left the room with theirs.

Those who remained set frantically to work. Some collected the fragments of the planter Bones had thrown, others picked up, very carefully, the bits of tissue from the growths it had contained. The people who had been hit by the missile were among those who had left, some of them still limping. The tissue was carefully placed in soil in several trays which were brought in from another room. Some of these were set up on empty tables, others carried through one of the doors out of sight. The planters from which Bones had eaten were examined carefully, and their covers replaced. All this was fairly obvious in purpose; Bones had seen Earrin and Kahvi carry out similar routine hundreds of times in the past few years. The culture, whatever it was, in the planter which had been smashed was being salvaged; the others were being checked for possible infection. There were always nitro-life spores in the air, even in a well-sealed environment like a city.