Hal Clement - The Nitrogen Fix

Automatic controls would place the comet into an appropriately close orbit and awaken the crew when and only when sensing apparatus identified an atmosphere as being primarily nitrogen, with enough traces of oxides of that element to indicate the presence of nitro-life. Bones’ vehicle was the comet which now rode sixty degrees behind the moon in the latter’s orbit; his/their landing craft was on the sea bottom thousands of kilometers from the Boston area.

The fact that all this came as though it were a personal memory confused Fyn, and did not get through his translation very well. The other human beings were therefore even less clear about the matter.

There was no doubt, however, that Bones was denying categorically that his kind had had anything to do with the change in the world’s air.

Zhamia, who had the best conception of the times and distances which must be involved, was rather suspicious of the account. She admitted that it was hard for her to believe in a coincidence which had apparently brought Bones’ comet to the Solar system within a few years, or at most a few centuries, of the time the change had taken place. She put this to the Observer.

Bones made it clear that no coincidence was involved. Many comets had undoubtedly visited the System; until the Earth conditions were correct, they would merely have gone into shortperiod orbits around the sun and waited, boiling off some of their ice at each perihelion passage until they were consumed. Their personnel would have died without ever being aroused. When one crew was awakened, the other comets would, if they possessed mass enough, leave automatically in search of another habitable system.Fyn could not see how the crews could face such a fate, and said so. It was Bones’ attempt to explain why they didn’t mind which started the man toward the realization that the being now talking was not, in fact, “his” Bones. There was no clear communication here; the Observers had no grasp of the concept of individual death, and Fyn’s difficulty had not been understood at all. From the answer, the man at first got the idea that Bones was immortal. This was in a sense, as far as personality was concerned, true; it was of course very wrong in detail. The “units” could and did, eventually, die. Genda had listened, though all she really noticed was the statement that the Observers had arrived after the change in Earth’s atmosphere.

This supported her view of orthodoxy, and she made no secret of her delight.

“That will let those delinquents know the poor animals aren’t to blame for anything! Let’s go over the Hemenway and tell them right now!” She was actually smiling. The other three adults looked at each other silently; two or three of the children giggled until Zhamia caught their eyes.

The teacher spoke gently. “How will we make them believe it, Gen?” she asked. “We don’t really have proof — just Bones’ story. Would you have believed it if we’d been told his people had made the air change?”

“But he didn’t!” The implications of Zhamia’s question were simply beyond the older woman.

“He told the truth, as much of it as he knew. It was sin that caused the change — you know what kind of sin. Nothing else could have changed the whole world so much.”

Earrin translated this to Bones, not because he felt that Genda’s opinions carried much weight but because he assumed that any knowledge which would help predict the behavior of a Hiller might be as useful to the Observer as to Earrin himself. The answer was surprising, and for some seconds after it was translated it silenced even Genda.

“It may be the action of your kind which changed your world; I have been trying to decide. However, I must also decide why it always seems to happen, on every world I have seen.”

“Every one?” Mort took the question up instantly. “How many worlds are there? Have you visited them all?” The idea that Bones was immortal had also dawned on the teacher. He watched Fyn eagerly as the question was translated.

“I certainly have not visited them all; how many there may be is knowledge not yet acquired. I have landed only on those with proper living conditions, and presumably only a small fraction of those. I can remember only sixteen, directly, but many units have made — ” there was a pause, as even Bones had to grope for a meaningful signal — ”Branch trips. Doubtless some, perhaps many, of these have also found habitable worlds, but the units have not rejoined with their memories. Knowledge itself grows dim with time, but I am quite certain of the sixteen I mentioned.

On every one of them there was much chemical evidence that some time earlier — always until now very much earlier — the world had had an oxygen-rich atmosphere. I have been trying to learn why this always changed, and it was a delight to find a world where the change seems to have been so recent.

Perhaps I can really know. Perhaps your companion is right.”

Genda was too delighted even to be angry at the perhaps.”

“Have any oxygen-breathing people ever been living on the worlds you have seen?” asked Zhamia.

“No, this is the first. This is why I am hopeful. Perhaps some of your people can supply knowledge — I have never before learned things indirectly, from other beings. This itself is a fascinating new field in which to learn. Had it not been so, I would have tried to escape much earlier. There was little I learned during the months I was a captive, but there was that great hope.”

This statement, of course, distracted Earrin from his interpreting job.

“Months? But you’ve been in their hands only a day or so!” The true situation had been filtering slowly into Fyn’s mind, but had not quite reached conscious level. Bones’ earlier story had started theflow; the latest statement cracked the dam.

“No. I had no way to judge the time precisely, until the other unit arrived; but this unit now knows where the moon and planets are in the sky. It was in the cell for eight of the moon’s orbits, plus five days.”

The dam was broken, but common sense fought the flood valiantly.

“That’s impossible! Less than two days ago you were helping pull our raft across Boston Harbor.”

“Yes, of course. What is impossible about that?”

“You can’t be in two different places at the same time, doing two different things!”

“I think we are having more trouble with your communication code. Remember, the two units met long enough to exchange memories while both were captive.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do we,” Mort cut in. “Could you tell us what’s going on, Fyn? You haven’t been translating.”

“Can’t. I’m too mixed up myself. Wait until I can get this straight, please.” The Nomad had continued to keep his eyes on Bones’ gestures.

“We were able to use the real speech.” The Observer tried to use less direct terminology, though the gesture language provided little wherewithal “You know-at least-I thought-you and Kahvi sometimes-but perhaps I was wrong. Tell me, is the sound system really your only way of transferring information-memories-knowledge-from one of your kind to another?”

“There’s writing.”

“But that is just an even less direct use of your sound code. There is nothing more direct?”

“No.”

The Observer stood motionless, except for eyeballs which shifted slowly from one of the human beings to another, for fully two or three minutes.

Fyn was equally bemused. Common sense had stopped fighting back. He had just about grasped the true situation with the natives-he and Kahvi would always think of them as plural, and as native, since they could live on Earth unprotected.