Hal Clement - The Nitrogen Fix

Another squeeze on the tiny shoulder brought results. Danna sat up, rubbed her eyes, and looked calmly up at her nonhuman friend.

“Where are Mother and Dad?” A tentacle gestured shoreward; the child looked that way and nodded. She did not seem frightened at the bustle, and turned back to Bones. “Are they all right?

What’s happening?” The observer did not think of hiding any information, but gestured as swiftly as possible.

“I can’t tell whether your parents are all right. The other people are the ones your mother ran from last night, and their friends. She thinks they want to take you from her, and hurt you unless she does what they want. You and these other small ones will have to get your masks on and come with me. Take all the air you can carry. I will take you to one of the tents across the bay, where these people can’t get to you. Wake up the others and explain to them as quickly as you can.”

The first part of this instruction was easy to carry out, but convincing the other children that theyshould go anywhere with the strange giant was quite another matter. Since Danna was so obviously on friendly terms with it they were not actually afraid — or at least, didn’t want to show fear in front of their younger companion — but going into the sea where eyes were so little use made both of them uneasy.

Both, fortunately, had heard enough the night before to make them afraid of the Hemenway group — Ray in particular recalled the incident at the other jail; but they agreed to go only after Danna had convinced them that travelling in the water with Bones was fun.

Even then they were not really enthusiastic, until an emphatic tentacle gesture toward the shore directed their attention to the fact that people were wading toward them. Then all reached for their breathing equipment.

Danna, true to her training, checked everyone’s mask and cartridges before they entered the water, though the others were becoming uneasy as the crowd approached.

“All right,” the little girl said finally. “Bones will hold on to you, and I’ll hold onto him — I know how, but you might get pulled off when he goes fast. Hold those extra cartridges carefully, remember. Let’s go.” Danna had gestured briefly to Bones that he was to keep hold of the others, and within a few seconds the group was away from the raft and, presumably, safe from the delinquents.

Ray and Betty were tucked under a fin on each side, held firmly by the long tentacles; Danna was pressed against the dorsal surface of the fishlike form holding firmly to the roots of the same limbs, just below Bones’ eyes.

The Observer was slowed, of course, by the triple burden, but was still travelling faster than any human being could swim. This did not make the children safe, however; they had to be brought to some place where they could breathe before their cartridges ran out, and all nearby places were likely to be visited by the enemy — another concept new to the Observer, but growing clearer with experience.

There were places where they would be safe — Earrin and Kahvi had several tents around the Boston area. Whether any of them could be reached with a safe air margin was very uncertain. Bones had no way of judging how long the supply carried by the children would last. Swimming speed was far below normal, and the trip even to the nearest would be long.

But there was a way to increase the speed, the Observer suddenly realized. The children were not aware of the sudden change of course as the idea burgeoned. Bones felt it was safe to pass between the Sayre islands and the mainland, since the fugitives would not be visible under water and there was no obvious reason for the Hillers to be crossing the channel. The error of this belief turned out to be unimportant, since no one was getting structural materials from the island at the time, and they got through the strait, around the north end of the peninsula, and into the bay where Kahvi had come ashore with her daughter. Danna recognized the spot where they landed, and showed the other children the things her mother had explained, while the Observer went to work.

The big mass of Newell tissue was still there. There were plenty of cordage growths. Bones, using the glass knife from Danna’s pouch, hacked off a slab with little trouble; it cut like the foamed plastic of long before which had inspired its genetic design. In a quarter of an hour it had been shaped roughly into a flat-topped boat, or perhaps a surfboard, and rigged with tow-lines for the Observer and holds for the passengers. At a gesture, the latter carried it to the water; another, and Danna laughed.

“Hold on tight,” he said to the others. “We’re going to go very fast.”

They did. They went around the north side of the Sayre islands, and turned east. The children weren’t quite sure whether to enjoy the experience or be frightened, but tiny Danna’s complete trust in Bones influenced the others.

They crossed the bay and passed south of Milton island. There was an air tent there, and Bones had debated using it; but the family had restocked it recently with a new variety of pseudolife, and had planned to treat it as an emergency site only until the changed system reached its new equilibrium.

It seemed safer to go on to Copper. This took them past the northern end of the Blue Hills, slightly southward, and after some ten kilometers of swimming, to the island which had once been Penn’s Hill.

The tent here was well established. It was the family home while they were gathering copper.

The source lay about a kilometer and a half to the east, under forty meters of water, at the site of the former Fore River shipyard. Here the copper-isolating pseudolife forms still delivered their nuggets,unimpressed by the fact that the still melting pole caps had rendered the area accessible only to Bones.

The Observer made sure the children entered the home, checked the water level of the air lock, helped Danna make sure of the condition of the air plants, watched her set out all their cartridges to charge, and left them eating happily. Leaving the boat drawn up where they had landed, Bones headed back at full speed toward the Canton shore.

Now completely unhampered, the powerful body made the distance in little more than ten minutes.

The last kilometer was done entirely submerged, but there was no difficulty in finding the raft, and the grotesque head emerged carefully into the air tent.

There was one person inside, working on the plants with ordinary Nomad attention to important business. She had her back to the hatch, and it was some seconds before she saw the Observer.

When she did, she made no sound or gesture, but there was no trouble divining the question in Kahvi Mikkonen’s mind. Bones answered it.

“Danna and the other children are at Copper, with all the air and food they need. I can get them back quickly when you wish. What has happened to Earrin?”

Kahvi frowned. “They are using him as they wanted to use the children. I still find it hard to believe that they’ll really — really kill him, but they say they will unless you come back and let them talk to you. I don’t see how they could expect you to go near them, after what they did a few hours ago; but they felt sure you’d come back to the raft, and told me to wait here and give you the message. I can’t ask you to give up your life for my Earrin, though; he can’t mean that much to you.”

Bones thought deeply. The concepts of death and killing were fairly clear now; it could be seen why they meant more to human beings than pain or even ignorance. As with Kahvi, the belief that Earrin’s life was really in danger from his own species could not really lodge in the Observer’s mind, though the emotional and conceptual block involved was of course different from the woman’s.