Hal Clement: The Nitrogen Fix

“I’d like to be translating, or at least standing there, when you tell that to Genda and Rembert’s crowd at the same time!” was all she said.

“Why won’t you be?” was the natural question.

“We can’t leave the kids out at Copper that long. I’d trust Danna, but the other two are older and will have to show her they’re smarter, sometime or other. We can hope they’re reasonably safe so far, but that won’t last more than a few hours if nothing happens to them.” She paused to think for a moment.

“Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll go ashore and tell the Delinquents that you’ve come back and are willing to talk, and that you’ve put the kids ‘way out of their reach. I’ll tell them that you know just what happened to the world’s air — ”

“But I don’t!” objected the Observer, startled.

“But you certainly do. A hundred million-a billion-ten billion-whatever it was-people like me wearing gold ornaments. Jewelry. That’s what spread the metal over the world so well. It’s obvious. It wasn’t your doing, it wasn’t science’s doing. Can’t you just see Genda and those young devils having to admit to each other that they’re both wrong?” Neither Kahvi nor Bones had any grasp of the basic human skill at avoiding any such admission. “I’ll tell ‘em you know, and that you’ll explain to everyone who wants to listen at, say, sunrise tomorrow. That will give them plenty of time to fetch all the people they want, and give you plenty of time to get me out to Copper and come back again. When you do explain, they won’t have any more reason to kill you; it obviously doesn’t matter to you what the air is like, and they should be able to see that. That means you will have no reason for interfering in their attempt to change it back.

Oh!”

“What?”

“One of them was saying-you were captured in Hemenway in a room with a lot of plants and things?”

“Yes.”

“You smashed some of the planters?”

“I threw one at people who were throwing spears at me.”

“Why did you pick that one?”

“It was nearest.”

“I hope you can convince them. I gather it was a culture of whatever they are planning to change the air back-something that will reduce nitrates very fast. I don’t know what it uses for energy. That fellow was sure you’d tried to destroy it on purpose.” She thought for some seconds. “I still can’t come up with anything better. Can you?”

“No,” admitted Bones. “In any case, we should start your trip to Copper. I suggest you go to tellthose people what you can. I will make another boat, of the sort I carried the children on; it will save much time in the long run. I’ll be back with it shortly. If they’ll let you come with me, fine; if not, we’ll have to think of something else. If necessary, I will go back and bring the children here; they would be safer, I suppose, even with these other people around.”

“I’m afraid so. We’ll try this, though.” Kahvi got dressed and slid through the hatchway. Bones followed, watched her for a moment as she stood up and began to wade toward the group on the shore, and then dolphined at top speed toward the north and the supply of Newell tissue.

Half an hour later the slab of solid foam came bobbing back into view of the jail area. Kahvi, rather to Bones’ surprise, was waiting in waist-deep water; she clambered onto the crudely streamlined float, and the native promptly headed eastward again.

She looked back several times, but had to give most of her attention to holding on; the board literally bounced from wave to wave at times. She wondered how the children had managed — surely Bones hadn’t travelled this fast with them! No worry; there had been no mention of losing any, and Bones had said that they — plura1, definitely — were safe at Copper.

But there were worries at both ends of the trip. Had the youngsters done anything dangerous?

She could trust her own daughter, but didn’t know the others very well. And what was happening to Earrin, in the hands of the Delinquents? She gave another look aft, and gasped.

Smoke was rising from the jail area — it seemed to be the jail area — her eyes and her mask window wouldn’t let her be certain. It had to be smoke; the sky was cloudless, and it was rising visibly. What had happened? Was Earrin safe? She strained her eyes, but could make out nothing more, and was drawing away from the scene as the seconds passed. Should she go back? What would happen to the children if she did? Maybe Bones could see better, and tell her what was going on.

She jerked repeatedly on the tow harness, but the water was far too choppy to let the Observer tell one tug on the rope from another, and she was swimming entirely under water. The Canton shore and the smoke slowly faded astern, and finally disappeared around the Blue Hills peninsula. Kahvi settled for looking ahead.

The children were safe. After a single glance had made this clear, Kahvi frantically passed the new information to the native. Bones was about to plunge back into the water to go back to Canton; she barely stopped the dive.

“What do you want?” asked the Observer. “I can get back much more quickly alone, and bring I word back to you.”

“But you wouldn’t know what has happened to Earrin! Those young monsters said they’d kill him if anything went wrong, and obviously something’s wrong! They might blame him, or me, for whatever made the smoke.”

“Do you wish to come back and leave these young ones?”

“Yes! — No-I don’t know-the children could still-”

“Your husband can probably take care of himself without you better than they can.

“I suppose he can-but I’m not-I don’t know-look,” Kahvi took command of herself with an effort, “I can ride this other boat you made. The kids can come with us. We can get back pretty quickly; it’s only a few kilos.”

Bones thought of several objections, but curiosity about human psychology won out. Ten minutes later the woman, the three children, and a supply of cartridges and food pods were on the larger boat, and the group was moving as fast as the native could drag it back toward the west.

Kahvi was explaining everything to the children, and all were looking eagerly or anxiously ahead for the moment when Canton would be visible around the big peninsula.

When it was, the sight was not encouraging. The smoke was still rising. Danna whimpered in terror, and the older children were little better off, their own parents were there too. Kahvi would have liked to be encouraging, but there was nothing very helpful that her conscience would let her say. They could only watch and hope as the meters flowed backward and the scene grew clearer.

It was obvious before they neared the raft that the new building was gone. Smoke was still funneling up from where it had been. The raft appeared intact, however, and it seemed unlikely that any of theprisoners would have been in the lab. Danna looked anxiously at the source of the smoke, but her mother was more interested in the crowd of people. This was far larger than it had been. When she had left, a scant hour before, the forty or fifty adolescents and their captives had been near the jail and along the shore. Now there were at least two hundred, she was sure, though they milled about to o much to make counting possible. Were there really this many rebels against common sense and order?

No. She could see now that most of those in sight were barefoot, which was a very good sign. They must be conventional Hillers. What had brought them? And what had happened to the hostages? Kahvi strained to identify faces and forms as the boat drew near, but had not found any she wanted when the slab of foamy tissue slowed and bumped into the suddenly erect form of Bones, a few meters from the beach.