Hal Clement: The Nitrogen Fix

“I’ll stay up here for a while, though. You can relax inside.”

“What about the others?” Kahvi asked.

“All right, I’m sure. The raft is there and looks all right. One of us is going to have to make me a better mask. Maybe if the Hillers don’t need all this shipment — yes, I can see them both coming this way, now. Danna’s in front, and she’d be hanging back if anything much had happened to the raft or the tent, since we told her to take care of them.”“Glass? Raft? You must be the traders,” the occupant of the jail cut in. “No wonder you were so full of outside customs. I should have thought. I must have lost track of the days-you weren’t due for a week yet, were you?”

“They said two months, which would be the middle of May. I don’t know the exact date — we always seem to get out of step by a day or two — but I don’t think we’re that far off,” the woman said. “How long have you been here? Have they kept you completely out of touch? That’s pretty stiff.”

“I’m not a jailbird. I’m doing a job, not serving a sentence. I was supposed to be ready for you — they told me by the middle of June. O’Donohugh must have — hmm. I think I know what happened. You’d better have your friends come inside. I do hope you can live through this.”

Kahvi felt better. The words were not encouraging, but the young fellow seemed to have some of the courtesy reflexes.

“Thanks, she replied. “There was no need to have anyone waiting especially for us, though; we could have gone up to the Hill to let you know we were here.”

“Well, we wanted to know as soon as possible. There are — or maybe were — some projects going on here in Canton and we were using this building lot anyway. I hope you brought as much glass as we asked for; it’s badly needed was.”

“Was needed? Had projects? What’s changed? And what were the projects? Why did they need so much glass — if you want to tell, of course.”

“Well, I’m not really sure about the past tense, but the fire you just helped fight off seems to have started very close to where we had things going. Whether anything is left I’ll have to find out. I hope we can still use your cargo.”

“And that you can still pay for it,” added Kahvi.

“We can take credit, of course; it’s always nice to have someone who owes us air.”

“That’s right, there are two of you, aren’t there-your partner is still up on the roof. I suppose you’ll need help in getting the cargo ashore. Should I come now? Or wait — you mentioned other names. Has your group gotten larger?”

“Not really.” Kahvi began to feel a little tense, and wondered whether he were making some reference to her figure. “It’s been the same group for years, but usually Earrin and I are the only ones to trade. This time the cargo is bigger and the raft harder to move. We don’t really need help in unloading, and you’ll have to restock your air tray anyway before you come out, of course. It was very lucky that only one coal landed in an oxygen tray, wasn’t it?” Kahvi had just realized how incredibly lucky this was, and was wondering how it had been possible to save the roof at all.

If the boy read anything into her remark, however, his expression showed no sign of it. Kahvi felt her own skin flush, and deliberately slowed her breathing. “We’ll go back and start unloading now, as long as you’re all right here,” she went on as calmly as she could. “Where did I put my mask? There — thanks.

You’d better fix that tray, and do something about patching tissue. We’ve used up three quarters of what you had.”

“No hurry about that,” was the reply. “There’s no way we can have another fire for a while — Oh, sorry; that’s another Nomad must-do, isn’t it? Well, maybe you’re right. I’ll take care of them both before I come out to help. Maybe you could bring some glass here right away; I don’t have anything smooth enough to grow good patch tissue on.”

“All right.” The woman had redonned her mask by this time, but still used spoken words. The Hiller would not understand Nomad gesture speech, still less the symbols used by the Fyn family and Bones.

“One of us will be back in a few minutes. Do you want some help with nitrogen, too?”

She regretted this question the instant it was uttered, and glanced up at her husband. She could see him clearly enough but knew that he could not see her nearly as well through the reflecting roof tissue,and for a moment she felt a twinge of fear.

However, the young Bostonian seemed indifferent to any implications in her remark, and a moment later she was through the air lock.

She looked up again at Earrin, and gestured him to come with her back toward the raft. Danna and Bones were now only a few meters away, and she repeated the signal to them. Her husband glanced toward the spot from which the smoke no longer rose, shrugged, and made his way down the wall. The party was halfway back to the raft before Kahvi said anything.

“Could you hear him?” she asked her husband.

“Not very well. You seemed to be schoolmarming at first.”

“I was. I’m not sure what we should be doing about him.”

“Why anything? What’s wrong with him? What’s his name, and why is he there?”

“He said he wasn’t a jailbird, but I don’t believe him. He’s a junky — a waster. There isn’t a nitrogen plant or intake tube in the place. Why the roof didn’t go up in one big flare I can’t see, and I’m still dizzy from the oxygen — he’s got a full atmosphere of it in there. He wants glass to grow patch sheets on, and I suppose we’d better give, it to him, but we’ll have to stay on the raft ourselves — that jail is no place for Danna.”

“What’s his name?”

“I didn’t get it.”

“Then he’ll know you spotted something wrong.” Kahvi nodded slowly. Exchange of names was another of the life-protecting habits of the nomadic people outside the cities. Without that information one could not talk about another person to a third party without ambiguity, and precise communication was one of the necessities of life. The same factor underlay the Nomad abhorrence of lying. Kahvi’s failure to ask for the jailbird’s name would make it obvious that she was being disturbed or distracted by something.

“He must know anyway,” she said finally. “I did say something about his shortage of N-gear.

“Errin, what should we do? Of course we have to give him the life-support stuff he needs, but I’m afraid of him. He doesn’t care about rules — I don’t know what he’s likely to do.”

“I’ll bring him the glass,” replied the man.

“Don’t worry about that. Maybe this will help, in a way. We can let Bones help with the unloading; if this fellow does see him, no one is likely to believe him anyway. It probably wouldn’t even matter if he saw Danna.”

“I don’t think we should take that chance. They’d grab her for Surplus school and think they were doing her and us a favor. You know that as well as I do. Look, this junky spoke about a project where the fire was, and if he wasn’t dreaming there are probably other people over there, which is much too close. They might be over any minute to see what happened to their jail, and if they see Bones or Danna-well, they can’t all be oxygenfreaks.”

Earrin nodded. “You’re right. They’d better get out of sight.” He gestured briefly to Bones, and the native disappeared without a splash into the water. Danna followed, unwillingly. She didn’t want to go back inside the tent, but was well enough brought up to know when things were necessary.

She gave a reproachful look at her father’s gesture, and disappeared as smoothly as her nonhuman friend. A minute or so later her head appeared briefly inside the tent, signifying her safe arrival; then she dropped out of sight among the bubble-covered trays of air producers and food plants. Her parents saw, but devoted most of their attention to the ridge for several more minutes.