Hal Clement - The Nitrogen Fix

The sound was an exclamation in a human voice, muffled as usual by a breathing mask. Bones’ nearer eye swivelled down in time to see a head jerk back under the water. The sky was still bright enough for reflection to obscure things below this surface too, and for a moment the streamlined body stood tense with indecision.

Then motion inside the building caught the other eye.

The figure still standing alone suddenly fell, though no reason could be seen. Another human being emerged from the inner pool and bent over the prostrate one, apparently removing the latter’s breathing mask, though details were not clear. This seemed interesting enough to change priorities, and Bones entered the air lock.

There was no question of helping Earrin; there was no question of helping anyone — Bones did not even know that Earrin was the one who had fallen, though it seemed likely. There was no question of personal violence. There was just Question, another blank area on that incredible mental map. Something was happening which did not fit any previous experience, and an explanation had to be found.

Though much taller than that of any human being, Bones’ form was slender enough to get under the wall without trouble; two or three seconds sufficed to traverse the lock. The shadowy jail would have forced human eyes to delay for adaptation, but those of the Observer reacted more quickly. Even so, little information came through at first.

The person on the floor was Earrin Fyn, but what the other was doing — helping or hurting — was still not obvious. He stopped doing it instantly on perceiving the newcomer, and sprang to his feet.

His mask was off and his words unmuffled, but they meant nothing to Bones. The actions which followed did carry information, however; the Observer was clearly unwelcome. The fellow seized a meter-long sponge rod and swung it violently.

Bones ducked quickly enough to save an eye, but got a painful jolt on the left jaw. The second came much lower, and its force was absorbed by the cartilaginous ribs of the broad fin which ran down thesame side. Neither blow did serious damage — not nearly enough to start a budding reaction — but both hurt, and neither brought any consolation in the form of new knowledge. Bones’ reaction was almost human, and the third swing was stopped short of its target.

The tentacles which sprouted just below each eye and above the lateral fins lashed out. One seized the stick, and the other snapped whiplike against the man’s bare chest. It did not actually break the skin, but left a red welt a centimeter wide and ten or twelve long, and the man fell back with a wordless shriek.

Then he uttered two or three more syllables at Bones, several others which seemed to be directed at Fyn’s still motionless body, and snatched up a breathing mask and set of cartridges from a nearby table.

He seemed to have some trouble adjusting these; Bones had never seen a human being in a state of panic and was tempted to offer help, but fortunately made no actual move before the job was done.

The fellow disappeared into the lock pool, edging around to keep out of Bones’ reach as he approached it, and uttering a final burst of syllables as he submerged. Bones was tempted to follow, but Fyn’s motionless body offered an equally attractive mystery and the Observer stayed.

In several years’ companionship with the Fyn family the Observer had learned much.

Unconsciousness at night and after heavy exertion was a familiar phenomenon with these beings, but it was unusual for it to come on this suddenly.

Besides, while Fyn had been working quite hard during the last few hours, he had shown none of the usual preliminary symptoms, and it was not yet quite night. The man was clearly alive; his body was undergoing the endless inflation-deflation cycle which Bones now knew to be its oxygen-feeding mechanism. The discovery that this life form could use only gaseous oxygen, rather than nitrates, in its redox energy machinery had driven the Observer on a frantic search for another unit to which the knowledge could be transferred. It had fitted so neatly into the old hypothesis that livable planets always went through a stage when they had free oxygen in their atmospheres, before they acquired their permanent gas envelopes. .

The Fyn family had never found out why their strange companion had disappeared for a month.

Bones had no information on which to base effective first aid for the unconscious man, and did not really help him. The lump on the back of Earrin’s head was not pronounced enough to be seen by the great eyeballs or noticed by the strange, fluid nervous system which operated them. It was probably the over-oxygenated air of the jail which was the main cause of Fyn’s rapid recovery, but this never occurred to Bones. A gas analysis was, from the Observer’s point of view, something which could be accomplished easily enough with the appropriate physical and chemical equipment; but having no breathing equipment, the species had never evolved a sense of smell. Receptors analogous to taste buds existed on the outer skin as well as inside the mouth, and operated well enough under water, but Bones was not equipped to detect oxygen personally.

It was nearly dark when Earrin opened his eyes.

He could make out the figure of the native standing over him, but gestures could not be made out and communication was therefore limited. The man knew of course that the other had no vocal apparatus, and he and his wife had both come to realize that there was some limitation to the creature’s hearing, though neither could make out just what it was. Most of the scientific knowledge still retained by humanity was chemical rather than in the more general physical sciences, and neither Earrin nor Kahvi, well-read as the latter was, knew anything of the physics of sound. An explanation, however detailed, that Bones’ kind lacked both pitch and timbre discrimination would have meant nothing to either. They knew only that their strange friend seemed unable to distinguish words which seemed quite different to them, and that it was necessary to supplement vocal communication with gestures.

Even without real conversation, Bones could tell that Earrin was having trouble getting to his feet, and after a moment the tentacles helped.

Earrin, confused and with no recollection of just what had happened before he had been stunned, groped in the near-darkness for his breathing gear, found and donned it, and led the way outside.

Here it was bright enough to communicate, though the sun had set. Unfortunately, Fyn had little to communicate. He tried to get across the notion of an oxygen addict, and the native was delighted with the indirect information thus provided. It now seemed well established that human beings were in factindividuals, genuinely incapable of direct communication. This brought up so many unthought-of implications that the Observer was almost dazed at the new Unknowns opening up. What happened to a human mind before it had learned the communication code?

Earrin and Kahvi had kept the bud Danna-how had they known that it was a true copy? Two others had been produced since and had not been kept, though the units had been buried rather than eaten — why? Was there no risk from inaccurate copies? How did the human mind face the fact that nearly all the knowledge it acquired could not be transmitted and must be destroyed when the unit which had acquired it terminated its action? Psychology was an entirely new idea to a being which had hitherto known only a single mind.

Fyn, of course, was not concerned with anything abstract. He wondered where the jailbird might have gone, but there was no way to tell. The nearest place where he could have disappeared was over the ridge to the west, toward the fire site.

However, the darkness showed that Earrin himself had been unconscious long enough to permit the other possibilities — northward toward the end of the Canton peninsula, or south toward the Blue Hills and the city. Kahvi might have seen him go, of course, but this seemed doubtful — in that case she would have come to learn what had happened to Earrin.