Hal Clement - The Nitrogen Fix

There seemed nothing to do except go back to the raft, and tell the others what had happened — Danna was included in family discussions as a matter of course.

There was no family discussion that night, however.

Bones, far taller than Fyn’s one and two-thirds meters, saw the motion first and reacted instantly as had long ago been agreed with the family. The slender form vanished almost soundlessly into the sea, without giving any signal of intent or explanation. The man needed none.

The most likely direction was still westward. He looked that way, and saw six human heads rising from behind the ridge. They were clearly visible against the still bright sky; it seemed worth hoping that they had not seen Bones.

However, it must be obvious to them that Fyn himself had been in or near the jail. Had the oxygenwaster gone to get them? Were they friends of that rather strange character? Earrin still had no idea what had knocked him out; maybe the fellow had gone for help. In any case, there was nothing to be done except wait and see what these Hillers wanted, and hope they asked no embarrassing questions about natives. As a Nomad, his social status with Hillers was already low enough; if they thought he were actually associating with the animals, it might make a living harder to earn.

So Fyn, still not quite to the pile of cargo they had brought ashore, stood and waited for the newcomers. When they got close enough to identify figures, it became evident that the jailbird was not among them. However, all six seemed to be in the same general age group, perhaps sixteen or seventeen.

Two of them were women. It was one of these who spoke when the group came within two or three meters.

“You’re the Nomad Earrin Fyn, aren’t you?” she asked.

“That’s right.” The Hillers used only spoken words, shouted through their breathing masks, like other city dwellers. Fyn did not attempt gesture language, which was essentially a family development unknown even to other Nomads. “We brought the copper and glass you wanted,” he added.

“So we see. Is this all you could get?”

“All in the time you gave us. We had to enlarge the raft to carry this, as it was. We can make more trips if you want, but you know there is nothing to be done about the rate copper comes in from the sea.

Glass we can get as fast as we can pick it up.”

“Where do you get it?”

Fyn’s smile was concealed both by mask and darkness, but the Hillers might as well have seen it. The question was not repeated.

“Well, this will help us start over,” the woman went on after a moment. “We’ll certainly need more, though, so you might as well start after it as soon as you can.”

“There is payment for this load.” Fyn was not at all diffident about making this point.

“You’ll get it. I’m afraid there is no place ashore where you can relax, however, while you wait. Thejail here is no longer suitable-perhaps you have noticed.”

“Yes. My wife and I have both been there. Education is not working very well, I judge.”

“Did you have trouble?”

“Not exactly. My Wife went first and was frightened by the situation, but not by anything he did. She promised him glass for growing patch tissue — his roof was damaged by the fire this afternoon — and I just delivered it. I gathered from what he said that the person there — I’m afraid we never got his name — is one of your group.”

“True. He is.” One of the young men was speaking this time. “Did you visit him alone?”

“Yes. I told you Kahvi was frightened. Why does it matter?” The man paid no attention to this question.

“No one else was in or near the jail — no one but Rembert?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if Rembert was there, unless that’s the oxy-waster we’ve been talking about. Something knocked me out — ”

“That was Rembert. He said he thought you were associating it Invaders when he saw — ”

“What’s an Invader? And what did your friend Rembert do afterward?”

“He came to us.” It was the woman again, still paying no attention to Fyn’s questions. “Was anyone with you when you regained your senses?”

Earrin hesitated. He was quite incapable of lying, like any Nomad, but he did not want to admit the presence of Bones. Perhaps, since Hillers did not regard the natives as people, the word “anyone” would not include the Observer; but that would still be deceit — misleading communication. It was this, not the mere word “lying,” which triggered Fyn’s righteousness reflexes.

The hesitation lasted too long.

“Was your wife with you when you awakened?”

“No.”

“Was anyone — human or not — there?” That wording left no choice, nor any ground for hesitation.

“Yes.”

“Rembert was right,” snapped the woman to the others. “There’s one of them following this Nomad.

We don’t need to know where it is now — even if it’s in the jail it won’t matter. Bring this Nomad to the Hill.”

“But my — ” Earrin made a gesture, nearly invisible in the deepening darkness, toward the raft.

“Your wife can do without you for a while. We’ll bring her the payment that was promised. You are coming with us. We need bait!”

Bones swam rapidly, entirely below the surface. There was no obvious reason to stay near the raft, and there was a burning need to fill the knowledge vacuum about the region beyond the ridge. The way to get there without being seen by the Hillers was obvious enough — swim around the Canton peninsula part way, to its northern extremity, or even all the way around to the western side, under water where human beings couldn’t see very well even by daylight. It was almost night now, and even if there were people elsewhere on the shore it should be possible to leave the water without being seen.

There was no problem in finding the way. The Fyn group, with Bones, had been here several times in the last few years, and the Observer knew the terrain — even under water — well enough.

The water was growing darker; the sun had set by now. The almost permanent haze of Earth’s new atmosphere still held a golden-brown luminosity, but that would not last long. The distance to swim was scarcely a kilometer, inside the Sayre islets, west across the end of the peninsula for a few hundred meters, then into the cove on the northwest corner. Bones swam steadily. The water at the head of the little bay finally began to grow shallow, and Bones turned cautiously to get one eye above the surface, folding the broad fin on that side closely against the rubbery body to keep it hidden.The shore showed no sign of human beings.

However, the plants were large — almost treelike — and included many useful varieties of both natural and pseudolife. There were several masses of Newell tissue, the porous material from which the Fyns had made their raft. There were spinneys of realwood, a tough nitro-growth useful in construction; there were tangled masses of the Yamatiya cordage organism. It was the sort of place where human beings might easily be present even at night, sleeping between days of collecting or craft work, and Bones submerged again and went on to the west side, a matter of another three or four hundred meters.

Here, too, the shore was almost a jungle, but the growths were less useful; slimy patches of various kinds of nitro-life, tangled and thorny bushes and copses of more evolved stuff. It was not certain that there would be no people, but the population of the species was limited. They couldn’t be everywhere.

Bones moved inshore to half-meter depth — the water was almost mirror-smooth on this side of the peninsula. It was not practical here to turn one-eye-up without exposing more body anyway, so the Observer’s fishlike form rose far enough to use both. The huge eyes made a quick inspection in both directions along the shore, and without attempting to stand upright Bones slipped rapidly across the few meters of open sand and into the concealment of the vegetation. No sound at all resembling a human voice responded to the act, though the Observer could not have been really sure of any such resemblance.