Hal Clement - Iceworld

Where he landed, the fire had not quite reached, though the bushes were beginning to smoke. There was no trail such as the boy might have left, or at least none that Ken could recognize. Playing safe, he moved downhill to the very edge of the fire and searched back and forth across it for fifty yards each way — a considerable distance, when the visibility was less than a tenth of that Then he began moving his sweep gradually up the hill.

Roger had made more progress than might have seemed likely, considering the condition in which Ken had left him; it was fully ten minutes before the scientist found him, still struggling on but making practically no headway. He must have actually gained on the fire during at least part of that time, however, the Sarrian realized.

He sent his booming call downward, and once more lowered the tail of the torpedo. Roger, with a final effort, got his legs through one of the straps, and folded his arms through the other. His face was within an inch or two of the torpedo hull, which had been heated considerably by its recent passage along the flame front; but anything was better than staying where he was, and Roger was scarcely conscious of the blistering on his hands and face. Ken, once sure that the boy had a good grip, plunged up into clear air and bore his second burden down to the house. Roger was still holding on when they arrived, but it was hardly a conscious effort — his mother had to unlock his frantic grip by force.

Ken, knowing he could do no good around the house, went back uphill above the treetops to see how the others were making out in their fire fighting, leaving the presumably competent adult to care for the rescued children. The need for effort seemed to be decreasing; the lower portion was definitely burned out, it seemed to him, and the only activity was along the upper edge. The men were still at work soaking down the edges as they worked upward, but the really lively area had long since outrun them. It was, as Ken had rather expected, heading for bare rock and fuel starvation; but it would be many hours yet before it died completely. As the Wings were perfectly aware, it would be a source of danger for days if the wind should shift, and they did not let up for an instant in their effort until forced to do so by sheer exhaustion. Twice during that period Ken landed on bare patches near Mr. Wing and sketched a rough map of the situation on the ground. Once he hugged ground between trees himself for many minutes while a stiff-winged, three-engined metal machine droned overhead; again he concealed himself as a group of men, bearing water pumps and other fire-fighting tools appeared on the trail from Clark Fork and passed on uphill to help. Ken remained in the vicinity of the house after that; he did not particularly want to be seen by these new natives, reasoning that much delay to his language progress would ensue. He may have been right.

It was shortly after the arrival of the new group that Mr. Wing and Don appeared at the house, almost ready to drop. They were scratched, soot-stained, and scorched; even Ken could appreciate the difference from their former appearance, for they appeared in even worse shape than Roger and Edie had been. It was then, for the first time, that Mr. Wing learned of the danger and rescue of the two, for Ken had made no attempt to apprise him of the matter — it was too difficult, with his limited grasp of English, to manufacture adequate phrases.

Mr. Wing had the same trouble, after he heard the story. Ken had already judged that the race must have strongly developed ties of affection; now he was sure of it. Mr. Wing could not find the words to express himself, but he made the fact of his gratitude amply clear.

The Karella had indeed left the earth’s atmosphere, but had not returned to her previous height. Two-way communication had been re-established — Ken wished he knew just when — and Feth was once more controlling the torpedo which carried the scientist. The process of getting aboard was no more complicated than usual. Ken left the two “live” boxes in the air lock for the time being, having set their refrigerators to the same power as the first had seemed to require; the other two, partly filled with mineral specimens, he brought inside. Drai greeted him rather sourly as he emerged from his metal chrysalis.

“So you’re finally back. What did you get, if anything?” Ken eyed him with the closest approach to a defiant expression he had yet worn.

“Very little. Thanks to the slight distraction you seem to have engineered, the natives had other things to do than talk to me.”

“How was I to know that the ship’s hull would set off a chain reaction in the local vegetation? I should think if anything could do it, it would have happened long ago from some other cause.”

“I seem to recall telling you of the danger myself. And it may have happened before; the natives seemed to have fairly well organized means of dealing with it.”

“Then the fire is out?”

“Not quite. It will probably react for some hours yet. What I dislike is your habit of assuming that I am either a liar or a fool. I told you what happened to the piece of vegetation I picked up; I told you what I was doing with the native in the matter of learning his language. You were listening to me most if not all of the time. What possessed you to come down the way you did?”

“Because I doubted what you told me.” Drai made the statement without circumlocution; he apparently felt he was on secure ground. “You said that there had been no talk between you and the native on the subject of tofacco; you even said that you doubted that this was the same native we’ve been trading with.”

“I said I wasn’t sure he was the same. That’s minor, though — go ahead.”

“The first day, while you were down talking to him, the signal came from the fixed transmitter, indicating that they were ready to trade.”

“I should think that would support my veracity. I was not near the transmitter. Ask Feth — he landed me.”

“That’s what I thought, for a while. But today, which was the usual interval after a signal, I sent down another torpedo while you were having your ‘language lesson’— and nothing happened! There was no one there.”

“You mean no one gave you any tofacco.”

“No one took the metal, either. I’d be willing to believe they were trying to cheat me, if it had gone without anything in return; but that doesn’t fit. I decided you had let something slip while I wasn’t listening, and came down to see what you were up to.”

“Skipping for the moment the question of how I could possibly tell whether or not you were listening, I’m not sure whether to be glad you think me stupid rather than dishonest. I agree that my native may be your trader, in that case; he might have decided to go to the transmitter later in the day, after he had talked to me. He knew I couldn’t stay long. In that case, you have only yourself to thank that he didn’t go later — he was too busy. Also, a couple of the young ones were nearly killed by the chain reaction; he may not be too pleased with you now, if he’s connected the ship and the trading business. After all, remember he knows we come from Planet One on these trips.”

“That I don’t believe. He couldn’t possibly know it. That’s another reason I decided you were trying to cover up your own indiscretion. How do you know that two of the natives were endangered by the fire?”

“I saw them. As a matter of fact, I rescued them — rode them out of the way on the torpedo. I spent quite a while investigating the whole thing, since once you’d started it there was nothing else for me to do. I can prove that— I got some specimens of vegetation residue that may give some more information about the planet.” Drai eyed him silently for some moments.