Hal Clement - Iceworld

“I’m not convinced yet, and you’d better convince me before your next drug-hunger comes due. If they’re going to stop trading, I’m going to stop distributing free samples.” Feth, in the background, emitted an Uncontrolled sound that was the equivalent of a gasp of dismay; Ken permitted an anxious expression to reach his face for a moment. He had had one brief experience of tofacco-hunger now, and did not want a prolonged one. Drai nodded as he saw the expression. “Yes. The stock is not very high, and if it’s to be the last, I’m going to get value for it. I have been given an idea from what you just told me. If this tale of having rescued two natives from death by overheating is true, you can just go back down and play on their gratitude. You can make out that you want to trade for tofacco. Surely they will gratify the hero who pulled them from terrible death. Particularly if he makes it clear that he’s in for a very uncomfortable time if they don’t. You go right back down — your armor’s warmed up by this time. We haven’t pulled in the other torpedo yet; as soon as you go on local control down there, we’ll send it over to you with the metal, and you can haggle to your heart’s content.” He ceased, still wearing a definite sneer.

“That fact that my knowledge of the language is still fragmentary does not bother you?”

“No. I think you know more than you say.”

“How about the fact that there are, at the moment, many other natives at the scene of the fire? I kept among the trees when they arrived so as not to be seen, but I can’t do that and trade at the same time. Do you want me to work out in the open? They’ll all be fire-fighting for a while, but I suppose they’ll want metal afterward.” He paused. “I don’t see how they can all be the one you’ve been trading with. But I suppose you don’t mind opening new bargains with the others— Laj Drai interrupted.

“You can wait.”

“Oh, it wouldn’t take very many torpedo loads of metal to satisfy them all, I’m sure.”

“I said you could wait.” Drai must have seen the satisfied expression that flickered for an instant on the scientist’s face, for he added, “I have another idea. The Karella will go down with you, and both watch and listen. Possibly if the native becomes recalcitrant, we can suggest lighting another fire.”

“Now you want the natives to get a good look at a full-sized space ship. You don’t care much about the law, do you?”

“You ought to know. Besides, they’ve seen it already. However, we’ll wait — for a while. I rather think we’ll land at a little distance from the scene of the fire, and drop in when it’s out. That way,” both eyes fixed themselves on Ken, “we’ll be sure who talks, and for how long.” He turned, pushed off from a convenient wall, and glided out of sight along the corridor. Feth followed him with one troubled eye.

“Ken, you shouldn’t use that tone of voice to him. I know you don’t like him — no one could — but remember what he can do. I thought, after you’d had a taste of that, you’d calm down a bit. Now he’s likely to hold out on you just for the fun of it.”

“I know — I’m sorry if I’ve gotten you in trouble too,” replied the scientist. “I just think he’s safer when angry. While he’s gone, now, we’ll have to talk fast. There’s work to be done. First of all, was he telling the truth about the short supply of tofacco? Does he keep it all in that refrigerated safe that he hands out our doses from?”

“Yes. And he’s probably telling the truth; most of the stuff goes back to the Sarrian system at the end of the season, and he doesn’t keep much on hand.”

“How much constitutes a dose? I didn’t get a really good look at what was inside the brick of frozen air, either time.”

“A little cylinder about so big.” Feth illustrated. “It comes that way, only in longer sticks — he cuts them into ten sections, and freezes each one up for a separate dose.”

“All right — that’s what I wanted to make sure of. Now, how good are the little refrigerators on those vivaria of mine? Will they freeze air?”

“Sure. Why?”

“You’ll see. Right now, I imagine I have another acting job to do; I don’t suppose anything would stop Drai from going down to the surface of Three, as he said.” Without explaining anything more, Ken headed toward the control room of the interstellar flyer.

He was quite right; the impatient drug-runner had already ordered the pilot down once more. Lee was making no objection this time, though his expression was not actually one of delight. The descent was uneventful, practically a repetition of the earlier one, except that they were homing on the fixed transmitter and consequently were some eight miles east of their former point of landing. They stopped at a height of two miles above the nearest peaks, and looked around for the smoke cloud. Rather to Drai’s disappointment, they saw it; even their eyes could distinguish it from the regular clouds without much difficulty.

“It still seems to be burning,” Ken remarked innocently. “Are we going to drift here in full sight until they put it out?”

“No. We’ll go down and hide.”

“Among the plants? That doesn’t seem to work so well, as a method of concealing this ship.” Drai eyed the scientist for some time, obviously near the limit of exasperation.

“I’m looking after the matter, thank you. The vegetation does not grow everywhere, as even you should be able to see. There, for example.” He pointed to the south. A triangular patch which gave a metallic reflection of the sky light lay in that direction. It was one of those Ken had noticed on his first descent. “We’ll look that over. It seems to be lower than the surrounding territory, and would make a very good hiding place, if it’s really like the sort of ground the flatlanders live on, these other natives may very well avoid it. How about that, scientist?”

“You seem to have some logic on your side,” Ken replied equably. Drai made no answer to this; he simply gestured to Lee, and the pilot obediently slanted their line of descent toward the shiny patch.

With radio altimeter registering five hundred feet, Ken began a careful examination of the area. It was larger than he had guessed from a distance, and he found himself unable to decide on its nature. The planet had some queer minerals, of course; the brief look he had had of the specimens he had just brought in showed that. Directly below he could make out no details at all; but over near the edge of the area, the trees that rimmed it were reflected—

“Lee! Hold up!” The pilot obeyed without thought, stung by the urgency of his tone.

“What is it?” The eternal suspicion was lacking even from Drai’s, voice, this time.

“It’s a liquid — see how the reflection at the edge trembles in the air currents!”

“So what?”

“The only liquid I’ve encountered on this planet behaved an awful lot like that queer oxide we found on Four — the one that nearly froze my feet. I saw some before here, and dipped a handler in it; the stuff vaporized instantly, and it was minutes before I could put a tentacle in the sleeve again. I think its that heat-drinking stuff— hydrogen oxide.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before?” The suspicion was back in Drai’s tone.

“What chance have I had? Besides, I don’t care if you leave yourself a frozen memorial on this planet — it’s just that I’m with you at the moment. If you don’t want to believe me, at least put a torpedo down on it first. You must have plenty of those.”

Even Drai could find no fault with this suggestion, and he gestured to Feth. The mechanic, with a censorious glance at Ken, went to his control board and without comment launched another of the projectiles. The one Ken had used was available, but it was the only one fitted with manual control, and he did not want to waste it. He was already convinced of the correctness of Ken’s hypothesis.