Hal Clement - Iceworld

The slim projectile appeared outside the control room port, and drifted gently down to the surface of the lake. It was still hot, having been stowed inside the ship; and contact with the liquid surface was heralded by a burst of steam. Feth hastily lifted it a short distance, and waited for it to cool somewhat.

“Hardly a fair test to cool it off that fast,” he said. “Something’s bound to give.”

Presently he lowered the machine again. This time only ripples marked the contact. Very cautiously Feth forced it still lower, while the others watched silently. Apparently the cold did not matter.

But something else did. Quite suddenly another cloud of steam arose, and a wave of considerable size spread from the place where the torpedo had been. Had been was the right expression; there was no response when the mechanic manipulated the controls to bring it up again. He glanced up, presently.

“It’s a pity that only the cargo compartments of those things are airtight. Apparently the liquid bothers electrical machinery. Maybe it dissolves insulation.” Laj Drai was looking as though he had seen a ghost. He made no direct answer to the mechanic’s remark.

“Ken!” he spoke suddenly, still looking preoccupied. “When you first described this patch of stuff, you said it’s appearance reminded you of the flat country. Right?”

Right.” Ken saw what the drug-runner had in mind.

“Would it — would it be possible for a planet to have so much liquid that three quarters of its surface would be covered?”

“I certainly can’t say it’s impossible. I admit it’s hard to imagine. Any liquid at all — and particularly something as rare as that stuff is with us. Still, this is a larger planet than Sarr, and would have a greater velocity of escape, and is colder, so the average speed of the gas molecules would be slower — let’s see—” His voice trailed off as he became involved in mental arithmetic. “Yes, this planet would hold the stuff easily enough; and hydrogen and oxygen are common elements in the universe. I’m afraid it’s very possible, Drai.” The other did not answer; everyone else knew what he was thinking. When he did speak, Ken felt smug — he had predicted the subject correctly.

“But the flatlanders — could they live in the stuff? — but maybe there aren’t any; the liquid must have destroyed the torpedoes — but their radar beams! We’ve detected those!” He looked at Ken suddenly, as though he had made a telling point in an argument. Ken had been following his thoughts well enough to answer.

“You have no evidence whatever that those beams were not generated by the same race with which you have been trading. I have already pointed out that they are competent astronomers. I think you have been developing a very interesting mythology for the last twenty years, though I admit the idea could do with a little more proof.”

Keeping one eye on the enigmatic liquid beyond the port, Drai rolled the other toward the pilot.

“Lee, go up about ten miles, and start travelling. It doesn’t matter which way, I guess.” He was obeyed in silence. Even though Lee did not take the shortest route to the ocean, the speed of the ship even within the atmosphere was such that only minutes passed before the fabulous “flatland” lay beneath them — the closest any of them had dared to approach it in twenty Sarrian years. Dumbly the commander gestured downward, and presently they hung a few hundred feet above the waves. Drai looked for a long time, then spoke three words to Ken: “Get a sample.”

The scientist thought for a moment; then he found the small bomb in which he had taken the frost sample on Mars, pumped out the air, and closed the valve. Redonning his armor, he clumped into the air lock after voicing dire warning to Lee about keeping the vessel level. He fastened a wire to the bomb itself and another to the valve handle; then, opening the outer door, he lowered away until the loss of weight told him the bomb was submerged. He pulled the other wire, waited a moment, pulled up the filled bomb, closed the valve again, and sealed the outer door of the air lock.

Naturally, the bomb exploded violently within a few seconds of the time that sulfur ceased condensing on its surface. Ken felt thankful that he had not yet removed the armor — parts of the bomb had actually scored the metal — and after some thought tried again. This time he let down a tiny glass wool sponge, hoping the liquid had a significant amount of natural capillary action. He placed the sponge in another bomb, and by the same method he had used with the Martina sample eventually determined the molecular weight of the substance. It came out higher then before, but eventually he found the deposit of salts on the sponge and allowed for their weight. The result this time left little doubt that the substance was indeed hydrogen oxide.

He looked down for a minute at the tossing blue expanse, wondering how deep it might be and whether it would have any real effect on the conditions of the Planet of Ice; then he turned, climbed out of the armor — he had stayed in it for the rest of his experiment, after the first blast — and went to report to Drai.

The drug-runner heard him in silence. He still seemed a little dazed by the overthrow of his former belief. It was many minutes before he spoke, and then he simply said, “Take us back to One, Lee. I have to think.” Ken and Feth eyed each other, but kept all expression of glee from their faces.

“Well, you seem to have done it now.” Feth was still unhappy.

“In what way?” queried Ken. The two were ostensibly engaged in checking the mechanical adequacy of the refrigerated vivaria.

“I’ve been working for years to support this flatland myth — I realized it was never more than a theory, but Drai had to be shown the difference between that and fact — and I’ve been doing my level best to keep the production of tofacco down to a minimum.”

“Provided it was not cut off entirely,” Ken interjected rather unkindly.

“True. Now you blow up the story that kept him scared of really exploring the planet, and at the same time give him a tool for getting what he wants from the inhabitants by threats and force. If you had any ideas in mind at all, they seem to have flopped badly.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You saw the way Drai was feeling when he left the ship.”

“Oh, yes, he was regretting the wasted years and the money that went with them, I suppose. That won’t last much longer; he’s been mooning for days now. Then he’ll—” Ken had been thinking furiously as the mechanic delivered his gloomy discourse; now he interrupted abruptly.

“Then he’ll be too late to do anything. Feth, I want you to take me on trust for a while. I promise you won’t miss your sniff. I’m going to be very busy in the air lock for at least a couple of hours, I imagine. Lee is still aboard. I want you to find him, and keep him occupied in any way you see fit for at least that length of time. I don’t want him to see what I’m doing. You have known him longer than I, and can figure out something to interest him. Just don’t kill him; we’re going to need him later.”

Feth looked at the scientist for several seconds, obviously doubtful. Ken wisely said nothing more, letting him fight his own battle with a perfectly natural fear. He was pleased but not too surprised when the mechanic finally said, “All right,” and disappeared toward the control room. Ken waited a moment; then, reasonably sure of not being interrupted, he closed the inner door of the air lock, donned a regular space suit, and set briskly to work. He was rather regretful of the need for sacrificing some of his living specimens, but he consoled himself with the thought they could easily be replaced later. Then, too, the vivarium he had to use was the one containing only a few plants— the fire had interrupted before the human children had made much progress with it. That was foresight, not good fortune; he had had to decide which of them he was going to use, before he had left the planet.