Hal Clement - Iceworld

In the control room, Feth did not find his task too difficult. He was not on the best of terms with the pilot, but had never held toward him the blazing hatred he had felt toward his chief. Lee was not particularly scrupulous, as he had shown in the past, but Feth knew of nothing in his record to call forth whole-souled detestation. In consequence, there was nothing strange in the mechanic’s entering the control room and settling down for a talk. The pilot was reading, as usual when off duty; to his question concerning Ken’s whereabouts, the mechanic responded that he was “fooling with his vegetables in the air lock.”

“Why does he have to use the lock for a laboratory?” the pilot asked plaintively. “I’ve already told him it’s bad practice. He’s got a lab in the station — why doesn’t he take them there?”

“I guess he figures if a refrigerator breaks down he can pump the air out of the lock and have a chance of the specimen’s lasting until he can make repairs,” Feth replied. “I imagine you’d have to ask him, to be really sure. I wouldn’t worry — there are just the three of us aboard, and those cases aren’t too big to get around if your engines start to get out of hand.” The pilot grunted, and returned to his reading; but one eye flickered occasionally to the board of telltale lights. He knew when Ken evacuated the lock and opened the outer door, but apparently did not consider it worth while to ask why. Feth, as a matter of fact, did not know either; he was wondering a good deal harder than Lee. Fortunately the pilot was used to his taciturnity and habitual glumness of expression, or his attitude might have aroused suspicion. It was, as a matter of fact, his awareness of this fact that had caused Ken to refrain from telling his whole plan to Feth. He was afraid the mechanic might look to happy to be natural.

The next interruption caused the pilot to put down his book and rise to his feet. “What’s that fool doing now?” he asked aloud. “Drilling holes in the hull?” Feth could understand the source of his worry; the outer door of the air lock had been closed again, and pressure had returned to normal some time before — but now the pressure was dropping rapidly, as though through a serious leak, and air was being pumped into the chamber. The outer door was still closed.

“Maybe he’s filling some portable tanks,” suggested Feth hopefully.

“With what? There isn’t a pump on board that could take air faster than the lock bleeders can deliver it, except the main circulators. He’s not using those, where he is.”

“Why don’t you call him and ask, then? I notice the inner door is sealed, too; he’ll probably have a fit if you opened it in the middle of his work.”

“I’ll have one myself if this goes on,” growled Lee. He watched the indicators for another moment, noting that the pressure now seemed to be holding steady at about half normal. “Well, if it’s a leak, he had sense enough to plug it.” He turned to the microphone, switched to the local wavelength used in the suit receivers, and made the suggested call. Ken answered promptly, denying that he had bored any holes in the hull and stating that he would be through shortly. Lee was able to get nothing else from him.

“One would almost think you didn’t trust him,” gibed Feth as the pilot turned away from the microphone. “You have as much reason to believe him as you have to believe me, and I notice you don’t worry much about me.”

“Maybe after he’s had a few more sniffs I’ll feel the same about him,” Lee replied. “Right now, just listening to him makes me think he’s not convinced yet about being under the influence. I never heard anyone talk like that to Drai before.”

“I did — once.”

“Yeah. But he’s done it more than once. Drai feels the same way — he told me to camp in this control room as long as you two were on board. I don’t think it matters, myself — I’ve got the key, and if anyone can short the whole control system out from under a Bern lock he’s darned good. However, orders are orders.” He relaxed once more with his book. Feth resumed his gloomy train of thought

“So they’re trusting on just that one hold on us. As if I didn’t know it. If Ken could figure out some means of getting at Drai’s cold-safe — I certainly have never been able to — but then, we couldn’t find Sarr anyway — if only we were looking for a sun like Rigel or Deneb, that a fellow could recognize at thousands of parsecs instead of having to get close enough to spot planets—” his thoughts rolled on, consisting largely of “If only’s” as they had now for years. The drug had one little if anything to Feth’s mind, but the fact of his subjection to it had long since given him an apathetic attitude toward all suggestions for escape. He wondered why he had consented to do as Ken asked — how could the scientist possibly keep the assurance he had given?

Ken’s own voice eventually interrupted this line of cogitation. “Feth, could you come down here to help me for a moment? I’m nearly through; there’s some stuff I want to take out of the lock.” Both Sarrians in the control room glanced at the indicators. The lock pressure was rising again.

“All right, I’m coming,” replied Feth. “Get the inner door open as soon as pressure’s up.” He started down the corridor, leaving the pilot behind. Ken’s message had been well worded.

He was not gone long enough to make the pilot suspicious; within two or three minutes Lee heard both mechanic and scientist returning. They were not talking, and as they approached the pilot grew curious. He started to rise to meet them, but had time just to reach his feet before the two entered the door. The gloomy expression had left Feth’s face, to be replaced by one much harder to decipher. Lee, however, spent no time trying to solve its meaning; his eyes were both drawn instantly to the object the two were carrying in a cloth sling between them.

It was roughly cubical, perhaps a foot on a side. It was yellow in color. It trailed a visible stream of mist, and yellow droplets appeared and grew on its surface — droplets of a deeper, honey-colored hue; droplets that gathered together, ran down the sides of the block, soaked into the sling, and vanished in thin air. For an instant Lee, watching it, showed an expression of bewilderment; this changed almost at once to one of horror; then he regained control of himself.

“So that’s where the air was going,” he remarked. “What’s the idea?”

Ken, who was clad in a space suit except for the helmet, did not answer the question directly. Instead, he asked one of his own.

“You know the coordinates of Sarr, and could get there from here, don’t you?”

“Of course. I’ve made the trip often enough. So what— I hope you don’t think I’m going to tell you in order to get out of a frostbite.”

“I don’t care whether you want to tell us or not I plan for you to do the piloting. And I don’t plan to freeze you on this block — in fact, we’ll put it down right here. You have until it evaporates to make up your mind. After that, we’ll be in a position to make it up for you.” The pilot laughed.

“I was expecting that one. Am I supposed to believe you have some tofacco in the middle of that? You just made the block a couple of minutes ago.”

“Quite true. Since you bring up the matter, there is a cylinder of tofacco inside the block. I put it there myself — a few minutes ago, as you say.”

“I suppose you broke into Laj Drai’s safe and borrowed it.” The pilot was obviously incredulous.

“No. However, Drai’s suggestion of playing on the sympathies of the natives of Planet Three was a very good idea.”

“I suppose they gave you a hundred units for rescuing their kids.”