Hal Clement: Star Light

Mersereau returned a few minutes after the others had left, and had to be brought up to date. Otherwise, nothing of note occurred. There was an occasional glimpse of a long, many-legged form on one of the screens, but the Mesklinites were going about their own affairs with no particular regard for the watchers.

Easy thought of starting another conversation with Kervenser; she knew and liked this officer almost as well as she did his captain. However, the thought of the lag between remark and answer discouraged her, as it often did when there was nothing of importance to be said.

Even with no lag, conversation languished. There was little for Easy and Mersereau to say to each other which had not already been said; a year away from Earth could be counted on to exhaust most subjects of conversation except professional shop talk and matters of private, personal interest. She had little of the latter in common with Mersereau, though she liked him well enough, and their professions overlapped only in connection with talking to Mesklinites.

In consequence there was little sound in the communication room. Every few minutes one or another of the exploring land-cruisers would send in a report, which would be duly relayed to the Settlement; but most of the human beings on watch had no more occasion for small talk than Easy and Boyd Mersereau. Easy found herself trying to guess when the weather men would be back with their forecast and how reliable the new one would be. Say, two minutes to the lab, or one, if they hurried; one more to feed the new material into the computer; two for the run; five minutes of arguing, since she knew her son, over whether this prediction was really any better than the last; a repeat run with modified weights on the variables; two minutes back down to the comm room, since they certainly wouldn’t hurry this time. They’d still be arguing. They should be here soon.

But before they made it, things changed. Quite suddenly, the bridge screen demanded attention. It had been quiet, with gray windows masked by frozen ammonia dominating the foreshortened image of part of the helmsman. The latter had been almost motionless, his tiller bar well over to one side as the Kwembly pursued the circular path described by Kervenser.

Then the windows were suddenly clear, though little could be seen beyond them; the communicator’s angle of view was not depressed enough to reach ground within range of the lights. Two more Mesklinites appeared and flowed over to the windows, looking out and gesturing with obvious excitement. Mersereau pointed to another screen; there was excitement in the lab, too. So far, none of the little explorers had seen fit to report what was going on. Easy judged they were too occupied with immediate problems; furthermore it was customary for them to keep their sound volume down, or off completely, unless they specifically wanted to speak to the human beings.

At this point the weather men returned. Easy saw her son out of the corner of her eye, and asked without looking around, “Do you have anything useful this time?”

McDevitt answered briefly, “Yes. Shall I have Benj translate it to them?”

“No. They’re in some sort of trouble, it seems. Give them the word yourself. Dondragmer would certainly be on the bridge, or will be by the time your words get there, when anything like this is going on. Here, use this seat and mike.”

The meteorologist obeyed without question. It would be the last time for many months that he would pay Easy that compliment. He began talking as he settled into the seat.

“Dondragmer, you should have about nineteen hours of reduced visibility. The freezing fog should last for less than another hour; the temperature is going down, and the fog will change to ammonia crystals which shouldn’t stick to your windows. If you can get rid of the ice already there, you should at least see through them into the snow. The wind will decrease gradually for about five more hours. By that time, the temperature should be low enough so you needn’t worry about eutectic melting. There will be higher clouds for another forty-five hours—” He went on, but Easy had stopped listening.

Near the end of McDevitt’s second sentence, long before the beginning of his message could have reached Dhrawn, a Mesklinite had approached the bridge pickup so closely that his grotesque face nearly filled the screen. One of his nipper-equipped arms reached out of sight to one side, and Easy knew he was activating the voice transmitter. She was not surprised to hear the captain speaking in a much calmer tone than she could have managed under the circumstances.

“Easy, or whoever is on watch, please get a special report to Barlennan. The temperature has gone up six degrees, to one hundred three, in the last few minutes, the ice has melted from the windows, and we are afloat.”

Perhaps it was unkind for Dondragmer to have given his report in the human language. The time taken for translation might have eased the shock a trifle for McDevitt. The worst part, as the meteorologist said later, was realizing that his own prediction was on its way to Dhrawn and nothing could stop it. For a moment he had a wild notion of getting a ship and racing the radio waves to the planet so as to shadow them from the Kwembly ’s receivers. The thought was only a flicker; only so much can be done in thirty-two seconds. Besides, none of the tenders then at the station was capable of faster-than-light flight. Most of them were used in servicing the shadow satellites.

Easy, in the next seat, didn’t seem to have noticed the discrepancy between the prediction and Dondragmer’s report; at least, she hadn’t glanced at him with the expression which nine out of ten of his friends would have used. Well, she wouldn’t, he thought. That’s why she’s on this job.

The woman was manipulating her selector switch again, with her attention focused on a smaller screen above the Kwembly ’s four. At first an indicator beside it glowed red; as she worked her switches it turned green and the image of an office-like room with fully a dozen Mesklinites in view appeared on the screen. Easy began her report instantly.

She was brief. All she could give was a repetition of Dondragmer’s few sentences. She had finished long before there was any evidence on the screen that her words were being received.

‘When the response came, however, it was satisfying. Every caterpillar-like body in sight looped toward the pickup. While Easy had never learned to read expression on the Mesklinite “face,” there was no misunderstanding the wildly waving arms and snapping pincers. One of the creatures raced toward a semicircular doorway at the far side of the room and disappeared through it. In spite of the creature’s red and black coloration, Easy found herself reminded of the sight, a few years before, of one of her daughters inhaling a strand of spaghetti. A Mesklinite in a hurry under forty Earth gravities appears legless to human eyes.

The sound was not on yet from the Dhrawn end, but there was a rising buzz of conversation in the human communication room. It was not unusual for exploring land-cruisers to run into difficulties. In general the working Mesklinites took such difficulties more calmly than the human beings who were watching helplessly. In spite of the lack of intercom in the station, people began entering the room and filling the general seats. Screen after screen in the front monitoring areas was tuned to the “headquarters” unit in the Settlement. Meanwhile Easy and Mersereau were dividing their attention among the four sets reporting from the Kwembly, with only an occasional glance at the other picture.

It was not obvious on the screens that the vehicle was afloat because the transmitters shared any motion it might have, and there was little loose equipment whose motion might have betrayed a pitch or a roll. The bulk of the crew were sailors by training. Lifelong habit prevented them from leaving things unsecured. Easy kept closest watch on the bridge screen hoping to spot something outside which could give a clue to what was occurring, but nothing recognizable could be seen through the windows.