Fossil

Chapter Fourteen And Still Be “Only Theory” At Its Best

It was as though he were addressing a class rather than delivering an oration. A speaker in the booth transmitted his sounds faithfully enough for the translators. He spoke for some time of general Habran prehistory, and Barrar began to grow impatient, judging by the uneasy motions of his walker and its handlers. This was nothing new — Hugh felt he could almost read the Samian’s mind — and nothing he could use.

Then Shefcheeshee began an explanation of the artificial intelligence which was guiding the bottom search and identifying, selecting, and analyzing the finds, and the Samian froze. Shocked? Revolted? If the speaker could stomach the subject, why couldn’t a would-be scholar? This time Hugh was more amused, familiar as he was with the attitudes of the Other Five.

Janice nudged her husband again. There were four — no, five snakelike forms within a meter or two of their booth, every one staring at Ged Barrar. As she started to form a triumphant grin, one of them shifted its gaze to her; as the implication of that change in attention struck both Erthumoi, the other Naxians also turned their eyes on the pair.

Hugh expected them to turn away again after a moment, to avoid betraying themselves, but Janice had a different picture. A clearer one, she thought. Yes, they had sensed her feeling of triumph; no, they didn’t — they couldn’t, surely — realize its cause. She basked happily in the glow that any scientist feels when an infant hypothesis, nurtured lovingly for weeks and fed carefully with observations, speaks its first words — makes one of its earliest predictions. She knew, of course, that the feeling couldn’t last long; theories this young were usually far too tender. It would be hurt by something very soon, and need help. Still, the gold-brown Naxian optics remained fixed on her, and she could enjoy that while it lasted.

That wasn’t long. The glow vanished as it occurred to her to wonder what they might do to convince her they had only emotion sensing powers, and were not mind readers….

It had been wonderful while it lasted, but she was back on the ground. She glanced once more at the watchers. Their eyes were still on her. Maybe they were reading her thoughts — no. She brought herself up sharply. That may not be impossible, but don’t worry about it; just file it as something to devise a test for at some handier time.

Shefcheeshee was still speaking. Ged Barrar was still listening. The subject was now more speculative, on why no fossils recognizable as azide-chemistry organisms had been found at the sea bottom. Hugh muttered his own notion, expressed earlier by Bill and, apparently, already widely held.

“Because the ocean is loaded with azide-using scavengers who evolved here, and can take care of the remains before they get to the bottom!”

Barrar heard, and thought for a moment.

“But why wouldn’t there be other scavengers, too?”

“I’d guess its non-azide life is all descended from things the Habras’ ancestors brought with them, deliberately or otherwise, when they arrived, and that there hasn’t been time since then for evolution to till very many niches. You ought to consult McEachern or an educated Habra on that.”

“All the Habras seem to be able to talk about that sort of thing, whether they’re farmers or submarine operators or chemists or…”

“I know. It’s interesting. Maybe you should do your article on Habra sociology.”

“You’re laughing at me.” Hugh glanced outside without answering. Naxian attention seemed to be fading. There were now only three of them near the booth, and these seemed to be concerned with a nearby Crotonite as Shefcheeshee casually dismissed the idea that Habranhans might be descended from the mysterious Seventh Race.

“But don’t let that keep you from star travel,” he went on. “You can be a Seventh Race yourselves, or an Eighth if you consider that number taken. There are wonders beyond your atmosphere rivaling those under your sea. You have the knowledge, or most of it; what you lack, we who already enjoy the sights and adventures both of worlds like your own and worlds marvelously different can gladly supply. You can…”

Hugh looked outside again; the question of Habras joining the star-faring races was one on which many Crotonites felt strongly, some on one side and some on the other. Maybe this one was reacting, and the Naxians were enjoying the display.

But the Crotonite unceremoniously spread his wings and departed before either of the Erthumoi could decide whether the Naxians were watching him especially or not. Also, there was no way Hugh could infer either from their own motions or those of the watching Naxians that the Habras were responding at all intensely to the Cephallonian’s appeal. Shefcheeshee finished a few minutes later with a summary which told the Erthumoi nothing that they hadn’t heard from him before and must have left Barrar deeply disappointed. Hugh and Janice rose and started to leave the booth.

Two things delayed them, one sight and one sound.

Hugh’s eye for the first lime really caught the ice which formed the floor of the small chamber, and perceived that it was covered with a pattern of cuplike dents like those S’Nash had pointed out on the road east of Pitville. They did not form any sort of regular trail, however, and this time the reason was obvious enough. They had been made by Barrar’s walker, and his motions in the booth had been irregular. Even Hugh could see them without trouble, since there were no interfering marks.

Before he could comment or explain to Janice, much less confront the Samian, a sound took his attention. Barrar had opened the door, and auditory patterns from outside were reaching his translator again. Some of the loudest were far enough above background to let the equipment separate and interpret them.

“Where have you been, master? Did you hope to find inspiration here? This swimmer doesn’t even rouse Crotonites any more.”

The tone was Naxian. The words had certainly not been addressed to Hugh. Suddenly, however, as one of the nearby serpentlike forms moved and left the one beyond it recognizable as S’Nash, another pattern flowed together in his mind. The words combined with memories to make sense, and the sense was promptly supported.

S’Nash had turned toward the newcomer who had plainly been addressing it/him; now it/he swerved to face Hugh again, hesitated, then finished the turn, with a simultaneous gesture of one of his handlers apparently intended for the other Naxian. The words to Hugh were the same as long before, but this time no effort was made to cut off the sentence.

“Good for you!” That was all; the two wriggled away together. It was for once enough, at least for Janice.

Barrar admitted the details on their way back to the aircraft. He had been tied much more closely with Ennissee’s project than he had admitted earlier. He had helped convey the frozen Habra body from flyer to truck, since the Crotonite had not been strong enough to do the job alone and his Erthumoi were at the “dig.” He had then been carried back by the Crotonite in the Pitville aircraft Ged had been regularly and surreptitiously providing, but only to the outskirts of Pitville, to minimize the time he would have to account for; Spreadsheet-Thinker was not as casual an administrator as Ged had implied when claiming to have all routines worked out. The truck had come to Pitville on its own autodriver, starting enough later to hide any obvious connections, while Ennissee had taken his borrowed flier back to the Cold Pole dig to work out, presumably, the rest of his plans. Ged still disclaimed any closer involvement in these than he had admitted already. The Erthumoi kept their remaining doubts tactfully to themselves.

They still felt quite uncertain. The picture was fuzzy, but there seemed no way to clarify it without interviewing Ennissee, and neither one particularly wanted to do that. Rekchellet would, no doubt, come through in that direction, and neither wanted to spoil either his fun or his results.

More of the picture, however, came from S’Nash after they were back in Pitville, the Samian safely occupied in his office, and the Naxian verbally cornered in Hugh’s office.

“Emotions are fun,” it/he said quite directly. “I almost told you about that long ago when you asked what we do for amusement. A little later I thought you’d about figured it out, but then decided you’d simply spotted the trick Rek and I were playing.

“A lot of people enjoy watching fear or surprise or similar excitement — the obvious stuff. More cultured and artistic ones try to read and grasp really subtle emotions such as those accompanying^ — oh, the realization that one’s reasoning or inspiration has been correct, or the glow of perceiving how both parties have profited from a deal.”

“And you’re one of the latter, of course?” Janice asked.

“I sense irony. I like to think I am, of course, but there are many other challenges to the art. Some beings are much more difficult to read than others. Erthumoi collectively are the easiest, Samians by far the hardest of the Six, though there are of course exceptions like you two in both groups. I like to think I’m an expert with Samians.” Janice had drawn her brows together; her husband was sure what she was thinking about, whether S’Nash knew or not. In fact, both must have been wrong, for her next words rolled out almost without planning or thought on her own part.

“You’d get quite a reading if we told Ged that you’ve known all along what Ennissee was doing, wouldn’t you? That the people at your medical station had enjoyed his feelings as he stole that specimen? I wonder whether they merely gave tacit assistance, or actively tricked him into doing it. That they passed the information on to you and maybe other Naxians here at Pitville so he could be kept under observation as a source of — of amusement?”

“How did you-?” once again the Naxian cut off his speaker too late; as if realizing this, he turned it back on almost as though making a gesture of surrender. “You’re surprised — but you didn’t know until I spoke — you’re triumphant now — I told you myself, then — but you must have had some suspicion, or you could never have said such a thing! Where did the suspicion come from?”

“Like me, Jan is uneasy about coincidence,” her husband answered. “I know as well as you do we Erthumoi often have an unrealistic idea of what makes an improbable coincidence, but you should have allowed for that. As I’m sure you can see, it was all her idea, not mine. We just aren’t as conscious of what goes on in our heads as you people are, I guess. At least. I don’t know why I can recognize Jan’s face or voice. Anyway, you’ve certainly told us now. I wonder what Ged will say, and do? It’s a pity Jan and I can only infer his feelings from his words and actions, isn’t it? They should form a real work of art.”

“But you won’t really — but you will! Why? You don’t feel any strong emotion that I can find. Neither of you does, most of the time. You’ve been very disappointing that way, though you’ve been very helpful in — why do you intend so firmly to tell Barrar what I just confessed.”

“Call it an experiment,” Janice replied, as expressionlessly as she could. She wondered whether the Naxian were telling the truth about her and Hugh’s being hard to read, but for the moment didn’t care much, since she had made up her mind. “Come along, S’Nash. You wouldn’t want to miss it, would you?”

The Naxian watched as the Erthumoi couple turned toward the central office. It/he started to follow them, hesitated and turned away, shivered the length of its/his serpentine body, reached a decision, and followed once more. The Erthuma was right; this would be something no one had ever read from a Samian — though what the Samian would do next—

He was civilized, of course. There would be no risk of violence. But he was in charge of work assignments.

It would certainly — almost certainly — be worth it.

It wasn’t, S’Nash insisted later to Hugh and Janice. It was, in fact, very disappointing. Ged Barrar was far too objective, and his internal simmerings were just barely readable. They had been a real challenge, to look at the bright side. The Naxian’s eyes had remained fixed on his unwaveringly and the snakelike body might have been cast as a tight coil of metal. The Erthumoi had watched with equal intensity.

“I can’t decently complain,” Barrar said after some moments of silence. “I was doing very much the same thing for my own plans. Still, we can’t have this sort of thing going on too freely among people who need to trust each other, can we?” He paused thoughtfully, and might have been examining the charts on his walls, though not even S’Nash could tell where he was actually looking.

“The Pits are getting pretty deep,” he said at length. “Spreadsheet-Thinker feels we need a communication center at the bottom of each. It will, of course, have to be manned by an Erthuma or a Habra eventually, but until the pressure becomes excessive a real communication specialist would probably be best to set things up. Don’t you agree?”

“Well…” began S’Nash.

“There’s really no one but a Naxian I can assign, anyway. Please spread the word. I’d prefer volunteers, of course. You will have to tell me just what equipment will be needed — remember it will have to stand liquid air temperatures. I know you Naxians already have good armor for that. I’ll need a listing in, oh, six hours or so. I can tell you in two more when the gear will be available, and set up a watch schedule. I’m sure I won’t have to draft someone who just happens to be handy; there will be plenty of volunteers, won’t there? Let me know.”

The Naxian maintained its/his tension for another half minute, though the Erthumoi could only guess why. Something was holding its/his attention, and did so until Barrar finally said rather loudly, “That’s it, S’Nash. Any questions?”

It/he shivered, relaxed, intimated understanding, and accompanied Hugh and Janice out of the office.

“You’re still alive,” the woman remarked. “Oh, yes. It was interesting, but not inspiring.

What are you folks going to do for the next few hours’?”

“Do you care?”

“Not for the reason you suspect. I’ve already said you two are rather disappointing as subjects; you don’t seem to have very intense emotions. Janice now was just cold-bloodedly trying to observe the results of the ‘experiment’ she was performing. There was none of the nice anger or satisfaction of revenge feeling which some of my less artistic acquaintances would have expected.”

“And maybe even wanted?” cut in Hugh.

“Conceivably. But that would call for a rather— well — crude observer. What are you planning?”

“Work, of course,” keyed Hugh. “We’ve been letting that slide for much too long. I’m surprised Ged didn’t have something to say about it. Maybe he’s too bothered by what happened to his own hopes. At the rate the Pits are going, digging and emplacement routines are going to have to be changed pretty quickly now, and we’re not ready for it. I wasn’t really expecting to get enough Erthumoi able to do the job; there aren’t enough of us on the planet, and most of them can’t seem to learn enough personal control to work safely with diving juice. I was hoping we could solve the Habra armor problem before we had to go recruiting on other Erthumoi worlds.”

“Just what’s the difficulty?” the Naxian asked.

“Thermal insulation. They never bothered with it for their wings, which aren’t living tissue. In their undersea equipment they just make sure their diving fluid doesn’t leak around the wing roots, and flap at their pleasure — an experienced Habra submariner talks casually of ‘flying’ under water. If they tried that in the Pits, their wings would shatter almost at once at liquid air temperatures. Ted said something about a breakthrough not long ago; I’m calling him again as soon as we get to the office.”

“I thought he was just one of your safety people.”

“He is, but he really wants to do Pit work himself, and has been keeping in touch with the Habras who are doing the armor development. Stay with us; you may get a kick out of watching me get good news — or bad.”

“Even second hand, I would prefer the former.”

Some hours later, he expanded on that remark.

“Hugh, I’m still refining my skills with Habras, but right now they seem even happier than you. I’ve watched six of them now in the Pits, and while the analogy may not be good, I’d say they were dancing. Even you must be getting some sort of impression — if your own glee isn’t drowning it out.”

“I am. I knew they’d like it; Ted’s frustration at being able to watch the work there only from above was clear long ago even to me. I expect the excitement will die down a bit when they settle into routine, but they have a good, solid interest in the work over and above its novelty. That’s part of the reason you’re sensing so much happiness from me.”

“And Jan, I notice. She is less directly affected; I can’t understand why her feelings should match yours so closely.”

“You probably will. Ten hours from now we’ll be rid of this diving fluid for at least two years, Ged promises. We’ll be able to eat. We’ll be able to talk. We’ll…”

“Is it that uncomfortable? And why would he have made such a change in his charts — oh. You persuaded him; your self-satisfied triumph is blatant. How?”

“It’s not so much uncomfortable as inconvenient.” Hugh went back to the first question. “You should have listened to my words instead of trying to read my feelings. You should have stayed here for the last few hours instead of going off to watch Habras, too. You missed a lot.

“Just after you left, I had an idea, and got back in touch with Ennissee’s Erthumoi helpers. I knew they’d been present when the body in the truck, was originally found, because the female mentioned the circumstances. It was one of a group of natives who seemed to have died at the same time and place. I asked if either of the two could find the actual site again, and after some back-and-forth between them that I couldn’t follow because they cut the sound off, they decided they could, within two or three kilometers, and maybe closer when they got another look at the locale. Ennissee, they assured me, could get us there more precisely, but I didn’t want to get in touch with him before Rek’s had his chance.

“To make it brief, Ged now plans to make a study of the mass-kill site, and try to work out just what happened to the group, and why apparently none escaped to get their adventure into Habra history. With his original fossil disqualified — you know what that did to his feelings — he jumped at the chance for another paper, and will be with us on the search trip. I don’t know or care what he said to Spreadsheet-Thinker.”

“I wish I’d been with him when you made the suggestion.”

“I’m sure you’d have enjoyed yourself. I suggest you visit Ged and see whether he’ll include you in the group. It’s a pity you can’t influence feelings.” The Naxian’s answer was slightly hesitant.

“You have a procedure called tact which I’ve been watching you use with Crotonites. I am not sure of my own expertise in it, of course, but trying it on a Samian will at least be interesting. Thank you very much, Hugh.” The Naxian left, apparently deep in thought.

S’Nash was lucky, luckier than either Erthuma felt that it/he had a right to be, on two counts. It/he arrived at Barrar’s office just as the Samian, in his slow way, finally got around to calling the Naxian hospital. He was hoping, without regard for Rekchellet’s desires, to get from Ennissee where the frozen bodies had been found; and S’Nash was able to enjoy his reaction when the Naxians assured him they had no Crotonite under treatment. Ged’s next call was to the Guild office, which informed him casually that Ennissee, still with his prosthesis, had left Habranha long before on a Crotonite hyperjump vessel. For once, even a Samian was easy to read, S’Nash said later.

It/he then practiced tact by offering to tell Rekchellet this news so as to spare Barrar the touchy task, and Samian gratitude got the Naxian a place in the forthcoming expedition, after only a little argument.

Whereupon S’Nash went in search of Rekchellet and broke the news of Ennisee’s departure. The results were all it/he could have hoped, even to a momentary thrill of fear for its/his own safety. The Erthumoi admitted they would like to have watched.

In spite of their low speed, two trucks were used for the search; they would want to bring the bodies back if they found them. Hugh and Janice took turns driving one. Rekchellet taught them what he knew of the autodriver, but they seldom bothered to engage it, merely allowing it to record their path. It had been decided not to bring Ennissee’s former helpers along, and the other truck was handled by Barrar, with S’Nash, and two of Counter-of-Supplies Erthumoi stock handlers to furnish muscle. Rekchellet and one Habra, Miriam — Ted was enjoying Pit work too much to come along — accompanied the vehicles but seldom entered them. Plant-Biologist rode with Hugh and Janice since it was fairly likely that the bodies would once more have been covered by drifting ice dust. The Locrian liked to discuss his subject, but got little chance, since his Erthumoi companions were reveling in the new freedom of their vocal cords.

The area described was about three hundred kilometers north and a little east of Pitville, not too far from open ocean. The notion that the victims they were seeking had perished in a more or less ordinary Habranhan storm seemed reasonable. The Erthumoi had learned from their native friends that this was not very unusual; the disappearance of even a large party near the terminator would probably not have gotten into history.

Chen and Spear had given detailed descriptions of the landscape where the discovery had been made, and it seemed unusual enough to offer little trouble. The spot was at the foot of a nearly vertical cliff, some three hundred meters high and several kilometers long, extending northeast-southwest, faulting had not, as far as anyone had seen, played a large part in forming the topography of the Solid Ocean. This was what had attracted Ennissee’s attention in the first place; much of his early searching had consisted of examining the cliff face, and much of the testing of his mole had been at its base.

Finding what seemed to be the right neighborhood proved easy enough. Narrowing the search down from that point turned out to be more awkward, however.

About half the five kilometer length of the cliff had — not exactly collapsed, but seemed to have been partly melted. Rekchellet’s immediate conclusion was that Ennissee had come back with a heavy duty heat beam to destroy traces of his work. This appeared much less likely to the others, but argument seemed pointless. Habranha’s chaotic weather might very well have brought a mass of warm air, or even a heavy rainstorm, even this far beyond the terminator. The Crotonite asked sarcastically why a cliff which must have stood for hundreds of Common Years — even he did not claim thousands, on this world — should pick the present moment to get itself destroyed. He was not impressed by Hugh’s answer that one time on Habranha was as likely as any other, and that he was showing a rather Erthumoi attitude toward coincidence. This silenced, but did not convince, him.

After some hours at the still undisturbed part of the cliff face, one of the mole’s test tunnels was found, and a little later another. The separation of the two could be matched with the detailed instructions given by Chen and Spear, and led the party to the edge of what would have been called a talus slope on a silicate world. The upper part of the cliff had been partly melted, but much had simply broken away; jagged ice boulders extended a hundred meters from the cliff’s foot and formed a heap lying against the vertical face.

Half an hour of careful searching by the Locrian, who was in turn being carefully watched by Janice, revealed a suspicious object at approximately ground level under the heap only a short distance from the escarpment’s foot. Even Plant-Biologist could not see distinctly through that much broken and tumbled ice, to the Erthuma’s intense interest, and a difficult and dangerous job of digging had to be started. There were no heat projectors with the group. There were no picks, either, to Hugh’s disgust; it should have been obvious, he growled loudly, that something besides shovels would be required. Not all the ice on Habranha was fine dust. The shovels were strong enough to be used for chipping, but progress was slow until Rekchellet flew back to Pitville and had two picks improvised in the shop there. No one was willing to wait until a sweeper with a heat beam could be driven to the site, and none of the sweepers would fit through the lock of an aircraft.

Since Hugh had provided careful specifications, the tools brought back had two disadvantages. They were light enough for Rekchellet to carry in flight, which meant that they were too light to make full use of Erthumoi muscles; and they were too heavy as well as having poorly shaped handles for anyone but the Erthumoi.

They took turns digging. S’Nash and Barrar watched, Plant-Biologist climbed about and over the heap in search of a spot from which he could see into it more clearly, and the fliers scoured the area from above in the faint hope of learning that tunneling would not be needed after all.

Three or four hours of chipping and prying brought the diggers close enough to allow the Locrian to state with certainty that a number of Habra forms were indeed embedded in the ice ahead, so that the party was either at the right place or one equally worth examining.

Rekchellet promptly pointed out that Ennissee was obviously responsible for the melting and general cliff damage, just as he had claimed earlier; this time even Barrar wondered whether he might be right. The nondiggers now congregated around the mouth of the tunnel and as far inside as they could get. Barrar and Miriam could now make themselves useful carrying ice fragments away from the digging face, and strained their various senses to determine details of what still lay some meters ahead.

Plant-Biologist informed them happily that the Habra forms were surrounded and more or less intermingled with tumbleweeds and other local vegetation, and thereafter focused most of his attention on this material. Miriam was beginning to get some details of the Habra bodies through her electrical senses.

A meter or so short of the nearest body the work had to slow down. The Locrian reported that the ice a little beyond the corpses contained a large, tightly packed bundle of plant remains of the azide variety, so that a pick blow might cause an explosion of possibly inconvenient magnitude. No one. they agreed, wanted to risk destruction of the specimens after all their work, and also Plant-Biologist wanted to study the tangle itself; the vegetation did not resemble at all closely any solid Ocean forms he had seen, he claimed.

Janice was fascinated; the biologist must have been able to observe near-microscopic details of tissue to identify the chemical nature of the things. Or could he sense the chemistry itself?

Conceivably the Habras ahead had accumulated the growths for some reason — perhaps to blast a shelter for themselves into the face of the cliff, Rekchellet suggested. It seemed to Janice a little early for hypothesizing, but she agreed that the idea had possibilities. S’Nash absorbed another lesson in tact.

Work became slow and cautious, the small metal spikes which were carried on the truck to work ice out of its tracks replacing the heavier tools. There were enough of these to let everyone work, and the tunnel end began to widen in both directions. In spite of the danger, most of the crew stayed as close as they could to the inner end of the tunnel. Plant-Biologist’s desire to examine the plants as closely as possible in case they did explode before he reached them overrode any fear he may have felt: S’Nash watched the Locrian for reasons Hugh and his wife could now easily guess; Janice’s attention was divided between the two while she mulled over developing theories. Even Barrar, anxious to miss nothing, crowded among the others and distracted the Locrian with questions about the Habra bodies which even the others could now see fairly clearly through the ice. He was not visibly taking notes, but Hugh felt sure his “body” incorporated recording equipment.

The bodies, all with wings folded back, were grouped next to the mass of vegetation as though they had died together while pushing it toward the cliff. They were not, as far as even the Locrian could see, wearing any protective equipment — certainly nothing like that now employed by Ted, Miriam, and their fellows. They might indeed have been a group blown long ago away from the sun and over the Solid Ocean in one of Habranha’s storms, dying while seeking shelter against or inside the cliff.

But what had killed them all at once? The bodies were not crushed or visibly injured, any more than the one Janice had already examined; they had certainly not been under an avalanche or anything like one. They were not, for the most part, in physical contact, so an electrical jolt from the plants could hardly have caught them all at once.

Barrar suggested that a sudden gust of ultrachilled air, not strong enough to blow them away but cold enough to kill or paralyze them until they were buried in an ordinary drift was conceivable. The bodies would have to be examined in detail to test this, and native help would be needed; no one else, except possibly the Naxians in the orbiting station, knew just what effects freezing might have on Habras. Since the plan was to secure all the corpses anyway, this hypothesis had no effect on procedure. The work went on slowly.

Digging around and over the bodies was tedious but not too difficult. Digging under to free them for transport was another matter. S’Nash was drafted, in spite of the clumsiness of its/his handlers, since work space could be excavated much more easily for its/his slender form.

Once his head was out of sight under the body, Janice tried another experiment. She was reasonably sure by now that a Naxian had to see its subject to read emotions. S’Nash could not see them now, and it was easy, snuggling next to Hugh even in armor, to assure a burst of emotion. As she had hoped, there was no obvious reaction from under the ice block.

Of course, S’Nash might have guessed what she was up to; no one ever performs the final experiment — the one which removes all possible doubt. This, the Erthuma reflected ruefully, is why science never gets past theory. But she could be pretty sure, now, about Naxians. The Locrians, though—

She let her own incidental flutter of emotion die down — she had been depending mostly on Hugh’s for the experiment — and turned her attention back to Plant-Biologist. Hugh enjoyed his own until S’Nash reported that it/ he had removed all the ice below the corpse except for supporting pillars at each corner of the block. These should remain until it/he emerged.

Two or three minutes later the first specimen was moving slowly back down the tunnel. In due time it was followed by a second, and a third, and a fourth. There were ten more bodies, but Plant-Biologist now wanted to take out the much larger and less tractable block containing the mass of plants. Ged disagreed, pointing out the risk to the other specimens. The Naxian’s eyes were swiveling around the group as though it/he wanted to keep them all in view at once, and Janice felt once more the glow of another fact supporting her ideas. She felt morally sure of her Naxian theory, and didn’t care whether S’Nash fully grasped the source of her feeling; she simply enjoyed it while the argument finally climaxed.

The Locrian won. It was obvious that the whole tunnel would have to be widened to accommodate this specimen, and the two Erthumoi from the supply station cheerfully volunteered to take the picks to this job. The rest, with reputations for scientific interest more or less at stake, began to work their way around the tangle of frozen vegetation with the smaller tools. They were very, very cautious, wary of projecting blades and stems which might actually be in the way of their strokes, and had not completed the job by the time the heavy labor on the tunnel was finished.

No one suggested that the picks be brought back, and their wielders did nol volunteer; with no comment but a simple “All done,” they went back to their truck to eat and rest. It was another hour before the botany specimen was ready to move.

Hugh and Janice provided most of the motive power, though Barrar’s mechanical body helped. The Locrian’s physical strength would have made practically no difference and it would have been sensible for him to get outside first, but he walked slowly beside the moving mass, examining it and making frequent comments which Hugh hoped the Samian was recording since he himself understood less than half of what was being said.

Outside, it was quickly decided that the material already collected should go back to the Pitville laboratories as quickly as safety allowed, while most of the party should resume digging around the other specimens.

Barrar, of course, wanted to stay; everything about the digging itself should be recorded, since there was no way of guessing what aspect of position and orientation of the specimens might turn out to be important. The Samian did, Hugh realized, have some scientific competence; maybe there was hope for his paper after all.

The Locrian, just as obviously, would be returning with his plants. Neither flier had any wish to ride; they would stay to do what they could.

Hugh and Janice offered to drive, enthusiastically enough to attract S’Nash’s attention, since the other two Erthumoi were enough to do the heavy digging which was now presumably safe. S’Nash, after eyeing them for several seconds as they were entering the truck after Plant-Biologist, suddenly decided that he would return to Pitville, too.

Janice blocked its/his way politely but firmly.

“You’ll be needed to undercut those blocks. Getting them out will take much longer without you, and you know it.”

The golden eyes fixed themselves on the Erthuma.

“That’s not your reason for wanting me to stay. Your feelings are…”

“Are our own business. We like you, S’Nash, but would rather you weren’t along this trip.”

The Naxian became almost outspoken, in spite of its/his increasing grasp of tact.

“But why should you mind me’? You have a Locrian with you. You can keep me up in the control room if you…”

Janice interrupted. “You miss the point, friend, and thanks for letting me know you have to see us to read our feelings. You understand our basic Erthumoi attitudes quite well, but I want Plant-Biologist with us. I don’t care what fie sees; I’m observing him.”