Iceworld

16

Ken paused halfway into his armor to wave all four tentacles in expostulation.

“If you don’t think I know what I’m talking about, why did you hire me?” he asked. “I’ll get and grow plants for you as fast as I can. Our tank is only so big — there are growths down there that wouldn’t fit in this ship, whether you believe it or not. I don’t know any better than you what tofacco looks like when it’s growing — I’m not even as sure as you seem to be that it’s a plant. Just get out of your head the idea that I’m going to pack plants into this case until they have no room to breathe, and try to develop a little patience. It took two thousand years to explore Sarr, and the exploring was a darn sight easier than this!” He resumed the task of sliding into his metal shell.

“You’ll do what you’re told, Mr. Ken. I don’t care how you do it, as I said before; but if we’re not growing tofacco in a reasonable time, someone’s going to be awfully sorry.”

Ken’s response was slightly muffled, as only his head was now protruding from the suit. “That, of course, you can do; I can’t stop you. However, if you’ll let me do this my own way, I honestly think things will go faster. Use your head, after all — who does know this planet?” He paused too briefly for the question to have any but rhetorical significance, and went on: “The natives, of course. They not only know the planet, they presumably know where the tofacco can be obtained, since they sell it to you. You’ll have to work hard to convince me that there’s any better way of learning what we want to know than getting the information from the natives.”

“But it takes so long to learn a language!”

“True. It also takes quite a while to explore two hundred million square miles of territory, even if you count out the three quarters of it that seems to be flatland — and you can’t really do that; these natives may be on good enough terms with the flatlanders to get the tofacco from them by trade. How about that? I understand you had your fill of exploring the flatlands quite a while ago— what was it, nineteen out of nineteen torpedoes lost, or twenty out of twenty? The percentage was embarrassing in either case.”

“But suppose they don’t want us to learn where it can be obtained? They might be afraid we’d get it ourselves, instead of paying them for it”

“That would not be too stupid of them. Sure, they may suspect just that. I never denied that a certain amount of tact would be needed. If you don’t think I can exercise it, I repeat — do it yourself. We have more suits. I want to go down anyway, to study the place, but come right along — the torpedo will carry you and me and the tank easily enough!”

“I may not be a genius, but I’m not completely insane. I’ll be there by proxy. If I don’t like your tact, you needn’t bother to come back.”

“Don’t you want the suit? I thought they were expensive,” Ken said sweetly, and pulled the massive helmet into place with a clang.

Feth, who had been listening in, dogged the piece in place. He was just a trifle worried; he himself had not talked to Drai like that for years, and still retained unpleasant memories of the last time he had done so. He knew, of course, the purpose behind Ken’s attitude; the scientist wanted to annoy Drai sufficiently so that he would not suspect more than one thing at a time. That one thing was to be exactly what Ken wanted. Feth admitted to himself that that part of the conversation had been well handled. Nevertheless, he was not too sure he liked the expression of Laj Drai’s face as that individual draped himself within easy earshot of the radio.

His attention was shifted from the matter as Ken called in from the air lock, reporting that he was attached.

“Let me get out of here with my own controls, and move around a bit while I’m close enough to judge results,” he finished. “I’d better get the feel of this thing while I have just inertia for trouble, and before there’s weight as well.”

“Sound enough,” Feth approved, and took his tentacles from his own controls. One eye remained on the indicators, while the other sought the nearest port. In a few seconds the cigar-shaped bit of metal came into view, darting this way and that, swinging the clumsy figure of the armored scientist from a point near its bow and the rectangular box of the vivarium a few feet farther aft — it, too, was too large to go into the cargo compartment. Ken seemed to be having no trouble in controlling the sloppy-looking assembly, and presently signified that he was ready for the dive.

“All right,” Feth replied, “I have it. Be sure all your own controls are neutral — they’re not cross-connected, and impulses will add algebraically. By the way, all the stuff is in the cargo compartment.”

The other torpedo with the first batch of samples had been salvaged from its lonely perch on Mercury, and Laj Drai knew that; so Feth hoped he would not notice the slight accent on the “all.” The mechanic had placed the extra radio in with the other objects, but had done so at the last moment and had had no time to tell Ken about it. He hoped the fellow knew how to operate the set.

Ken, as a matter of fact, had not realized what Feth was implying. He was much too occupied in bracing his nerves for the descent that had been so hard on them the previous time. He succeeded better on this occasion, largely because he was able to keep most of his mind on the problems that would be facing him after he was down. They were numerous enough.

He had little trouble finding the scene of the previous meeting, though Feth did not succeed in lowering him exactly over it. He was, he realized, early; the sun was barely up. All to the good. He reported his arrival to Feth to make sure, announced that he was resuming control, and went to work.

His first step was to guide the torpedo downhill to the edge of a fairly extensive patch of plant growth. Before doing anything else, he made sure that the patch was isolated; the reaction of the vegetable matter of this world to hot metal had impressed him strongly, and he had a good imagination. Then he lowered the carrier until the vivarium was touching the ground, and detached the clumsy box. The double lids opened without difficulty— Feth had allowed for the probable effect of low temperature on the metal hinges — and set to work.

The samples of earth came speedily from the cargo compartment, and were dumped into the box — all at one side. Using a strip of metal he had brought along for the purpose, Ken levelled out the dark pile into a layer some three inches deep and a foot wide along one side of the container; then he began to use the strip as a crude shovel. Tiny bushes, patches of moss, and other growths were pried out of the ground, the scientist carefully refraining from allowing his armor to contact them and laying the strip down to cool at frequent intervals. He investigated the widely varying root systems, and carefully dug an extra allowance or soil from the spot where each plant had been removed, so that there would be a sufficient depth in the box beneath it. One by one he transferred his specimens to the vivarium, placing them much too close together to have pleased a human gardener but setting them firmly into the soil so that they stood up as they had before. Once or twice he looked longingly at larger bushes, but gave up. They were too tall, and a brief investigation showed that their roots were too long.

He had covered perhaps two of the six square feet he had to fill when the Wings arrived. Roger and Edie were noticeably in advance of the rest; the two youngest would probably have been close behind them if the scene had not been so far from home. As it was, they had begun to get a little tired, and arrived at the same time as their parents.

Ken did not hear them coming; the microphone in the torpedo was not as sensitive as it might have been, and this time Roger did not call as soon as he saw the scientist. Instead, the children came as close as they dared, trying to see what he was up to. That proved obvious enough, but it was only after his curiosity was satisfied on that point that Roger gave an audible greeting.

“I see you’re here early.”

“Why didn’t you tell me they were coming?” snapped the voice of Laj Drai from the speaker.

“I didn’t see them; I’ve been working,” replied Ken quietly. “Now, if you expect us to get anywhere with communication, kindly keep quiet. They have no means of telling when I’m the one who’s talking, and extra sounds will just confuse them.” He fell silent, and watched solemnly as the rest of the human beings arrived. The size of Mr. and Mrs. Wing surprised him a little; it took him some seconds to decide that the individuals he had seen first were probably children. The adults were more impressive, if one was impressed by mere size; Ken decided that either one would outweigh the average Sarrian by fully a quarter, assuming that they really filled their queer clothing and had flesh of comparable density. There was something a little more commanding about the manner of the older natives, also; a dignity and seriousness of purpose which he now realized had been decidedly lacking in the immature specimens. For the first time, Ken really thought of the natives of Earth as possibly civilized beings.

Certainly the actions of the largest one suggested a well disciplined mind. Mr. Wing wasted little time. He seated himself in front of Ken, pulled out a notebook in which he had already noted the words Roger claimed to have taught the alien, and checked through them. He looked up at Ken as he pronounced each; the scientist responded by pointing to the appropriate object. Satisfied that these words were understood, the man promptly embarked on a language lesson with a singleness of purpose and efficiency of execution that had Ken regarding him as a fellow being long before they were in real communication. This was not accomplished at once, but it took far less time than many people would believe possible. As any proponent of Basic English will agree, most everyday matters can be discussed quiet easily with a vocabulary of less than a thousand words. The present situation was not quite everyday in any sense of the term, but between Mrs. Wing’s sketching ability and the willingness of the children to illustrate practically any actions required, progress was quite satisfactory to both parties.

Since Ken had stood in the same place throughout the lesson, he had warmed up the rock around his feet; consequently it was fully three hours before he felt the first warning ache of cold. When he did, however, he suddenly realized that he had done nothing toward the filling of his specimen box since the natives had arrived; and waiting courteously until Mr. Wing had finished an explanation, he indicated the dearth. The man nodded, and pointed to the ground beyond.

Ken had paid no attention to the actions of the smallest children since shortly after the lesson had started; he had judged that they were playing, as the children of his own race did. Now he was startled to see, spread out on the rock at a little distance from the case, several score plants of assorted shapes and sizes. Apparently the youngsters had seen what he was doing, and decided to help. With growing surprise, he discovered that there were no duplicates among the specimens. The race must really have brains; he had not seen either of the adults give instructions. With an oral expression of gratitude which he was sure must be lost on them, he began clumsily placing them in the box with the aid of his metal strip. As he picked up the first, he pointed to it with his free handler and said, “Word!” All understood his meaning, and Roger replied, “Fern.”

After watching his clumsy actions for a moment, Mr. Wing waved him away from the box, and put the children to work. Ken watched them with tremendous interest, for the first time realizing what an efficient prehensile organ the human hand could be. The deft fingers of the girls in particular were setting the plants firmly in the earth at a rate and with an ease he himself could not have managed even without the handicap of armor and temperature difference. As each was picked up, a name was given it. It did turn out afterward that the same name had been used over several times in many cases for plants that bore either a merely superficial resemblance or none at all. It took him some time to solve that one, though he already knew that the native language had both particular and generic terms.

A very few minutes were required to cover the base of the box with neatly set plants; and not once had Ken heard the word that would have meant so much to the listening Drai. He himself was just as satisfied; the mention of “tofacco” by a native in a place where Drai could have heard it would have put a serious crimp in Ken’s now rapidly maturing plans.

In spite of his having taken the cans containing the earlier specimens from the cargo section of the torpedo, it was not until he was putting the empty containers back that Ken saw the other radio Feth had placed there. For a moment he was irritated both with himself and the mechanic, since by then he had forgotten the latter’s words at the time of Ken’s departure; then he decided that it might be for the best. If Drai had been listening ever since the start of the language lesson, he should by now be pretty well convinced that Ken was not up to any funny business. There had been no breaks to make him suspicious.

While these thoughts were passing through his mind, Mr. Wing was also doing some thinking. It seemed fairly evident that the alien — they had not yet learned each other’s names — was on the point of departure. This trip had been a pleasant enough outing for the family, it was true; but a daily repetition would be too much of a good thing, and there were more objects at their home which could be used in language instruction as well. It seemed, therefore, that it might be worth while to make the attempt he had suggested earlier to the family — persuading the aliens to land closer to the house. In consequence, when Ken turned from his task of replacing the empty cans and fastening the sealed vivarium back in place, he found the largest native facing him with a neatly drawn but quite unintelligible diagram in his hand and an evident desire to transmit intelligence of some sort.

It took four or five minutes to make clear exactly what the map represented, though Ken got the general idea after a few seconds. Scale was the principal difficulty. At last, however, the alien understood — he spent two or three minutes describing the map in detail to Feth, first, so that it could be studied and reproduced later — and then said, “Yes,” to Mr. Wing.

“Tomorrow — one day after now—here,” the man reiterated, and Ken nodded his head (he had not been too surprised to find that visual signs supplemented the spoken language of these creatures).

“Here.” He indicated the same spot as well as he could with a handler, and the paper turned brown before he hastily snatched it away. Then he remembered something else. “Not tomorrow. Not one day after now. Two days.” Mr. Wing frowned.

“Not tomorrow?”

“No. Two days. Go now; cold.” And Sallman Ken turned, took the extra radio from the cargo compartment, placed it on the ground, said, “Carry!” and addressed himself to the task of attaching himself to the torpedo once more. He had detached himself, in spite of his original plan, when he found that he could not reach the cargo compartment while chained to the hull of the carrier.

The native mercifully said nothing as he completed this task. As a matter of fact, Mr. Wing was too dumbfounded at this turn of events to say anything; and even the children wondered how he had done it. Ken rose into the air amid a dead silence, until the two youngest children remembered their training and shrilled, “Goodbye!” after the vanishing form. He barely heard the words, but was able to guess at the meaning.

Back at the Karella, his first care was to get the vivarium inside. He had already evacuated the space between the walls by opening a small valve for a time during the journey through space; now he started the refrigerator, and refused to take his eyes from the inside thermometer until he had satisfied himself that all fluctuation had ceased. Then, and then only, did he start going over the tape record with Feth to make sure he remembered the hundred or so words he had been taught during his brief dive. Laj Drai, rather to Ken’s surprise, forbore to interrupt, though Feth said he had listened carefully during the entire stay on the planet. During this session, Ken managed to tell the mechanic what he had done with the radio, and the latter agreed that it had been a wise move. There was now no need to fear a casual check on the contents of the torpedo by Drai or Lee.

It seemed that Ken had been more convincing than he had expected, in his speech to Drai just before leaving. He had been a little surprised when the boss had failed to interrupt him after his return; now he found that Drai had been itching to do just that, but had been afraid of putting himself in the wrong again. The moment the conference between Ken and Feth came to an end, he was at the scientist’s side, asking for an eyewitness account to supplement what he had heard on the radio.

“I really need a camera to give a good idea of appearances,” Ken replied. “I seem to have been wrong about their size; the ones I saw before appear to have been children. The adults are a trifle bulkier than we are.

“I don’t think the language is going to be difficult, and it looks as though this group, at least, is very cooperative.” He told about the help he had received in making the plant collection.

“I was looking at that,” said Drai. “I don’t suppose any of those things is what we’re after?”

“No, unless they use different names for the living plant and the product. They named each of these to me as they set them in, and you’d have heard as well as I if they’d said ‘tofacco’ once.” Drai seemed thoughtful for a moment before he spoke again.

“Children, eh? Maybe if you can work with them and get rid of the adults you could find things out more easily. They should be easier to fool.”

“Something like that crossed my mind, too,” Ken said. “Perhaps we ought to make a few more collection boxes to take down; I could give them to the kids to fill while I was having another language lesson, and then when they came back I’d have a good excuse to talk it over with each in turn. Something might very well crop up if the parents don’t interfere.”

“Parents? How do you know?”

“I don’t, of course; but it seems likely. But what do you think of the idea?”

“Very good, I should say. Can you get enough boxes for all the children ready by their next morning?”

“I’m not going down that soon. I was making allowances for what Feth told me was the effect of tofacco on the system, and thought I might not be able to make it.” Drai paused long enough to do some mental arithmetic.

“You’re probably right. We’ll have to go back to One to get your dose, too; I somehow can’t bring myself to keep the stuff around where it might fall into the wrong hands.” He smiled, with the same ugly undertone that was making Ken hate the drug-runner a little more each time he saw it.