Star Light

EPILOGUE: LESSONS

At two hundred miles, the barge was just visible as a star-like object reflecting Lalande 21185’s feeble light. Benj had watched the vessel as it pulled up to that distance and moved into what its pilot considered a decent station-keeping orbit, but neither he nor the pilot had discussed technical details. It was so handy to be able to hold a conversation without waiting a full minute for the other fellow’s answer that Benj and Beetchermarlf had simply chattered.

These conversations were becoming less and less frequent. Benj was really back at work now and, he suspected, making up for lost time. Beetchermarlf was often too far away on practice flights to talk at all, and even more frequently too occupied to converse with anyone but his instructor.

“Time to turn it over, Beetch,” the boy ended the present exchange as he heard Tebbetts’ whistling from down the shaft. “The taskmaster is on the way.

“I’m ready when he is,” came the reply. “Does he want to use your language or mine this time?”

“He’ll let you know; he didn’t tell me. Here he is,” replied Benj.

The bearded astronomer, however, spoke first to Benj after looking quickly around. The two were drifting weightless in the direct-observation section at the center of the station’s connecting bar, and Tebbetts had taken for granted that the barge and his student would be drifting alongside. All his quick glance caught was the dull ember of a sun in one direction and the dimly lit disc of Dhrawn, little larger than Luna seen from Earth, in the other.

“Where is he, Benj? I thought I heard you talking to him, so I assumed he was close. I hope he isn’t late. He should be solving intercept orbits, even with nomographs instead of high-speed computers, better than that by now.”

“He’s here, sir.” The boy pointed. “Just over two hundred miles away, in a 17.8-minute orbit around the station.”

Tebbetts blinked. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t think this heap of hardware would whip anything around in that time at a distance of two hundred feet, let alone that many miles. He’d have to use power, accelerating straight toward us—”

“He is, sir. About two hundred G’s acceleration. The time is the rotation period of Mesklin, and the acceleration is the gravity value at his home port. He says he hasn’t been so comfortable since he signed up with Barlennan, and wishes there were some way to turn up the sunlight.”

The astronomer smiled slowly.

“Yes. I see. That does make sense. I should have thought of it myself. I have some more practice exercises for him here, but that’s about as good as any of them. I should do more of that sort of thing. Well, let’s get at it. Can you stay to check my language? I think I have the Stennish words for everything in today’s work, and space is empty enough so that his mistakes and mine should both be relatively harmless, but there’s no need to take chances.

“It’s too bad the Kwembly couldn’t be salvaged after all,” remarked Aucoin, “but Dondragmer’s crew is doing a very good and effective study of the area while they’re waiting for relief. I think it was a very good idea to send the Kalliff after them with a skeleton crew and let them work while they waited, instead of taking them back to the Settlement in the barge. That would have been pretty dangerous anyway, until there are practiced Mesklinite pilots. The single landing near the Kwembly to get the two helmsmen, and a direct return to space while they were trained, was probably the safest way to do it.

“But now we have this trouble with the Smof. At this rate we’ll be out of cruisers before we’re halfway around Low Alpha. Does anyone know the Smof’s commander the way Easy knows Dondragmer? You don’t, I suppose, Easy? Can anyone give a guess at his ability to get himself out of trouble? Or are we going to have to risk sending the barge down before those two Mesklinites are fully trained?”

“Tebbetts thinks Beetchermarlf could handle a surface landing now, as long as it wasn’t complicated by mechanical emergencies,” pointed out an engineer. “Personally I wouldn’t hesitate to let him go.

“You may be right. The trouble is, though, that we certainly can’t land the barge on an ice pack, and not even the barge can lift one of those land-cruisers, even if there were a way of fastening them together without an actual landing. Beetchermarlf and Takoorch may as well continue their training for the moment. What I want as soon as possible, Planetology, is the best direction and distance for the Smof’s crew to trek if they do have to abandon the cruiser, that is, the closest spot where the barge could land to pick them up. If it’s close to their present location, don’t tell them, of course; I want them to do their best to save the cruiser, and there’s no point in tempting them with an easy escape.” Ib Hoffman stirred slightly, but refrained from comment. Aucoin, from one point of view, was probably justified. The administrator went on, “Also, is there definite word on the phenomenon that trapped the Kwembly? You’ve had specimens of the mud, or whatever it is, that Beetchermarlf brought up, for weeks now.

“Yes,” replied a chemist. “It’s a fascinating example of surface action. It’s sensitive to the nature and particle size of the minerals present, the proportions of water and ammonia in the lubricating fluid, the temperature, and the pressure. The Kwembly’s weight, of course, was the main cause of trouble; the Mesklinites could walk around on it, in fact, they did, safely enough. Once triggered by a pressure peak, the strength went out of the stuff in a wave — “All right, the rest can serve for a paper,” Aucoin nodded. “Is there any way to identify such a surface without putting a ship onto it?”

“Hmm. I’d say yes. Radiation temperature should be information enough, or at least, it would warn that further tests should be made. For that matter, I wouldn’t worry about its ever getting the barge; the jets would boil the water and ammonia out of such a surface safely before touchdown.”

Aucoin nodded, and passed on to other matters. Cruiser reports, publication reports, supply reports, planning prospectuses.

He was still a little embarrassed. He had known his own failing, but like most people had excused it, and felt sure it wasn’t noticeable. But the Hoffmans had noticed it, maybe others had. He’d have to be careful, if he wanted to keep a responsible and respected job. Alter all, he repeated firmly to himself, Mesklinites were People, even if they looked like bugs.

Ib Hoffman’s attention wandered, important though he knew the work to be. His mind kept going back to the Kwembly, and the Smof and to a well-designed, well-built piece of diving gear which had almost killed an eleven-year-old boy. The reports, punctuated by Aucoin’s sometimes acid comments, droned on; slowly Ib made up his mind.

“We’re getting ahead,” remarked Barlennan. “There was good excuse for taking the vision sets out of the Kwembly, since she was being abandoned, so we’ve been able to work on her with no restrictions. We could use Reffel’s helicopter, since the humans think it’s lost, too. Jemblakee and Deeslenver seem to feel that the cruiser can be back in running state in another day.” He glanced at the feeble sun, almost exactly overhead.

“The human chemists were certainly helpful about that mud she was in. It was funny how the one who talked to Dee about the stuff kept insisting that he was only guessing, while he made suggestion after suggestion. It’s too bad we couldn’t tell him how successful most of his ideas were.

“Self-doubt seems to be a human trait, if it’s safe to make such a sweeping remark,” replied Guzmeen. “When did this news get in?”

“The Deedee came in an hour ago, and is gone again. There’s too much for that machine to do. It was bad enough when we lost the Elsh, and with Kabremm and his Gwelf overdue things are piling up. I hope we find him. Maybe the Kalliff will turn up something; he was supposed to be scouting a route to get her to Don’s camp, so maybe one of Kenanken’s scouts will spot him. He’s less than a day overdue, so there’s still a chance…”

“And with all this, you say we’re ahead?” cut in Guzmeen.

“Sure. Remember, the whole aim of the Esket act was to persuade the human beings to let us use space ships. The self-support business was incidental, though useful. We expected to work the local-life myth up to a major menace before we could persuade Aucoin to let us fly, and spend months building up to it. We’re far ahead on time, and haven’t lost very much, the base at the Esket site, of course, and the Elsh and its crew, and just possibly Kabremm and his.”

“But even Kabremm and Karfrengin aren’t exactly expendable. There aren’t very many of us. If Dondragmer and his crew don’t keep alive until the Kalliff reaches them, we’ll have taken a really serious loss; at least our dirigible crews weren’t our scientists and engineers.”

“Don’s in no real danger. They can always be picked up by Beetchermarlf in the human space ship — I mean our space ship.”

“And if anything goes wrong with that operation we’re out not only our only spaceship but our only space pilots.”

“Which suggests to me,” Barlennan said thoughtfully, “that we should try to regain some lost ground. As soon as the Kwembly is ready she should start hunting a suitable place and start replacing the Esket settlement. Don’s scientists should have little trouble finding a good location; Dhrawn seems to be rich in metal ores. Maybe we should have him search closer to here so that communication will be quicker, though.

“We’ll have to build more dirigibles; the one we have left isn’t nearly enough for the work. Maybe we ought to design bigger ones.

“I’ve been wondering about that,” a technician who had been listening silently up to this point spoke up. “Do you suppose that it would be smart to find out more, tactfully, of course, from the humans about dirigibles? We’ve never discussed the subject with them; they taught you about balloons years ago, and some of our own people got the idea of using the human power sources with them. We don’t know if they ever used them at all. Maybe it isn’t just bad luck that we’ve lost two out of our three in such a short time. Maybe there’s something fundamentally wrong with the whole idea.”

The commander gave a gesture of impatience.

“That’s silly. I didn’t try to pick up a complete scientific education from the aliens, since it was obviously going to take too long; but one thing I did gather was that the underlying rules are essentially simple. Once the humans started concentrating on basic rules, they went from sailing ships to space ships in a couple of hundred years. Balloons, powered or not, are simple devices; I understand them perfectly myself. Putting an engine aboard doesn’t change that; the same rules have to be working.”

The technician eyed his commander thoughtfully, and thought briefly of electron tubes and television circuits before replying.

“I suppose,” he said thoughtfully, “that a piece of a tent being blown away by the gale, and a ship being tacked into the wind, are also examples of the same rules at work.”

Barlennan didn’t want to give an affirmative answer, but he could find nothing better.

He was still trying to shrug off the technician’s remark, but only succeeding in growing more and more doubtful of his situation, some twenty hours later when a messenger called him to the communication room. As soon as he entered, Guzmeen spoke briefly into a microphone; a minute later, a human face which neither of them recognized appeared on the screen.

“I am Ib Hoffman, Easy’s husband and Benj’s father,” the stranger began without preamble. “I’m speaking to you two, Barlennan and Dondragmer, alone. The rest of the observing crew here are concentrating on a new emergency involving one of the cruisers. I’m using your language as best I can, with my wife standing by; she knows what I want to say, and will correct me if I slip too badly. I have decided that it is time to clear up some misunderstandings, but I don’t plan to tell everyone here about them; you’ll see why before I finish, if you don’t already. I’m bothered mostly because I hate to call anyone a liar in any language.

“First, Barlennan, my hearty congratulations. I am just about certain that when we turned the barge over to a Mesklinite pilot we fulfilled one of your chief plans, probably well before you meant or expected it to mature. That’s fine. I wanted that to happen. Probably you want to make interstellar flights on your own later on, too; that’s also fine with me. I’ll help.

“You seem to feel that many or most human beings would try to thwart you in this, and I have to admit that some would, though I think we have the most effective one under control now. You can’t be sure that I’m being sincere now, for that matter; you’re tricky enough yourself to expect it of other people. Too bad. How much you believe of what I say is beyond my control; I still have to say it.

“I don’t know how much of the basic situation you set up, but I can guess. I’m nearly sure the Esket disappearance was not genuine. I’m uncertain of the real status of the Kwembly. You probably know more of Dhrawn than you’ve reported. I won’t say I don’t care, because I do; we’re here to learn as much as possible about Dhrawn, and what you don’t tell us is a loss to the project. I can’t threaten you with penalties for breach of contract, since I’m not completely certain you’ve broken it and am in no position to carry out threats. And in any case have less than no desire to even make threats. I do want to persuade you, though, that it will be better for both of us if we do without secrets. We’re at a point where anything less than complete frankness is likely to cost us a lot and cost you everything. To make that point, I’m going to tell you a story.

“You know that human beings breathe oxygen much as you do hydrogen, though being so much larger we need a more complicated pumping system to get it through our bodies. Because of the details of that system, we suffocate if deprived of gaseous, free oxygen within a certain rather narrow range of pressures.

“About three quarters of Earth is covered by water. We cannot breathe under water without artificial equipment, but the use of such equipment is a common human sport. It consists essentially of a tank of compressed air and a valve system which releases the air to our breathing system as needed; simple and obvious.

“Six of our years ago, when Benj was eleven years old, he made such a device, designing it himself with my assistance. He made the pressure tank and regulator, using ordinary fabricating equipment such as may be found in most home workshops, just as he had made more complex things such as small gas turbines. He tested the parts with my help; they worked perfectly. He calculated how long the air in the tank would last him, and then tested the whole assembly under water. I went along as a matter of common-sense safety, using a commercial diving device.

“I am sure you know the principles of hydrostatics and the gas laws; at least, Easy has given me words for them in your language. You can see that at a certain depth, a lungful of air would have only half its volume at the surface. Benj knew this too, but reasoned that it would still be a lungful as far as oxygen content was concerned, so that a one-hour tank would be a one-hour tank regardless of depth, as long as tank pressure was above that of the water.

“To make a long story short, it didn’t. He ran out of air in less than a third of the calculated time, and I had to make an emergency rescue. Because of the quick pressure change and some human peculiarities which you don’t seem to share, he was very nearly killed. The trouble turned out to be that the human breathing rate is controlled, not by the oxygen in our blood, but by the carbon dioxide, one of the waste products. To maintain a normal equilibrium of that, we have to run normal volumes of air through our lungs, regardless of oxygen content or total pressure; hence, an hour’s air supply at normal pressure is only half an hour thirty-three feet under water, a third of an hour at sixty-six, and so on.

“I don’t want to insult anyone’s intelligence by asking if he understands my point, but I’d like some comment from both of you on that story.”

The answers were interesting, both in nature and arrival time. Barlennan’s popped from the speaker with very little more than light-travel delay; Dondragmer’s came much, much later, and did not overlap with his commander’s.

“It is obvious that incomplete knowledge can lead to mistakes,” said Barlennan, “but I don’t see why that is especially applicable to the present case. We know that our knowledge can’t be complete, and that our work here is dangerous for that reason. We have always known it. Why emphasize the point now? I’d much rather hear your report on the cruiser you say is in trouble. You make me suspect that you are leading up gently to the information that I have lost another cruiser because of something its designing engineers didn’t know. Don’t worry, I won’t blame you for that. None of us could foresee everything.”

Ib smiled sourly at the revelation of yet another human characteristic.

“That’s not just what I had in mind, Commander, though there are valid aspects to what you have just said. I’d like to wait for Dondragmer’s answer before I say any more, though.”

It was another full minute, a slightly strained one, before the voice of the Kwembly’s captain arrived.

“Your account is plain enough and you would probably have been briefer had you not meant to imply more. I suspect that your key point is not so much that your son got into trouble through ignorance, but that he did so even under your experienced adult supervision. I would take the implication to be that even though you aliens do not claim omniscience or omnipotence, we are in a certain amount of danger here no matter how closely you supervise and assist us, and we are adding unnecessarily to our danger any time we act on our own, like the student chemist who experiments on his own.” Dondragmer had spent much more time at the College than had his commander.

“Right. Just what I meant,” said lb. “I cant…

“Just a moment,” interrupted Easy. “Hadn’t you better relay Don’s remark to Barlennan first?”

“Right.” Her husband gave a one-sentence summary of the captain’s speech, and went on, “I can’t force any policy on you, and would prefer not to even if I could. I don’t expect you to make a complete revelation of everything that’s gone on on Dhrawn since you first built the Settlement. In fact, I’d advise strongly against it; I have enough complications up here with the administration as it is. However, if Easy just happened to get an occasional talk with her old friends Destigmet and Kabremm, just as an example, I would have a better idea of what has gone on and be in a better position to keep things running smoothly at this end. I don’t expect a spot decision on any matter of major policy change, Commander, but please think it over.”

Barlennan, being a sea captain by training and trade, was accustomed to the need for quick decisions. Furthermore, circumstances had already compelled thoughts on similar lines to circulate in his tiny head. Finally, his only really basic policy was to ensure his own survival and that of his crew. He answered Ib promptly.

“Easy may get her talk with Destigmet, but not right away; the Esket is a long distance from here. I will also have to wait to tell you all that I’d like to, because I must first hear from you the details of the trouble you mentioned when you first called. You said that another of my cruisers was in trouble.

“Please tell me just what has happened, so I can plan what help to request from you.

Ib and Easy Hoffman looked at each other and grinned in mingled relief and triumph.

But it was Benj who made the key remark. This was later on, in the aerology lab, when they were recounting to him and McDevitt all that had been said. The boy looked up at the huge globe of Dhrawn, and the tiny area where the lights indicated partial knowledge.

“I suppose you think he’s a lot safer now, down there.”

It was a sobering thought.