The Nitrogen Fix

IX Arson, Aggravated

The jail was not very well lighted. There were a few trays containing the luminous pseudolife, but they were scattered among the tables rather than arranged on wall panels as was usual in the cities.

In a way this was bad for Kahvi, since lights which covered the inside of the building effectively would have made her less visible. If she had been at all careless, the moonlight would have revealed her easily. She almost made one mistake; the golden bracelet on her left wrist clicked against the stone as she reached the top of the wall. She quickly pushed it farther up toward her elbow until it was too tight to move freely, and carefully kept the arm itself toward the outside of the wall. Moonlight glinting from the metal to an eye inside could hardly help being noticed.

There were six people in the building. She had no way of being sure whether or not any of them was Endrew, though it seemed likely. Who the others might be she could only guess, with no real basis even for that; and since she distrusted guessing almost as much as Bones did, she simply listened. The roof tissue did not block sound effectively, and the excitement of high oxygen made the voices of those below quite loud by Nomad standards anyway. One of them, in fact, was mentioning this very point.

“We can’t afford to get too happy,” he was saying. “It should take that idiotic Nomad at least half an hour to get back here, cutting around the way he would have to, but at least two of us should be outside to spot him when he does.”

“Why?” asked another. “I’m tired, I haven’t been able to relax in decent air all night or all yesterday, and I don’t see why it’s important if he gets back to his raft. If one of those creatures is around, even if it’s following him, there must be better ways to catch it. We could make traps with Barefoot’s Bane all around, instead of just by the lab.”

“The former lab, if you can’t remember to call it the Learning Center,” remarked another male voice.

“You could have done your objecting earlier!” snapped a woman. “I’m just as tired as you are, and if you really had a better plan to offer — you know there isn’t enough Bane either harvested or growing to cover the whole countryside — you could have mentioned it and saved all of us all this outdoor travel.”

“I did suggest another and you laughed at it,” was the retort. “I pointed out that if an Invader were really following the Nomad around it would mean that its curiosity had focussed on him, and there wouldn’t be any way to distract it. I said — ”“That’s enough!” the first male voice cut across the rapidly rising tones of the second. “You and Wilma get your gear on, go outside, and start sorting that cargo — get the glass separated and opened where we can use it. We need the new lab as soon as possible. We’ll build it right there to save carrying time; we’ll get the other material as soon as the sun’s high enough tomorrow. You two have had enough straight oxygen for now.”

“But — ” came the woman’s voice.

“But nothing. Both of you. Now. Get dressed!”

Kahvi rather expected more effective resistance to the command, though she had never heard a full-grown argument between authority and subordinate. It was hard for her to believe that citydwellers could display as much discipline as a normal Nomad, and even harder to credit the notion that oxygen junkies could have any discipline at all. When two of the figures stood up and began to don outdoor equipment she was so surprised that for some seconds she failed to consider how this might affect her own situation. The two were entering the air lock when she suddenly realized how visible she would be the moment they got to the north of the jail.

She thought quickly, weighing necessities. If she left her present place of vantage she would hear no more, and information was really vital.

She had, on the other hand, already learned enough to guide a good deal of action, and being seen would complicate matters most undesirably.

Further information would have to wait.

She descended the wall quickly and silently, and lay down in its shadow-standing, she would show in silhouette against the moonlit ridge. She heard the people emerge from the air lock pool, and a moment later saw them pass. Neither looked in Kahvi’s direction. The few words of their conversation she heard added nothing to her fund of useful knowledge.

What should she do now? There was no worry about Earrin for the moment; she had been with him for over seven years, and was perfectly certain that he was not going to come back to the raft very soon.

She had no idea why he had gone with the Hillers or why he had left them, but after the latter move he would certainly have known that they could intercept him if he came home. She could not guess what he might be up to, but until he accomplished it, or decided that he couldn’t accomplish it, her obvious job was to maintain control of the situation here — keep Danna safe, and keep the raft available and functioning as a breathing place.

With these facts worked out clearly, it became obvious that she had made a tactical error. The two oxygen junkies were between her and the raft.

The night was clear, the moon high, and the vegetation not nearly heavy enough to conceal a human figure attempting to cross the beach and enter the water unseen. Worse, if for any reason they decided to visit the raft itself, she could not possibly get there ahead of them and they would certainly find Danna.

That would be undesirable. Twice during Kahvi’s own time in Surplus school she had seen children of Nomads brought in. The Hillers, of course, had been perfectly certain that they were doing the children and their parents a favor, and that the education they supplied would improve life duration and quality for the former; but the captives had felt otherwise.

The first child had been about ten, had lived all his life as a Nomad, had been very well supplied with the proper hangups for Nomad existence, and had been an extremely disruptive influence in the Surplus classes. Kahvi had always suspected that the teachers themselves had collaborated in the parents’ successful effort to recapture him.

Since becoming a Nomad herself, she had always hoped to meet that family.

The other child, also a boy, had been only about three, but even he had had well-developed Nomad habits to bother the Surplus teachers. As far as Kahvi knew, he might be still in the Hill.

In any case, she had no intention of allowing her daughter to be taken away, no matter how well intentioned the kidnappers might be. Danna was already well on the way toward good Nomad self-sufficiency, and her mother was sure she would be badly confused by the things the Hillers would try to teach her-especially with all these oxygen-wasters around.

Also, and almost as serious, if the Hillers took over control of the raft they would for all practicalpurposes be in control of the Fyn family. Neither of its adult members was prepared to tolerate that; the urge for independence was still strong in what remained of humanity. Earrin and Kahvi distrusted city-dwellers on principle, and had often talked over possible situations which might threaten child or home.

None of this went through Kahvi’s conscious mind at the moment; it was all background to be taken for granted. The current question was how to get to the raft without being noticed, and how to keep control of it after she had reached it. The former was the more pressing; there were various plans already made up to cover the latter, though it remained to be seen whether any of them were practical.

She was a much quicker thinker than her husband, as Earrin himself was ready to admit, and it did not take her long to set up a plan of action. She didn’t like it — she was not, in fact, certain that she could do it — but like her husband she executed decisions quickly. Too much time spent thinking could, as she had told the jailbird earlier, be deadly. She had not, as a Nomad, faced enough unexpected situations to realize that lack of thought could be equally so. Right now, dawn could not be far away, and too much light would certainly spoil things.

Still close to the ground, she worked her way around to the south side of the jail. Then, keeping the structure between herself and the cargo pile, she half rose and ran as rapidly as she could southward and a little away from the water. This brought her gradually up the hillside, and presently the jail ceased to provide concealment.

However, the vegetation was thicker here, and she dropped back to the ground and crawled quickly straight up the slope. Once over the ridge and a short distance down the other side she felt safe in standing up, and after pausing a moment to get her breath she turned northward again.

Her path brought her fairly close to the fire site where Bones had been captured a few hours before, but very fortunately — her feet were unprotected — not near enough to feel its heat and be tempted into a real investigation.

Opposite the raft she approached the ridge again cautiously, travelling prone and exposing as little as possible of her head above it. Knowing that rapid motion was more likely to catch the human eye than any mere shape, she spent fully two minutes bringing her eyes to the level where she could see the raft and the cargo area.

The two Hillers were still at the latter place, working as they had been ordered. Even at three hundred meters distance and through the rather ripply mask glass they could be seen clearly enough. it was not possible to tell how much attention they were giving to other matters — how well, for example, they might be watching for Earrin — but her plan would take care of that anyway.

If she could carry it out. She had budgeted time for driving herself to the act, but as the eastern sky grew brighter she began to wonder whether she had allowed enough. It went against so many Nomad hangups. She was afraid of fire; it was dangerous and evil. It destroyed resources, both real-life and pseudolife which people needed for survival. It even destroyed structures, unless they were made of stone — and even those, if the stones were held by ordinary pseudolife cements. It even hurt, she knew, though she had never suffered a burn yet herself.

But these Hillers were a menace. They threatened the welfare and the lives of Kahvi herself, her husband, and her child, especially the child. If they got a good look at Kahvi they might even become a threat to the child still unborn; its presence was now reasonably obvious, though Kahvi’s figure was basically rather solid. The jailbird she had seen might already be aware of the newcomer. Worse, these people were oxygen-wasters, addicts, and therefore even less predictable and trustworthy than other Hillers.

And, after all, the fire wouldn’t actually hurt them. It wouldn’t even damage the jail, of course — if there had been risk of that, Kahvi could not have brought herself to start it under any circumstances. The jail was an oxygen haven, even with its present over oxygen concentration.

Having convinced herself again that this particular end was worth the proposed means — though still uneasy about it down inside — she worked her way back a few meters from the ridge and set to work.

Naturally the fire must not be allowed to spread any distance, so she tried to clear every single growth from a large radius and the recognizably explosive ones from an even greater distance around theproposed lighting spot. She was careful not to pile blasters on top of each other, covering them and separating them with less violent growths. By the time she was satisfied, the eastern sky was getting quite bright; there was little more time.

She worked more slowly and hesitantly now, however. Unfastening a couple of straps, she brought her breathing cartridges around in front, and disconnected one of them. It was a cylinder about the size of her forearm, with a valved hose extending from one end. The outer case had been made of “plastic” — a construction tissue of any sort grown by pseudolife — while the organ inside had been grown as a unit.

The oxygen-binder was a scion of one of the last forms of pseudolife to be designed before human culture lost the ability to produce such things from basic materials. Like most such “organisms” it was extremely stable genetically, though mutations sometimes occurred — more accurately cancers, since it was reproduced by culturing a fragment separated from the parent body.

Structurally it was a single-thickness sheet of cells so highly involuted that nearly all of them were exposed to the surroundings; the area within the unit totalled many hundreds of square meters.

The cells contained an oxygen binding complex similar to, but far more efficient than, hemoglobin; its equilibrium oxygen pressure was about a quarter of a standard atmosphere, changing little through the usual temperature range.

The cartridge fed normally into a bellows-like arrangement intended to permit controlled mixing with ordinary air, now almost entirely nitrogen. The traces of nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere were not filtered out or separated in any other way; they were responsible for the short average life span of Nomads.

Kahvi had found a growth which had a more intimate mixture than most of nitrates and reducers-a sort of super blaster; once or twice she had seen it ignite from impact. This, of course, could not be counted on; the “real” nitro-life, unlike the artificial varieties, mutated almost constantly. Bones had remarked more than once that eating was an endless experiment, though the Nomads had not translated the gestures with just that word.

Kahvi hoped that in a jet of straight oxygen this bit of wood could be expected to fire on impact, though it had not done so in ordinary air when she broke off the branch. She found a smooth stone and placed it beside her spread-out woodpile.

Then, holding her breath to conserve the last lungful, she removed her mask and placed the delivery tube of the disconnected cartridge in her mouth.

The mask and rebreather bellows were still connected to each other and to the remaining oxygen cartridge. She turned the inside of the mask toward the stone, raised the stick, squeezed the bellows and stopped. She couldn’t do it. Everything in the way of memories and habit patterns which made Kahvi Mikkonen what she was ordered her arm to stop the swing. For a moment she knelt motionless; then she brought the bellows back to her face, let it fill, and breathed again-the tube from the other cartridge had only diffused oxygen to her mouth, not nearly fast enough to keep her alive for long. The cartridge tissue outgassed to equilibrium very rapidly, but there had to be somewhere for the gas to go. The bellows, diluting it with nitrogen, made a large difference.

“Experiment!” she muttered, using what her Surplus school teachers had regarded as the vilest of words. Then she clenched her teeth, thought of her home and family again, drew another deep breath of diluted oxygen, and tried again.

This time the paralysis came too late to stop the impact, though the blow was far less violent than she had meant. Sparks flew, and the end of the stick took on a crimson glow; she had her fire. She dropped the wood, and quickly replaced her breathing gear. Then, seeing the incandescence spreading rapidly to include the entire branch, she seized it by the still-cold end and threw it into the wood pile.

Then she fled, almost fainting.

It took several minutes for the spreading glow to reach any of the blaster plants, and she was well to the north before the first crimson flash illuminated the view and the accompanying heavy thud reached her ears. She promptly dropped flat again and wriggled toward the top of the ridge bringing her head up with as much care as before.

The people might not be so stupid as to look only at the fire. She was recovering her self-control,though she felt nauseated.

Both workers were running toward the jail, calling out loudly. As far as Kahvi could tell at that distance neither was looking back. She still played it safe, however, crawling down toward the water.

She had farther to go than the runners, and they got to the jail before she reached the water. The moment they disappeared into the lock pool, Kahvi got to her feet and ran as fast as she could — she was safely submerged before the other oxygen-wasters had donned gear and come outside.

The moon was still visible after a fashion in spite of the brightening sky. Its image was distorted and swung back and forth by the swell, but it gave some guide to direction. Kahvi stayed below the surface — entirely-charged breathing cartridges were much denser than water, and she needed no effort to stay down — until she felt sure that she had swum farther out than the raft. Then, still very carefully, she raised her head. The swell alternately lifted and lowered her nearly a meter, but she caught glimpses of shore and raft.

She was still well north of the latter, and somewhat farther from shore. She was tempted to stay on the surface for easier navigation, but the six Hillers were now outside the jail. Even though they were moving rapidly toward the fire — the crimson glow and rising column of smoke made her feel sick again for a moment — and seemed to be paying no attention to any other direction, Kahvi decided to play it safe and submerged again. The next time she came up to check she was almost directly out from the raft, about a hundred meters, and people were all out of sight. She finished her journey on the surface until she had to go down again to get to the entry hatchway. She climbed in as quietly as she could, but it wasn’t quietly enough; the child felt the change in motion of the floats.

“Mother, is that you? Where were you? There’s another fire, and I’m scared. Should we go out with the buckets again?”

“No, dear. This is just a little fire, and it won’t come close. You may watch it or go back to sleep, whichever you want.”

“Which will you do?”

“I’ll watch for a while. Do you want to come over here with me?”

There was no verbal answer, but the floats changed their rhythm again and a moment later her daughter’s tiny form was cuddled against her.

No more words were necessary, and Kahvi carefully refrained from using any. Danna helped remove her mother’s outdoor gear without asking again where she had been — after all, there was nothing unusual about either of her parents’ going out to check anchors or other things even at night.

Several silent minutes passed, and Kahvi began to hope that the little one had gone back to sleep.

But she hadn’t. She saw the figures in the growing light as quickly as her mother, and felt Kahvi stiffen at the sight.

“Who are those people, Mother? Are they coming here?”

“They may be. Get your outdoor gear on, Dan, but don’t connect cartridges until they really come into the water. Be quick.”