The Nitrogen Fix

III Morals, Mostly

Kahvi felt better. The words were not encouraging, but the young fellow seemed to have some of the courtesy reflexes.

“Thanks, she replied. “There was no need to have anyone waiting especially for us, though; we could have gone up to the Hill to let you know we were here.”

“Well, we wanted to know as soon as possible. There are — or maybe were — some projects going on here in Canton and we were using this building lot anyway. I hope you brought as much glass as we asked for; it’s badly needed was.”

“Was needed? Had projects? What’s changed? And what were the projects? Why did they need so much glass — if you want to tell, of course.”

“Well, I’m not really sure about the past tense, but the fire you just helped fight off seems to have started very close to where we had things going. Whether anything is left I’ll have to find out. I hope we can still use your cargo.”

“And that you can still pay for it,” added Kahvi.

“We can take credit, of course; it’s always nice to have someone who owes us air.”

“That’s right, there are two of you, aren’t there-your partner is still up on the roof. I suppose you’ll need help in getting the cargo ashore. Should I come now? Or wait — you mentioned other names. Has your group gotten larger?”

“Not really.” Kahvi began to feel a little tense, and wondered whether he were making some reference to her figure. “It’s been the same group for years, but usually Earrin and I are the only ones to trade. This time the cargo is bigger and the raft harder to move. We don’t really need help in unloading, and you’ll have to restock your air tray anyway before you come out, of course. It was very lucky that only one coal landed in an oxygen tray, wasn’t it?” Kahvi had just realized how incredibly lucky this was, and was wondering how it had been possible to save the roof at all.

If the boy read anything into her remark, however, his expression showed no sign of it. Kahvi felt her own skin flush, and deliberately slowed her breathing. “We’ll go back and start unloading now, as long as you’re all right here,” she went on as calmly as she could. “Where did I put my mask? There — thanks.

You’d better fix that tray, and do something about patching tissue. We’ve used up three quarters of what you had.”

“No hurry about that,” was the reply. “There’s no way we can have another fire for a while — Oh, sorry; that’s another Nomad must-do, isn’t it? Well, maybe you’re right. I’ll take care of them both before I come out to help. Maybe you could bring some glass here right away; I don’t have anything smooth enough to grow good patch tissue on.”

“All right.” The woman had redonned her mask by this time, but still used spoken words. The Hiller would not understand Nomad gesture speech, still less the symbols used by the Fyn family and Bones.

“One of us will be back in a few minutes. Do you want some help with nitrogen, too?”

She regretted this question the instant it was uttered, and glanced up at her husband. She could see him clearly enough but knew that he could not see her nearly as well through the reflecting roof tissue,and for a moment she felt a twinge of fear.

However, the young Bostonian seemed indifferent to any implications in her remark, and a moment later she was through the air lock.

She looked up again at Earrin, and gestured him to come with her back toward the raft. Danna and Bones were now only a few meters away, and she repeated the signal to them. Her husband glanced toward the spot from which the smoke no longer rose, shrugged, and made his way down the wall. The party was halfway back to the raft before Kahvi said anything.

“Could you hear him?” she asked her husband.

“Not very well. You seemed to be schoolmarming at first.”

“I was. I’m not sure what we should be doing about him.”

“Why anything? What’s wrong with him? What’s his name, and why is he there?”

“He said he wasn’t a jailbird, but I don’t believe him. He’s a junky — a waster. There isn’t a nitrogen plant or intake tube in the place. Why the roof didn’t go up in one big flare I can’t see, and I’m still dizzy from the oxygen — he’s got a full atmosphere of it in there. He wants glass to grow patch sheets on, and I suppose we’d better give, it to him, but we’ll have to stay on the raft ourselves — that jail is no place for Danna.”

“What’s his name?”

“I didn’t get it.”

“Then he’ll know you spotted something wrong.” Kahvi nodded slowly. Exchange of names was another of the life-protecting habits of the nomadic people outside the cities. Without that information one could not talk about another person to a third party without ambiguity, and precise communication was one of the necessities of life. The same factor underlay the Nomad abhorrence of lying. Kahvi’s failure to ask for the jailbird’s name would make it obvious that she was being disturbed or distracted by something.

“He must know anyway,” she said finally. “I did say something about his shortage of N-gear.

“Errin, what should we do? Of course we have to give him the life-support stuff he needs, but I’m afraid of him. He doesn’t care about rules — I don’t know what he’s likely to do.”

“I’ll bring him the glass,” replied the man.

“Don’t worry about that. Maybe this will help, in a way. We can let Bones help with the unloading; if this fellow does see him, no one is likely to believe him anyway. It probably wouldn’t even matter if he saw Danna.”

“I don’t think we should take that chance. They’d grab her for Surplus school and think they were doing her and us a favor. You know that as well as I do. Look, this junky spoke about a project where the fire was, and if he wasn’t dreaming there are probably other people over there, which is much too close. They might be over any minute to see what happened to their jail, and if they see Bones or Danna-well, they can’t all be oxygenfreaks.”

Earrin nodded. “You’re right. They’d better get out of sight.” He gestured briefly to Bones, and the native disappeared without a splash into the water. Danna followed, unwillingly. She didn’t want to go back inside the tent, but was well enough brought up to know when things were necessary.

She gave a reproachful look at her father’s gesture, and disappeared as smoothly as her nonhuman friend. A minute or so later her head appeared briefly inside the tent, signifying her safe arrival; then she dropped out of sight among the bubble-covered trays of air producers and food plants. Her parents saw, but devoted most of their attention to the ridge for several more minutes.

Finally, however, they decided that there had been no witnesses to the presence of child or native, and went to work on the cargo.

The copper was in sacks similar to the anchors, each containing twenty of the two-kilogram nuggets brought ashore by the pseudoliving metal-collecting robots which still bred and operated in the oceans.

The change in Earth’s air had been much harder on natural life than on the artificial varieties. Fifteen of the sacks were on the raft. Kahvi dropped each in turn into the meterdeep acid, and her husband carried them ashore, not lifting them above the surface until it was unavoidable. Bones moved some of them as close to shore as possible without appearing above the surface.The glass, similarly wrapped, consisted of whole window panes salvaged from the harbor bottom by the native. Vast numbers of these still lay where they had settled into the mud as the houses disintegrated around them. There had only been enough oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere to make the oceans about one-hundredth-normal in nitric acid as it combined with the nitrogen, but rain, rivers, and even estuaries had often been much more concentrated during the fix. Metals in general were now completely dissolved, except for the nuggets which the pseudoliving collectors were still reducing in their mindless way. Glass and ceramics, of course, could still be found.

By the time the last of the cargo was above high water mark the sun was low in the west. The jailbird had not reappeared, and if there had been any Hillers at the fire site they had shown no interest in the jail side of the ridge. There had been no more smoke, and no sounds, from that direction.

Kahvi, who had helped carry material ashore as soon as everything was off the deck, straightened up and stretched. Then she looked at the jail and frowned slightly.

“He never came out, did he?” she commented.

“I wonder what he’s doing in there. He’s had plenty of time to fix that oxygen tray.”

“I’ll bring him some glass,” Earrin answered the unspoken thought. “I want to see what he’s like, anyway.”

“I’m afraid of him,” Kahvi admitted. “I’ll go along and watch from the roof. If he tries to do anything to you I can threaten to cut it open.”

Earrin raised his acid-yellowed eyebrows. “I know you love me, but that’s going pretty far. He probably wouldn’t believe you could do it, any more than I do. Besides, you’ve been working pretty hard, and Dan’s been alone quite a while.

You go eat and rest, and make her happy for a while. You do have other responsibilities besides me.”

“I know, but I don’t always want to remember them.”

“Sorry, dearest. I can look after myself this time, I think. Would you say this character is any stronger than I am? Was there anything he could use for a weapon?”

“I don’t suppose he’s as strong as either of us normally, but if he’s breathing straight oxygen there’s no telling what he can do. Anything that can be picked up can be a weapon, I’ve heard. I’m just afraid of him; he doesn’t think rules are for him, so there’s no telling what he’d do.”

“All right. I’m not afraid of him yet, but I may be after I’ve seen and talked to him, and I’ll be careful anyway. Tell you what-I’ll tell Bones what I’m doing. He’ll want to watch, since the jailbird is something new. He’ll help if the fellow tries to do anything to me.”

“Are you sure? He may just go on watching. That’ll be something new for him, too, remember.

Besides, what if other Hillers come and see her? We can’t afford to let them know we associate with natives.”

“Why should they suppose we’re associating? Natives are always watching things — even Hillers must know that.”

Kahvi frowned in thought for several seconds. She ran her fingers through her short, acid-yellowed hair where it was not covered by mask straps, and her dark brown eyes looked searchingly into Earrin’s blue ones. “All right,” she said at last, “but get back as quickly as you can, please. I suppose I did promise him the glass.” She turned away and started to wade toward the raft. “I’ll tell Bones. She’s probably under the raft playing with Dan. Don’t go in until she’s with you.”

Earrin nodded, and picked up one of the bundles of glass panes. He was no longer even amused at his wife’s choice of pronouns when referring to Bones; neither of them knew which gender, if either, was appropriate. His use of masculine and hers of feminine had been mostly a joke when it first started; now it was merely habit. If Bones noticed the difference in language, the Watcher had never commented about it.

The brassy patch in the sky which marked the sun’s position was almost against the hill which had concealed the fire, as Earrin approached the jail again. He glanced behind him as he reached the air lock pool, and saw Bones’ bulk surface briefly with one huge eye turned shoreward.

Kahvi had passed the word. He turned back to the building. “This is Earrin Fyn the Nomad,” hecalled loudly. “I’m bringing the glass Kahvi promised. May I come in?”

“I’ll be glad to see you, Nomad Fyn. Come along.” There had been no hesitation in the answer, and no suggestion of surprise in the speaker’s voice; if anything, it was more of a bored drawl. Earrin turned once more, signalled briefly to the partly visible native, and lowered himself and his burden into the pool.

Kahvi had described the man, so the centimeters of extra height and kilograms of lacking weight were no surprise to Earrin. As the woman had said, the jailbird’s hair was long enough to suggest that outdoor attire was not usual for him, and dark enough to indicate little if any exposure to nitric acid rain.

A glance around the room confirmed the other point; there were three different types of photosynthetic oxygen producers among the trays, all of them pseudolife, but neither plant nor tubing to provide free nitrogen. Several hoses did reach through the air lock, but their inner ends entered tanks in which pseudolife forms precipitated carbon dioxide as calcium carbonate — they simply provided fertilizer for the oxygenmakers. Earrin could not detect the excess oxygen by smell, of course, but since the total pressure must be about the same inside as out — the roof tissue was neither bulging nor sagging — there could be no doubt about what they were breathing. The Nomad deliberately slowed and shallowed his respiration, and hoped he wasn’t being obvious about it. He had removed his mask from habit as he emerged from the pool, and hoped he had suppressed all signs of the urge to clap it back on as he realized what the air inside must be.

If there had been any such faux pas, the Hiller seemed not to notice it.

“Thanks for the glass,” he said. “It was foolish of me to tell your partner that it should be a long time before I’d need any patch material. There is never any way to be sure, is there? I hope I didn’t shock her too much. You Nomads are very sensitive about what’s right and what’s wrong, aren’t you?”

“Being wrong is very often being dead,” Earrin pointed out. “Kahvi and I have travelled enough, though, to know that what is right outdoors may not always be so in a city. We hope she didn’t offend.”

“Not at all,” the boy assured him. “I do know that mere customs aren’t necessarily right. Most of my fellow citizens, as you must have noticed on our earlier visits, are a bit reluctant to accept or adopt anything new, but I and some of my friends don’t feel that way at all. That’s why we wanted your metal and glass.”

“Even the others aren’t completely down on new things,” Earrin pointed out. “I remember occasionally selling them a new product, and we are still eating from a pseudo plant which was developed here.”

“By a friend of mine, who is very unpopular with the fogies as a result,” the other assured him.

“As a Nomad yourself, if you’ll forgive my mentioning it, you presumably don’t mind new things.”

“Of course not. They’re most of my living. Are you suggesting you have something we might like?”

“I got the impression that you and your wife had both noticed it already.”

“You mean — but — ” Earrin found himself at a loss for words. The jailbird smiled.

“Not quite as open-minded as you like to think. I’m not really trying to change your life-style, but didn’t you wonder under the circumstances why my roof didn’t burn far more violently?”

Earrin kicked himself mentally. “Yes,” he admitted, “we did wonder about that. You have a new roof tissue, then? We certainly would be interested — unless — ” he paused again. The other laughed rather bitterly.

“Unless it needs straight oxygen to grow in?”

“That thought did occur.”

“I have to admit I don’t know. It hasn’t been tried under your — uh — rather dull environmental conditions. I could let you have some for testing, with the understanding that you would be in my debt if results were satisfactory.”

“That’s all right. When you have a replacement supply, I’ll bring a sheet or two more glass — ”

“You needn’t wait that long. I’ll give you a sample now, if you’ll help me seed the glass you just brought. I suppose it will shock you as it did your companion, but I’m really not in a state of panic about replacing my roofing. The city, not to mention a good many other air stations, is well within walking distance, you know. I hope you’re not too unsettled by my attitude.”

“Well — I suppose when you live in a city, less closely connected with your air supply than a Nomador a Surplus kid, you’d feel a little different about such things. I admit that taking something so necessary from you when your own supply is so short seems very wrong — but if you really want it that way — I mean — if you’re — ” Earrin ran out of words again. The Hiller laughed, and for a moment even Kahvi, had she seen his face, might not have been afraid of him.

“If I’m not out of my mind, you mean?”

“Well — not exactly — but under the circumstances — ”

“Come on, fellow. Just because I like to breathe natural air that’s worth putting in your lungs, instead of that diluted stuff you put up with, doesn’t mean my brain’s burned out. I suppose that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

“Not exactly. There’s nothing natural about this stuff, and right now I’m not quite sure what I’m thinking. I feel a little strange.”

“Well, let’s get it over with. Unpack your glass and I’ll cut up some of the patches. You can help me apply them, and you’ll be outside again in a few minutes. If you’re really uncomfortable, why don’t you put your mask back on?”

“Indoors? But that’s not — I mean — ”

“I know. It’s not right to use an air cartridge when you can breathe without it. Well, if you’re stuck with your own habits, you’re stuck with ‘em. Would you rather we talked outside?”

“Yes.” Earrin answered almost without thought, then flushed. The other began donning his mask without comment, though his face was expressive until the breathing gear hid it, and Fyn waited silently until he had finished. Then the Hiller started down the steps into the air lock.

The Nomad waited until his surprisingly accommodating host had ducked below the surface, then began to follow him into the water.

He got down only three steps. Then, without (garbled text in original scan) m grip on his ankle, and om under him. He fell the edge of one of feel the floor. (end garbled text in original scan)