The Nitrogen Fix

V Captive, Curiously

Bones swam rapidly, entirely below the surface. There was no obvious reason to stay near the raft, and there was a burning need to fill the knowledge vacuum about the region beyond the ridge. The way to get there without being seen by the Hillers was obvious enough — swim around the Canton peninsula part way, to its northern extremity, or even all the way around to the western side, under water where human beings couldn’t see very well even by daylight. It was almost night now, and even if there were people elsewhere on the shore it should be possible to leave the water without being seen.

There was no problem in finding the way. The Fyn group, with Bones, had been here several times in the last few years, and the Observer knew the terrain — even under water — well enough.

The water was growing darker; the sun had set by now. The almost permanent haze of Earth’s new atmosphere still held a golden-brown luminosity, but that would not last long. The distance to swim was scarcely a kilometer, inside the Sayre islets, west across the end of the peninsula for a few hundred meters, then into the cove on the northwest corner. Bones swam steadily. The water at the head of the little bay finally began to grow shallow, and Bones turned cautiously to get one eye above the surface, folding the broad fin on that side closely against the rubbery body to keep it hidden.The shore showed no sign of human beings.

However, the plants were large — almost treelike — and included many useful varieties of both natural and pseudolife. There were several masses of Newell tissue, the porous material from which the Fyns had made their raft. There were spinneys of realwood, a tough nitro-growth useful in construction; there were tangled masses of the Yamatiya cordage organism. It was the sort of place where human beings might easily be present even at night, sleeping between days of collecting or craft work, and Bones submerged again and went on to the west side, a matter of another three or four hundred meters.

Here, too, the shore was almost a jungle, but the growths were less useful; slimy patches of various kinds of nitro-life, tangled and thorny bushes and copses of more evolved stuff. It was not certain that there would be no people, but the population of the species was limited. They couldn’t be everywhere.

Bones moved inshore to half-meter depth — the water was almost mirror-smooth on this side of the peninsula. It was not practical here to turn one-eye-up without exposing more body anyway, so the Observer’s fishlike form rose far enough to use both. The huge eyes made a quick inspection in both directions along the shore, and without attempting to stand upright Bones slipped rapidly across the few meters of open sand and into the concealment of the vegetation. No sound at all resembling a human voice responded to the act, though the Observer could not have been really sure of any such resemblance.

Several minutes of waiting made it reasonably sure that no people had seen. Slowly, carefully, and as silently as the great body could manage, Bones worked inland through the sometimes slippery and sometimes spiky plants. The way led uphill toward the top of the same ridge which had concealed the fire earlier in the day, but for a long time no signs of burning could be found. The Observer worked back and forth — north and south — rather than straight eastward and upward, but for a long time had no luck. This was strange; it was hard to believe that the blaze had not covered a large area. It was almost completely dark by now, with neither the moon nor the comet in the sky, but Bones’ huge eyes were far more efficient than those Of any human being.

There were no informative sounds, either. The whips, leaves, branches and spines of the various plants and plantlike pseudos were moving in the light breeze to create a background murmur, but there were no large animals other than human beings and Observers now on Earth. Bones could be reasonably sure that none of these was moving anywhere close by. Perhaps the fire had been of natural origin after all — still, those people whose appearance had caused Bones to leave Earrin alone had been coming from somewhere on this side of the peninsula. Care was still in order; would all of any group have gone over to the jail?

Maybe, but maybe wasn’t safe enough.

Then the risk dropped from consideration as a faint suggestion of radiant heat manifested itself.

Bones turned slowly until both lateral fins received the sensation equally, and for several seconds both great eyes bored without result in the indicated direction, northward. Then, carefully, the Observer moved the same way. At first the surrounding plants interfered with clear vision, but then the higher growth began to thin out ahead. After two hundred meters or so there was even a horizon; stars could be seen nearly down to the ridge at the right, and almost as low directly ahead. In the latter direction the points of light were trembling and quivering more than usual. A heat source must lie that way.

Fifty meters further along, eyesight confirmed the deduction. Ahead lay a long pile of stones across the researcher’s line of travel, a roughly made wall half the height of a man. For the last ten meters before reaching it there was no vegetation at all, and the ground felt very warm. The wall, or what had been a wall, surrounded a space some fifteen meters across; inside this area lay a bed of still glowing coals.

The whole thing had to be man-made, but what did people want with such a huge fire? What could they learn from it? Or, since it was now pretty clear that human beings had other drives than the hunger for knowledge, what appetite could it satisfy? Certainly not the urge for nourishment which drove the Fyns so relentlessly. What would Earrin, or Kahvi, or Danna get from such an operation? Bones was as willing to speculate as any human being, but much less willing than most of that species to be satisfied with the results of speculation. The hunger for knowledge which characterized the Observer species could no more be satisfied with “ maybes” and daydreams than a starving human being could becontented by chewing on a twig. More observed facts would have to accumulate. Bones happilv set about finding them.

The stone was typical human tumbled-rock work, except for the lack of any mortar or cement. That might be due to the heat — but hold back on inferences! The rocks themselves were typical of the area, and showed no signs of artifical shaping.

Bones was a couple of thousand years too late to have seen a New England stone wall — the wild erosion which had accompanied the atmosphere change had removed all such loose structures — and could not read any archaeological implications into the fragments. The Observer was now sure that the units had reached Earth much sooner after its atmosphere change than they had ever managed before.

Certainly it was the first time they had found large, active animal life which seemed to have survived from the free-oxygen era; but ideas about possible connections between that life and the change itself were still very hypothetical, and a science of archaeology was still to develop.

The stones were still unpleasantly hot, but Bones used touch as well as sight to gather data. There was dried, crumbling dirt on and between some of the boulders, but no obvious way to tell whether this had been intended to fill spaces, or simply too much of a nuisance to clean off when the rocks had been moved originally. Bones was inclined to suspect the latter, partly because the dirt did not occur everywhere and partly because of the prejudice against unnecessary labor which Earrin and Kahvi showed so strongly. The presumption that this was a standard human characteristic was risky but not unreasonable.

Whatever the structure and fire had been intended for, the purpose seemed to have been fulfilled; there were no people around now. The fire itself had completed its violent stage only recently — this would have been obvious even if Bones had not been watching at the time. Coals from a fire did not last very long with no oxygen to diffuse into the bed, and the Observer had seen plenty of fires since coming to Earth. People who wanted something from the blaze would presumably have waited around to get it, rather than travelling away and back again — this, again, was an inference from the Fyn family behavior, but seemed reasonable.

Having reached this tentative opinion, Bones relaxed some of the precautions to avoid observation and moved more freely around the edges of the big fireplace. This proved to be a mistake, like the inference itself.

Human voices, Bones could not tell how many, suddenly sounded from the west, toward the shore where the researcher had landed. They were not nearly as far away as the shore, but not so close as to remove all hope that the Observer had escaped their sight. The fish-body dropped to horizontal and moved as quickly as all six tentacles — the four normally used for walking and the two handling ones — could carry a hundred and twenty kilograms along the remains of the wall. This speed was normally faster than a human being could run for more than a few seconds, slender as the tentacles were.

The internal engineering and biochemistry of the body were very different from those of Earth’s former oxygen-using endoskeletal organisms. This time, however, the speed was not great enough.

Bones rose briefly to see how close the people were, and a chorus of yells rose suddenly, clearly a view-halloa, even though the Words were not distinguishable. Bones dropped back to all sixes, but the crashing of bushes showed that the human beings had also put on speed. The Observer was no longer visible against the sky, which had brightened in the east with the approach of moonrise, but the people had seen enough.

Bones, originally between them and the fireplace, got around a corner of the latter and headed toward the east at top speed. Breaking realwood indicated that the pursuers were spreading out on each side to forestall any dodging; it looked for a moment as though Bones would be able to keep ahead of them over the hilltop and down to the water on the raft side, which would be enough.

Certainly they could not pursue through water — human beings simply weren’t built for fast swimming.

However, Bones didn’t even reach the top of the ridge. Fifty meters or more short of that goal, the ground suddenly became impassable. Wherever a tentacle touched it, unbearable pain caused the limb to draw back out of control. The Observer could not see what was responsible, but in a matter of seconds found it impossible to travel in any direction. The mysterious agent that caused the agony had transferreditself to the tentacles. No matter what they touched now, the pain resulted.

Bones stopped, perforce, and explored the surrounding ground as well as he could with the tortured limbs. Some places seemed safe, others produced more of the pain. The Observer brought one of the injured tentacle tips within reach of the fine handling tendrils which surrounded the huge mouth, and examined it gingerly. The trouble was clear enough; the tough skin was studded with fine splinters of, apparently, glass. The tendrils could remove these easily enough from the upper and middle tentacles, but the lowest, shortest walking tentacles could not reach or be reached by these delicate appendages.

Travel was impossibly painful, and Bones was still doing everything practical to extract the devilish things when the people arrived.

There were five of them, and they swarmed around the Observer closely enough to offer the hope that they might become involved with the glass themselves; but that hope died almost at once. Even in the starlight it could be seen that they were wearing something on their feet. Kahvi, Earrin, and their child had never done this, but their regular outdoor equipment had made the concept of protective garments clear enough to their nonhuman companion.

Bones could make out a few of the words of the chattering group, but without supplemental gestures could get little or no connected meaning.

Most city dwellers in Observer memory had shown their hostility by words or, at most, thrown rocks. There was no memory of capture — at least, none which had been passed on. That thought was rather grim, though the closest any Observer unit could come to the fear of death was worry about inability to pass on new information. It had been many months since Bones had transferred memories with another Observer unit. This had been a matter of mild discomfort rather than acute anxiety, since there were so far only a few units on the planet. As long as there was freedom of action, and especially of travel, it could be assumed that a meeting would eventually occur.

Now both these freedoms were threatened, and Bones began to feel a little like a man trapped in a forest fire. The control of the situation was in other tentacles.

Transporting their captive was quite a problem for the human beings. Bones saw no reason to expend energy keeping rigid, and nearly three meters of very limp fish, weighing well over a hundred kilograms, are awkward to handle. They managed it, however, without using the tentacles as drag lines-it did not occur to Bones until much later that they might have done this, or to wonder why they didn’t. Two of them shouldered the rubbery mass, one on each side, just behind the eyes, and two more a short way back. The fifth supported the tail flukes. The group started back toward the fireplace, and for a moment Bones wondered if they planned a cremation. Then they turned south toward the big hill, and the tension eased.

For fully an hour they travelled, sometimes uphill and sometimes down, sometimes straight toward Big Blue and sometimes to the right or left of this heading — sometimes, indeed, almost away from it.

Bones was not quite sure how much route detail was worth remembering, but played it safe; it might be necessary to retrace the journey or to tell Kahvi or Earrin how to do so.

Finally they reached a small stream winding from the hills toward the eastern bay. A stone building similar to the jail was now visible by moonlight. The water from the stream had been used to improvise an air lock. This was decidedly smaller than the one at the jail, and the carriers had trouble working Bones limp form through it; but eventually everyone was inside. The people unmasked, opened their oxygen cartridges, and hung them on the walls to equilibrate.

Bones wondered whether these were normal people or oxygen addicts as described by the Fyns, but had no way to tell. From the floor it was not possible to see what sort of plants were on the air trays. The human beings talked desultorily for a while, but finally appeared to sleep. They had not tied their captive in any way, probably believing that the glass splinters were an adequate immobilizing agent. They were quite correct.

Otherwise, escape would have been easy. The roof was even lower than that of the jail, and Bones’ head would have gone through if the long body had been able to stand up. If these Hillers were anything like the Nomads Bones knew, most or all of them would have stayed to repair the roof rather thanpursue.

However, even moving tentacles was painful now. The glass seemed to be working its way deeper as time went on.

It was not quite daylight when the trip was resumed, and there was never a chance to check the building’s oxygen sources. There must have been spare cartridges; even a pure oxygen atmosphere would not have recharged the others so soon. As before, the people took for granted that their captive could not walk.

The sky quickly brightened, and Bones was surprised to discover how short a distance they had covered the night before. They were still less than a kilometer from the spot where the raft was anchored; it could be seen from the first hillock they climbed. The stream which had furnished the airlock for the little shelter emptied into the bay only five or six hundred meters south of the jail.

Travelling in the dark with an awkward burden must have been far slower than the Observer had guessed.

Not even Bones’ eyesight could spot anyone on the raft, but fully a dozen people were busy around the pile of cargo. What they were doing could not be made out before the area disappeared behind the hill. Bones resumed memorizing their travel route.

They were not headed toward any of the Great Blue Hill entrances which Bones knew about. At the moment, the goal seemed to be the nearer and lower eminence called Hemenway. Neither Kahvi nor Earrin had ever mentioned that the city extended that far, but this of course was no proof that it didn’t.

Also, of course, there was no proof that the captive was being taken to the city.

Travel was faster than in the dark, but not much straighter, and the sun had climbed well above the horizon when they came to a large pool on the eastern slope of Hemenway, in the notch between that eminence and Hancock. Bones did know the place names; the elevations were visible from the bay, and Nomads used place names wherever possible. They were sticklers for unambiguous communication, and a name was far more definite — and quicker to get across — than “the second-highest you can see to the east of Big Blue — you know, the one with the darker vegetation and the cloud over it.” Even with Bones’ hearing deficiencies it was usually possible to recognize a slowly-uttered, isolated, polysyllabic word.

The pool was clearly artificial and was presumably an air lock, though it was large enough to be used by dozens of people at once. There was no trouble getting Bones through it this time, since the Observer’s tissue was a good deal denser than water and did not resist being pulled below the surface.

All question about what might happen, all worry about the Fyns, everything extraneous vanished from Bones’ mind and attention. As far as memory went, no Observer had ever been inside one of the human cities. Even the ominous implication of this fact shrank to insignificance; here was a chance to learn, to observe, to remember.

The problem of passing the knowledge on could be faced later.

At first there was little to see. The air lock opened into a cave about fifty meters wide and long, and five or six high-the roof was far from even. The light was dim but adequate, radiating from large, irregular patches on ceiling and walls.

What made them luminous was something else to be learned; from what Bones knew of human technology, pseudolife was again the best guess.

At the moment there was no way to check as the captive was carried rapidly across the cave to the mouth of a tunnel wide enough to take both the party and equally large groups going the other way.

There were dozens of people around, but most of them seemed to avoid the Observer and the young captors. A few joined the group; all these seemed young, too, and there was much conversation which Bones could not, as usual, follow.

Half a dozen times the party turned into other passages, sometimes one way and sometimes the other. The turns were seldom exact right angles, and Bones’ sense of direction, which like that of the average human being depended entirely on memory if there were no sun or other long-range reference body, began to grow very shaky.

There were numerous doorways along the passages, some open and others blocked by doors.Bones was still trying to set up a reliable memory scheme for keeping count of these when the party turned into one of them.

The room they entered might have been called either a workshop or a laboratory. There were masses of wood, Newell tissue, and other structural materials lying around. Table tops bore tools of glass, stone, and even copper, as well as partly finished artifacts of obscure nature. There was another door on the far side.

They went through this. The next room was nearly bare, measuring some ten meters each way. The far quarter was separated from the rest by a set of bars extending from ceiling to floor. It was too dark to see just what the bars were made of and in any case Bones would not have noticed.

They made a very weak call for attention compared to the other Observer beyond them.