Close to Critical (13 page)

"Dr. Raeker! Did I hear one of them say that there was a cave dweller to catch? How did one get there so soon? I thought you said you'd left them behind at that river." Her question was so exactly the one Raeker had been asking himself that he had nothing to say in reply for a moment; but at least he stopped talking, and had the grace to turn slightly red.

"That's what it sounded like to me, Easy. I don't know the way they found us any more than you do; I have always supposed this was a long way outside their home grounds, so I don't see how they could have known a short cut around the river - for that matter, I don't see how there could be such a thing; that river was over a mile wide. We'll have to wait until Nick and the others come back; maybe they'll have a prisoner we can question. I suppose that's his idea; I think he said 'catch,' not 'kill.' "

"That's right; he did. Well, we'll be able to see them in a minute or two, when the robot gets up this hill, unless they've gone over another one in the meantime."

It turned out that they hadn't; the human watchers had a very good view of the chase, not that it was much to see. The valley into which the cave scout had fled was almost entirely ringed with the low, rounded hills so typical of much of Tenebra; John and Betsey had managed to get to the tops of two of these before being seen, so that they had a considerable advantage on the cave dweller when it came to running. He had made one or two attempts to race out through the wide gaps between Betsey and John and between them and the main group, but had seen after only a few moments on each dash that he was being headed off. When the robot came in sight he was standing near the center of the valley while Fagin's people closed in slowly around him. He was rather obviously getting ready for a final dash through any gap that might present itself, after his pursuers were close enough to have sacrificed their advantage of elevation. He might also be planning to fight; he was two feet taller than Nick and his friends, and had two efficient-looking short spears.

Nick seemed to have picked up a smattering of military tactics, not to mention diplomacy, however. He halted his people a good fifty yards from the big cave dweller, and spread them out into an evenly spaced circle, With this completed to his satisfaction, he shifted to Swift's language.

"Do you think you can get away from us?"

"I don't know, but some of you will be sorry you tried to stop me," was the answer.

"What good will that do you, if you are killed?" The scout seemed unable to find an answer to this; in fact, the very question seemed to startle him. The matter had seemed so obvious that he had never faced the task of putting it into words. He was still trying when Nick went on, "You know that Fagin said he was willing to teach Swift whatever he wanted to know. He doesn't want fighting. If you'll put your spears down and come to talk with him, you won't be hurt."

"If your teacher is so willing to help, why did he run away?" the other shot back. Nick had his answer ready.

"Because you had taken him away from us, and we want him to teach us too. When I came to your caves to get him, he came with me to help me get away. He carried me through the river, where I could not have gone alone. When you first attacked our village, he wanted us to talk to you instead of fighting; but you gave us no chance." He fell silent, judging that his antagonist would need time to think. However, another question came at once.

"Will you do anything your Teacher tells you?"

"Yes." Nick didn't mention the times he had hesitated about obeying Fagin's commands; quite honestly, he didn't think of them at that moment.

"Then let me hear him tell you not to harm me. He is coming now. I will wait here, but I will keep my weapons, until I am sure I won't need them."

"But you don't know his language; you won't know what he's telling us."

"He learned a few of our words while he was with us, though he couldn't say them very well. I think I can ask him if he is going to hurt me, and I'll know if he says yes or no." The scout fell silent and stood watching the approach of the robot, still keeping a firm grip on his spears with two hands each. He was ready to stab, not throw.

Even Raeker could see that readiness as the robot glided into the circle, and felt a little uneasy; he would be a good two seconds slow in reacting to anything that happened. Not for the first time, he wished that the Vindemiatrix were orbiting just outside Tenebra's atmosphere, with three or four relay stations to take care of horizon troubles.

"What's happened, Nick? Is he going to fight?"

"Not if you can convince him it isn't necessary," replied Nick. He went on to give a precis of the scout's recent statements. "I don't quite know what to do with him myself, now that we have him," he finished. "I wouldn't say you really had him, yet," was Raeker's dry rejoinder, "but I see the problem. If we let him go, Swift will be on us in a matter of hours, or in a day or so at the outside. If we don't, we'll have to keep a continuous watch on him, which would be a nuisance, and he might get away anyway. Killing him would of course be inexcusable."

"Even after what happened to Alice and Tom?"

"Even then, Nick. I think we're going to have to put this fellow to a use, and face the fact that Swift will know where we are. Let me think." The robot fell silent, though the men controlling it did not; plans were being proposed, discussed, and rejected at a great rate while the natives waited. Easy had not been cut off, but she offered no advice. Even the diplomats, able to hear from the communication room which they still haunted, kept quiet for once.

The cave dweller, of course had been unable to follow the conversation between Nick and the Teacher, and after the first minute or so of silence he asked for a translation. Somehow he managed to make the request in such a way that Nick felt he was repairing an omission rather than granting a favor when he provided the requested information.

"Fagin is deciding what is best to do. He says that we must not kill you."

"Have him tell me that himself. I will understand him."

"One does not interrupt the Teacher when he is thinking," replied Nick. The cave dweller seemed impressed; at least, he said nothing more until the robot came back on the air.

"Nick." Raeker's voice boomed into the dense atmosphere, "I want you to translate very carefully what I have to say to this fellow. Make it word for word, as nearly as the language difference will allow; and think it over yourself, because there will be some information I haven't had time to give you yet." "All right, Teacher." Everyone in the circle switched attention to the robot; but if the scout in the center realized this, he at least made no effort to take advantage of the fact. He, too, listened, as intently as though he were trying to make sense out of the human speech as well as Nick's translation. Raeker started slowly, with plenty of pauses for Nick to do his job.

"You know," he began, "that Swift wanted me at his place so that I could teach him and his people to make fires, and keep herds, and the other things I have already taught my own people. I was willing to do that, but Swift thought, from something Nick said, that my people would object, so he came fighting when it wasn't necessary.

"That's not really important, now, except for the fact that it delayed something important to Swift as well as to us. Up until now, all I've been able to give is knowledge. I was the only one of my people here, and I can never go back where I came from, so that I couldn't get more things to give.

"Now others of my people have come. They are riding in a great thing that they made; you haven't any words for it, since I never gave them to Nick's people and I don't think Swift's people have any such things. It was something we made, as you make a bucket or a spear, which is able to carry us from one place to another; for the place from which I came is so far away that no one could ever walk the distance, and is far above so that only a floater could even go in the right direction. The people who came were going to be able to come and go in this machine, so that they could bring things like better tools to all of you, taking perhaps things you were willing to give in exchange. However, the machine did not work quite properly; it was like a spear with a cracked head. It came down to where you live, but we found that it could not float back up again. My people cannot live outside it, so they aren't able to fix it. We need help from Nick's people and, if you will give it, from yours as well. If you can find this machine in which my friends are caught, and learn from me how to fix it, they will be able to go back up once more and bring things for you all; if you can't or won't, my people will die here, and there will not even be knowledge for you - for some day I will die, too, you know.

"I want you to take this message to Swift, and then, if he will let you, come back with his answer. I would like him and all his people to help hunt for the machine; and when it is found, Swift's people and Nick's can help in fixing it. There won't need to be any more fighting. Will you do that?"

Nick had given this talk exactly as it came, so far as his knowledge of Swift's language permitted. The scout was silent for half a minute or so at the end. He was still holding his spears firmly, but Raeker felt that his attitude with them was a trifle less aggressive. It may have been wishful thinking, of course; human beings are as prone to believe the things they wish were true as Drommians are to believe what occurs to them first.

Then the scout began asking questions, and Raeker's estimate of his intelligence went up several notches; he had been inclined to dismiss the fellow as a typical savage.

"Since you know what is wrong with your friends and their machine, you must be able to talk to them some way."

"Yes, we - I can talk to them."

"Then how is it you need to look for them? Why can't they tell you where they are?"

"They don't know. They came down to a place they had never seen before, and floated on a lake for five days. Last night they drifted down a river. They were at the bottom, and couldn't see where they were going; and anyway they didn't know the country - as I said, they never saw it before. The river is gone now, and they can see around, but that does no good."

"If you can hear them talk, why can't you go to them anyway? I can find anything I can hear." "We talk with machines, just as we travel. The machines make a sort of noise which can only be heard by another machine, but which travels very much farther than a voice. Their machine can talk to one in the place where I came from, and then that one can talk to me; but it is so far away that it can't tell exactly where either of us is. All we can do is let them tell us what sort of country they can see; then I can tell you, and you can start hunting."

"You don't even know how far away they are, then."

"Not exactly. We're pretty sure it's not very far - not more than two or three days' walk, and probably less. When you start looking for them we can have them turn on their brightest lights, like these - " the robot's spots flamed briefly - "and you'll be able to see them from a long distance. They'll have some lights on anyway, as a matter of fact."

The cave dweller thought for another minute or so, then shifted the grip on his spears to "trail." "I will give your words to Swift, and if he has words for you they will be brought. Will you stay here?" The question made Raeker a trifle uneasy, but he saw no alternative to answering "yes." Then another point occurred to him.

"If we did not stay here, would it take you long to find us?" he asked. "We noticed that you got to this side of the river and into sight of our group much more quickly than we had expected. Did you have some means of crossing the river before day?"

"No," the other replied with rather surprising frankness. "The river bends north not far inland from the place where you walked through it and goes in that direction for a good number of miles. A number of us were sent along it, with orders to stop at various points, cross as soon as it dried up, and walk toward the sea to find traces of you."

"Then others presumably crossed our trail - all those who were stationed farther south - and located us." "No doubt. They may be watching now, or they may have seen you attack me and gone off to tell Swift." "You knew about the bend in the river. Your people are familiar with the country this far from your caves?"

"We have never hunted here. Naturally, anyone can tell which way a river is going to flow and where there are likely to be hills and valleys."

"What my people call an eye for country. I see. Thankyou; you had better go on and give the message to Swift before he arrives with another crowd of spears to avenge the attack on one of his men."

"All right. Will you answer one question for me first? Sometimes you say 'I' and sometimes 'we' even when you obviously don't mean yourself and these people here. Why is that? Is there more than one of you inside that thing?"

Nick did not translate this question; he answered it himself.

"The Teacher has always talked that way," he said. "We've sometimes wondered about it, too; but when we asked him, he didn't explain - just said it wasn't important yet. Maybe Swift can figure it out." Nick saw no harm in what he would have called psychology if he had known the word.

"Maybe." The scout started south without another word, and the rest of the group, who had long since broken their circle and gathered around the teacher, watched him go.

"That sounded good, Dr. Raeker. Should we keep the spot lights on just in case, from now on?" Easy Rich's voice broke the silence.

"I wouldn't, just yet," Raeker said thoughtfully. "I wish I could be sure I wanted Swift to find you, instead of merely wanting to keep him from attacking us,"

"What?" Aminadabarlee's voice was shriller, and much louder, even than usual. "Are you admitting that you are using my son as bait to keep those savages away from your little pet project down there? That you regard those ridiculously shaped natives as more important than a civilized being, simply because you've been training them for a few years? I have heard that human beings were cold-blooded, and scientists even more so than the general run, but I would never have believed this even of human beings. This is the absolute limit. Councillor Rich, I must ask your indulgence for the loan of our speedster; I am going to Dromm and start our own rescue work. I have trusted you men too long. I am through with that - and so is the rest of the galaxy!"