Close to Critical (16 page)

John shrugged mentally and tossed the glowing piece of wood under a settling raindrop. The two slipped up toward the distant light.

It was an ordinary fire this time, they could see as they approached. Unfortunately, there was no one visible near it, and the vegetation was not dense enough to hide anyone of ordinary size unless he were deliberately seeking to use it for the purpose. This suggested possible trouble, and the two explorers circled the hill on which the blaze stood with the most extreme caution, looking for traces of whoever had been there in the past few hours. Not having the tracking skill of the cave dwellers, they found no signs of people. After two full circuits and some low-voiced discussion, they were forced to conclude that either whoever made the fire was still on the hill but remarkably well hidden, or else the fire itself had been started by something a trifle unusual. The latter hypothesis would probably not have occurred to them had it not been for their recent experience with the volcano. There seemed no way, however, to decide between the possibilities by reason alone. Closer investigation was in order and, with a constant expectation of hearing the sharp voice of Swift echoing about them, they set to it. Very carefully, examining every bush, they went up the slope. The climb bore some resemblance to a scientific experiment, in that its completion eliminated both of the hypotheses and left them completely without ideas for a moment. It was only for a moment however; as the two loomed up beside the small fire, which had quite obviously been laid by intelligent hands, a shout sounded from the next hilltop, three hundred yards away.

"John! Nancy! Where did you come from?" The startled investigators recognized simultaneously the voice of Oliver and the fact that they had been a little hasty in eliminating possibilities; obviously they had missed a trail, since neither Oliver nor Dorothy could fly. Neither said anything about it aloud; each decided in private that the different vegetation of the area was responsible.

When Oliver and his companion came back to the fire from the separate hilltops to which they had taken on sighting John's torch, it quickly transpired that they, too, had seen the light of the volcano and had come to investigate it. Their adventures had been very similar to those of John and Nancy, except that neither of them had tried hiding in raindrops. Oliver and Dorothy had been an hour or so ahead of the others, and had found a good supply of fuel, so they were well set for the night.

"I'll bet Jim and Jane will be with us before the night's over," remarked Nancy when both parties had completed thek exchange of information. "Their search areas were even closer to this place than yours, Oliver, and unless they went 'way off course coming across country they must have seen the big light, too."

"Maybe they thought it was better to stick to their assigned job," remarked John.

"Isn't investigating bright lights part of the job?" retorted his partner. "As for me, if they're not here in an hour or two I'm going to start worrying about them. This fire-hill couldn't possibly be missed or ignored, and you know it."

No one had a suitable answer for this, but no one was really impressed by the reasoning, since they had all spent some time in discussion before coming to check the mountain. At any rate, the hours passed without the predicted appearance. If Nancy was worrying, she failed to show it; certainly none of the others were. It was a very quiet night, and there was nothing to worry about. The hours were passing, but that was normal; the light was getting brighter, but there was the peculiar hill to account for that; the rain was decreasing, but the hill might account for that, too. The fire was using up its fuel with unusual speed, but there was plenty of fuel. Doubtless the wind was responsible - none of them had ever experienced such a wind, and an air current one could actually feel would no doubt do many queer things. The four explorers stood by their fire and dozed, while the wind grew fiercer.

IX. DEDUCTION; EDUCATION; EXPERIMENTATION

"DADDY! Dr. Raeker! 'Mina's right; it's Nick!" Easy's voice was close to hysteria. The men glanced at each other, worried frowns on their faces. Rich gestured that Raeker should do the answering, but his expression pleaded eloquently for care. Raeker nodded, and closed his own microphone switch. "Are you sure it's actually Nick, Easy?" he asked in as matter-of-fact a voice as he could manage. "He's supposed to have stayed at the camp, you know. There are six others actually searching, supposedly in pairs; do you see two of them, there?"

"No," replied Easy in a much calmer voice. Her father sank back in his chair with a thankful expression on his face. "There was only one, and I saw him just for a second. Wait - there he is again." Raeker wished he could see the girl's face, but she was shouting her messages from one of the observing chambers and was well out of pickup range of the vision transmitter. "I can still see only one of them, and he's mostly hidden in the bushes - just his head and shoulders, if you can call them that, sticking up. He's coming closer now. He must see the 'scaphe, though I can't tell where he's looking, or what he's looking with. I'm not sure whether he's the same size, but he certainly is the same shape. I don't see how you'd ever tell them apart."

"It isn't easy," replied Raeker. "After a few years, you find there are differences in their scale and spine arrangements something like the differences in human faces. Maybe you can tell me what this one is wearing and carrying; that should be a lot easier to describe."

"All right. He has a sort of haversack slung over what would be his right hip if he had any hips; it's held by a strap running up around the other side of his body, over the arms on the left. The front of the sack has a knife hanging from it, and I think there's another on a sort of complex strap arrangement on the other side, but he's been working toward us at an angle and we haven't had a good look at that side. He's carrying four spears that look just like the ones Nick and his people had, and the more I see of him the more he looks like them."

"Does he have an axe, or anything looking like one?" asked Raeker.

"If he has, it's hanging from his straps at the left rear, where we can't see it."

"Then I'm afraid you're going to have to make good on your claim that you can get on all right with Swift's people. Mine carry only two spears, and the search teams took their axes with them. If that were one of our searchers he'd have an axe in one of his left hands, almost certainly. That means we'll have to change our plans a bit; we were hoping our folks would find you first. That's just luck; I suppose this is some hunter of Swift's. They'd hardly have had time to get an organized search going, even if he decided to run one on his own."

"Isn't it going to be a long time before any of your search teams get back to the camp?" asked Easy after some seconds of thought.

"I'm afraid so; over a week of our time. Swift's answer should be back to Nick before then, though." "I wish the time didn't stretch out so on this darned four-days-for-one world. Didn't I hear you say you'd learned a little of Swift's language during the time he had the robot at his caves?"

"We did. Not very much, though; it's extremely hard for a human being to pronounce. We recorded a lot of it; we can give you the sounds, and as much as we could get of the meaning, if you think it will be any help. It'll help time to pass, anyway."

Easy's face appeared in the screen, wearing an impish expression.

"I'm sure it will be very helpful. Won't it, Daddy?"

Even Rich was grinning. "It will, Daughter. She'll learn any language she can pronounce nearly as fast as you can give it to her, Doctor."

"Really? I've never heard her talk anything but English to her young friend there."

"What human being can pronounce Drommian? She understands it as well as I do, though."

"Well, I wouldn't bet very much that she could pronounce Tenebran, either. It's got some sort of pitch-inflected grammar, and a lot of the pitch is above human vocal range. Of course, she's young and female, but I'll bet she confines herself to understanding."

"You may be right. Hadn't we better get back to the matter in hand? What's that native doing now, Daughter?"

"He's walking around, thirty or forty yards from the 'scaphe, looking it over, I suppose. If he's seen us through the ports he hasn't shown any sign of it. He's still alone - I guess you're right, Dr. Raeker; I remember you sent your people out in pairs, and if anything had happened to one of a pair the other would surely report back to camp before going on with the search."

"I'm not sure you're right there, but I am certain it's one of Swift's people," replied Raeker. "Tell us when and if he does anything new."

"He is now. He's going out of sight the way he came. He definitely doesn't carry an axe; we've seen all sides of him now. He's getting hard to see; there's less of him visible above the bushes, and he's getting out of range of our lights. Now he's gone."

Raeker glanced at a clock, and did some rapid mental arithmetic. "It's about four hours to rainfall. Easy, did you say whether he was carrying a lighted torch, or fire in any form?"

"He definitely wasn't. He could have had matches, or flint and steel, or some such fire-making apparatus in his pouch, of course."

"Swift's people don't know about them. Nick's group makes fire by friction, with a bow-drill, but I'm sure the others haven't learned the trick yet. They certainly hadn't yesterday - that is, three or four ship's days ago. Anyway, the point I'm trying to get at is that if the one you saw had no fire, he was presumably within about four hours march, or not too much more, of Swift's main group; and , they'd almost have to be either at their caves or near the line between those caves and the point where Nick and the robot took to the river last night. He may be even closer, of course; you'd better keep your eyes open, and let us know immediately if the main body shows up. That . would give us a still closer estimate."

"I understand. We'll look out for them," replied Easy. "While we're watching, how about getting out those Ian- ; guage tapes you have? The sooner we start listening to them, the more good they'll probably do us."

Raeker agreed to this, and the next few hours passed without any particular incident. Nightfall, and then ram-fall, arrived without any further sign of natives; and when the drops grew clear the children stopped expecting them. They ate, and slept, and spent most of their waking hours trying to absorb what little Raeker had gleaned of Swift's language. Easy did very well at this, though she was not Ij quite the marvel her father had claimed.

A complication which no one had foreseen, though they certainly should have, manifested itself later in the evening. The bathyscaphe began to move again, as the river formed around it and increased in depth. The children were quite unable even to guess at the rate of motion, though they could see plants and other bits of landscape moving by in the glare of their lights; the speed was far too irregular. Even if they could have reported anything more precise than "sometimes a fast walk, sometimes a creep, and sometimes not at all," they were not even sure when the motion had started. They had had their attention drawn to it by an unusually hard bump, and when they had looked outside the few features visible were already unfamiliar. They might have been drifting a minute or half an hour.

Raeker took some comfort from the event, though Easy had been slightly disposed to tears at first. "This gives us one more chance of getting our own people to you ahead of Swift's," he pointed out. "The cave men will have the job of hunting for you all over again, while we are getting you more closely located all the tune."

"How is that?" asked Easy in a rather unsteady voice. "You didn't know where we were before we started moving, we don't know which way we're moving, how fast, or when we started. I'd say we know less than we did last night, except you can't know less than nothing."

"We don't know," granted Raeker, "but we can make a pretty intelligent guess. We judged that you were within a few hours' walk - say twenty-five or thirty miles - of the line between Swift's caves and our people's camp. We are about as sure as we can be without having actually mapped the entire area that this region is in the watershed of the ocean Nick's people found. Therefore, you are being carried toward that sea, and I'll be greatly surprised if you don't wind up floating on it, if not tonight at least in the next night or two. That means that Nick will only have to search along the coast on land if you don't reach the ocean tonight, or look offshore for lights if you do. I shouldn't think you'd go far out to sea; the river will lose its push very quickly after getting there, and there's no wind to speak of on Tenebra."

Easy had brightened visibly as he spoke. Aminadorneldo, also visible on the screen, had not made any change of expression detectable to the human watchers, but the girl had cast a glance or two his way and seemed to be satisfied with the effect of Raeker's words on him. Then a thought seemed to strike her, and she asked a rather pointed question.

"If we do get carried out on the sea, what do Nick's people or anyone else do about it?" she asked. "We'll be out of his reach, and out of Swift's reach, and you say there aren't any winds on this planet, though I don't see why." "The pressure's so high that the atmosphere doesn't even come close to obeying the classical gas laws," replied Raeker - he was no physicist, but had had to answer the question quite a few times in the last decade and a half - "and the small percentage changes in temperature that do occur result in even smaller changes in volume, and therefore in density, and therefore in pressure. Little pressure difference means little wind. Even changing phase, from gas to liquid, makes so little change in density that the big raindrops just drift down like bubbles, in spite of the gravity."

"Thanks, I'll remember to make sense of that when I get back to school," said Easy. "You're probably right, but you haven't answered my question about how Nick was going to reach us if we went out to sea. Forgive me if I'm spoiling an attempt to change the subject."