Her account was interrupted by Dondragmer's voice. "Bomdender says that he has checked the density and boiling temperature of the liquid in the stream: it is about three eighths ammonia and five eighths water. He also says that the outside temperature is 71, the pressure 26.6 standard atmospheres, our standard, of course, and the wind a little north of west, 21 degrees to be more precise, at 120 cables per hour. A very light breeze. Will that suffice for your computer?"

"It will all help. I'm on my way," replied McDevitt as he slid from his seat and headed toward the door. As he reached the exit he looked back thoughtfully, paused, and called, "Benj, I hate to pull you from the screens right now, but I think you'd better come with me for a while. You can check me on the input, then you can bring the preliminary run back to report to Dondragmer while I do the recheck."

Easy kept her approval to herself as Benj silently followed his superior. The approval was divided between McDevitt, for turning the youngster's attention in a safer direction, and her son for showing more self-control than she had really expected.

Aucoin paid no attention to the exchange; he was still trying to clarify his picture of the current state of affairs.

"I take it that none of the missing personnel have turned up," he said. "All right, I've been thinking it over. I a.s.sume that Barlennan has been brought up to date, as we agreed a few hours ago. Is there anything else which has happened, which he has been told about but I haven't?" Easy looked up quickly, trying to catch evidence of resentment on the administrator's face, but he seemed unaware that his words could possibly be interpreted as criticism. She thought quickly before answering.

"Yes. Roughly three hours ago, Cavanaugh reported action on one of the Esket screens. He saw a couple of objects sliding or rolling across the floor of the laboratory from one side of the screen to the other. I started watching, but nothing has happened there since.

"Then an hour or so later, the search party Don had out for the missing helicopters met a Mesklinite which we of course a.s.sumed at first to be one of the pilots; when he got close to the transmitter I recognized Kabremm, the first officer of the Esket."

"Six thousand miles from where the Esket's crew is supposed to have died?"

"Yes."

"You told this to Barlennan?"

"Yes."

"What was his comment?"

"Nothing specific. He acknowledged the whole report, but didn't offer any theories."

"He didn't even ask you how sure you were of the identification? Or on what you based it?"

"No."

"Well, if you don't mind I'd like to. Just how did you know this Kabremm, and how certain are you that you were right?"

"I knew him, before the loss of the Esket, well enough to make it difficult to say what I went by; he's simply distinctive, in color pattern, stance and walk, just as you and Ib and Boyd are."

"The light was good enough for color pattern? It's night down there."

"There were lights near the set, though most of them were in front of it, in the field of view, and Kabremm was mostly backlighted."

"Do you know the two missing men well enough to be certain it was neither of them; do you know that neither one looks much like Kabremm?"

Easy flushed. "It certainly wasn't Kervenser, Don's officer. I'm afraid I don't know Reffel well enough be sure; that possibility hadn't occurred to me. I just saw the man, and called out his name pretty much by reflex. After that I couldn't do much but make a report. The Settlement microphone was alive at the time, and Barlennan or whoever was on duty could hardly have helped hearing me."

"Then there is a reasonable chance that Barlennan's lack of comment was a polite attempt to avoid embarra.s.sing you, to gloss over what may have seemed to him a silly mistake?"

"I suppose it's possible." Easy could not make herself sound anything but doubtful, but even she knew that her opinion was unlikely to be objective.

"Then I think," Aucoin said slowly and thoughtfully, "that I'd better talk to Barlennan myself. You say nothing more has happened at the Esket since Cavanaugh saw those objects rolling?"

"I haven't seen anything. The bridge set, of course, is looking out into darkness, but the other three are lighted perfectly well and have shown no change except that one."

"All right. Barlennan knows our language well enough, in my experience, so that I won't need you to translate."

"Oh, no; he'll understand you. You mean you'd rather I left?"

"No, no, certainly not. In fact, it would be better if you listened and warned me if you thought there might be any misunderstanding developing." Aucoin reached for the Settlement microphone switch, but glanced once more at Easy before closing it. "You don't mind, do you, if I make sure of Barlennan's opinion about your identification of Kabremm? I think our main problem is what to do about the Kwembly, but I'd like to settle that point too. After you have brought the matter up with him, I'd hate Barlennan to get the idea that we were trying to, well, censor anything, to phrase it the way Ib did at the meeting." He turned away and sent his call toward Dhrawn.

Barlennan was in the communicator chamber at the Settlement, so no time was lost reaching him. Aucoin identified himself, once he was sure the commander was at the other end, and began his speech.

Easy, Ib, and Boyd found it annoyingly repet.i.tious, but they had to admire the skill with which the planner emphasized his own ideas. Essentially, he was trying to forestall any suggestion that another vehicle be sent to the rescue of the Kwembly, without suggesting such a thing himself. It was a very difficult piece of language manipulation, even though the matter had been uppermost in Aucoin's mind ever since the conference, so that while it was anything but an impromptu speech, it certainly had merit as a work of art, as Ib remarked later. He did mention Easy's identification of Kabremm to the commander, but so fleetingly that she almost failed to recognize the item. He didn't actually say that she must have been mistaken, but he was obviously attaching no importance to the incident.

It was a pity, as Easy remarked later, that such polished eloquence was so completely wasted. Of course Aucoin had no more way of knowing than did the other human beings that the identification of Kabremm was Barlennan's main current worry, that for two hours he had been concerned with nothing else. Faced with the imminent collapse of his complex scheme and, as he suddenly realized with embarra.s.sment, having no ready alternative, he had employed those hours in furious and cogent thought. By the time Aucoin had called, Barlennan had the first steps of another plan. He was waiting so eagerly for a chance to put it into operation that he paid little attention to the planner's beautifully selected words. When a pause came, Barlennan had his own speech ready, though it had remarkably little to do with what had just been said.

The pause had not actually been meant as time for an answer; Aucoin had taken a moment to review mentally what he had covered and what should come next. Mersereau, however, caught him as he was about to resume talking.

"That break was long enough to let Barlennan a.s.sume you had finished and wanted an answer," he said. "Better wait. He'll probably have started talking before whatever you were just going to say gets down there." The administrator obediently waited; a convention was, after all, a convention. He was prepared to be sarcastic if Mersereau were wrong, but the Mesklinite commander's voice came through on the scheduled second-closer to it than they would have been willing to bet, Ib and Easy thought later.

"I've been thinking deeply ever since Mrs. Hoffman told me about Kabremm," he said, "and I've been able to come up with only one theory. As you know, we've always had to carry in mind the possibility that there was an intelligent species here on Dhrawn. Your scientists were certain there was highly organized life even before the landing, because of the oxygen-rich air, they said. I know we haven't run into anything but simple plants and practically microscopic animals, but the Esket had ventured farther into Low Alpha than any of the other cruisers, and conditions are different there; certainly the temperature is higher, and we don't know how that may change other factors.

"Until now, the chance that the Esket had met intelligent opposition was only one possibility, with no more to support it than any other idea we could dream up. However, as your own people have pointed out repeatedly, none of her crew could have lived this long without the cruiser's support system or something like it. They certainly couldn't have travelled from where the Esket still is, as far as we can tell, to Dondragmer's neighborhood. It seems to me that Kabremm's presence there is convincing evidence that Destigmet's crew has encountered and been captured by natives of Dhrawn. I don't know why Kabremm was free enough to meet that search party; maybe he escaped, but it's hard to see how he would have dared to try under the circ.u.mstances. More likely they sent him deliberately to make contact. I wish very much that you'd pa.s.s this idea along to Dondragmer for his opinion, and have him find out what he can from Kabremm, if he is still available. You haven't told me whether he was still with the search party or not. Will you do that?"

Several pieces fell into place in Ib Hoffman's mental jigsaw puzzle. His silent applause went unnoticed, even by Easy.

13: FACT IS STRANGE, FICTION CONVINCING.

Barlennan was quite pleased with his speech. He had not told a single falsehood; the worst he could be accused of was fuzzy thinking. Unless some humans were already actively suspicious, there would be no reason for them not to pa.s.s on the "theory" to the Kwembly's captain, thus telling him the line that Barlennan proposed to follow. Dondragmer could be trusted to play up properly, especially if the hint that Kabremm might not be available for further questioning were transmitted to him. It was too bad, in a way, to spring the "native menace" so long before he had meant to; it would have been much nicer to let the human beings invent it for themselves, but any plan which couldn't be modified to suit new circ.u.mstances was a poor plan, Barlennan told himself.

Aucoin was taken very much aback. He had personally had no doubt whatever that Easy was mistaken, since he had long ago written the Esket completely off, in his own mind, and Batlennan's taking her opinion seriously had been a bad jolt. The administrator knew that Easy was by far the best qualified person in the station to make such a recognition; he had not, however, expected the Mesklinites themselves to be aware of this. He blamed himself for not paying much more attention to the casual conversation between human observers (especially Easy) and the Mesklinites over the past few months. He had let himself get out of touch, a cardinal administrative sin.

He could see no reason for denying Barlennan's request, however. He glanced at the others. Easy and Mersereau were looking expectantly at him; the woman had her hand on the microphone selector in her chair arm as though about to call Dondragmer. Her husband had a half-smile on his face which puzzled Aucoin slightly for a moment, but as their eyes met Hoffman nodded as though he had been a.n.a.lyzing the Mesklinite's theory and found it reasonable. The planner hesitated a moment longer, then spoke into his microphone.

"We'll do that right away, Commander." He nodded to Easy, who promptly changed her selector switch and began talking. Benj returned just as she started, obviously bursting with information, but he restrained himself when he saw that a conversation with the Kwembly was already in progress. His father watched the boy as Easy relayed the Barlennan theory, and had some difficulty in concealing his amus.e.m.e.nt. It was so obvious that Benj was swallowing the idea whole. Well, he was young, and several of his elders seemed a bit uncritical too.

"Barlennan wants your thoughts on this possibility, and especially any more information you may have obtained from Kabremm," concluded Easy. "That's all-no, wait." Benj had caught her attention. "My son has come back from the aerology lab, and seems to have something for you."

"Mr. McDevitt has made one run with the new measures added to the earlier data and is making a second now," Benj said without preamble. "According to the first, he was right about the reason for the melting and freezing of your lake, and the nature of the clouds which Stakendee has encountered. The chances are better than even that condensation from these will increase, and make the stream near you bigger. He suggests that you check very carefully, as he mentioned before, the time the clouds reach the Kwembly. As he guessed, they are evaporating from adiabatic heating as the air carrying them comes down the ground slope. He says that the later they are in getting to you, the worse the flood will be when it does. I don't see why myself, but that's what the computer implies. He said to be sure to remind you that this was just another tentative calculation, just as likely to be wrong as any of the earlier ones. He went into a long speech about all the reasons he couldn't be sure, but you've heard it already."

Dondragmer's answer commenced almost on the light-echo; he could not have spent more than a second or two after the end of Benj's report in deciding what to say.

"Very well, Benj. Please tell Barlennan that his idea sounds reasonable, and at least fits in with the disappearance of my two fliers. I have had no opportunity to get information from Kabremm, if it really was he; I haven't seen him. He hasn't come back to the Kwembly. You could tell better than I whether he's still with Stakendee and those who went upstream. I will take precautions on the a.s.sumption that the commander is right. If the idea had occurred to me earlier, I certainly would not have sent out practically my entire crew to set up the safety base at the side of the valley.

"However, it may be just as well I did. I see no possibility of freeing the cruiser in any reasonable time, and if Mr. McDevitt is even moderately sure that another flood is on the way we'll have to finish moving out shortly. If a current anything like the one that brought us here hits the Kwembly while she's fastened down like this, there'll be pieces of hull scattered for a million cables downstream. When my men come back we'll take one more load of necessary equipment and abandon the ship for the time being. We'll set up on the valley rim, and as soon as life-support equipment is running adequately there I'll start sending crews back here to work on freeing the Kwembly, provided the flood isn't obviously on the way. That's a firm basic plan; I'll work out details for covering the work crews with your a.s.sistance, and if Barlennan's theory calls for special action I'll take it, but I haven't time to argue the basic decision. I can see moving lights to the north; I a.s.sume it's my crew on the way back. I'll turn the set so that you can see them."

The view on the screen wavered, then panned jerkily as the captain nudged the transmitter box through a third of a circle. The result was no improvement, from the human viewpoint; the lighted region around the Kwembly where details could not only be seen but compared and interpreted, was replaced by almost total darkness relieved by a few specks of light. It took close, careful watching to confirm Dondragmer's claim that they were moving. Easy was about to ask that the lens be returned to its former position when Benj began talking.

"You mean you've given up all hope of finding Beetchermarlf and Takoorch and the others, and are just going off and leaving them there? I know you have nearly a hundred other people to worry about, but there are times when that seems a pretty thin excuse for not even trying to rescue someone!"

Easy was startled and rather dismayed at her son's choice of words, and almost cut in with a combined rebuke to the boy and apology to Dondragmer. She hesitated, however, in the effort to find words which would do this without doing violence to her own feelings; these bore a strong resemblance to Benj's. Aucoin and Mersereau had not followed the exchange at all closely, since both were concentrating on Barlennan on the other screen and Benj had uttered his tirade in Stennish. Ib Hoffman showed no expression which the casual observer could have translated, though Easy might have detected traces of amus.e.m.e.nt if she had been looking at him. McDevitt had just come in, but was too late to catch anything except Easy's facial expression.

The pause went overtime, so they waited for Dondragmer's answer. This revealed no annoyance in tone or choice of words; Easy wished she could see him to judge his body att.i.tude.

"I haven't given them up, Benj. The equipment we plan to take includes as many power units as possible, which means that men will have to go under the hull with lights to get as many of them as they can from the unfrozen trucks. Those men will also have orders to search the ice walls carefully for traces of the helmsmen. If they are found, men will be a.s.signed to chip them out, and I will leave those men on the job until the last possible instant. However, I can't justify putting the entire crew to work breaking ice until there is nothing else to be done to get the cruiser free. After all, it is perfectly possible that they discovered what was going on before the pond froze to the bottom, and were trapped while looking for a hole in the ice somewhere else in the pond."

Benj nodded, his face somewhat red; Easy spared him the need of composing a verbal apology.

"Thanks, Captain," she said. "We understand. We weren't seriously accusing you of desertion; it was an unfortunate choice of words. Do you suppose you could aim the communicator back at the lighted s.p.a.ce? We really can't see anything recognizable the way it's pointed now."

"Also," McDevitt cut in without allowing a pause to develop at the end of Easy's request, "even though you are planning to leave the Kwembly, do you suppose you could leave a power unit on board to run the lights, and lash the bridge communicator about where it is so we can see the hull? That would not only let us observe the flood if it comes, which I'm almost certain it will in the next three to fifteen hours, but would also give us a chance to tell you whether there was any use looking for the cruiser afterward, and possibly even where to look for it. I know that will leave you with only two communicators, but it seems to me that this would be worth it."

Again, Dondragmer appeared to make up his mind on the spot; his answer emerged from the speaker almost with the sixty-four-second bell.

"Yes, we'll do it that way. I would have had to leave light power anyway, since I wanted crews to come back for work; and as I said, I wanted some sort of safety communication with them. Your suggestion fits that perfectly. I've turned the set back to cover the starboard side, as you no doubt see. I must leave the bridge now; the crew will be back in a minute or two, and I want to a.s.sign duties to them as they arrive."

Again, Benj began talking without checking with anyone else.

"Captain, if you're still in hearing when this gets to you, will you wave or signal some way, or have Beetch do it, if you find him alive? I won't ask you to make a special trip back to the bridge to give details."

There was no answer. Presumably Dondragmer had suited up and gone outside the moment he finished speaking. There was nothing for the human beings to do but wait.

Aucoin, with Easy's a.s.sistance, had relayed Dondragmer's answer to the Settlement, and received Barlennan's acknowledgment. The commander asked that he be kept up to date as completely as possible on Kwembly matters, and especially on any ideas which Dondragmer might have. Aucoin agreed, asked Easy to relay the request to the captain, and was told that this would be done as soon as the latter reestablished contact.

"All right," nodded the planner. "At least, there's been no mention so far of sending a rescue vehicle. We'll leave well enough alone."

"Personally," retorted Easy, "I'd have dispatched the Kalliff or the Hoorsh hours ago, when they first froze in."

"I know you would. I'm very thankful that your particular brand of ethics won't let you suggest it to Barlennan over my objections. My only hope is that he won't decide to suggest it himself, because every time I've had both of you really against me I've been talked down." Easy looked at Aucoin, and then at the microphone, speculatively. Her husband decided that distraction was in order, and cut into the thickening silence with a question.

"Alan, what do you think of that theory of Barlennan's?"

Aucoin frowned. He and Easy both knew perfectly well why Ib had interrupted, but the question itself was hard to ignore; and Easy, at least, recognized that the interruption itself was a good idea.

"It's a fascinating idea," the planner said slowly, "but I can't say that I think it very probable. Dhrawn is a huge planet, if it can be called a planet, and it seems funny, well, I don't know whether it seems funnier that we'd have met intelligence so quickly or that only one of the cruisers has done so. There certainly isn't a culture using electromagnetic energy; we'd have detected it when we first approached the place. A much lower one, well, how could they have done what seems to have been done to the Esket's crew?"

"Not knowing their physical and mental capabilities, quite aside from their cultural level, I couldn't even guess," replied Hoffman. "Didn't some of the first Indians Columbus met wind up in Spain?"

"I think you're stretching resemblances, to put it mildly. There's a practical infinity of things which could have happened to the Esket without her running into intelligent opposition. You know that as well as I do; you helped make up some of the lists, until you decided it was pointless speculation. I grant that Barlennan's theory is a little bit more believable than it was, but only a very little."

"You still think I was wrong in my identification of Kabremm, don't you?" said Easy.

"Yes, I'm afraid I do. Furthermore, I just don't believe that we've run into another intelligent species. Don't compare me with the people who refused to believe that dePerthe's rocks were man-made tools. Some things are just intrinsically improbable."

Hoffman chuckled. "Human ability to judge likelihood, you might call it statistical insight, has always been pretty shaky," he pointed out, "even if you skip purely cla.s.sical examples like Lois Lane. Actually, the chances don't seem to be that low. You know as well as I do that in the very small volume of s.p.a.ce within five pa.r.s.ecs of Sol, with only seventy-four known stars and about two hundred sunless planets, what we have found in the way of intelligence: twenty races at about our own stage of development, safely past their Energy Crisis; eight, including Tenebra and Mesklin, which haven't met it yet; eight which failed to pa.s.s it and are extinct; three which failed but have some hope of recovery; every one of them, remember, within a hundred thousand years of that key point in their history, one way or the other! That's in spite of the fact that the planets range in age from Panesh's nine billion years or so to Tenebra's maybe a tenth of that. There's more than coincidence there, Alan."

"Maybe Panesh and Earth and the older planets have had other cultures in the past; maybe it happens to any world every few tens of millions of years."

"It hasn't happened before unless the earlier intelligent races were so intelligent from the beginning that they never tapped their planet's fossil fuels. Do you think man's presence on Earth won't be geologically obvious a billion years from now, with looted coal seams and the beer bottle as an index fossil? I can't buy that one, Alan."

"Maybe not, but I'm not mystical enough to believe that some super-species is herding the races of this part of s.p.a.ce toward one big climax."

"Whether you like that Demon Hypothesis or prefer the ESFA Theory doesn't matter. There's certainly more than chance involved, and therefore you can't use the laws of chance alone to criticize what Barlennan has suggested. You don't have to a.s.sume he's right, but I strongly urge you to take him seriously. I do."

Dondragmer would have been interested in hearing this discussion, just as he would have appreciated attending the staff meeting of some hours before. However, he would have been too busy for either, even if attendance had been physically possible. With the return of most of his crew (some, of course, had stayed behind to continue setting up the life-support equipment) there was much to oversee and quite a lot to do himself. Twenty of his men were set to helping the trio already chipping ice from the main lock. As many more went under the hull with lights and tools to find and secure any power units not too solidly frozen in. The captain kept his promise to Benj, ordering this group to check most carefully for signs of Beetchermarlf and Takoorch. However, he emphasized the importance of examining the ice walls closely, and as a result the group found nothing. Its members emerged in a few minutes with the two power boxes from the trucks which the helmsmen had used, and two more which had been freed by the action of the heat. The rest, which according to Dondragmer's recollection and the laws of arithmetic must number six, were unapproachable, even though the sailors could make a reasonably well-founded guess as to which trucks they were on.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew had been entering the cruiser by the available locks: the small one at the bridge, the larger ones through which the fliers were launched and the pairs of one-man-at-a-time emergency traps at the sides near bow and stern. Once inside, each crewman set about an a.s.signed job. Dondragmer had been thinking as well as talking to human beings during their absence. Some packed food to last until the life-support equipment resumed cycling normally; others readied coils of rope, lights, power units, and other equipment for transportation.

Many were at work improvising carrying devices; one awkward result of the Kwembly's being fusion-powered was a great shortage of wheels aboard. There were tiny pulleys carrying the control cables around corners. These were too small for wheelbarrows or similar devices and Dondragmer had firmly forbidden any dismantling of the vehicle. There was nothing like a fork-lift or even a dolly aboard. Such devices, the former muscle-powered, of course, were known and used on Mesklin for medium-to-long-distance carrying; but there was nothing on the Kwembly which could be moved at all which a Mesklinite could not easily carry to any part of the vehicle without mechanical a.s.sistance. Now, with miles to go and the necessity of moving many items complete rather than in pieces, improvisation was in order. Litters and travois were making their appearance. The corridors leading to the main lock were rapidly being stacked with supplies and equipment awaiting the freeing of the exit.

None of the bustle and thumping, however, penetrated the mattress where Beetchermarlf and Takoorch still lay concealed. As nearly as could be judged later, they must have sought this shelter within a very few minutes of the time the resistance heater went into action. The thick, rubbery material of the mattress itself, which had been so difficult for even a Mesklinite-wielded knife to penetrate, blocked the sounds made by the crackling steam-bubbles around the hot metal and the calls of the workers who entered later. Had these last been forced to communicate with anyone at a distance, their resonant hooting might well have made its way even through that tough material; but there was little for them to say even to each other; they all knew their jobs perfectly well. The slit through which the helmsmen had found their entrance was held tightly enough closed by the elasticity of the fabric so that no light reached them. Finally, the Mesklinite personality trait most nearly described as a combination of patience and fatalism a.s.sured that neither Beetchermarlf nor his companion was likely to check outside their refuge until the breathing hydrogen in their suits became a serious problem.

As a result, even if Dondragmer had heard Benj's appeal, there would have been nothing for him to signal. The helmsmen, some three feet above some of their companions and a like distance below many others, were not found.

Not quite all the Kwembly's crew were engaged in preparation for the move. When the most necessary aspects of that operation had been arranged, Dondragmer called two of his sailors for a special detail.

"Go to the stream, head northwest and you can't miss it, and go upstream until you find Kabremm and the Gwelf," he ordered. "Tell him what we are doing. We will set up a livable site as quickly as we can, you tell him where; you've been there and I haven't. We will set up the human machines so they are looking into the lighted, active portion of that area. That will make it safe for him to bring the Gwelf down and land her anywhere outside that area, with no risk of being seen by the human beings. Tell him that the commander seems to be starting the native-life part of the play early, apparently to account for Kabremm's being seen in this neighborhood. He's suggested no details, and will probably stick to the original idea of letting the human beings invent their own.

"When you have seen Kabremm, go on upstream until you find Stakendee, and give him the same information. Be careful about getting into the view field of his communicator; when you think you may be getting near him, shut off your lights every little while and look for his. I'll be in touch with him through the human beings, of course, but not with that message. You understand."

"Yes, sir," the two replied in unison, and were gone.

The hours pa.s.sed. The main lock was freed and opened, and nearly all the material to be taken was outside when a call came from above. The communicator which had been in the laboratory was now outside, so Dondragmer could be reached directly. Benj was still the speaker.

"Captain, Stakendee reports that the stream he is following is getting noticeably broader and swifter, and that the clouds are becoming rain. I've told him to start back, on my own responsibility." The captain looked up at the still cloudless sky, then westward toward the place where Stakendee's fog might have shown if it had been daylight.

"Thanks, Benj. That's what I would have ordered. We're leaving the Kwembly right now before the stream gets too big to cross with the equipment. I have lashed the communicator down to the bridge and will leave the lights on as Mr. McDevitt requested. We'll hope you can tell us that it's safe to come back, before too long. Please report this to Barlennan, and tell him that we will watch as carefully as possible for the natives; if, as he seems to be suggesting, they are using Kabremm as a means of getting in touch with us, I will do my best to set up cooperative relations with them. Remember, I haven't seen Kabremm myself yet, and you haven't mentioned him since the first time, so I'm entirely in the dark about his status so far.

"Be sure to keep me informed of Barlennan's thoughts and plans, as far as you can; I'll do the same from here, but things may happen too quickly for any possible advance warning. Watch your screens. That's all for now; we're starting."

The captain uttered a resonant hoot which, fortunately for human ears, was not faithfully amplified by the set. The Mesklinites fell into rough line, and within two minutes were gone from the field of view of the bridge communicator.

The other set was being borne near the tail of the line, so the screen far above showed the string of lights bobbing in front of it. Little else could be seen. The nearest sailors, those within two or three yards of the lens, could be made out in reasonable detail as they wound among the boulders with their burdens, but that was all. The line could have been flanked on both sides twenty feet away by a legion of natives, without any human being the wiser. Aucoin was neither the first nor the last to curse Dhrawn's 1500-hour rotation period; there were still over six hundred hours to go before the feeble daylight from Lalande 21185 would return.

The stream was still small when the group splashed through it, though Stakendee's set a few miles west had confirmed the report that it was growing. Benj, noticing this, suggested that the small party also cross so that its members could meet the main body on the other side of the valley. Fortunately he made this suggestion to Dondragmer before acting on his own; the captain, remembering the two messengers he had sent upstream, hastily advised that the crossing be postponed as long as possible so that Stakendee and his men could compare more accurately the size of the stream with what it had been when they had pa.s.sed the same area earlier. Benj and Easy accepted this excuse. Ib Hoffman, quite aware that the foot party was carrying no time measuring devices and could give no meaningful report on the rate of change, was startled for a few seconds. Then he smiled, privately.

For minutes, which stretched into one hour and then another, there was little to watch. The crew reached and climbed the bare rock sides of the valley at the spot where the first load of equipment had been left, and set about constructing something which might have been called either a camp or a town. Life-support equipment had first priority, of course. It would be many hours yet before any air-suits would need recharging, but the time would come. For organisms as profligate of energy as the Mesklinites, food was also a matter of immediate concern. They set about it quickly and efficiently; Dondragmer, like the rest of the cruiser captains, had given plenty of advance thought to the problem of abandoning ship.

Stakendee's group finally crossed the river and, somewhat later, reached the encampment. The crossing had been approved by Dondragmer after he had received through Benj a message which contained, quite incidentally, the name of one of the messengers the captain had sent from the Kwembly.

Consequently no one, either member of the Kwembly crew or human being, was able to watch the growth of the ammonia-water stream. It would have been an interesting sight. At first, as the witnesses had reported, it was little more than a trickle running from hollow to hollow on the bare rock in the higher reaches of the river bed, men winding among the boulders lower down. As the drops of liquid in the fog coalesced and settled out more rapidly, tiny new tributaries began to feed into the main stream from the sides, and the stream itself grew deeper and faster. On the bare rock it meandered more violently, overflowing the basins which had originally contained it. Here and there it froze temporarily, as water, supplied by the frozen puddles upstream, and ammonia from the fog, shifted about the eutectic, which was liquid at the local temperature: about 174 degrees on the human Kelvin scale, roughly 71 on that used by the Mesklinite scientists.

Among the boulders, as it neared the Kwembly, it acc.u.mulated more and more water ice, and the progress grew more complicated. The ammonia dissolved water for a time, the mixture flowing away as the composition entered the liquid range. Then the stream would stop and build up, as Benj had pictured it, like hot wax on a candle, solidifying temporarily from addition of ammonia. Then it would slump away again as underlying ice reacted with the mixture.

It finally reached the hole which had been melted along the Kwembly's starboard side, where the human beings could watch once more. By this time the "stream" was a complex network of alternate liquid, solid, and slush perhaps two miles across. The solid, however, was losing out. While there were still no clouds this far downstream, the air was nearly saturated with ammonia: saturated, that is, with respect to a pure liquid-ammonia surface. The ammonia vapor pressure needed for equilibrium over an ammonia-water mixture is lower; so condensation was taking place on the mostly water and low-ammonia ice. As it reached the appropriate composition for liquefaction its surface flowed away and exposed more solid to the vapor. The liquid tended to solidify again as it absorbed still more ammonia vapor, but its motion also gave it access to more water ice.