The Nitrogen Fix Page 18
Even Genda made no effort to listen in. The wait was brief. Earrin reappeared in waist-deep water, and the Observer popped up beside him almost at once. The two waded ashore and approached the guards.
They stopped within two meters of the pair, and Earrin spoke.
“This is the Invader, as YOU call him, that you folks held prisoner for a long time in Hemenway. Hedidn’t much like the things you did to him. He is not violent by nature, being intelligent, but he agrees with me that it would be a waste of effort to inconvenience ourselves very greatly to keep people like you breathing.”
“He’s too small to worry about,” retorted one of the guards. “What could he do to a grown man?”
“That depends on the environment, as people so often say,” replied Earrin. “Your leader just pointed out one of the possibilities to me. In a fight where muscular strength was the key, I agree you ‘d have him recaptured in no time. However, he has the rest of us to help him, and one big advantage which might make that help unnecessary.”
“What’s that?”
“He doesn’t have to breathe — in fact, he can’t. He has no vulnerable air lines. If you fight with him, what do you think you could do to keep those ropy arms from pulling your hoses in the first ten seconds?
Want to try?” Earrin paused for a few seconds to let his audience think. “If you do, start in. We find it inconvenient, as I said a moment ago, to have our actions restrained by you people. If you think a fight would be impractical, get inside that jail with the rest of your junky friends, and tell them that any head sticking out of the water gets its hose pulled loose instantly. Think fast.”
They thought, though not very fast. They expostulated. They even begged; it seemed that facing their termagant leader under the circumstances was almost as frightening as losing their masks.
Earrin was not at all sure that he could, in fact carry out his threat; but Bones probably could, and in any case it seemed that the young Hillers were in no position to doubt his word. He was not lying; he fully intended to do what he had said.
The two finally went through the air lock. A renewed babble of voices sounded inside the jail; though words could not be made out very well, most of the listeners who could do so grinned behind their masks.
Then there was a brief silence, and rather to Earrin’s surprise a head popped out of the water. The Nomad did not have to test his firmness; Bones reacted instantly. A tentacle whipped out, its four-fingered tip seized the air hose and jerked. The tube pulled away from its cartridge but not from the mask; the latter left its wearer. There was a glimpse of furious female features, and the head disappeared under water again. A moment later shrieks could be heard from inside the jail; apparently the woman lacked the hangup about keeping unprotected eyes closed under water.
Even very dilute nitric acid can hurt. Fyn felt nauseated, the other human listeners went pale, and Betty started to cry. Their efforts to calm her helped the rest to resign themselves to the unpleasant situation.
“We’ve got them,” Mort remarked thoughtfully when the child was quiet again.
“Now just what do we do with them?”
The question was unanswered hours later, when the oxygen wasters had presumably gone happily to sleep inside the jail, and Kahvi and her companions arrived.
XVIII
Variations, Violent
The moon was up by this time, and there was enough light for human beings and Observers to signal each other, but the latter wasted no time on gestures at first. They flung themselves into each other’s tentacles and embraced for fully a minute, while memories transferred themselves. Even Earrin, who had come to understand the situation pretty well, was embarrassed to watch — though watch he did. The other adults were shocked, though Kahvi recovered quickly when her husband explained. The burning need for population control immediately after the change, coupled with the collapse of all but pseudolife technology, had restored a decidedly Victorian behavior code, with much less hypocrisy than had characterized that age.
The Observers knew all that had happened to each other within two minutes; it took much longer for words to bring to human minds a more or less uniform and up-to-date picture of the situation. The moonwas a good deal higher by then. Action was promptly initiated by Kahvi.
“Now we bring those creatures back to normal air,” she said positively.
“How?” asked Zhamia. “We’ve seeded their plants, but it will take a couple of days before the oxygen producers are really overcome by the N-seed. If there aren’t enough nitrates in the trays, the seeding may not work at all. And we haven’t been into this new place-the lab, they called it; they must have straight oxygen there, too.
Kahvi smiled grimly inside her mask. “There’s wild cartridge tissue around. These folks have either been careless with pseudolife fragments or have been growing things deliberately all over the peninsula.
We’ll get a couple of chunks of that into the buildings, or at least the one where they are now; that’ll bring the oxygen pressure down to standard in half an hour!”
“Do you think the roof will stand it?” asked Earrin. Kahvi thought for a moment.
“Sure,” she said at last. “The wall is only a few centimeters into the air lock pool. The pressure drop will lower the water outside until bubbles can come in, before the roof tissue fails.
“Even with fresh patches?”
“We’ll hope so.” Fyn was startled; he had never seen his wife in such a ruthless mood. He had not seen their child studded with glass caltrops either. “They have masks, anyway,” Kahvi added.
“One of them doesn’t — the boss, I think. Bones pulled it off when she tried to — ”
“Yes, you told us. All right, put it back inside. Don’t leave the lock; just put it by the edge of the water. If they’re asleep we don’t want them to wake up. We can do that later if it’s necessary — but why should it be? The oxygen pressure will only go down to normal. You aren’t thinking.”
“Is normal enough for them?” asked Earrin.
“They make do with it in the city. Stop being so sympathetic, or if you must be, get sympathetic about Danna and me. We still hurt where that scientific glass went in.” Her husband, deciding not to explain that he was still worried about the roof, ceased arguing and went off for a supply of cartridge tissue. Mort and Betty followed; the child had never seen this kind of pseudolife, and her father could not reasonably overlook a chance at her education, tired as they were.
The other children were taken to the raft and nested down by Kahvi. She was back ashore long before the three got back with the needed material.
To anyone familiar with Terrestrial plants when there were any, it would have looked like a section of bamboo almost as long as Earrin was tall, and fully the length of his forearm in diameter. Its bright red color was not obvious by moonlight. It was light enough to carry easily under one arm; and in fact, Betty had carried it with a little trouble from almost the end of the peninsula. It would be over a hundred kilograms heavier when saturated with oxygen, but this could not happen outdoors. There were traces of the gas still free in Earth’s atmosphere, but even white phosphorus would not have been affected by it.
“Good!” exclaimed Kahvi as she saw the mass of tissue. “You only found one? Well, that’ll be enough; they’re all in the jail, and that’ll certainly beat a jailful of oxy — and it isn’t as though we were using it up, either. We can’t get it in dry, but that won’t slow it much. Let’s go; it’s certainly light enough.”
It was actually much too light; Kahvi couldn’t submerge it. An object which displaces around a hundred liters of water and weighs less than two kilograms will easily float a sixty-five kilogram person who is herself only a little more dense than water and loaded with breathing gear. Kahvi needed help.
Eventually, all the adults working together managed to lever one end of the cylinder under the wall, and by united and coordinated pushing worked it through until it popped to the surface on the i
nside. There was no sound to suggest that it had been noticed.
Then Zhamia took her daughter out to the raft, returning in a few minutes. It had been decided that only the children should occupy the tent until after sunrise, when the oxygen plants would resume activity.
The adults stayed on guard around the air lock of the jail, most of them sleeping on the slimy sand.
Kahvi and Earrin stayed awake, watching the water level of the air lock. This should have been going down as the pressure inside dropped; but nothing of the sort seemed to be happening as the minutes passed. Both knew that time appears to go slowly during periods of anticipation, but finally the comet rose.
“It should have shown something by now!” exclaimed Kahvi. “I wonder what’s gone wrong?”“Maybe the stuff has altered, and isn’t binding oxygen. You can’t really go by looks, you know The woman didn’t even bother to nod agreement; that was the most obvious of the possibilities. Even pseudolife, stable as it was cornpared to real-life, sometimes altered its genetic pattern cancerwise. “I’m going inside,” the woman said suddenly. “Something’s wrong, and they must be too sound asleep to notice.”
“I’ll go.” Earrin seldom actually overruled his wife with any success, except when he was right.
She did not argue this time, but settled thankfully down to rest again. The man waded down the steps and ducked under the wall. It was easy to see inside. The moon was high, and the light panels helped where it failed to reach. The tables which bore the planters prevented direct view of most of the room until Earrin was up the inside stairs, but he could see one man standing, unmasked, near the west wall and watching the Nomad enter. In the moonlight it took a few seconds to recognize Rembert, the first of the oxygen addicts he and Kahvi had met. The presence of this particular waster, however, was far less surprising than the fact that he was entirely alone. No other human being was in the room.
“I’m glad to see you, Nomad Fyn,” the Hiller said calmly. “I’m also glad that you weren’t badly hurt when I pulled your feet from under you the other afternoon. I’m afraid I over-reacted at the idea you were associating with an Invader.”
“Where did —?” Earrin didn’t have to finish the question. Rembert smiled broadly, and nodded toward the southwest corner of the jail. The Nomad followed the indication with his eyes, but at first saw nothing meaningful. The walls were solid, and certainly there could not be an air lock of some unheard-of design an airtight double door, or something of that sort. The craftsmanship involved in such stone work would be incredible, and the wall was of stone; Fyn had climbed it, and knew.
Then he saw the roof. For seconds he could not credit what his eyes were telling him, but they insisted. Clearly visible in the moonlight, a finger’s length from the south and west walls and extending nearly a meter along each from the comer where they met, was a row of square patches, each slightly overlapping the next.
“This tissue grows rapidly, too,” Rembert remarked happily. “I’m sure you’d be glad to have some of the culture.”
You-cut-the-roof-open.” The Nomad could barely get the words out.
“That’s right. I patched it right up again, though, when everyone else had gotten out. They were very kind. They went as fast as they could without making noise, so I wouldn’t lose much oxygen. I must say the level seems low now, though. There was more exchange through the hole than I expected; I must say I don’t see why. There was quite a breeze in through the opening, but that didn’t make sense.”
Earrin, still far too shocked to speak, nodded toward the cylinder of cartridge tissue floating on the water of the lock, still bobbing from his own passage. Rembert looked puzzled, and Fyn at last found enough voice to explain.
“It’s the stuff that goes in breathing cartridges. If the oxygen around it is above a certain concentration it soaks it up; if lower, it gives it off. I’m surprised you never learned about it.”
“I never bothered t o go outside until recently. My friends taught me how to use a mask, but didn’t mention all those details.” Fyn restrained himself from the obvious remark about the friends, and changed the subject.
“Why didn’t you leave with the others?”
“Why, Earrin! I’m surprised at you! Someone had to patch the roof, obviously. I volunteered because of course I expected to have the whole roomful of oxygen to myself after they were gone. I didn’t count on your rather unfair trick with that awful tissue. We’ll have to develop one with a higher equilibrium, for interim use.
“And your friends deserted you here?”
“Oh, they’ll be back, with others. You didn’t really expect to keep us fooled, or in your power, for very long, did you?”
“Why not? The natives are still with us. Even if you bring a lot of help, they can still — ”
“Didn’t your alien friend tell you about the unpleasant things we can do? You really haven’t come to appreciate all the uses of edged and pointed tools, my friend.”Earrin made no answer to this. Bones had by now told him about the spears and glass splinters. He could not blame himself or Kahvi for not foreseeing the escape; the method used was completely unthinkable to any Nomad. Even city dwellers would not normally have wasted air so grossly. These youngsters, however, seemed to have made a major break with everything Earrin regarded as natural and proper. Since these included normal methods of self-preservation, it didn’t seem likely that the group could last long; but they could be dangerous while they did.
If several dozen, or perhaps a hundred, of them came back to the jail with those weapons, they would be in control again at once. Even if the human enemies could improvise foot protection, it was hard to see what could be done for the walking-tentacles of the natives; and while the latter seemed able to survive spears, the human opponents could not. There was nothing which could be fashioned into shields — that concept came more naturally to Fyn than it had to Bones — since the local realwood was available only in narrow strips rather than boards.
Wickerwork did not occur to him, and would have been dismissed as inadequate and too time consuming if it had.
All this musing, he told himself abruptly, was futile. They were all in danger. Kahvi and the others had to be warned, and the children taken out of reach of the menace. Duty or not, if the little ones fell into the hands of these me-first youngsters, Earrin knew he would obey orders.
“Breathe easy,” he said suddenly and automatically to Rembert, and ducked through the air lock.
Kahvi couldn’t believe his report until she had climbed to the roof to examine it for herself. Once convinced, however, she thought rapidly.
“We could get the raft out of their reach easily enough; they can’t be back for hours yet. The trouble is that there isn’t air for all of us in the tent, and won’t be even after the sun comes up. It would take t he plants a day or more to grow enough new leaf surface. It looks as though you others will have to get back to the city quickly with your children.”
“We could take yours, too,” pointed out Zhamia.
“No, thanks.” Kahvi was emphatic, but offered no reasons. “It’s a pity to wake them up; they’ve had a hard night already. I don’t see any — ”
“It would really be a pity, as you say,” Rembert’s voice interrupted. None of them had seen him emerge from the jail; they had been far too concerned with their own problems. “Do you really suppose we were so stupid as to allow you that chance? Only one person went back to help; the others are watching from Hemenway for the ridge. If you try to take your children past them to the city, you will certainly regret it. You may as well let them sleep. As you suggest, nothing more is likely to happen before morning. Please explain all this to your Invader friends, too; they may not have understood me clearly, and it would be a pity if they annoyed us.”
Fyn was already gesturing to the two Boneses, and getting response. Rembert could not understand the responses, of course, but seemed unworried by the fact. He was as sure that his side was in power as Kahvi and Earrin had been
about theirs so shortly before. Rembert couldn’t see what the others might do; that was enough for him.
But even Earrin, slow-witted as he was, saw what might be done-background information, not brilliance, made the difference. The first thing was to get the children out of the Hillers’ reach — he included automatically the two who were not his own. He gave little thought about what would happen to himself and adult companions; there was always the city, which had plenty of air in spite of Genda’s ideas. Obviously, one or both of the natives should take the raft out of reach of the Hillers as soon as possible. Earrin gestured this, together with his reasons, to his duplicate friends.
Bones, of course, were reluctant to go. There was much more to be seen right where they were.
However, they had recently embraced, and it was logical that they separate so that more could be observed. Equally logically, the larger unit would be able to move the raft faster; and finally, the same one would be producing a bud in a day or two as a result of the spear wound. It seemed advisable that this occur out of reach of the Hillers. Bones therefore agreed that the larger unit would depart at once with the raft and children and take them as far as Milton, far enough for reasonable safety and near enough for quick return.Earrin approved this decision, but made the mistake of translating it to Zhamia and the others; like most people of his time he was totally unused to direct conflict, couldn’t see what Rembert could do about the matter, and made no effort to keep the oxygen-waster from hearing.
Even Kahvi didn’t spot the error until too late. Rembert, unfortunately, was both a quick thinker and dedicated to his cause.
He could not travel as fast as Bones, but was not far behind the native in reaching the raft. The others followed when they saw where he was going, but failed to guess soon enough what he had in mind — again, it was something unthinkable for most of them, in spite of recent experience.