Lightfoot under the low gravity, he descended aft to the engine compartment. Delicate work needed doing. The idling fusion generator must be shut down entirely, lest its neutrino smoke betray the boat — not that the kzinti could home in on it, but they would know with certainty the humans were on Prima, and in which quadrant. Batteries, isotopic and crystalline as well as chemical, held energy for weeks of life support and ordinary operations. Yet it had to be possible to restart the generator instantly, full power within a second, should there be a sudden need to scramble. That meant disconnecting the safety interlocks. Yoshii fetched tools and got busy. The task was demanding, but not too much for his spirit to wing elsewhere in space, else when in time — the Belt, Plateau, We Made It, Rover's folk on triumphal progress after their return…
Carita's voice came over the intercom. “This is dull duty. I think I will turn on the searchlight while it's still safe to do so. Might get a clue to what caused those jolts.”
“Good idea,” he agreed absent-mindedly, and continued his task. The metal around him throbbed. Small objects rattled on the deck.
“Juan!” Carita shouted. “The, the material— it's rippling, crawling—” The hull rocked. “I'm getting us out of here!”
“Yes, do,” he called back, and grabbed for the nearest handhold. Within its radiation shield, the generator hummed. Needles sprang across dials, displays onto screens. Yoshii felt the upward thrust of the deck against his feet. It was light. Carita was a careful pilot, applying barely sufficient boost to rise off the ground before she committed to a leap.
The boat screamed. Things tilted. Yoshii clung. Loose things hailed around him. A couple of them drew blood. The boat canted over, toppled, struck lengthwise, tolled so that he was half deafened.
Stillness crashed down, except for a shrill whistle that he knew too well. Air was escaping from one or more rents nearby. He hauled himself erect and out of his daze. The emergency valve had already shut, sealing off this section. He had to get through the lock built into it before the pressure differential made operation fatally slow.
Somehow he passed forth, and on along the companionway that was now a corridor, toward the control cabin. Lights were still shining, ventilators still whirring, and few articles lay strewn around. This was a good, sturdy craft, kept shipshape. How had she failed? Carita met him in the entrance. “Hey, you sure got battered, didn't you? I was secured. Here, let me help you.” She practically carried him to his chair, which she had adjusted for the new orientation. Meanwhile she talked on: “The trouble's with the landing gear, I think. Is that damn stuff a glue? No, how could it be? Take over. I'm going to suit up and go out for a look.”
“Don't,” he protested. “You might get stuck there, too.”
“I'll be careful. Keep watch. If I don't make it back—” She stooped, brushed lips across his, and hurried aft.
His ears rang and pained him, his head ached, he was becoming conscious of bruises, but his eyes worked. The searchlight made clear the motion in the mantle. It was slight in amplitude, as thin as the layer was, and slow, but intricate, like wave patterns spreading from countless centers to form an ever changing moire. Those nodes were darker than the ripple-shadows and seemed to pass the darkness’s on from one to the next, so that a shifting stipple went outward from the boat, across the dell floor and, as he watched, up the side. The hull rocked a little, off and on, in irregular wise.
“Do you read me?” he heard after a while. “I'm in the Number Two lock, outer valve open, looking over the lip.”
“I read you,” he answered unevenly. At least the radio system remained intact. “What do you see?”
“The same turbulence in the… stuff. Nothing clear aft, where the main damage is. The search beam doesn't diffuse, and— I'm off to inspect.”
“Better not. If you lost your footing and fell down into—”
She barked scorn. “If you think I could, then I'm for sure the right person for this job.” He clenched his fists but must needs admit that induction boots gave plenty of grip on the metal for a rockjack-a-rockjill, she often called herself. “I'm crawling out… Standing… On my way.” The hull pitched. “Hey! That damn near threw me.” Starkly: “I think Fido just settled more at the after end.”
“But into what?” he cried. “Solid rock?”
“No, I guess not. I do know what we are deep down into… Okay, proceeding. Landing gear in sight now, straddled against the sky. It's dark, I can't see much except stars. Let me unlimber my flashlight… A-a-ah!” she nearly screamed.
He half rose in his seat. “What happened? Carita, dear, are you there?”
“Yes. A nasty shock, that sight. Listen, the Number Three leg is off the ground. The bottom end sticks up — ragged, holes in it — like a badly corroded thing that got so weak it tore apart when it came under stress… But Juan, this is melded steel and titanium alloy. What could've eaten it?”
“We can guess,” Yoshii said between his teeth. “Come back.”
“No, I need to see the rest. Don't worry, I'll creep down the curve like a cat burglar… I'm at the socket of Number Two. I'm shining my light along it. Yes. Nothing left of the foot. Seems to be sort of absorbed into the ground. Number One — more yet is missing, and, yes, that's the unit which pulled partly loose from its mounting and made the hole in the engine compartment. I can see the skin ripped and buckled—”
The boat swayed. Her nose twisted about and lifted a few degrees as her tail sank. Groans went through the hull.
“I'm okay, mate. Well anchored. But holy Finagle! The stuff is going wild underneath. Has it come to a boil?”
Yoshii could not see that where he was, but he did spy the quickening and thickening of the wave fronts farther off. Understanding blasted him. “Douse your flash!” he yelled. “Get back inside!” He grabbed for the searchlight switch as for the throat of a foeman.
“Hey, what is this?” Carita called.
“Douse your flash, I said. Can't you see, bright light is what causes the trouble? Find your way by the stars.” He clutched his shoulders and shivered in the dark. The boat shivered with him, diminuendo.
“I read you,” Carita said faintly.
Yoshii darkened the cabin as well. “Let's meet in my stateroom,” he proposed. The sarcastically named cubbyhole did not give on the outside. He groped till he found it. When again he dared grant himself vision, he bent above the locker where a bottle was, shook his head, straightened, and stood looking at a photograph of Laurinda on the bulkhead.
Carita entered. Her coverall was wet and pungent. Sweat glistened on the dark face. “Haven't you poured me a drink?” she asked hoarsely.
“I decided that would be unwise.”
“Maybe for you, sonny boy. Not for me.” The Jinxian helped herself, tossed off two mouthfuls, and sighed. “That's better. Thank you very much.”
Yoshii gestured at his bunk. It was roughly horizontal, that being how the polarizer field was ordinarily set in flight. They sat down on it, side by side. Her bravado dwindled. “So you know what's happened to us?” she murmured.
“I have a guess,” Yoshii replied with care. “It depends on my idea of the supermolecule being correct.”
“Say on.”
“Well, you see, it grew. Or rather, I think, different ones grew till they met and linked up. There must have been all possible combinations, permutations of radicals and bases and every kind of chemical unit. Cosmic radiation drives that kind of change. So does quantum mechanics, random effects; that was probably dominant in intergalactic space. So the chemistry… mutated. Whatever structure was better at assimilating fresh material would be favored. It would grow at the expense of the rest.”
Carita whistled. “Natural selection, evolution? You mean the stuffs alive?”
“No, not like you and me or bacteria or even viruses. But it would develop components which could grab onto new atoms, and other components that are catalytic, and— and I think ways of passing an atom on from ring to ring until it's gone as far as there are receptors for it. That would leave room for taking up more at the near end. Because I think finally the molecule evolved beyond the point of depending on whatever fell its way from the skies. I think it began extracting matter from the planet, whenever it spread to where there was a suitable substance. Breaking down carbonates and silicates and— and incorporating metallic atoms too. Clathrate formation would
