about the size of a human machinist’s center punch, wielded by fifteen-inch, twenty-pound caterpillars, would take a long time to get around some two hundred and fifty feet of hull circumference to an unknown depth. They would take even longer if detailed chipping around drivers, trucks, and control lines were to be necessary, as seemed likely. Besides all this, the second helicopter was aloft again with Reffel again at its controls. The communicator was still aboard and the human beings were examining as carefully as Reffel himself the landscape revealed by the little machine’s lights. They were also cursing as heartily as the pilot the length of Dhrawn’s nights; this one had well over six hundred hours yet to go and, until the sun rose, really quick and effective searching would be impossible. To be helpful to either Mesklinite eyes or the video pick-up of the communicator, the lights had to be held to a rather narrow beam, covering a circle only a few hundred feet across. Reffel was flying a slow zigzag course which swept this circle back and forth across the valley as he moved slowly westward. At the station far above, the televised image on his screen was being recorded and reproduced for the benefit of topographers. These were already working happily on the structure of an intermittent stream valley under forty Earth gravities. Of the search for the missing Kervenser, little could be expected for some time; but pure information was coming in so no one was complaining, not even the Mesklinites. Dondragmer was not exactly worried about his first officer and helmsman, since he couldn’t really worry. It would be fair to say that he was concerned: but he had done all he could about the missing crewmen and having done it, his attention had turned elsewhere. He had two principal things on his mind. He would have liked information about how soon the ice was likely to melt, compared with how soon another flood might arrive. He would also have given even more for a workable suggestion on how to get rid of the ice quickly and safely. He had expressed both wishes to the human beings as well as to his own scientists, though he had made it clear to the latter that he was not demanding a crash program. The search for ideas could be combined with, or even subordinated to, the basic research they were carrying on. Dondragmer was not exactly cold-blooded, but his sense of values included the notion that even one’s final act should be a useful one. The human reaction to this remarkably objective and inhumanly calm behavior was mixed. The weather men and planetologists took it for granted. Most of them probably weren’t even aware of the Kwemb/y’ s predicament, much less of the missing Mesklinites. Easy Hoffman, who had stayed on watch after bringing Barlennan up to date as Aucoin had directed, was not surprised. If she had any emotional reaction so far, it was one of respect for the captain’s ability to avoid panic in a personally dangerous situation. Her son felt very differently about it. He had been released temporarily from duty in the aerology lab by McDevitt, who, as a tactful and sympathetic person, had been aware of the friendship developing between the boy and Beetchermarlf. Benj had become a fixture in the communication room as a result. He had watched quietly while arrangements were being made by Dondragmer to dispatch the helicopter and the ice-chipping crews. He had even been somewhat interested in the exchange between the human and Mesklinite scientists. McDevitt had been a little reluctant to risk more weather predictions, feeling that his professional reputation had taken jolts enough recently, but he promised to do his best. When all these matters had been settled and Dondragmer seemed willing to do nothing but lie on his bridge and wait on events, the boy grew uneasy. Patience, the closest human equivalent to the Mesklinite reaction now being displayed, was not yet one of his strong points. For some minutes he shifted uneasily in his seat before the screens, waiting for something to happen. Finally, he could restrain himself no longer. “If no one has any immediate material to send, is it all right for me to talk to Don and his scientists?” he asked. Easy glanced at him, and then at the others. The men shrugged or otherwise gestured indifference, so she nodded. “Go ahead. I don’t know whether any of them are in a mood for casual chatter, but the worst they’ll do is tell you they aren’t.” Benj didn’t waste time explaining that he was not going to indulge in chatter, casual or otherwise. He switched his microphone to Dondragmer’s bridge set and began to talk. “Don, this is Benj Hoffman. You have nothing but a bunch of sailors chipping away the ice at the Kwembly’ s bow. There is a lot of energy in your power units, more than a planetful of Mesklinites could put out by muscle in a year. Have your scientists thought of using converter output either to run that test drill for moving ice, or in some sort of heater? “Second, are your sailors just removing ice, or are they specifically trying to get down underneath to find Beetchermarlf and Takoorch? I know it’s important to get the Kwembly loose, but the same ice will have to be taken out sometime anyway. It seems to me there’s a good chance that some of the water under the ship hasn’t frozen yet, and that your two men are still alive in it. Are you tunneling, or just ditching?” Some of the human listeners frowned slightly at the boy’s choice of words, but no one saw fit to interrupt or even comment. Most of those who heard glanced at Easy and decided against saying anything which might be interpreted as criticism of her son. Some, as it happened, did not feel critical anyway; they had wanted to ask similar questions but had not quite wanted to be heard at it. As usual in conversations between the station and Dhrawn, Benj had plenty of time while waiting for the answer to think of other things he might have asked or said, and of better ways in which he might have put the things he did say. Most of the adults knew from experience what was going on in his mind at this point; some were amused; all were to some degree sympathetic. Several bet that he would not be able to resist the temptation to send a reworded version of his message before the answer came back. When Dondragmer’s response came from the speaker with Benj still silent no one actually cheered, but those who knew Easy best could read and understand the satisfaction in her expression. She had not dared to bet, even with herself. “Hello, Benj. We’re doing all we can, both for the helmsmen and my first officer. I’m afraid there is no way to apply ship’s power to any of the tools. The converters produce electric current and also supply rotating torque fields to the truck motors, as I am sure you know, but none of our ordinary equipment can use this, just the helicopters, some of the research equipment in the laboratory, and the lights. Even if we could work out a way to apply the drive motors to digging, we can?t get at them; they?re all under the ice. You must remember, Benj, that we deliberately chose to remain as independent as possible of really complex equipment. Just about everything we have on the planet which we couldn?t make ourselves is directly concerned with your research project.? Ib Hoffman was not present to hear that sentence, which was unfortunate; later he spent a long time trying to make sure of its exact wording from his son?s memory. “I know that, but—” Benj fell silent; none of the words he wanted to say seemed to have ideas under them. The lights, he knew, could not be used as heaters; they were solid state electroluminescent devices, not arcs or resistance bulbs. They had, after all, been designed not only to last indefinitely but to operate in Dhrawn’s atmosphere, with its free oxygen and enormous pressure range, without killing the Mesklinites. If Beetchermarlf had realized this he might have wasted less time, though he might not have accomplished any more. “Can’t you, can’t you just run the current from a converter through some heavy wires, and melt the ice with the heat? Or even run it straight through the water? There must be plenty of ammonia left — it would surely conduct.” Again there was a pause, while Benj hunted for flaws in his own suggestions and the message flashed its way across emptiness. “I’m not sure I know enough about that sort of physics, though I suppose Borndender and his men would,” Dondragmer replied doubtfully. “More to the point, I don’t know what we’d use for wires and I don’t know what current would flow. I know that when the power units are connected to regular equipment like lights or motors there is automatic safety control but I have no idea of how that works or whether it would work on a simple, direct, series circuit. If you’ll find out from your engineers what sort of risk we’d be running, I’ll be glad of the information but I still don’t know what we’d use to carry the current. There just isn’t much metal in the Kwembly. Most of our maintenance supplies are things like rope and fabric and lumber. Certainly there’s nothing that’s meant to carry heavy electrical current. You may be right about using the ice itself as a conductor, but do you think it would be a good idea with Beetchermarlf and Takoorch somewhere under it? Although I can see they wouldn’t be right in the circuit, I’m still a little uncertain that they’d be safe. There again one of you people could probably help out. If you can, if we can get enough detailed information from you to plan something really promising, I’ll be glad to try it. Until that happens, I can only say we’re doing all we can. I’m as concerned about the Kwembly, and Kervenser, and Beetchermarlf, and Takoorch as you can possibly be.” The captain’s closing sentence was not entirely true, though the error was not intentional. He did not really grasp how a friendship could become at all close in a short time and without direct contact between the parties; his cultural background included neither an efficient mail service nor amateur radio. The concept of a microphone relationship developing emotional weight may not have been completely strange to him: he had, after all, been with Barlennan years before when Charles Lackland had accompanied the Bree by radio across thousands of miles of Mesklin’s oceans; still, real friendship was, to him, in a different category. He had been only conventionally regretful at the news of Lackland’s death years later. Dondragmer knew that Benj and the younger helmsman had been talking to each other a great deal, but he had not overheard much of their conversation and would probably not have fully understood the feelings involved even if he had. Fortunately Benj did not realize this, so he had no reason to doubt the captain’s sincerity. However, he was not satisfied with either the answer or the situation. It seemed to him that far too little was being
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