reasonable and proper professional detachment. It was annoying. Beetchermarlf and Takoorch, even Kervenser, just weren’t that central to the work; the real question was the survival of the crew. Benj, whether sitting silently beside him or interjecting a few remarks, somehow managed to make objectivity seem callous. Mersereau had no defense against that particular effect; Easy knew perfectly well what was going on, but she did not interfere because she almost entirely shared her son’s feelings. Partly because of her sex and partly because of her own background she felt a very intense sympathy for Beetchermarlf and his companion, and even for Takoorch. She had been caught in a rather similar situation some twenty-five years before, when a concatenation of errors had stranded her in an unmanned research vessel on a high-temperature, high-pressure planet. In fact, she went further than Benj would have dared. Dondragmer might and probably would have sent a ground party to the site of Reffel’s disappearance, since the location was fairly well known; it was unlikely that he would have risked sending one of his three remaining communicators along. Yet Easy, partly by straightforward arguments of her own and partly by using her son’s techniques to swing Mersereau to her view, convinced the captain that the risk of not taking the communicator along would be even greater. This discussion, among many others, was conducted in Aucoin?s absence; even as he argued with Dondragmer, Mersereau was wondering how he would justify the step to planner Aucoin. Nevertheless, he argued on Easy?s side, as Benj suppressed a grin in the background. With this claim on his attention, Boyd scarcely noticed the call from another observer that a couple of objects were moving across the screen which showed the Esket‘s laboratory. He switched channels briefly and passed the word on to the Settlement, cutting back to the Kwemb/y without waiting for the end of the communication cycle. Later he claimed that he had never been really conscious of the Esket’s name in the report; he had thought of the message as a routine report from some observer or other; his principal feeling had been one of irritation at being distracted. Some people would have snapped at the observer; Boyd, being the person he was, had taken what seemed to him the quickest and simplest way of disposing of the interruption. He had then quite genuinely forgotten the incident. Benj had paid even less attention. The stranding of the Esket had occurred long before his arrival at the station, and the name meant nothing in particular to him, although his mother had once mentioned her friends Destigmet and Kabremm to him. It was Easy, of course, who had really reacted to the call. She scarcely noticed what Mersereau did or said, and never thought of telling Barlennan herself until more details came in. She moved immediately to a chair commanding a view of the “lost” cruiser’s screens and relegated the rest of the universe to the background. Barlennan’s return call therefore brought him very little information. Easy, to whom it was passed, had seen nothing herself; by the time she had reached her station all motion had ceased. The original observer was only able to say that he had seen two objects, a reel of cable or rope and a short length of pipe, roll across the Esket’s laboratory floor. It was possible that something might have pushed them, though there had been no sign of life around the vehicle for several terrestrial months; it was equally possible, and perhaps more probable, that something had tilted the Esket to start them rolling. So said the observer, though he could not suggest what specifically might have tipped the monstrous machine. This left Barlennan in a quandary. It was possible that one of Destigmet’s crew had become careless. It was possible that natural causes might be operating, as the humans seemed to prefer to believe. It was also possible, considering what Barlennan himself had just been planning to do, that the whole thing was a piece of human fiction. The commander’s conscience made him attach more weight to this possibility than he might have done otherwise. It was hard to see just what they could expect to accomplish by such a fiction. It could hardly be a trap of any sort; there could be no wrong reaction to the story. Complete mystification was the only possible response. If there were something deeper and more subtle involved, Barlennan had to admit to himself that he couldn?t guess what it was. He didn’t like guessing anyway. It was much easier to take reports at face value, allowing only for the capabilities of the speaker without worrying about possible motives. At times, the commander reflected, Dondragmer’s annoying directness which had made him disapprove of the whole Esket trick had something to be said for it. Yes, he had to assume that the report was truthful. By so doing, he would turn any human trick against its planners. Well then, there was nothing to do except check with Destigmet. That was simply another message to send on the Deedee. Come to think of it, that was another way to check the veracity of the human reports. This report, whatever else could be said for or against its truth, showed signs of having come through quickly. And Mrs. Hoffman must be involved. The thought that Easy’s involvement made the situation a special one was the only idea on the incident Barlennan and Aucoin would have had in common. Of course, the latter hadn’t heard anything about the new Etket incident so far; even Mersereau hadn’t really thought about it. He was still otherwise engaged. “Easy!” Boyd turned from his microphone and called across to her new station. “We seem to have convinced Don. He’s sending a vision set with his six-man search party. He wants to check his own estimate of the distance at which Reffel vanished. He thinks we can pinpoint where his transmitter was. We might have estimated it at the time, but I’m not sure it was recorded. Do you want to take over here while I check up with the mappers, or would you rather go yourself?”
“I want to watch here a little longer. Benj can go up, if he can stand leaving the screens for a minute.” She looked half-questioningly at the boy; he nodded and disappeared at once. He was gone longer than she expected and returned somewhat crestfallen. “They said they’d gladly give me the map recorded from the first part of Reffel’s flight, before I had told him to go on until he could barely see the Kwembly. All they could say about where he disappeared was that it must be off that map; the map covers the valley for about a mile westward of the cruiser.” Mersereau grunted in annoyance. “I’d forgotten about that.” He turned back to his microphone to relay this not very helpful information to Dondragmer. The captain was neither particularly surprised nor greatly disturbed. He had already discussed his own estimate of the distance and direction involved with Stakendee, who was leading the search party. “I suppose the human beings were right about having you take the set along,” the captain had remarked. “It will be a nuisance to carry and I don’t much like risking its loss, but having it will cut down the risk of losing you. I?m still concerned about a repetition of the flood that brought us here, and the people up above can?t give us any definite prediction. They do agree that there should indeed be a flood season coming. With the set, they?ll be able to warn you directly if they get any definite information, and you?ll be able to reach me through them if you do find anything.? “I’m not sure in my own mind what’s best to do if a flood does come,” said Stakendee. “Of course if we’re close to the Kwembly we’ll do our best to get back aboard, and I suppose if we’re really distant we’d make for the north side of the valley, which seems to be nearer. In a borderline case, though, I’m not sure which would be best; surviving the flood would do us little good if the ship got washed a year’s walk further downstream.”
“I’ve been thinking about that too,” replied the captain, “and I still don’t have an answer. If we’re washed away again there’s a very large chance the ship will be ruined. I can’t decide whether we should take time to get life-support equipment out and set up on the valley side before we get on with trying to melt her out. Your own point is a good one, and maybe I should have the set there for your sake as well as ours. Well, I’ll solve it. Get on your way. The sooner the search is done, the less we’ll have to worry about floods.” Stakendee gestured agreement, and five minutes later Dondragmer saw him and his group emerge from the main lock. The communicator gave the party a grotesque appearance; the block of plastic, four inches high and wide and twelve in length, was being carried litter fashion by two of the searchers. The three-foot poles were only two inches apart, supported on yokes at the midpoint of the eighteen-inch-long bodies of the bearers. The poles and yokes had been fashioned from ship’s stores; the Mesklinite equivalent of lumber. There were tons of the stuff in the store compartments: another of the incongruities with which the nuclear-powered cruiser was loaded in such profusion. The search party rounded the bow of the Kwembly, which was facing northwest, and proceeded straight west. Dondragmer watched its lights for a few minutes as they wound around and over the boulders but had to turn to other matters long before they were out of sight. Elongated figures swarmed over the hull working the radiator bar loose. Dondragmer had not liked to give the order for such destructive activity; but he had weighed as best he could the relative risks of doing it or of leaving it undone; having reached a decision it was not in his nature to keep on worrying about its rightness. Just as most human beings thought of Drommians as typically paranoid, most Mesklinites who knew them at all thought of human beings as typically vacillating. Dondragmer, the decision made and the order given, simply watched to make sure that minimal damage was done to the hull. From the bridge he was unable to see over its curve to the point, far astern, where the conductors came through; he would have to go outside a little later to oversee that part of the work. Maybe it would be even better to take a vision set outside and let the human engineers supervise it. Of course, with the communication delay it would be difficult for them to stop a serious error in time. For the moment the job could be left in Praffen’s nippers. The problem the captain had mentioned to Stakendee needed more thought. The life-support equipment was easy
