There didn’t seem to be any. If the basket had brushed against anything on the way inside, either nothing had scraped off or, if it had, had vanished down river. The loudest possible hoot in air brought no response from the rocks, but when it was repeated from below the surface it was answered at once, more loudly than before. Several of the sailors muttered satisfaction; but all fell silent when they saw the mate looking thoughtfully into the widest of the gaps where methane was still flowing in.

  The eddy seemed as strong as the captain had reported. He had said nothing about the speed of flow into the rocks, but all could see that it was faster than anyone could be expected to paddle anything. It didn’t seem faster than a person could swim, but if one were too far inside to see daylight there would be no way of knowing which way to swim.

  “They’re in there somewhere,” the mate said slowly. No one disagreed; no one said anything.

  “Kentherrer, use a safety line and check how deep it is here. Don’t go inside. Three of you, hold his line.” He paused until Kentherrer was submerged. “Tell me if you have any trouble holding on,” he added. He did not specify whether this meant to the rope or to the rock, and the sailors didn’t ask.

  The line was paid out for about four body lengths before it went slack. It was not pointing straight down; the swimmer had been carried a short distance into the cleft by the current, but seemed calm enough when he reappeared.

  “The bottom hasn’t any of that slush,” he reported. “It seems to be sort of gravel. I suppose really fine stuff would be carried inside.”

  “Could you get good footing on it?” Dondragmer asked.

  “Not—not very good, sir.”

  The mate and the crew knew each other’s thoughts perfectly well. The former made some allowances for the objectivity of Kentherrer’s report.

  “We’d probably be safe enough, if we roped together. If anyone lost grip on the bottom, the others could hold him until he got it back. I don’t—see—anything to do but—go in and search.”

  “Under all that?” one of the men asked before he could control himself. Dondragmer was silent for perhaps a minute. He was reasonably sure they would follow him if he went first, but wasn’t quite sure he could lead. Not there.

  “You may have something,” he said at last. “Under it, in the dark, there’d be no way to tell where we were going or where we’d searched already. But over it—”

  By ordinary Mesklinite standards, over was little better than under. One could fall, of course, with a couple of hundred times Rim weight. But this was the Bree’s crew, who had been getting used to up and over in various ways for something like a hundred thousand days now. Over just wasn’t as bad.

  One of the sailors was sent back to the radio to tell the Flyers what the mate had in mind, and to relay any later messages. In a couple of days the mate and his remaining men were linked in a network of cordage, no one closer than eight body lengths to any other, and no one connected to others by less than four separate safety lines. The climbing was clearly not going to be easy or quick, but it would be as safe as the mate could arrange.

  Mesklinite legs are extremely short and their feet are not adapted for climbing, but they grip well on any reasonably rough surface. They have evolved for low as well as high gravity, and in the low-gravity latitudes there is always the risk of being blown away.

  These rocks were rough, in most places. The joints along which they had separated in the recent fall were not, for the most part, slickensides. Travel over them was fairly easy, except for the distraction of looking down so much of the time. Not even the sailors were totally immune to that fear.

  The rope spider web began to flow up and over the fallen slabs. Once all were away from the methane, Dondragmer ordered them to clamber horizontally upstream to the point where the eddy current went straightest into the maze. This served two purposes; it made it likely that they were upstream from wherever the captain might be, and could search downstream with reasonable certainty of passing him—whether they knew it or not. Also, it gave some practice in climbing before getting too far up.

  It even gave some practice in falling. Twice one of the sailors lost his grip and found himself hanging from a set of ropes. Both times a hoot of alarm was cut off sharply as the faller realized he was being supported, and managed to control his emotion with his intelligence. Most encouraging of all, neither time did anyone on the other end of the ropes lose his grip.

  So they started uphill. The rocks were noticeably cooler now. Even with the fog, there was little trouble keeping direction. Each time the web had moved about twice its own width the climbers paused and called loudly. After some days, they reached the top of the slope and were against vertical rock again; they moved a couple of web diameters downstream, and started down again.

  Every few days they called across the river to report their lack of result to the Flyers. They could make out the voice of the sailor on watch there clearly enough, but he had trouble untangling their words from the echoes. The messages, however, were simple enough—“Nothing yet” as a rule—and there was no real confusion.

  Back at the bottom, still fastened together, they swam back across to the radio, reported in more detail, then rested and went hunting and fishing. Fed as well, they returned to the up-and-down coverage of the fall.

  Every so often, an undermethane call was made; it was always answered by a sailor at the methane’s edge. Dondragmer wondered more and more seriously as the days went on what the lost group was doing for food. He was even slower than the captain in thinking of possible fish, but when he did, was much faster in realizing the problems of fishing in the dark. There had been very little food on the balloon, and it had been many days, now.

  It was the food question which decided Barlennan to take some action of his own. Fish either weren’t around or were able to sense groping chelae, and there had been no fishhooks aboard the balloon. He realized that any information the others might have about his location would be invalidated if they left it, but being found dead of starvation seemed a more serious risk. Besides, he could see no way of the crew having any such information. He had also realized that there should be no trouble in deciding which way to go, if they went; not only did the tracker provide a clue, but the current was still flowing past them, apparently unchanged. If they could travel against it, they should sooner or later reach the river.

  Unfortunately, while it was not flowing nearly as fast as any of them could swim, it was just in the wrong direction, and their own personal strength was failing—not seriously yet, because they’d been simply lying in the basket and occasionally answering what were presumably the mate’s calls, but swimming against a current …

  Even crawling against a current …

  Crawling would be better, if they could keep hold of the bottom. Better still, if they could anchor themselves to the bottom. The radio and the tracker would help with that, and should be brought along in any case. A few rocks would hold the basket down; but they couldn’t drag the whole basket against the current, whether it were ballasted or not.

  So they’d salvage material from the basket and, as well as they could in the dark, make a container to carry a few rocks. It might not work out; basket-weaving in the dark did not promise well; but it was better than starving passively.

  He told the others what they were going to do.

  A deafening roar, accompanied by a trembling of the rock on which the basket lay, suggested that he had the right idea.

  The same roar was heard by the others, even those at the rocket over a dozen miles away. The search web was headed downward on its fourth round trip. Each of its members felt the same quivering under his feet, and froze in position, looking wildly in every direction. The Flyers heard, but of course felt nothing.

  The sailor at the radio came closest to seeing; he could tell by the sound direction that the disturbance was somewhere upriver, even with the rumbling echoes that followed it, but there was still fog in that direction.

  No one, even Barlennan with the most restricted sight, had the least doubt that rocks were settling still. The Flyers wondered why; the Mesklinites, where. Neither could even guess at an answer, but the natives could, and did, hope. The operative fact was that if anyone could do anything whatever, it needed to be soon.

  There was no way that Dondragmer’s efforts could be speeded significantly; trying to climb around faster, it quickly became obvious, simply increased the time lost retrieving dangling climbers. The Flyers had already launched an observation craft to get better pictures and maps of the locale, but days would be needed to obtain those, probably more days to get any pattern for the continuing settling of the rock fall, and no obvious reason to believe that the information would really be useful to anyone but abstract researchers.

  But Barlennan could do something. Motion in the right direction, however slow, was better than staying where they were, and they did know the right direction. Up current.

  But they were already somewhat weakened by hunger. In a sense, they had some food; Karondrasee’s juice tank was perhaps half full. Unfortunately, the juice had been selected for its catalytic properties, as observed by the cook, on the plant tissue used for lifting fires, not for its caloric content. It was also most repulsive to taste—the cook knew that; he had distinguished his various trial samples by that sense, since he had no other laboratory facilities. Even the Flyers had admitted that there was little choice, though the alien chemists had expressed the very lowest opinions of that analytical technique.

  The tank, however, would be enough denser than methane to help hold them on the bottom, provided they replaced the air now partly filling it with liquid. There seemed at the moment nothing to be lost by diluting the juice and bringing the load along.

  Discussion was brief. All three of the crewmen could see the situation as clearly as their captain, and it was not just a matter of obeying orders.

  All four of them were now wearing the improvised hoods; even Barlennan had decided that it made things a little easier not to expect to see, and as long as the current flowed there was no real need to consult the tracker. There was no way of knowing just when the four of them submerged with radio, tracker, small basket of rocks, and juice tank with its top valve open, but it was long enough for one more roar of settling rock. Barlennan was actually delayed by this; he was slightly afraid that his men would be tempted into unwise haste, and insisted on a final recheck of every knot, both in the lines holding the equipment and those linking the travelers together. This delay did put a slight strain on discipline.

  Progress was slow. Even with the extra weight, traction was poor. The tank proved to be the least effective ballast and Karondrasee, who was carrying it, was frequently lifted from the bottom, and whenever this happened his next in line, Hars—cook and tank were last—had to find something to hold onto himself Sometimes there was nothing in reach, and they would lose in a few seconds several times as much distance as they had gained in the preceding few.

  And they were getting hungrier, and more tired. None knew how much time passed. Every little while they would bellow to let others know they were still alive. They always heard answers, but there was no way of being sure whether these were coming more quickly or not. It would have been very encouraging if they had been.

  Travel did get easier after a dozen or more reports, but for a slightly discouraging reason.

  The current was losing its force. There was a perfectly plausible explanation: the space behind them, whatever it was, where the methane had been going was at last being filled up. Barlennan had been learning, however; he told himself firmly that there might be other explanations. He put the question before the others, more as a distraction than in hope of alternatives. He got none, but distractions were still useful even with the hoods; there was still a lot, no one could guess how much, of Mesklin overhead.

  It was also getting somewhat cooler, they could feel, though the slush underfoot was still slush and still provided very poor traction.

  And they were getting hungrier all the time. That in itself made travel more and more difficult. Chemically, evolution in an energy-demanding environment had given them the equivalent of a very large human glycogen reservoir for their size, but even that had its limits. They were nearing those limits.

  The juice tank was now very dilute; they had not bothered to close the valve. This made the taste more bearable when they finally gave up and tried it. However, there is little to be gained by adding more catalyst, even just the right catalyst which this was not, when the supply of reactant is nearly gone. No one felt any less hungry than before, and the cook/flight engineer, whose digestive equipment might have been affected by his earlier experiments, was extremely uncomfortable for a time. He was quite unable to crawl or swim, and the party had to wait where it was.

  Another roar and shudder of settling rocks enabled him to find some strength, and they moved on. The current was nearly gone, and they were guided now by the tracker, much more slowly even than before. The cap-rain made the next report hoot by himself, hoping that its relative weakness would give the listeners a suggestion of their plight.

  It didn’t work; the sailor on watch below the surface who had been doing the answering didn’t notice the difference. There was a good reason for this, it was realized later. The captain was now much closer to the searchers. However, the rumbling echoes of his voice still lasted about as long as ever and hid the volume difference. He himself failed to notice any change in the answer; he blamed it later on the distraction caused by hunger.

  Hats, more than any of the others, hated to feel his energy going. He also hated to fail, and he still felt responsible for the tracker he was carrying. He probably had the least idea of any of the four why the echo problem should be less in air than in methane, but he had reached a point where anything seemed worth trying.

  They had done all their calling under methane, for obvious reasons; sound traveled better there, as everyone knew. On the other hand, one grew tired more quickly there, though Hats didn’t know why. One was lighter below the surface, obviously, but for some reason had more endurance above. “Hydrogen concentration” was not even words to him. But if there were anything to climb out on, he knew he would feel better.

  He began to mutter aloud. Just mutter. He would have done something else if he had been leading, but the captain was in front. The others could hear, of course, and Barlennan began to worry. Sherrer’s lack of balance had been serious enough; Hats was by far the most powerful of the group, even now If he were to panic, it might make the final difference. Especially with them roped together. After a little thought, he spoke to the sailor.

  “Hars, what’s the matter?”

  The pilot was actually embarrassed. “Well, Captain, I was wondering whether we could find a slope and get up in air for a little while. We could do with some rest, and it would be better than under methane. I didn’t realize I was thinking out loud.”

  Barlennan thought quickly. Shortage of air—hydrogen—at this point was not actually as serious as shortage of food, but it was certainly much more uncomfortable. It didn’t much matter where they were if one of the rock settlings took place near them. They were as likely to be found in one place as another, after all; and if they really couldn’t get out from under— “All right. Change the setup. Hars and I will travel side by side, a rope length apart. Sherrer will be at my right, Karondrasee at Hars’ left. It will be harder to keep the line straight, but we’ll be more likely to find an upslope.”

  It took some time to rearrange the safety lines, but they were slightly rested when it was done and they were advancing in the new formation. It was harder to travel, however, since they could not be as much help to each other. Even the captain was ready to call a halt where they were when the rope connecting Karondrasee and Hars dragged on the bottom.

  There was some sort of bulge. Hope of a sort began to rise as they examined and found a continuing slope. A solid one, of rock. The hope was mostly for comfort, not rescue, but the comfort was that of fresh air. They crowded together and began to creep upward. The slope was very shallow, and not difficult to climb even in their conditions; and for a while all feared that it might not reach the surface.

  Fortunately. All but Hars had to stop for rest before they reached surface. With the four huddled together to rest, there was enough slack to let the pilot crawl a little ahead of the others, and in less than five body lengths he broke the surface.

  With his encouragement and help, the other three also emerged into air, and relaxed gratefully.

  Nearly starved, they were really in no state for rest to do them much good, but they could still enjoy the sensation. Even Barlennan waited much longer than he should have before issuing the order to go on. His mind and conscience argued against giving up, but he knew that more time in air would not really help. Another rock shudder emphasized this, but still he hesitated. Lying still felt so good— So he had not yet spoken, and not yet decided to, when airborne sounds reached them.

  Voices. Not really understandable yet, but obviously broken up into words this time. The four hooted in unison, reflexively. Shorter wave lengths don’t diffract so badly, and sound waves are much shorter in air.

  The only real question then was whether Dondragmer’s people would climb down or Barlennan’s climb up, and that was easy to settle.

  The distance wasn’t great; the mate’s party could see how close they were to river level, but the captain’s group lacked the needed strength. The members of the net above were out in daylight, able to look down at the spaces below, where they would descend into unknowable depths. Well, not really unknowable; the captain and the others obviously weren’t very far down, but the word was down. But they could climb down.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8