Complete Short Fiction, page 75
“Sir!” The voice came faintly but clearly to his mind. “Don’t stay! You mustn’t! I should never have let you come—but I was angry! I know I was a fool; I should have told you everything!”
“I learned. It was my own fault.” The superintendent found it curiously difficult to speak. “I came of my own free will and I still think that plot is worth investigation.”
“No! It’s not your own free will—no will could remain free after seeing what that planet has to offer. I knew it and expected you to die—but I couldn’t go through with it. Come, and quickly. I will help.”
THE student was in an orbit almost identical with that of the superintendent, though still a good deal farther out. Perhaps it was the act of looking at him, which took his attention momentarily from the alluring object below, that made the older being waver. Whatever it was, the student perceived the break and profited by it.
“Don’t even look at it again, sir. Look at me, and follow—or if you’d rather not look at me, look at that!”
He indicated the direction plainly, and the dazed listener looked almost involuntarily.
The thing he saw was recognizable enough. It consisted of a small nucleus which his senses automatically analyzed. It consisted of methane and other hydrocarbons, some free oxygen, a few other light-element compounds, and had nuggets of heavier elements scattered through it like raisins in a plum pudding. Around it for thousands of miles there extended a tenuous halo of the more volatile of its constituent compounds. The thing was moving away from the Sun in an elliptical orbit, showing no sign of intelligent control. A portion of its gaseous envelope was driven on ahead by the pressure of sunlight from below.
It was a dead slave, but it could as easily have been a dead master.
A dead slave was nothing; but the thing that had killed it could do the same to him.
It was the first time in his incredibly long life that the personal possibility of death had struck home to him; and probably nothing less than that fear could have saved his life.
With the student close beside, he followed the weirdly glowing corpse out to the farthest point of its orbit; and as it started to fall back into the halo of death girdling that harmless-looking star, he pressed on out into the friendly darkness.
Perhaps some day that third planet would be harvested; but it would not be by one of his kind—not, at least, until that guarding haze had been swept up by the planets that drifted through its protecting veil.
IT was not a very good group, Wright reflected. That always seemed to be the case. When he had luck with observing weather, he had no one around to appreciate the things that could be seen. He cast a regretful glance toward the dome of the sixty-inch telescope, where a fellow candidate was taking another plate of his series, and wondered whether there were not some better way than part-time instructing to pay the expenses of a doctorate program.
Still, the night was good. Most of the time in the latitude—
“Mr. Wright! Is that a cloud or the Aurora?”
“If you will stop to consider the present position of the Sun below the horizon,” he answered indirectly, “you will discover that the patch of light you are indicating is directly opposite that point. It lies along the path of the Earth’s shadow, though, of course, well beyond it. It is called the Gegenschein and, like the Zodiacal Light, is not too commonly visible at this latitude. We did see the Light some time ago, if you remember, on an evening when we started observing earlier. Actually, the Gegenschein is a continuation of the luminous band we call the Zodiacal Light. The latter can sometimes be traced all the way around the sky to the point we are now watching.”
“What causes them?”
“The most reasonable assumption is that they are light reflected from small, solid particles—meteors. Apparently a cloud of such matter extends outward for some distance past the Earth’s orbit, though just how far, it is hard to say. It grows fainter with distance from the Sun, as would be expected, except for the patch we call the Gegenschein.”
“Why the exception?”
“I think one of you can answer that.”
“Would it be for the same reason that the full Moon is so much more than twice as bright as either quarter? Simply because the particles are rough, and appear dark in most positions because of the shadows of irregularities on their own surfaces—shadows which disappear when the light is behind the observer?”
“I think you will agree that that would account for it,” Wright said. “Evidently the meteors are there, are large compared to wavelengths of visible light, and form a definite part of the Solar System. I believe it was once estimated that if the space inside the Earth’s orbit contained particles one millimeter in diameter and five miles apart, they would reflect enough light to account for what we are observing. They might, of course, be smaller and more numerous. Only that amount of reflecting surface is necessary.”
“You had me worried,” another voice broke in. “I’d been hearing for years that there would be little reason to fear collision with meteors when we finally get a rocket out of the atmosphere. For a moment, I thought a cloud such as you were working up to would riddle anything that got into space. One pinhead every five miles isn’t so bad, though.”
“There is a fairly good chance of collision, I would say,” returned Wright, “but just what damage particles of that size would do, I am not sure. It seems rather likely that they would be volatilized by impact. How the hull of a rocket would react, we will have to find out by experience. I wouldn’t mind taking the risk myself. I think we can sum up the greatest possibilities by saying that the meteoric content of the Solar System has and will have nothing but nuisance value to the human race, whether or not we ever leave our own planet.”
A streak of white fire arced silently across the sky, putting a fitting period to the subject.
Wright wondered whether it would appear on his friend’s photographic plate.
1953
Critical Factor
Air Force bomber pilot, science teacher and scoutmaster, Hal Clement possesses a tremendous competitive advantage over the majority of his colleagues in the ranks of top-notch science-fiction writers: He understands what the scientists are talking about. This is tough on his competitors but works beautifully for the rest of us; for by ruthlessly capitalizing on his advantage he is enabled to write such horrifyingly plausible fantasies of science as——
Pentong, excited for the first time in his life, raced northward. There was no need to grope or feel his way; this close to the great earthquake zone there were always minor tremors, and their echoes from the dense basalt below and the emptiness above reached him almost constantly. The treacherous sandstone strata, which beguiled the lazy traveler with the ease of penetration they offered and then led him up to the zones of death, were easy to spot; Pentong actually used them now, for seeing was so good that he could leave them with plenty of time to seek the safer levels below whenever they started to slope.
The worst of his journey was behind. The narrow bridge of livable rock which led to the strange land he had found had been recrossed in safety, in spite of the terrifying and deceptive manner in which temblors from the earthquake zone far to the north were trapped, magnified, and echoed from its sides. Now he could see for many days’ travel all about him, and as far as he could see the land was good.
Not as good as that he had visited, of course. This was the land he had known all his life, where food was just hard enough to find to make life interesting; where for ages past counting other, less fortunate, races from the far, far north had sought to break in and kill that they might inherit its plenty; where pools of magma shifted just rapidly enough to trap the unwary between impenetrable basalt and glowing death; where, if Pentong was right in what he believed of his discovery, regions now too close to the zones of death might be made accessible and provide food and living space for unguessable generations to come.
He dreamt of this possibility constantly as he moved. No trace of his passage marked the rock behind him, for none of it was edible; but he hardly thought of food for himself. Speed was his prime concern, and to achieve it he traveled as close as he dared to the upper zones.
The nearest settlement was more than five thousand miles north, he knew; his memory held a sharp picture of the tortuous path he had followed from it, and he retraced that path now. It led him far to the east, where the earth tremors were faint and travel slowed by the poor vision; then back, at a much lower level, to the northwest, where the principal delay was the denser rock. Five hundred miles short of his goal he had to stop, to examine carefully the region of magma pools through which he had passed on his way south. The precise path he had followed could not now be used; it was blocked in several places by molten rock which had forced its way between strata and heated the otherwise habitable stone above and below to an unbearable degree. But other paths existed; and slowly and carefully Pentong wormed his way between the pools, sometimes retreating the way he had come, sometimes going almost straight away from his goal, but gradually working north and downward until the last of the dangerous pockets of fluid lay behind him. Then he could hasten once more; and at last he reached the bed of carbonate rock, a mile thick and more than thirty thousand square miles in area, which had been deposited on the floor of an ancient sea some hundreds of millions of years before and was now safely surrounded and capped by harder layers which shielded its inhabitants from filtering oxygen. This was the city—not the one where Pentong had been born, but the farthest south of all the dwelling centers of his people, and the one to which the more adventurous spirits of the race tended to gravitate. The cities to the northwest and northeast, under the Bering and Icelandic bridges, held danger, of course; they bore the brunt of the endless defense against the savage tribes from beyond the bridges. Still, that danger was known and almost routine; it was the unknown parts of the world that spelled adventure. Pentong, he was sure, had proved himself the most adventurous so far; and he was also sure that he had done more.
“Halt!” The challenge came through the rock as Pentong’s great, liquid body began to filter into the limestone. No city, even this far from the zones of war, dared be without sentries. “Name yourself!”
“I am Pentong, returning from the south, a trip that was commanded. My word is this.” He emitted the coded series of temblors which the City Leaders had given him for identification, when and if he returned.
“Wait.” The explorer knew that the sentry’s body extended far back into the city, and that at his other end he was in communication with the Leaders. The wait was not long. “Enter. You may eat, if you hunger, but go to the Leaders as soon thereafter as may be.”
“I am hungry, but I must go to them at once. I have found something of importance, and they must know.” The sentry was plainly curious, but forebore to question further; obviously if this stranger felt his news too important to wait for food. he would hardly pause for conversation.
“Take the Stratum of Manganese; it will be cleared for you,” was all the watcher said. Pentong acknowledged the courtesy—traffic was sometimes a problem in a city of sixty billion inhabitants, each of whom averaged ten cubic yards in volume and was apt to have that bulk spread through a most irregular outline. The Stratum of Manganese was a foot-thick layer stained with the oxide of that metal, and thereby marked plainly to Pentong’s senses. It was cut off sharply by a fault which extended across the center of the city in a northeast-southwest direction; and at one point along that fault was a large volume where numerous boulders of quartz, probably washed to this spot by some ancient river, were imbedded in the limestone. Here the Leaders, or enough of them to transact business, could always be found. Pentong greeted them, received the acknowledgment, and began his report without preamble.
“About five thousand miles to the south,” he said, “the continental mass in which this city is located narrows apparently to a point. The earthquake zone extends to this point, and seeing is good; but echoes tend to be confusing in some regions, and I explored many of these by touch. In one such area I found a long tongue of sandstone extending yet farther south; and after debating whether I should return to report its existence before venturing out along it, I decided it would be better to have something more complete to report. It was almost like traveling through a stratum which has been cut off on opposite sides by parallel dikes; but the sides this time were simply emptiness. There was no zone of death, however, apparently the tongue of rock is surrounded by what Derrell the Thinker called ocean, which seems to protect the upper regions of portions of the continents. Below, of course, was basalt.
“The neck of rock went on, seemingly without end. Sometimes it widened, sometimes narrowed so that I thought it had come to an end; but it always went on. Those who claim the continents are drifting will have to explain how that narrow ridge of stone has stayed intact.
“At last, however, it really widened; and to make short a report whose data was long in compiling, there is a continent at the other end—and I could find no trace of other than lower animals in that continent. That, however, is not its most important feature; what is really striking is the fact that it appears to have no Zone of Death whatever. It is covered with a solid material, which seems to be crystalline from the way it carries sound, but which is impenetrable to living bodies. The continent is inhabitable from top to bottom.”
“How about edible rock?”
“As good or better than our own land.” The Leaders reacted audibly to this, and it was some time before speech was again directed at the explorer. Then, as he had expected, it was complimentary.
“Pentong, you deserve the thanks of every inhabitant of this continent. If your report is as accurate as it seems to be objective, our food problem is solved for generations to come. We will transmit this news to the other cities, and plans for colonizing the new continent will be worked out as rapidly as may be. Your name will be known from here to the Northern Frontier.”
For a moment the explorer basked in the praise that was the deepest need of his kind; then he spoke again, with a delicious thrill of anticipation.
“Leaders, there is yet more, if I may speak.” Cracklings of surprise spread from the boulder-shot area, and the nearer citizens paused in their activities to learn what went on.
“Speak.”
“I was curious as to the nature of this solid which seemed as impenetrable as basalt, and strove to learn more about it. For a long time I made no progress; but at last I came to an earthquake zone, in which magma had risen very near the upper levels. About this point the strange substance was thinner; and while investigating the neighborhood, a pocket of magma broke through the Outer Void. This I could tell, partly because of the good seeing, and partly because I could feel the heat working down from the thin layers above.” He paused.
“This has occurred before,” commented one of the Leaders. “What did it teach you?”
“Where the magma spread, the solid disappeared—and became like the ocean!” Pentong stopped again, for purely rhetorical reasons—he knew there would be no interruption this time.
“As you all remember, Derrell the Thinker showed that ocean was a substance, apparently liquid like magma; he studied its sound-transmitting properties, and described them well. I heard his lecture, and examined the substance myself on several occasions. This crystalline sheath of the Southern Continent is simply solid ocean; it melted just as rock does when the magma reached it.” Again the pause, and this time the Leaders conferred briefly.
“Your point is of extreme scientific interest,” their spokesman finally said, “but we admit we do not see practical importance for it as yet. We gather from your manner that you do; if you would go on——” he left the sentence unfinished.
“My point is simple. Ocean protects rock from the oxygen, which filters down from the Void and kills those exposed to it—sometimes even renders rock poisonous. Much of our continent is protected by ocean, but much is not, and its upper layers are therefore unattainable. This solid ocean melts very easily, as I could see on the Southern Continent; and the continent seems to be covered with it to a depth of more than a mile, on the average. It may seem an ambitious project, but if that continent were to be heated enough to melt its ocean covering, would not it add to the ocean over the rest of the world and thus cover more of our continent?”
For long moments no answer came; Pentong could not tell whether the Leaders were actually considering the problem objectively or reacting emotionally to his admittedly audacious suggestion. The first response was in the form of a question.
“Just why should this material blanket the continents instead of remaining more or less where it is? You seem to be taking a good deal for granted.”
“I realize that the behavior of liquids such as magma and ocean out in the Void is not generally known,” responded Pentong. “However, there exists a good deal of observation which strongly suggests that magma, at least, tends to spread out over the surface of the Earth when released to the Void. I admit that further observation would be needed to prove that ocean does the same—but is it not already doing just that? It seems reasonable to suppose that the liquid ocean has spread as far as its quantity permits; if we add more, it should spread farther. Let us at least check this point; I can show the way, or for that matter describe it, to the Southern Continent, and the necessary experiments could be conducted by a small group.”
* * *
The news of the Pentong project took some time to reach Derrell the Thinker. There were several reasons for this; for one, he was located thousands of miles from the city under the Gulf of Mexico where Pentong had made his report, and for another he was in the midst of a battlefield. The latter fact was not at once evident; the only sights and sounds—the two were identical to Derrell, whose only long-range sense reacted to shock waves in the earth’s crust—were those emitted from the earthquake belt to the south and west. He himself was focusing his entire attention on a matter unconnected with the battle; but at least half of his research crew had their fluid bodies extended and joined into a single net that surrounded the entire area of the experiment. It was hoped that none of the savages from the Asian mainland would get through the net without touching one of its strands and betraying their presence.
