The man bent and looked. "I don't see it. What do you mean?''

  Rissa's smile didn't look very relaxed. "It is a thing I have seen, in swamps, on another world I have visited. Under a little

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  water, when that water comes and goes with time, animal trails retain their firmness and can be utilized." She turned, "Briefly, only, for this day, let us explore." And she began wading again. It was fun at first, following Rissa and hearing Trent slosh along behind. With the sun at the horizon to one side, the slanting light outlined everything Lisele saw. But then, almost like someone ducking under water, the sun went away-leaving only sky glow, grey water, and a whitish moon that hung low where the sun had gone. Lisele faltered. "Are we going much farther?"

  Ahead, Rissa turned and came back. "No. In fact we had best move quickly, while the light holds." In passing she gave Lisele a quick handclasp; in turn the two moved past Hagen Trent, who again brought up the rear. Slower now, they moved along the underwater path.

  Squinting ahead in the dim light, Lisele looked for the scoutship-tipped over or not, it was still home. For a long time she couldn't see it, and peering ahead so much, twice she missed her step and floundered in mud to her waist before someone caught her wrist and pulled her up again. Feeling ashamed, each time she said, "Sorry. Thanks," and made up her mind to watch closer.

  But she didn't see the thing leap out of the water. From her left came a big splash that knocked her down, then the huge grey beast loomed-but it fell short, and made a greater splash. When she stood and could breathe again, snorting water out, she saw only the splash-waves spreading.

  Only Trent had kept his feet; now he put away his unfired gun and helped Rissa up. Sputtering, mud-covered, she tried to wipe slime from her face. Her hair hung sodden, clotted with mud. She spit out swamp water, and said, "Thanks, Trent. What was that creature?"

  Lisele, fingers trying to comb mud from her own hair, shook her head. Hagen Trent said, "It's like nothing I ever heard of. Big, certainly-I'd guess three meters long and a half-meter thick-" He raised his brows and Rissa nodded. "What I thought I saw, in this dim light-hadn't we better get moving again?" Rissa turned and began walking; the others followed. Lisele spoke. "What did you see?" Trent hesitated. "Only an instant, I saw it head-on. I expected a huge gaping maw, lots of teeth. But instead there were-I think there were-a lot of sucker mouths, all grouped at the snout."

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  Over her shoulder, Rissa said, "It is some sort of huge leech?"

  "In its way of feeding, yes. If the light didn't fool me." Even in the heat, Liseie shivered. Walking, careful to follow Rissa exactly, she peered from side to side. But no monster appeared, and soon they reached the scout.

  In the airlock, standing above the intruding water, they tried to get some of the mud off themselves. The stuff hardened quickly, to a damp rubbery toughness that clung. She could work lumps of it loose, Liseie found, but still a thin layer coated her skin.

  And as it dried, it began to make her itch.

  Pulling at the heavy globs caught in her hair, Rissa muttered a curse. Liseie said, "What's the matter? The mud'll wash out."

  Rissa gave a snort. "Wash out? How? The shower is horizontal, with the drain halfway up one wall." She shrugged. "Oh, we will improvise something-but it will take some thought, to do so in a way that will still conserve our water." Now Rissa sighed. "And each extra effort we must make, to cope with these conditions, slows our real task-which is to get ourselves out of this place." Rissa started toward the control cabin. Following, Liseie didn't say anything.

  First they told Tregare what the outside was like, and about the water beast. Liseie mentioned the white moon, and Tregare said, "If it's the synchronous one, we can sight on it and fix our location."

  Then they talked about the mud.

  The shower wasn't too much of a problem; with the stall's door now on top, they didn't have to do any cutting or welding. Tregare had the answer to draining and recycling; Rissa arranged a spare fuel pump unit and some hose, from emergency stock, to suck water from the stall's bottom corner into the drain. Hagen Trent wired power to the pump, and broke a thumbnail getting the drain's grill out so the hose could go in past the first bend that pointed down.

  Still, the result wasn't a total success. Even pointing the spray up pretty well, people had to squat or kneel or go on hands and knees to use it. Scrubbing wasn't easy, unless someone else was there to help, and the mud took a lot of scrubbing. Even on skin, let alone trying to get it out of hair.

  Kneeling, Rissa worked at Liseie's hair-painfully, but

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  hearing Rissa mutter, Lisele didn't feel like complaining. Finally Rissa said, "Oh, this is impossible!" and turned the water off. Not bothering to dry, Rissa pawed through the jamble of a wall cabinet that lay on its side. She picked up, then discarded, a pair of scissors. "Altogether too much work." Next an electric trimmer; she pushed the button and the thing buzzed. Huning the adjustment dial, she motioned Lisele to sit. "We will not mind looking a little funny, will we? Because the mud will not allow us the luxury of looking any other way."

  Following Rissa toward Control, Lisele thought that her mother's ears weren't really all that big. But with no hair to frame them, only stubble you could hardly see, they did seem to stand out a lot. She supposed her own ears did, too, now.

  Seeing the two of them, Tregare's eyes went wide. "Peace take me-why!" He shook his head. "Couldn't you have just washed that gloop out?"

  Rissa's voice held a sharp edge. "Over a matter of hours, perhaps. And how many times, working outdoors in that slippery mess, would we need to repeat the tiresome process? Saying nothing, as yet, of the problem if we must leave here and travel on foot."

  Tregare looked stubborn. "A plastic hood, you could wear."

  "Not in the heat of day. Even clothing may be too much. No." Her eyes narrowed. "Bran, I do not make decisions lightly."

  Tregare and Rissa hardly ever got mad at each other; now they were, and Lisele didn't like it. Quickly she said what Rissa had told her about looking funny, and the luxury part, and all. "I don't mind looking funny," she finished, "so what's so important?"

  Tregare glowered, and at first she thought he was going to say something loud, but then the expression broke. "All right, prin­cess. Rissa, you win." He touched his own black, curly hair. "And I guess the rest of us need shearing, too, to work outside any."

  "It would appear so." Rissa's voice stilL sounded chilly.

  "Okay," said Tregare. "I'm at a disadvantage, though." Lisele waited, and he said, "You two, you have pretty-shaped skulls. Me, though-I remember from my year as a snotty, at the Slaughter­house." He meant, Lisele knew, UET's old Space Academy.

  "I had the lumpiest head in the whole peace-forsaken place!"

  Rissa and Tregare didn't stay sore at each other, because that night when Lisele was barely asleep, from the far side of the console Rissa's cries woke her again. And they never did that

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  unless they felt good together. So Lisele smiled, and as soon as things quieted again, she went back to sleep.

  Next morning she woke to hear their voices. "-as worried as you are, Bran! Renalle, poor infant! How can she know why I do not come to her? But I cannot, so Ellalee will simply have to do her best. And at least, the child is weaned."

  "Rissa-you sure this isn't bothering you, more than you let on?"

  "Of course it is! But brooding on the matter will do no good, when there is so much else we must plan and do. So, please, Bran-" Then they were quiet, and pretty soon it was time to get up and eat.

  A little later, Lisele went outside with Rissa and Trent and the two Shrakken, to have a better look at how the scoutship lay. What with the mud and heat, they didn't wear any clothes except foot-protectors. Hagen Trent's head wasn't sheared; he said that while they stayed with the scout, he got to keep what was left of his hair until it came up full of mud. "And it's not fair to trip me!" Hairless by nature, the Shrakken didn't have the problem.

  Mud covered most of the scoutship's nose. "The projector turret," Rissa said, "must be nearly two meters under," and Trent nodded. "But the antenna systems-how far buried?" Leaving the Shrakken to probe that area, the two went back inside. Lisele, standing on a solid hummock, studied the swamp around her. She stood in shade; even early in the day, the sun shone hot.

  The trees looked strange. The smaller ones grew straight up from mud or water, the trunks rising several meters before branching. She noticed something; there were three branches, or five, or seven. Always an odd number, always slanting steeply upward. And there the main trunk stopped; above, each branch divided in the same way. She thought about it, then shrugged; a lot of things happened, that she didn't understand, that made no difference either way.

  The leaves weren't anything special; if she'd seen them on Earth she wouldn't have noticed they hadn't grown there. But the trunks-as a tree grew bigger, it put out branching roots from above the water, down into the swamp. Then-looking around, she could see the various stages-the original, central root dwindled and rotted away. The biggest trees stood on spider legs, with nothing under the main trunk.

  She ought to make notes, she thought-this stuff might be

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  good for a term paper when she got back to the Junior U. But she didn't have anything with her, to write on.

  Rissa and Trent came outside again. Each carried a crude shovel, and on the tools Lisele saw fresh weld marks. "You made those, just now?"

  Smiling, Trent nodded. "Rissa said we need some digging done, so I rousted material out from ship's stock and took the torch to it." He held his shovel up. "Like it? Want to do some digging?"

  Lisele shook her head. "Too heavy for me, looks like."

  Rissa went over and spoke to Stonzai and Sevshen, who were cautiously pawing mud away from one area of the scout's nose. She gave Stonzai her shovel, and Trent handed his to Sevshen. Still carefully, the two Shrakken began to dig. "Now," said Rissa, "let us appraise the lie of this- vessel, how it balances." One hand touching the scout's hull, she picked her way among the hummocks, back from the airlock toward the drive nodes. Trent and Lisele followed.

  About halfway, Rissa paused and pointed. "Close, this, to our center of gravity-the pivot point. And note the crushed and splintered wood, quite a mass of it, protruding from under the scout, just forward of us. It might be possible-" Then she moved on.

  Trying to hurry, Lisele slipped, and scrabbled up out of the mud. "What might be possible?"

  Trent reached to catch her before she slipped again. "To tilt the scout, Lisele. Enough to free the nose and extend the antennas. Or maybe-no, I'm not that much of a mindreader."

  At the scout's tail, Rissa stopped and the other two caught up. This end was a good three meters above ground or water- partly due to the hull's taper. "This section, though," said Rissa, "is the heavier." Trent seemed to know what she was talking about, so Lisele kept quiet. "But already the drive fills most of it. What else could be moved back? Or unloaded altogether?"

  Trent frowned. "If you'd tell me just what you're planning, maybe I could help." She didn't speak; he touched her shoulder. "Come on, say it-what is it you're thinking to dare?"

  Lisele saw her mother relax. "Why, perhaps merely to free the nose, so we could call for help without rigging new antennas in the trees. Or possibly-if we could get even a slight upward tilt-" Her breath came shuddering. "There is a chance that I could lift us."

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  She shrugged. "Or, of course, kill us all in the trying." And Liseie wondered how her mother's face, her strange new face that no longer stopped at the forehead, could look so calm while she said those words.

  Near sun's noon they all went inside. Without the complica­tions of clothes or hair, cleaning up didn't take so long; then, clothed except for the Shrakken, everybody gathered in Control. Trent had installed a cooking unit down near the control console and Rissa had stocked some food there; now Tregare, up and about on plastic crutches, surprised them with lunch cooked and ready. Her father, Liseie thought, wasn't the greatest cook she knew-but still she had seconds.

  Rissa had made coffee; Liseie got up to pour it, remembering that Stoiszai liked coffee but Sevshen refused to sample it. Then she sat again, as Tregare said, "Well, Rissa-how do our prospects look?"

  Rissa looked up from her plate. "If we try to tilt the scout, there is a fulcrum of sorts, barely forward of our center of gravity. A mass of crushed timber. Not entirely solid, most likely, but-"

  "Better than trying to pivot on a sea of mud," said Tregare.

  "Yes." Rissa nodded. "My thought, now, is that a little planning may save much work, in affecting this vessel's balance. One kilo moved from nose to tail will have more effect than ten moved some short distance. And many things will be best off-loaded, since space behind is so limited."

  "Yeah, right," Tregare said, scowling but not looking angry, and named some items that could be moved. "Hell of a job, with everything lying sideways. How's the digging going, by the way?"

  Stonzai had begun climbing to the deck hatch; she paused, and motioned to Hagen Trent. He said, "Our Shrakken friends have been doing most of it, so far. No sign of the antennas yet. The trouble is, we know the two sets are 180° apart, and how far back, but nobody remembers their orientation-with respect to the airlock, say. I wish to hell we had some blueprints."

  Tregare grinned. "We have them, all right. ob the Deux."

  Loading a tray for Jenise Rorvik, Rissa turned to head off Trent's protest. "Aboard here we have the manuals and drawings needed to operate or repair this craft. Since scoutships normally function above the surface, it never occurred to anyone that we might need help in locating our own antenna systems."

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  After a moment, he laughed. "Yes, of course. AH right, the word is dig. I think I'll go out and have a turn at it."

  As he left, Rissa started up toward the deck hatch. She was having trouble, Lisele saw, climbing and balancing the tray at the same time. "Can I help?" And without waiting for an answer, Lisele scrambled up past her mother; from there, one climbed while the other held the tray. At the third exchange they reached the hatch.

  Jenise Rorvik, lying with her injured arm across her chest, didn't look good. Her head moved slowly back and forth; her eyes stared upward. Rissa put a hand to the woman's forehead. "Fever­ish. Jenise.. .can you hear me?" At least the exposed fingers, sticking out the end of the cast, hadn't begun to turn dark.

  Jenise blinked; her head stopped moving and her eyes seemed to focus. "I think I'm better. Hungry, even. If it didn't hurt so-"

  Rissa checked the time. "Yes. You are overdue for an injection. Just a moment." The medical kit lay on the bulkhead, in a corner; from it, Rissa brought an ampoule and spray can. She sprayed Jenise's arm above the cast, and gave her the shot. Then, while Rissa fed the other woman, she told of their situation, and what they hoped to do about it.

  Only then did Jenise register then- changed appearance. "Your hair! What happened?" Rissa explained, and Rorvik's good hand went to her own sweat-soaked hair. "I'm so hot-this fever. I'd be joining the fashion soon, anyway, I guess; why don't you do it now?" So Lisele fetched the trimmer and Rissa did the job quickly. One of Jenise's ears stuck out more than the other, but Lisele didn't mention it.

  Then Rissa helped with the bedpan, and dumped it; as with the shower, the scout's position didn't make things easy. The latrine cubicle was now in a lower corner. Pretty soon, Rissa said, they'd have to take off the top wall and set the toilet upright. Meanwhile, with the pumps working and the lid tight, the thing could be drained without making a mess. The one off Control wasn't set so handily, but could be reached, all right, for bedpan dumping.

  And for those who could go outside, about a hundred meters down the flooded path sat a handy log.

  Starting to leave, Rissa turned back. "Jenise-how soon do you think we can move you? You should not be alone, and yet we can spare no one to stay with you."

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  Rorvik hesitated, "With the shot fresh in me, I could almost take it right now." She moved a little, and winced. "No-not on a full stomach. But next time, maybe. Just so nobody drops me!"

  "We shall be as careful as possible."

  "Sure, I know." Jenise made an odd, lopsided smile. "Truth is, I'll be glad to be out of here. I know the Shrakken are our buddies, and I do like Stonzai, but they give me the willies." Her voice lowered. "Maybe I was delirious. But last night, those two got in the same bed-and Stonzai's the female, but I'd swear she was screwing Sevshen!" She looked at Lisele, and her good hand went to her mouth. "I'm sorry-I shouldn't-"

  "Lisele knows about sex," Rissa said, "as much as she needs to know at this time-and is not embarrassed by it. It has not always been feasible for her to be in a room separate from Tregare and myself." Lisele thought her mother sounded angry, a little, but her face didn't show anything. "And if she did not know, as apparently you do not, that with the Shrakken it is the female ovipositor that enters the male body, then it is time she learned."

 

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