“Can you tell us more about this seismic project?” she keyed. “Is it set up anywhere near here, o haven’t they actually started work yet?”
S’Nash had no chance to respond. The wind had been rising ever since their arrival, making it progressively more difficult for the Crotonite to stay on the ground even with his wings tightly folded. Now a sudden gust lifted him off the snow, and he had to spread and flap frantically for control. The Erthumoi merely staggered, but S’Nash’s serpentine form was snatched out of sight, moving as frantically as the Crotonite but far less effectively. Habranha’s air was dense, but not dense enough for swimming while it was gaseous.
Hugh had thought of this problem not very long ago, he told himself bitterly. Unfortunately, he had not thought of a solution. Nevertheless, he could try….
“Rek!” he keyed, with his sounder at full volume. S’Nash has blown away! Are you in control, and can you hear me?”
The answer, barely audible over the wind and through the impedance-matching equipment in Hugh’s armor, was encouraging if not courteous. The last question would have been put first by a rational being. Of course I’m in control.”
“Can you see S’Nash?”
“No. It/he either has hit the surface again and dug in for stability, or is at least under the blowing snow layer.”
“But you can estimate something. You can certainly tell which way the wind is blowing.”
“Which way, easily. How fast, never.”
“Toward the town? Will the buildings provide shelter for him — for it/him?”
“No, fortunately. They’d…” the translated voice died out in the howl of the wind, which was still counting. Hugh had to reason out for himself why Rekchellet considered it lucky that S’Nash was not blowing toward the buildings, which were not made of loose snow.
At least, he told himself, time would be no problem; the Naxian had been wearing full-recycling environment gear. As long as the armor itself suffered no injury, of course; the memory of the Pit event a few hours before was not encouraging. Still, the present temperature was well above that of liquid air.
But well below that of freezing water. S’Nash had better not blow into anything much harder than a snow hill.
Hugh had radio equipment of a sort, since he had to talk to Habras. He didn’t like to use it since he lacked the Habra senses which went with its use. The natives could detect each other at up to three or four kilometers, and their radio “voices” were varied in volume according to need. Hugh lacked the electrical senses and had no way of knowing whether his transmitting volume was uselessly weak or painfully loud unless he could see the other participant in the conversation. Trial and error was seldom satisfactory and sometimes uncomfortable for the natives when Erthumoi impatience or Habranhan occupation delayed an answer until after the next trial.
There were no Habras in sight at the moment, however, and the safety chief faced what might be a life-and-death problem. He had spent a good part of his life in exploration; he was used to making quick decisions. More to the point, though he wasted no time in self-congratulation, he had foreseen that problems of this sort might come up and made preparations.
He turned the transmitter of his Habra communicator to maximum volume for a moment and uttered a single syllable which any of his native safety crew would understand; then he promptly brought the output back to a level appropriate for conversation at a hundred meters, set his receiver to maximum sensitivity, and waited.
It seemed far longer, but within two minutes he heard a faint Habra voice. He began repeating the alarm symbol at intervals of a few seconds, very slowly increasing his volume again, and at the third repetition received a welcome response.
“I sense you, Hugh. What’s the trouble?”
Even by code, it took only a few seconds to get the main details across.
“All right. We see Rekchellet. The Naxian is presumably somewhere between you and him. I assume it’s wearing armor.”
“Yes. Full-recycling, plenty of metal and electrical gear. You should spot it easily.”
“There’s a lot of static being set up by the blowing snow, but if the armor is good we shouldn’t have to hurry. Shall we bring it back to your location, or into the settlement?”
“Whichever it/he wants. Jan and I will start back now. The work here is done.”
Characteristically, the Habra didn’t bother to ask what the work might have been; though most of the species had a powerful curiosity drive and culturally had little grasp of the privacy concept, there was a job to be done.
The Erthumoi were more than content to leave the others to do it, worried as Hugh was about S’Nash. The gale was still rising, and it was becoming hard to stay on their feet. The layer of wind-borne ice dust was growing deeper, and orientation was becoming harder; only occasional glimpses of Fafnir could be obtained, and they could no longer identify the big waste pile with certainty. Horizontal vision was down to a few meters, and smaller dunes were forming and moving, not as fast as the couple could walk, but quite fast enough to make the surroundings confusing.
Finally, sure that at least one of his safety workers would be nearby above the drift, Hugh felt compelled to call again.
“Ted, or whoever is there, can you tell us which way we’re going, and whether it’s toward the town?”
“This is Switch,” came the prompt answer. “I’ve not been watching you closely. Move on a bit; I’ll try to correct your course when I know what it is.”
“Thanks. Just a minute.” Hugh connected his armor with his wife’s, using a five-meter safety line. She went ahead and he followed, keeping the line taut. “Our heading should show now,” he keyed.
“It does. If you make no change in direction, you will be among buildings in half a kilometer; if you swerve a sixth to the right, you will reach them even sooner.” Fortunately, Hugh knew Habra direction concepts well enough to know that the “sixth” which came through as a pure number meant a sixth of a right angle, and moved a short distance to his left to correct Janice’s aim.
“Thanks. Any luck with S’Nash?” he asked.
“Not yet. We suspect it had a chance to dig in, and took it. It seems likely that this would have happened as soon as it could manage after being blown away. Rekchellet has told us where this occurred, and we are starting a more careful examination of the ground from there. If the wind would drop, there would be little trouble, but snow blowing against snow creates much friction fog. Wait a moment.” There was a pause of several seconds in Switch’s communication. “We think we have found it, dug in as I suggested. We can’t do anything on the ground ourselves in this wind; neither can Rekchellet. Does the Naxian have Habra communication? It makes no answer to our calls.”
“I’d think it/he would, but I don’t know for certain, It/he may be hurt. Can you guide us to the place?”
“Yes, easily. Simply head directly to your left. There will have to be correction as you near the spot, but that will suffice for now. The distance is only about three hundred meters.”
As it turned out, Switch had underestimated the difficulty of keeping the pair of Erthumoi aimed properly, and heading corrections were frequent, especially as they neared the burial site and forgot repeatedly to keep their line taut. Once there, however, actually finding the suit of armor was simple enough. Janice began calling the Naxian by code, but got no response; either the snow was muffling the sound, the wind was drowning it, or S’Nash was indeed in trouble. Hugh remembered the drastic steps taken a few hours ago in the Pit, and began to worry again even though he knew that the present ambient temperature was far above that of liquid air.