The Erthumoi were rather surprised when they did. A dozen kilometers north of the just completed cache a single empty Crotonite food package was detected just under the ice-dust surface, its material charged differently enough from the surrounding material to reveal it to Habra senses. The discoverer brought it in for detailed examination, assuring Hugh and Janice that nothing could be read from the surrounding surface. If S’Nash felt any skepticism, it/he kept it private.
The interesting part of the container itself was that it bore markings in addition to the machine-impressed label, markings definitely not made by machine, though they were more regular than either of the Erthumoi could have produced by hand.
S’Nash insisted after a glance that they were Crotonite writing in the same language Rekchellet had used in his earlier note. It/he could not read a symbol, but was completely certain of the pattern. Janice was willing to believe it/him; she had already been impressed by the Naxian pattern-analysis ability shown at the point on the road where the truck had stopped. It fit her favorite hypothesis about the way the emotion-reading worked, now all the dearer since the collapse of the one about Locrian deep-sight.
Hugh was less certain, but willing to accept S’Nash’s opinion as a working hypothesis. After a moment’s thought, he took the wrapping outside and carefully placed it under a food carton. When the Crotonite searchers got that far and reported to him, he could tell them where it was and ask for interpretation, meanwhile hoping that the group included someone familiar with Rekchellet’s language. The interpreting devices were designed for oral and to a lesser extent gestured speech, not for writing.
They had reached and were setting up the fourth cache, some two thousand kilometers from Pitville and not yet that close to their putative goal, when the flier’s communicator asked for attention. Janice answered.
“This is Velliah. We have reached the first food cache. We found it with no trouble, and there is plenty of food for all of us. I am sorry to say we found nothing on the way.”
“We may have,” answered the Erthuma. “Under the carton at the west end of the pile you will find the remains of what seems to be an ordinary Crotonite food pack, open and empty. There are marks on it which look to us like Crotonite writing. Would you examine them, tell us whether or not we are right, and if anyone in your group knows the language used, read it to us?”
“Of course. One moment.” There was a pause of only a few seconds. “It is a food package. I can’t read the marks, or for that matter the printed label, but there are universal standard symbols for the contents. I will ask whether any of the group can read it.” The pause was longer this time, and broken by a new voice.
“This is Reekess. I’m not from Takkish, Rekchellet’s hatching world, but I know its written language fairly well; it was colonized only a few hundred years apart from my own. This note is signed by Rekchellet. It says he has no tracker and no useful communicator, that he is extremely hungry and tired, that he knows Habras can find the wrapping and should be able to find him the same way. He will fly as long as he can to keep warm, going straight west by the stars. When he has to stop it will be in a valley to keep from being blown away, so he may be buried. Tell the Habras to scan carefully. That’s not verbatim, but is the sense of it.”
“Nothing about someone named Ennissee?”
“No. Strictly survival matters.”
“All right. Stay there, and stay on the ground. We’re coming back at high speed. We have four Habras on board with us, including the one who found that note. Watch for our lights.”
Janice did not sign off formally; with Hugh at the controls, there would be only a brief pause in the conversation. As the craft roared through the dense air, she brought the natives, who had been too far back in the cabin to hear everything, up to date on the results of their find.
“You found the wrapper because of its charge difference, I suppose, Fibb?” she asked.
“That’s right.”
“Is Rekchellet right in believing you can find him the same way?”
“Probably. I’d doubt it if he were flying, but buried in snow or with snow blowing against him he’d show a bright — I expect your translator will call it ‘color,’ but I’m sure you know that’s not the right symbol.”
“I know. It will have to do. The main thing is that you should be able to detect him.”
“I’d expect to. Very well, he said he’d fly straight west by the stars…”
“Straight west from where? I know where I found the wrapper, but am not at all sure that was where he left it. It could have blown far before being buried.”
“Drat. You’re right, of course. All right, wider pattern and slower search. I hope he’s not too close to starving or freezing.”
“As do we.” The native’s voice offered no suggestion of how much hope he really held. Not even the Habras knew this hemisphere of their planet at all well. As Hugh settled toward the light which marked the cache, all of them seized the opportunity to eat. Food was energy, needed both to travel and to keep warm.
As the air lock opened, Hugh restrained his winged assistants with a gesture and preceded them outside, where a small group of Crotonites waited.
“Is any of this food of yours liquid, or otherwise suitable for someone injured or unconscious?” he asked.
“It’s not liquid, but if you find him unconscious just push a pellet of…” the speaker indicated one of the containers…”this down his throat. It will digest quickly; it’s an aminated carbohydrate — quick energy.”
“There’s no risk of choking him?”
“Why? Oh, I remember — Erthumoi breathing passages are cross-connected with the swallowing channel. It would make one wonder about evolution if it didn’t make one wonder even more about the intelligence of the designer. No, no risk. Have each of your natives take one of these packages. That way…” the speaker gestured…”is west. I can’t guess how far Rekchellet might have flown; even if he were extremely tired and hungry, anger or desperation might have kept him going.”
“My Habras covered the region within forty kilometers of here pretty well at the time Fibb found the note,” Hugh pointed out, “but we don’t know what the weather has done. As Fibb says, the note may not have been where Rekchellet left it, and Rek himself may have had his course affected by wind, though I haven’t seen any signs of a real storm here lately. He had no tracker, remember.”
“Nor have we seen storm signs. But that proves little on this world.”
The natives were off, each carrying a package of restorative, within the minute. After another few minutes’ discussion, it was agreed that the Crotonites would also go aloft and keep somewhere near the Habras, carrying lights. Their translators would allow them to hear the natives’ radio speech, and most of them could understand it after a fashion even without the appropriate language modules— Crotonites had been on Habranha a long time. Hugh and the other two nonfliers took the aircraft aloft and went highest of all, hoping to keep all the lights in sight at once and be able to respond to any positive report.
With Fafnir gone, the landscape looked nearly featureless; the hills, wrinkles, dunes, or whatever one chose to call the irregularities simply didn’t show. The starlight was too nearly uniform to provide any distinct shadows; even clouds and high-blowing snow could not be distinguished from the snow-covered surface. Occasionally some pillar of white powder riding a topography-guided column of dense air — Coriolis force was negligible with Habranha’s slow rotation — would build up enough charge to reveal itself to Naxian and Erthumoi eyes by bolts of lightning. Sometimes there would be several of the whirlwinds in a few hundred square kilometers, some spinning in one direction and some in the other. They might either attract or repel each other, cancel or reinforce when they met. Hugh shook his head slowly as he watched. There were still Habras who hoped to be able to predict their world’s weather patterns in detail.