“Miriam felt metal several kilometers in front of her, and the others now agree. They say it’s a large amount, and are sure they could not themselves be felt by another Habra at that distance. They will go no closer until they get your word, Hugh, in case you want to take the aircraft there before they themselves are sensed.”
“We thought of that,” agreed the Erthuma, “but couldn’t see what to do afterward. No, let’s follow Walt’s idea. Let the Habras approach the metal in single line, one far enough behind the next so they can just sense and talk to each other. You Crotonites will follow in the same direction as best you can with your lights out, and I’ll bring up the rear, well to one side, also dark. Whoever is in the lead look for signs of other living beings — Habras. of course, but any others he or she can infer from whatever they sense. If none are detected by the time the leader reaches the object, whatever it is, pass the message and any description back along the line to me as quickly as possible and we’ll come forward to look it over. If anyone living is detected, or any sort of trouble or danger shows up, relay the word back and I’ll be up there with all my lights going three seconds after I get it. That’s why I’ll be staying to one side; I don’t want to run into any of you. But if any emergency message does come through, turn your own lights on again, too, so I’ll be more certain to miss you. All right?”
“All right.” agreed the Crotonite. “It will take several minutes to get your words up to the nearest Habra. I’ll send a double-double flash when that’s done, and you can then be ready for more messages.”
All three of the flier’s occupants were now in the control section, the Erthumoi hunched over the panels, the Naxian behind them partly coiled but reared up enough to see through the windows. The autopilot was now cut out horizontally so that they were drifting slowly with the wind, and Hugh’s fingers were ready to move them in any direction at any speed. Janice’s hands were at the light controls. All three pairs of eyes were looking outside; the interior lights of the flier had been extinguished long before, though she had cut in small riding lights to let any of their companions find the vehicle.
The minutes dragged on. Hugh, realizing from a glance at the tracker that the breeze was drifting them into line behind his crew, gave a brief kick of power to send them five hundred meters to the right. He was almost ready to repeat the maneuver when the promised double flashes of light finally came and he realized that the real wait was only beginning.
He was wrong. Scarcely thirty seconds later a second, blindingly bright blaze came from beyond the crags ahead. It lasted several seconds, lighting up the sky, drowning the stars, and showing eight black spots in silhouette against the suddenly glowing background. One of these was just identifiable as a Crotonite form; the others were presumably the rest of the crew, too distant to see in detail. Hugh did not wait for any other signal.
He sent the aircraft hurtling toward the flash, grateful that the single glimpse of his people allowed him to be sure of missing them all. He had no weapons, and nothing he could have improvised as a weapon other than the craft itself; he wasn’t thinking weapons or deliberate violence; but he was used to accidents, and he intended to place his hull between his people and whatever had produced the flash. It was too bad that Janice was there, it occurred to him later, but he told himself firmly that she was an adult, had come along willingly, and he might have needed her help. He hoped the Naxian would not be a nuisance; he had no idea how any of that race might be expected to face personal risk — had never been sure that S’Nash had regarded the earlier blowing-away episode as risky — and had no time to find out now. This also failed to reach his conscious mind until later.
He did not use full speed, since he had to keep some awareness of how far he was going. He passed the farthest forward of his Habeas in some five seconds, seeing the being easily now that Janice had turned their search and landing lights on full. In five more he brought the vessel to a halt, and his wife swept the air around and the ice below with her beams.
The air was empty, but there was a cloud of dust or steam or both rising from the ground almost straight ahead of them and another two kilometers or so away. Hugh nosed down and headed rapidly toward it without consulting either of his companions, and brought the machine to a halt a hundred meters above the ice.
Whether what they saw was a menace or not was hard to decide at once. Steam was still rising from the extremely flat floor of a crater some thirty meters across and five deep. Beside the pit at a distance of less than twenty meters was a square metal structure about fifteen meters on a side and three high, as featureless as a food box and apparently undamaged. There was no motion in the vicinity but the rising steam — more probably fog, Hugh corrected his thought. The flat bottom of the pit was probably liquid water, at least for the moment. Whether energy was still being released to keep it that way was not yet obvious.
Something had exploded, just as his Habras had started to approach the building.
Hugh had a very low opinion of coincidence, backed by the Erthumoi tendency to recognize it when it wasn’t there.
He spent no more time examining building or crater, but lifted and swung back toward his people. In a few seconds the natives became visible, no longer strung out in a line; they had either never finished that maneuver or had had time to get back together since the blast. Distant, flashing lights showed that the Crotonites were also still in the air, and Hugh hung where he was, hatch open, waiting for the group to reach him.
This took several minutes, as even the nearest Crotonite had been a dozen kilometers or more away. They still lacked room for everyone aboard, so the aircraft was landed and its riders emerged as the winged members of the party settled around them.
“Is everyone all right?”
“We’re getting our sight back slowly,” replied Miriam. “The flash completely blinded all of us; we were flying on electrical sense for minutes, but could see your lights by the time you came back toward us. Do you know what happened?”
“What about you others?” Hugh asked the Crotonites, putting first things first without intending discourtesy. “Do you have alternate flying senses, too, or were you far enough away to avoid being blinded?”
“It wasn’t so much distance as having a hill in the way,” replied Rekchellet. “I suppose that was a booby trap. I still don’t like that (no-symbol-equivalent).”
“We don’t know yet. There’s a building, apparently undamaged, beside what looks like an explosion crater. I was going to suggest we look it over, but your idea makes me wonder if that’s a good idea. I wouldn’t have thought of traps, myself — at least, not really nasty ones like that.”
“I’ve met Erthumoi who were less civilized,” muttered another Crotonite voice.
“I’m sure you have. But what do we do? Ordinarily I’d have searched that building for survivors of the explosion, as normal procedure. Now I’m not so sure I want to go near it, and I certainly can’t let any of you approach it until I’ve…”
“I can. It’s my business,” snapped Rekchellet.
“It’s my business. I’m talking responsibility, not revenge, if that’s what you have in mind. Reekess, is there any use in my arguing about this? Is it just Rekchellet, or am I bucking general Crotonite ethics? Shut up, Rek. I trust you, but you’re excited, and just as likely to be sure you’re right as I would be. Reekess?”
“He has the right, by custom.”
“Even if we’re not sure Ennissee had anything to do with all this?”
“The probability is good enough.”
“All right. Get aboard, Rek. You and S’Nash stay here, Jan — no,” as his wife was about to object, “it’s quite a walk from here. I’ll fly us over to within a couple of hundred meters, set down, and you take the flier back — remember the others don’t have recycling gear, and all the food is in it.”