Janice thought it a great idea, though there were many small specimens yet to be dated. Barrar made no fuss this time about a few minutes of flier use; both had rather expected this after recent events. Most unfortunately there was no chance to dejuice themselves; inspection of the Pits was still important, and no one else could yet do it. Hugh, exasperated, had a long conversation with Ted, who seemed to know the people working on the Habra cold protection problem. He got some encouragement, but no assurance of any immediate solution. The Erthumoi decided to take the break anyway.
Third-Supply-Watcher flew them out to the truck, which was still where they had abandoned it, let them off, and waited until they had powered it up and signaled that everything was in working order. The Locrian promptly departed, and the couple began setting up the controls.
It was some time later, with the vehicle well on its way back to Pitville, that an object in the living quarters caught Hugh’s eye.
“That’s the tech supplementary translator we found before, when we hoped to figure who the Erthuma on board might be. Remember that one I told you about, who claims to be from Earth? She probably is. One of the modules seemed to be an Old Planet language.”
“Is it still there?” asked his wife, not greatly interested.
“I suppose so. The unit is. We took the modules out to examine, and then — Hmph. I don’t remember. Let’s see.”
Hugh opened the device. Apparently whoever had been holding the modules when the line of activity had swerved had felt that the best place to put them down was back in their own sockets; they were indeed there. Hugh extracted them, one by one, checking the symbols and nodding slowly, putting each back before extracting the next.
“This is it,” he said at last. “Do you know what it is?”
“No. Like you, I’d guess it’s Mother Planet. Shall we take them with us when we get back, and try to find out?”
“Strictly speaking, we have no business doing anything of the sort. They’re not our property.”
“They’re probably Ennissee’s,” the woman pointed out.
“If either of us were Rekchellet. that would probably be an excuse. Tell you what. We’ll write down the ident code, and call the Guild office when we get back. We might even want a copy of that module; couldn’t you use some information from that Erthuma on collection details? Ged said that one of them usually went with Ennissee in the mole, and you were worried about some of the sample labels. They weren’t helpful out at the site, but maybe talking to them without Ged around would be different.”
“We could ask Ennissee himself.”
“We could, but I’d rather not, for several reasons.
The way he treated Rek is only one, though it’s the basis of the others, I suppose. I know Rek plans to find him and settle matters…”
“You mean a duel or something like that?”
“I don’t think so. Crotonites are civilized. He wants revenge, but not violence; he wants to embarrass the fellow. It will complicate things for Rek if he finds us dealing on friendly terms with his enemy, and maybe complicate his feelings for us.”
“I think he’s safely our friend now, regardless. He’s known us a long time, and makes allowances of all sorts for our being crawlers and Erthumoi.”
“You may be right, but let’s not strain it. We’ll try those Erthumoi assistants first, until Rek finishes his business; after all, he may get the knowledge we want. Making Ennissee come crawling to us with information would be a very satisfactory revenge, I suspect.”
“So you said before. All right, let’s get in touch with this Chen person.”
Nothing further relevant to the problem occurred on the way back to Pitville, and with the truck parked by the still undisturbed Habra corpse they went to Hugh’s office.
The Guild was able to help them. Mahare Chen was indeed, according to their records, a native of Earth, and the office had translator modules of her language. If Explorer Cedar would load his communicator appropriately, a duplicate would be transmitted for his own unit at once. A Falgite module would be provided for Engineer Chen, and the office would attempt to locate her, deliver the module, and request that she make contact with Explorer or Chemist Cedar at Pitville. No trouble.
Janice went back to her lab. Hugh called Ged and tactfully tried to find out what progress had been made on his article, especially in the matter of getting information from Ennissee. The Samian replied ruefully that he had had no time for either the article or Ennissee, that some of Spreadsheet-Thinker’s chart sections needed serious modification, and that he hoped Hugh would not need fliers or large numbers of people for the next few Common Days. Hugh promised to do his best but mentioned the intrinsic nature of his job. It sometimes called for— “I had noticed that,” interrupted Barrar, and ended the conversation. Again, Hugh found himself wondering unhappily how much of what he had been told could be believed, and intensely disliking the sensation.
S’Nash came in, and Hugh wondered whether the Naxian had sensed his emotions from outside. Janice’s theory, which she had not yet explained in detail, implied that the beings had to see the subject of their analysis. She was not, however, sure of this and Hugh was even less so. S’Nash seemed to turn up very often when it/he could be of help; maybe people broadcast, something more subtle than a visual image.
It was nearly two more hours, and the Naxian was still in the office being useful, before Mahare Chen returned his call. It was five minutes after he had started talking to her, just after Janice had also come in, that he discovered with shock what the words “Palaksee” and “Pill-dahn” meant, and decided with relief that he could probably trust the Samian after all.
Ennissee, however was another problem. Hugh could only hope that he was safely immobilized.
And S’Nash was still another, but he tried to put this out of his mind for the moment.
Hugh asked several more questions, which Chen answered, but sometimes rather hesitantly.
“Are Jayree and I in trouble?” she asked bluntly, after one of them. Hugh shrugged.
“Not with the Guild, as far as I’m concerned. Most of your work for Ennissee was legitimate. All anyone could object to is this joke, if that’s what it was. If your consciences bother you, tell the story to Rekchellet. He should be very much on your side.”
“We thought it would affect only a few Crotonites who didn’t seem to be flying with both wings and were about ready for a correspondence course in astrology anyway. And the pay was good,” she added.
“If you mean extra pay for the joke, that should have warned you of something. Never mind, though; we’ll try to calm down the rest of the population. I suggest you stay around Pwanpwan, or leave a very specific forwarding address if work takes you elsewhere. It will make a much nicer picture with the Guild than disappearing, and I’m sure Rek will be delighted to take your side if any Trueliners get indignant about your telling me the story. I don’t suppose there are many of them on Habranha anyway, and you could make Ennissee look pretty foolish among the ordinary Crotonites if he tried to make trouble for you.”
The woman still looked slightly uneasy, but admitted that Hugh was probably right. He hoped her trouble was conscience, but couldn’t be sure under the circumstances that she had one.
He was about to break the connection when another thought struck him.
“You might get a lot more people on your side,” he pointed out, “if you and your friend helped reconstruct that mole. You must know a good deal about it, and I know at least one person who is already very upset about what happened to it, and is going to be a lot more so when he finds out about the faking. You know him, too; it’s the Samian who was out there with you.”