“No,” he said slowly, “I wouldn’t mind, as long as it stays a — well, a spectator sport. If I ever had reason to suppose I were being manipulated to cause me to have special emotions, or if I got the idea that I had even the most remote resemblance to a gladiator in an arena, I would certainly feel differently.”
“Of course you would. So would I. But no one’s pushing us around. Who could?”
“I don’t know, and hate to sound paranoid. I just can’t help wondering whether everyone associated with us who has caused us anxiety, worry, fear, or their opposites in the last few Habra years, let’s say, has been acting with complete, comprehensible common sense? That they’re not being pushed around?”
“But we can’t expect them to! They’re not all Erthumoi…”
“And only we have common sense?”
“Don’t be silly. You know what I mean. Each race has different ideas of what makes for common sense.”
“Or ethics? Down at the life-risking level?” Janice was silent. So was her husband, for a time, but before they reached the aircraft he keyed out one more notion, or part of one.
“I was wondering how Shefcheeshee got his harness tangled in that thruster. I wish I’d examined it more closely, and not just worked them apart.” Janice said nothing.
Finding the Cephallonian through the Guild office was not too difficult, but starting a conversation once he was found was another matter. The Cedars had worked with Cephallonians before and liked them — Janice, of course, liked everybody. It is, however, awkward to talk to someone from even a very low flying aircraft when the party is swimming, and apparently totally absorbed in doing gymnastics with the wave patterns of a singularly chaotic ocean dotted with ice floes. It is worse when the floes are punctuated by city-sized bergs and a conscientious autopilot insists on moving the aircraft tens of meters with very little warning.
It is not, however, impossible, if one is patient. The porpoiselike swimmer eventually ceased his violent antics and slid out on top of a half-hectare floe, and began to check his environment suit and oxygen supply; the ammonia in Habranha’s sea was a strong irritant to Cephallonian skins, while the one third atmosphere oxygen partial pressure, high enough to be risky to human beings if breathed for too long, was inadequate for the sea folk when they were being really active. The Erthumoi were now able to get his attention. He had not been rude — they knew his kind well enough to be sure of that; he simply hadn’t noticed them. Hugh introduced his wife.
Shefcheeshee was as willing as before to talk at great length about anything connected with the deep-sea fossil project. This time he seemed more upset that no one had yet perfected a diving fluid for his race, so he could not reach the ocean bottom himself. Instead of happy reports, he complained extensively. Hugh wondered whether nothing had been learned from the sea bottom since their last conversation, or Shefcheeshee were simply in a different mood this time. The latter seemed more probable; the mere fact that the Cephallonian remembered everything he had said earlier to one Erthumoi appeared unlikely to stop him from going through it all over again for another.
Neither Janice nor Hugh tried to make suggestions; Habranha’s gravity was feeble, but under five hundred kilometers of water it still produced a hydrostatic pressure of about ten thousand bars. Vessels could be built to resist this, but not so far to let people work through their walls to dig rocks. The Cedars simply listened sympathetically, and eventually the subject matter became more interesting.
Shefcheeshee was as sure as anyone that the Habras were descendants of colonists, not indigenous to the planet, though he lacked strong feeling about the matter. In response to a question slipped in edgewise, he had heard of the Trueliners, but none of them had ever approached him with an attempt to change his mind on that subject. If any of them knew anything relevant, naturally, he’d be glad to hear it; could the Cedars put him in touch with such a person?
Hugh, carefully not looking at his wife, said that they knew an enthusiast on the subject who might be available in a few Common Days and would be, Hugh felt sure, most willing to expound his views. Shefcheeshee, shifting position to keep from melting his way too far into the floe, responded as they had hoped, with wild excitement.
“Wonderful! The Box at the digging site reports by sounder every thirty hours, and as soon as I can make a summary of its information I incorporate it in my next public presentation at the Port of Deep Study. I told you about the one after we first met; I’m sorry you couldn’t be there, but you are both welcome to the next, in about thirty hours. I intend it for the Habras mostly, of course, since the knowledge concerns their planet, but there are always many listeners.”
“Naxians, largely, I expect,” Hugh couldn’t resist suggesting.
“Oh, yes. It was a Naxian group which contributed heavily to the project originally. I was rather surprised, since an Erthumoi artificial brain was involved in the actual work, but they admitted that probably nothing else could be used at such depths since Habras would take a long time to train in the instrumentation and coring equipment, and there are too few Erthumoi free, competent, and interested. It’s a great pity that we have not yet produced a pressure fluid for my race, especially since we are, after all, the natural ones for undersea research.”
Janice started to key words at once sympathetic and discouraging to a return to that subject, but this proved unnecessary. The Cephallonian was wavering only slightly in his course.
“I have, of course, been tactful about the wordage of my explanations — if you were not Erthumoi I would say I had kept it clean where mention of the artificial mind is concerned; but you know what I mean.”
This time it was Hugh who agreed, but both filed the same thought. Naxians were probably the most likely of the Races to accept artificial intelligence eventually on pragmatic grounds, in spite of the Cephallonian philosophical bent. Since there were many more Naxians on Habranha anyway, this was probably convenient. The principal remaining uncertainty was the one newly raised by Bill’s information.
Were the supporters interested, pragmatic Naxians who would carry weight with the rest of their kind, or were they just the Snoop-players? And were Snoop-players more nearly the Naxian equivalent of artists, sport fans, or chemical dependents?
This didn’t seem to be anything which could be learned either from Shefcheeshee or by casual inquiry at the Guild office.
The talk with — more accurately, by — Shefcheeshee went on for nearly another hour, since there seemed no courteous way to terminate it, but both Erthumoi were guilty of allowing their thoughts to wander much of the time. Fortunately, the Cephallonian was quite content to talk, and asked few questions of his audience.
They both agreed, when he asked, to attend his next presentation, since they had already decided to do so; they wanted to observe any Naxian attendees themselves. The fact that their own feelings would be plain to the serpentine listeners could not be helped, and might possibly be made useful.
Shefcheeshee eventually decided that he was straining his oxygen budget, since he had fifty or sixty kilometers to swim. He once again made sure they would attend his talk, and slid into the water. The Erthumoi reentered their flier, which Hugh had parked on the floe after careful testing of the latter’s buoyancy, and decided to return to Pitville for sleep. There was after all ordinary work to be done, especially by Janice. They reported to Administration before going “home.”
They had forgotten to check on Ennissee at the Naxian medical station, and Ged claimed to be annoyed. He only forgave them, he said, because Rekchellet had been really responsible for the matter. It was too much trouble to point out that he could call the Naxians just as well himself; the couple simply listened. The Samian said nothing about S’Nash, and neither Erthuma caught sight of it/him between flier and office or office and home. They didn’t even think of individual Naxians.