“And ignoring the unexpected is one of the surest ways to have your solution outdated before you report it,” retorted Carol. “The explanation of these holes may have nothing to do with the official question of why Enigma has in atmosphere in spite of its small size, but I think a good, detailed map of a group of these things, and a close examination of a few of them, is in order.”
“The map is available. Pick your area from the radar record and have it plotted at any scale you like. When do you want to do the examination?”
“Well, I hate to delay the start of your own run. I don’t think there were any of these things near the tent…”
“We can check that easily enough,” pointed out Charley.
“And even if there aren’t we can get back here, or to some better site if the record shows one, quickly enough,” admitted Carol.
“On the other hand, you could take a quick look right now, while Joe’s robot is being set out,” suggested Molly. You can see well enough even if it is night, can’t you?” “Certainly, with this sky glow.”
Molly had been unaware of any sky glow and assumed it was too far in the infrared for her eyesight, but stuck to the main theme. “Do you have a pretty good idea of what you want to check?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Then for goodness’ sake get outside and get your data. It won’t delay us worth mentioning. Can any of us help you?”
“You might need a camera for what I can remember, but if you want to take one, I’d be glad of the material. Get sizes and especially inner slopes, and outer slopes if any, of all these holes you have time for. You take the left side of the ship, so you can start the moment you’re outside; I can move faster and will only have to look to remember, so I’ll go around to the other side.”
“All right. We’re down; let’s go.” Molly seized a camera, thankful that there was some basic equipment aboard that no one had specifically had to arrange, and the two women headed for the exit lock that was already opening.
Outside, the Human realized that she had forgotten an important point. She had been seeing the landscape on infrared pickup, converted on the screen to frequencies she could use. Now she was looking directly, and seeing was much harder. It was not totally dark; the sky produced some glow that even Human eyes could detect. Possibly Arc’s companion was above the horizon, though she would have been hard put to prove it at the moment, and a little of its radiation was getting through the dust. This was no time to theorize, however; there was work to do. The camera’s finder could be adjusted to convert to more comfortable light, though walking around with one eye glued to its small aperture was inconvenient and deprived her of depth perception.
She walked slowly toward a low ridge fifty meters away, climbed it, and saw that it did indeed mark the rim of one of Carol’s craters. She took photos in both directions along the rim and toward the far side; these would be enough for the slope measurements, since the instrument was holographic.
After some search through the finder, she thought she could see another feature some two hundred meters away. This proved to be an error; the ridge was simply a ridge, no more. The next two tries were successful, however.
Then Joe’s voice sounded. “The robot is out and set. Have you recorded what you need, Molly and Carol?”
“I have three sets of pictures,” replied the Human. “I’ll hope that’s enough for now. Carol has probably done a lot better.”
Carol made no answer. Joe, being Joe, did not repeat his call at once; Molly, not being Joe, waited for scarcely ten seconds before she did.
“Carol! Did you hear us?”
Still no answer.
“Joe, we’re not on private for some weird reason, are we? Can you others hear us?”
Charley and Jenny both acknowledged at once. “Can either of you hear Carol? We can’t.” “Neither can we.”
“Can anything go wrong with the translator channels? Joe, you’d know better than I—so would you other two. How about it?”
“It is hard to believe. The receivers and transmitters that you carry yourselves, and the ones at the central translation computer in the boat, are extremely redundant; so are the internal works of the computers. The channels use achronic radiation, not electromagnetic, so they can’t be blocked by matter, though their range is only a few thousand kilometers, and of course they can’t be sensed directionally; that’s why I couldn’t use that system on these robots. Gross destruction of a translator would of course stop its transmission, but that would…”
“Stop the lecture and let’s find Carol!” snapped Charley. Molly, come inside; you can’t possibly see well enough out there to be useful in a search. Jenny and I will come out. Joe, you stay there. Molly, come up to Con and guide us on the screens.”
Before anyone could respond to these instructions, the Shervah’s voice came through to all of them. “You needn’t all come. Jenny, you’re the heaviest of the ones who can see well. Bring some rope, fifty meters at least. Don’t hurry; crawl. That was my mistake. I know this gravity is silly, but don’t let it fool you.”
“Where are you?” asked Molly, making toward the boat, the only thing she could see reasonably well without the camera finder.
“I am at the bottom of a hole about half a kilometer from the ship, two hundred grads from the bow direction to the right. I was in a hurry to get to it and jumped over the edge. I can’t jump out again.”
“Why not?” asked Charley. “This gravity is weaker to you than it is to me, and I could do it.”
“I’m tempted to suggest that you come and try,” said the Shervah bitterly. “If there were a knevreh at the bottom to eat you, I think I would.”
Molly was inside now and able to move much faster. She didn’t know what a knevreh was, but the context suggested an answer.
“I take it the sand inside is very loose, and at angle of repose,” she said.
Carol was silent for a moment. “Your translator couldn’t have handled that!” she said at last. “Or have you been spending time studying our worlds, since the team was set up?”
“Neither,” admitted Molly. “You said enough for inference. When we get back to Classroom try the main translator with ant-lion. Ecology is an interesting field, and a lot of Human information has been filed there by now, though I don’t suppose the boat’s unit carries it. Jenny has just passed me with a coil of rope; you’ll be with us in a few minutes.”
“If she doesn’t make an equally big fool of herself. Watch the gravity, Jen; stopping isn’t easy, even on rock, and these holes are full of the loosest stuff you ever handled. I don’t think even eighteen pairs of legs, or whatever your count is, would give traction enough.”
“Only fifteen for traveling. I’ll be careful,” promised the Rimmore.
Conversation ceased for a minute or so, and Molly was able to reach the Con room and bring a vision screen to bear in the appropriate direction. She had not bothered to remove her armor, except for helmet and gloves. The centipedelike form of Jenny was easily located; the Rimmore might be traveling slowly by her own standards, but Molly felt uneasy as she watched. She tried to locate the hole, presumably somewhere ahead of Jenny, in which Carol was trapped, but even the highest of the boat’s pickups was too low to give her a good landscape. Designed primarily for use in space, the screens were not holographic.
The Shervah had said half a kilometer—but that would have been a translation, and the translator did round to levels of accuracy implied by the speaker’s own choice of words. Two hundred meters more or less might easily have been meant, even though Carol’s highly precise distance judgment and incredible memory would have given her a far more exact knowledge of the real figure. There was no useful way for Molly to guide the rescuer, even though the boat’s sensors could tell her the latter’s distance to the centimeter.