“I’m not really good at psychology, either general or species,” Molly evaded. “Consciously, I can assure you I’d be much happier to get back to the boat, get out of this armor for a while, eat and sleep decently, have a bath, and then explore down here properly in one of Joe’s new mapping machines. What my subconscious is doing, if the translators can do that term real justice, I can’t guarantee. It will not have escaped your notice, friend Charley, that a lot of the volume below Enigma’s surface seems to be air, which is even better than ice at lowering the average density. Maybe this place is just a sponge.”
“That’s a thought—but we’d still have to find out, and there’d have to be another explanation for the wind. How far down in this gravity could the rock support caves?”
“I don’t know. Dig something out of the boat’s library and compute, I’d suggest. Just don’t ask us to tell you yet what the compressive strength of this rock may be; we haven’t had a chance to test it, you know!”
Charley took the suggestion at face value.
“Should I try to check that question out right now, or go on looking for more ways inside?”
Once again the women looked at each other, smiling. “Perhaps you’d better keep on with the search,” Molly replied. “Maybe we can get some data at this end on the depth question, before you have to face any computation. Personally, I don’t see how this downhill journey can go on much longer.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. You didn’t seem to want to before,” Charley came back happily.
The Human refrained, just barely, from saying something impolite about herself. Wishful thinking was bad enough; doing it out loud was worse; doing it where it would influence Charley’s ideas was worst, or almost worst. Carol’s glance, carrying what Molly recognized as sympathetic understanding on the features that she now knew far too well to consider hideous, almost brought the Human woman to tears. The Shervah’s words on private channel, however, tempted laughter instead.
“I wonder what your Buzz would have said?”
For the first time, Molly gave some serious thought to what might be going on in Charley’s mind. He wasn’t a six-year-old; he was a competent adult, qualified—whatever Carol might think—as an advanced student at a major research facility; whatever his personal or racial peculiarities, he simply could not be stupid. Like Molly’s own, his words and actions were based on some set of background ideas and beliefs. The fact that the words in particular were often irritating didn’t necessarily mean his beliefs were wrong. It did mean that Mary Warrender Chmenici did not understand them as well as she should. Little Buzz, she reflected wryly, might actually do a better job than his supposedly intelligent mother at that if he were here. Most of his playmates were nonhuman.
For just a moment, she allowed her memory to flash pictures of her six-year-old holding his own with flying Parkemm children in that soupy-aired, low-gravity colony; with Nethneen in their nearly airless environment; even with Jenny’s people—the child had learned quickly enough that gravity was no real problem if one stayed submerged, though ammonia furnished less support than water. She had quickly gotten over a mother’s natural worry; the child care centers on the School planets were as good as Human ones, even when it came to teaching the very young about environments and environmental equipment.
For another second, Molly wondered whether she would do as well, in the next few days, as her son had in the last few years. Would she ever see him and his father again?
She buried the question firmly. One could only do one’s best.
“Thanks, Carrie.” Molly shifted back to the common translator channel and went on. “If that sand spout, or whatever it is, has been mapped, Charley, I’d go on with the surface search for the time being at least. It seems to me more and more important that we get an idea of air flow out to the surface and, if there is any, in from it. Joe, is your map far enough along to give us any hints at all on that point? Could this cavern circulation be enough of the total to show on the planetary scale?”
“I have no basis for a guess, since I had not considered the possibility and haven’t seen the map itself for some time. It occurs to me that it would be better for Charley to continue his search with the new mapping robot so that I can take the boat, with the shop, back to the tent. Will you please come back here, Charley? I think the matter important.”
“All right, if you’re sure the latest machine is really ready.”
“As ready as the one Jenny is using. Controllable by any of us, electromagnetic location interlock with the boat and, through the computer, with all the other robots in touch; collecting equipment; power…”
“All right. I’m on my way to the shop. I’ve started the boat back toward the tent.”
Many kilometers below, traveling at unknown speed in unknown direction, the two women listened to this conversation without expecting much new to come from it. Both were tired and getting heartily sick of darkness and recycled nourishment. Both knew that their armor was slightly less than perfectly efficient at the recycling process and that eventually it would not keep them alive, but neither was worried about this yet. Both were far too intelligent to let their minds dwell on the point. With work, they could also have kept their minds off simple discomforts, but only at rare intervals was there a chance to work.
Twice, as the hours passed, they stopped and made a close examination of the rock and pseudovegetation that formed the bank of their alien Styx, but neither study proved interesting. As far as either could tell, the former was a finegrained, possibly amorphous matrix, possibly but not certainly silicate, possibly but not certainly modified both thermally and chemically, possibly but not certainly cemented by hydrates or ammates or both. Their eyes simply couldn’t tell enough. Four times during the hours Jenny reported discovery of a cave from which wind was blowing; twice more Charley, now surveying with the new mapper, did the same. No sign of inflow had been detected. Joe, back at his map, had described verbally in great detail what was appearing, but neither he nor any of the others could recognize anything useful. It seemed like an ordinary planetary circulation, to those whose home planets had significant atmospheres, except for the presence of extraheavy dust clouds at the summer pole and relatively clear air at the other. If the clouds had been water or ammonia condensate, even that would not have been startling.
Maybe, Molly thought, when enough detail had been added—maybe, when they could see it themselves ...
But if they could see it themselves, the main problem would be solved.
Even Charley was saying less and less as the hours wore on and Enigma crawled along its vast orbit. He had decided that Molly was not going to end this underworld Odyssey until someone else made an effective move; he remained emotionally certain that she could do so whenever she wanted. He was growing more and more afraid that he himself was the one who was expected to take the effective step—he remembered what Jenny had said, days earlier back on Classroom, about originality and his own failure to display it. This had to be a part of the test.
Should he take his robot into one of the caves he had found and start mapping the passages inside? Mathematically, this seemed poor policy; the women were traveling in more or less a straight line—at least, along one line—and only wild coincidence could bring him in touch with them that way.
Was there some painfully obvious step that he should have thought of and taken? Was the Human losing patience with him?
Should he—?
“The river’s GONE!” came Carol’s voice, in a near-shriek.
He should have. He couldn’t now. Molly was taking new action herself. He’d failed, of course.