“Good point.” The elf crouched on the field ring, holding on by one of the ropes, her other hand at the port she had just closed, and the two women waited.
“I have found another cave with inflowing wind” came the Nethneen’s voice. Molly acknowledged briefly but kept most of her attention on the robot and her companion. Charley and Jenny were equally terse, and long minutes of silence ensued.
“I’m back at the surface, heading for the tent.” Jenny’s rasp startled the Human. Carol was less visibly affected but did respond.
“I thought you were back there long ago, analyzing for high energy compounds.”
“Charley and I were both quite a long way down, and I had to do a little collecting. Even knowing the way back up, or having our computers know it, didn’t mean the journey could be a fast one; and what did you expect? I started up only a third of an hour ago.”
“It seems a lot longer,” Molly interjected. “Just waiting for something to happen, especially when you’re not quite sure it will…”
“Of course it will. But you should be working!” Carol seemed almost indignant rather than reproving. “I’m the one who has to stand by this thing! If you can’t get properly interested in the biology, check the rock structure, the passage topology, what you can tell of the wind currents—anything to get your time sense back to normal. Come on, Big Lady, make yourself useful to yourself!”
“I can’t do much topology; if I get out of sight of you and the robot I’m likely to get lost. I don’t have your memory, remember. I need lab facilities to get any further with the rock studies just as much as Jenny does for the life forms—and as you do, I should think.”
“I can classify, on the basis of obvious structure.”
“Only because you can remember the details so well.”
“Jenny.” It was Joe’s voice, making one of his rare interruptions.
“Yes, Joe?” came the rough-voiced response.
“I should have checked with you earlier. You will be back at the boat and tent soon. I was taking for granted that you will be using laboratory facilities; is that correct?”
“That was my plan. Is there something else you want done first?”
“No. I was afraid an apology might be in order. If you happen to need the shop for anything, I’m afraid I have just about monopolized its facilities for a time. I have left things on automatic control, of course, and if necessary you may interrupt for work of your own; but if my additional material can be completed as quickly as possible, it may help.”
“As far as I can see at the moment, I’ll need nothing not already in my lab. If things turn out otherwise, I will call you before making anything, if the interruption will be allowable.”
“Quite. There is nothing going on requiring my full attention here. That applies to the rest of you, as well—if anyone has been refraining from a call simply from courtesy, that is not necessary for a while. If I do get involved in really detailed work, I will report the fact to you all.” He shifted to Human-private channel. “Molly, that was meant especially for you. I have suspected that you wanted to talk about one thing or another several times since you were trapped underground, and were afraid of interrupting my thoughts. You have been very careful about a courtesy code that I gather is quite exaggerated by your standards; I appreciate it. I assure you that, for the time being, it may be ignored.”
“Thanks, Joe. It sometimes has been hard to bottle the words up. There’s really nothing much to say right now, though; all we can do is wait on this piece of drying laundry.”
She was not sure whether Joe’s translator would handle that rather strained figure of speech; after the recent display of its powers she wanted to find out. Joe, however, made no direct answer, and she was left to wonder whether he had picked up enough knowledge of Humanity to grasp it unaided, or the equipment had done it for him, or he felt it would be discourteous to make a direct inquiry about her meaning. There was a lot she still didn’t understand about the Nethneen, much as she liked and respected him.
“I can’t repeat Carol’s assurance that things will be all right” was all he said. “Neither of us can foresee with any certainty in that much detail. We are working, however.”
Actually, it was Charley who took advantage of the permission to interrupt.
“What do you have growing in the shop, Joe?”
Even Molly was embarrassed; that was not merely interruption, it was downright snooping. If Joe had wanted them to know, he would have told—or, come to think of it, why hadn’t he made the call to Jenny on their private channel? He must have wanted to arouse curiosity—
Her thoughts got only that far before the Nethneen answered.
“It is more mapping equipment, whose possible utility occurred to me while I was finishing this machine I am now using. It didn’t take long to set up—it used units already designed for machines we have already put in service, with a minimum of modification to get them into a single device. I may want to put it to work quite soon, or possibly not for several hours. I hope it will be the latter.”
Molly knew she was reading, probably too much, between Joe’s lines, but his speech somehow comforted her. The little fellow did have a tendency to tend very strictly to business, but he was much more likely than Carol to include little problems like lost explorers in the list of current business. His saying as much, and as little, as he had in answer to Charley’s query almost guaranteed that there was something he hoped not to discuss at all, but wanted Molly to know about ...
Or was that just building on sand—or water?
“Molly!” a whisper from Carol caught the Human’s attention as a shout never would have. “Molly! Look!”
She couldn’t have looked anywhere but at the robot. For the first time in hours, it stirred without their pushing or lifting. Soundlessly, and very slowly, it straightened to a true vertical, so that only one side of its base touched the rock. It began to lift, and Carol tensed, ready to snap the access port open and shut it down if it seemed about to do more than rise to—
“Gravdh!!” the Shervah tore the little doorway open and reached in. Molly felt faint for a moment.
“Carrie! What’s wrong?”
“We had it set for the long fall—to slow and stop a safe distance from the bottom. Even if everything is all right, the first thing it’ll try to do is lift a couple of meters, and there isn’t that much room overhead—there! You watch it, too! I think it’s all clear, but I don’t know.”
“Better shut the door again. If there’s still any ammonia, we want to get rid of it, and if there’s anything we know it’s that this outside air is pretty well saturated.”
Carol hesitated; if anything were still wrong, delay in getting to the keys could be serious. Then she followed Molly’s advice. Both watched, tensely at first, then gradually relaxing as the cylinder floated obediently a few centimeters above the rock.
“How much more time should we give it before we take out the can?” asked Carol. “We certainly don’t want to move it around with that liable to spill. We’d be worse off than before.”
“We worry about that later,” replied the Human. “First things to the head of the line. Get up there and plug in your charging cable. I’ll lift you if you’re worried about jolting the cylinder.”
“It won’t be bothered by me.” The small humanoid vaulted to the top of the robot, undipped the appropriate plug from her armor, and established connection with the fuser. Five minutes later—the unit could have produced all the energy their accumulators could hold in as many seconds, but conducting it was another matter—Molly took her place, and a few minutes after that her sigh of relief reached Joe’s translator.