Kahvi knew of an air lock on this side of Hemenway, and was making their way toward it.
She had decided that there was a good chance of Earrin’s being inside the city. There would have been no chance for him to get back to the raft, and no evidence that he had tried. He had either stayed free and gone to a jail or the city for air, or been recaptured and brought to Hemenway as had apparently been the original Hiller intention.
In the old days, the citizens of Great Blue Hill had very seldom gone outdoors after dark. This seemed to have changed now, and she didn’t dare approach the lock as casually as she might have done earlier. Since she had to travel so slowly anyway, the extra care wasn’t as much nuisance as it might have been.
Once in sight of the lock pool, in fact, she decided to wait for a time to see whether any of these young people who seemed to go out a lot at night might be around, so she settled down in the center of a clump of bushes which provided materials for a hastily-made nest. Danna made no objection to going to sleep; there was nothing which interested her in the surrounding darkness.
Kahvi, in spite of her intention to keep watch, might have followed her daughter’s example, but they had been there only a few minutes when sounds came from the nearby air lock. The moon was not up yet, but part of the pool reflected starlit sky, and the reflection was now broken by ripples and by dimly silhouetted human figures rising from the water. They were not showing any particular caution; there was an occasional splash, and some of them were talking. There was nothing in Kahvi’s large collection of highly virtuous hangups which prohibited listening; information, including information on what other people were doing and planned to do, was necessary for life. She listened: “D’you suppose it’s gotten away yet?”
“Of course not. Les was watching; he’d have come to tell us if it had started anything he couldn’t take care of himself, or if it had gotten loose before he could stop it. Besides, what could it do? It only tried the things we expected.”
“And what,” asked a female voice, “gives you the idea that it couldn’t think of things we haven’t? Of course it tried the obvious ones first. Sometimes they work. Remember how those two got away inside — and we still don’t know where the other one is, you know.”
“Of course not. It got over into the main city, where we can’t look for it without getting the old fogies excited. Come on; we’re getting this one. Maev thinks that it’ll have used up all its ways of escape by now, and if it’s still there we might as well bring it in for other tests. Make sure your sandals are tight, and go slowly; there’s a lot of slime down that way, and travelling in the dark can put hard heads against harder rocks if you aren’t careful. We’d better link up — who has the rope?”Kahvi heard all this and drew the obvious conclusions. The two captives who had escaped must be Bones and Earrin, and the native had been recaptured. For some reason she was being held outside — some sort of testing, it appeared. This group was to bring her back into the city. Could Kahvi forestall them? Which way were they going? How was Bones being held? If the Hillers were going to rope together, the route must be dangerous; could she find it by that fact? Could she get there, over slime, ahead of the Hillers?
Quick decision was standard. Kahvi got to her feet, drawing the child up with her and signaling for silence, and began to retreat carefully. She moved quietly, not because she feared being heard but so as to continue hearing what the others might be saying as she worked her way around the lock pool in search of a slippery area.
“What if it has gotten away?”
“Then good breathing to it, of course. Les will be able to tell what happened — unless it ate him.”
“They don’t eat people, idiot.”
“Why not, if they eat each other?” This question went unanswered, since there were no biochemists in the group. The one who had asked it went on after a pause. “I don’t like the idea of getting close to that thing. I think we’ve learned enough from it. If it’s still there I’m for putting more spears through it — ”
“Why should a lot be any more use than one?”
“Then cut the thing to pieces and make a fire with it — unless Maev wants to cut it up to see what’s inside.”
“That may be next. It’s up to her, but we bring it in the way it is. Come on.”
“No. Wait. Look, I’ll go down carefully; you come slowly behind me. If we do need weapons, at least I can give some warning so you can get off the rope in time.”
“All right, but don’t be too slow or we’ll have the moon in our eyes.”
Kahvi had heard enough; the last sentence told her which way to go — not precisely, perhaps, but nearly enough, since the distance couldn’t be very great. She headed east, with Danna hurrying behind.
They would have to take their chances on glass and slime now; if these Hillers were planning to cut Bones up she would have to be gotten away or at the very least warned.
The voices from behind grew louder; the main-body was gaining — what of the one who was coming ahead f them? How far ahead was Bones?
Could Kahvi get there in time to do anything but watch? There was noise behind, nearer than the voices. There — a little to the right — was that a clearing?
It was, and suddenly she could see Bones’ figure silhouetted against the slowly brightening eastern sky. It would have to be warning; she could not possibly get there long enough before the others to give physical help. She called out loudly to Bones, and almost instantly a human figure rose in her path.
XIV
History, Hazily
Earrin turned his back on the woman and headed back toward the sunlit area. The pseudo-Bones followed. The woman, jolted by the Nomad’s choice of language and even more startled and shocked by his accusation, stared silently until the two were out of sight. For the moment her thinking processes, such as they were, were paralyzed. She did not, of course, believe the unthinkable charge; but it was almost equally hard to believe that a Nomad would lie, and she was even less equipped than Earrin in background information and basic attitude to imagine any third possibility.
Her mind retreated to a more basic fact which she could handle. A Nomad and one of the Animals were wandering in the city breathing air that didn’t belong to them. They should be ejected, but she couldn’t possibly do this herself. The nearest people would be the children taking care of the air plants, who could hardly be useful either — but there might be a teacher or two there, and if not at least a child could go for real help. She headed after the intruders.
There was no one in sight when Earrin and his friend emerged into the sunlight. The plant area was much larger than the one in Hemenway where the other Bones had been captured; it extended for hundreds of meters along a curving shelf on the southern face of Great Blue Hill. The plant trays which filled it were no larger or more closely spaced, of course; they had to be moved around, and people had to move around them.
They were slightly different in design from those on the raft; while they had the usual bubble-top protection from infecting spores, seated in channels of water, these units produced oxygen more rapidly.
The gas bubbled out around the edges; on the raft, the bubbles had to be opened frequently to let oxygen out and carbon dioxide in.
Pseudo-Bones could see that these plants must be fed with solid carbonates, presumably brought from collectors scattered through the city; Earrin did not grasp their operation until the other had explained it. This took a little time, since the scientific vocabulary of the gesture language was somewhat limited.
Most of the plants in sight, however, were food producers quite familiar to Earrin, who did not hesitate to remove one of the plastic tents and start eating. The Observer did the same, making a different selection and stowing away a much larger quantity in spite of its smaller size.