Hal Clement - The Nitrogen Fix

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THE NITROGEN FIX

A distant second…but thanks

CONTENTS

Delivery, Delayed

Cooling, Carefully

Morals, Mostly

Unknown, Unless

Captive, Curiously

Invaders, Indefinitely

Captured, Conditionally

Doubt, Duplicated

Arson, Aggravated

Contretemps, Confused

Experiment, Educational

Menace, Misunderstood

Peregrination, Painful

History, Hazily

Debate, Directed

Action, Antagonistic

Mail, Melanic

Variations, Violent

Mystery, Metallic

Answers, Applied

the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely

coincidental.

An ACE Book

First Ace Printing: September 1980

First Mass Market Edition: October 1981

Published Simultaneously in Canada

2 4 6 8 0 9 7 5 3 1

Manufactured in the United States of America

Delivery, Delayed

The golden brown sky was losing some of its uniformity with patches of darker scud starting to show

to the west. There was still no wind, and the water was merely choppy, but Kahvi and Earrih were

getting more and more uneasy about the kilometer which still separated them from the Canton shore.

Milton Island was closer behind, but the cove on its south side would offer little protection if the wind

really rose. The rafts, even with their present load, could not be sunk—Newell tissue was far too

buoyant—but they could lose the cargo which had taken weeks to collect. The shelter between the

Canton shore and the Sayre islets was looking more and more inviting.

"You were right, Kahv. We should have worked around the shore; we could have spared another

day or so." Some of Earrin's words were spoken aloud, but since his breathing mask muffled the more

subtle phoneme distinctions, hand gestures conveyed much of the thought.

His wife answered with a single, silent nod, not taking her eyes from the shore ahead for longer than

was needed to read his signals. She got no particular thrill out of having been right; she had, after all,

conceded the weight of the man's arguments and had agreed to try the short cut. Risks always had to be

taken; it was merely a question of which ones at any particular time. Spending more time out of reach of

an air reserve could also have been dangerous.

This time the raft assembly was much larger than usual and correspondingly harder to maneuver. The

Hillers had been emphatic about wanting the very largest supply of metal and glass that could be obtained

in two months. There had been no way to increase the rate at which the copper came in from the sea, but

Bones had found enough glass on the harbor bottom to load not only the floats usually devoted to cargo

but a dozen square meters of extra deck space. It was these new, rather hastily fashioned floats which

were the main worry.

Even in poling depth the cluster of rafts was awkward. Earrin and Kahvi had sometimes tried masts

and sails, but neither knew anything significant about the art and had to depend on following winds. In

deep water they usually used sweeps and Bones.

At the moment the human couple were resting, with their sweeps trailing alongside. The Observer,

however, was still at work; the tow lines extending from two of the bow floats were taut, and the raft was

still moving slowly westward. If bad weather would only hold off for another hour or so, the cargo might

be safe after all. If it didn't—well, Bones could retrieve it from the bottom, but that would be unwise in

sight of the Hillers. The group which had ordered this cargo seemed to have a very low opinion of the

natives—there had been some mention of "Invaders" during the negotiations, though neither Kahvi nor

Earrin had pursued that line of discussion.

But there was no point in worrying about things which hadn't happened; the important thing was

action which would get them to the Canton shore and the jail as quickly as might be. Earrin was already

taking up his long oar again. Kahvi did the same. The new child was not yet large enough to interfere.

At least there was no wind against them yet. The foamy tissue rode very high, and the whole structure

was much less affected by water currents by those in the air. Progress was steady.

Both rowers looked over their shoulders to see whether the low clouds, colored by dioxide, were

appreciably closer, but neither allowed their efforts at the sweeps to slacken, and gradually the shore

grew clearer through the haze. The Blue Hills could still be seen to the south, which was a hopeful sign.

Real storms, complete with rain and wind, were usually preceded by clouds down to the surface.

This fact helped Kahvi to keep her hopes up; Earrin could not keep memory of the frequent

exceptions to it out of his mind.

Bones, under water fifty meters ahead, was giving no particular thought to the weather. Neither was

the raft's other occupant, playing quietly with her toys in the air tent and looking up every little while to

see whether her parents were doing anything new. The transparent tissue of the tent let her see them

clearly enough, though the two thicknesses of it between them rather blurred the adults' view of each

other.

Danna had never in her memory been this far from shore, but was quite used to having the floats

tossed even more violently than they were now, so she saw no reason to be afraid. Unless she was told

to put on breathing gear, she would assume that everything was all right with the raft-and even then she

would probably suppose it was only a drill. She was well along in acquiring the hang-ups needed for

survival as a Nomad. She already knew how to check the bubbles of transparent tissue in which the

Sparrel pseudolife produced breathing oxygen. She could even be trusted to warn her parents if the rise

in tent pressure indicated that cartridge material was becoming saturated, though she had not been trusted

with the delicate task of bleeding off excess air. She was not, of course, strong enough to bring buckets

of nitrogen under the raft to restore the tent's breathing balance.

She did, however, know smoke when she saw it, and it was Danna who called her parents' attention

to what lay ahead. Her voice came clearly through the tent tissue as the rafts drew within three hundred

meters of the Canton shore.

"Mother! Dad! Isn't that a fire on the other side of the hill? The clouds are going up, so something

must be hot!"

Her elders stopped rowing and sprang to their feet, drawing the sweeps inboard by habit. They had

been watching their goal, but had not looked carefully at the darkness above it. Neither could see, very

clearly at that distance; their mask windows were of salvaged window glass, and their eyes middle-aged.

Even after the child called the smoke to their attention, it was hard for them to be sure t at it was not

ordinary rain scud. The ubiquitous oxides of nitrogen could be found in both.

"She's right," Kahvi said at last. "There is a fire beyond the slope. "What are those Hillers doing?"

"Maybe." Earrin was less certain. "Let's see what Bones can make of it. He has decent eyesight." The

man strode across the floats to the nearer of the tow lines and gave it a quick double pull. Both ropes

became slack at once, and a moment later the native, as the Fyns regarded the being, surfaced a few

meters away. Kahvi gave the come-here gesture, and the child imitated her, though Bones would have

had some trouble seeing her inside the tent. The creature plunged toward the raft in a series of

dolphin-like leaps, the last of which carried its grotesque figure smoothly to the deck. For a moment it lay

like a stranded fish; then the slender body curled upward until it stood erect, towering well above the

human beings.

The float supporting its hundred and twenty kilograms rocked irregularly in the chop, but the four

lower limbs flexed to keep the body upright in spite of their fantastic slenderness and apparent frailty.

Two of them framed the horizontal flukes which were used in dolphin-style swimming; the other two

originated half a meter farther up the slender trunk and extended far enough sideways and forward to

provide a trapezoidal support area quite large enough to make balance easy. From a little distance,

where the tentacles were not noticeable, Bones would have looked absurdly like a fish standing on its tail,

to anyone who had ever seen a fish. Kahvi and Earrin had not; their own species was the only

macroscopic form of native animal life still surviving on Earth.

The upper handling tentacles gestured a question, and Kahvi pointed in answer.

"Fire, we think," Earrin supplemented in the regular mix of voice and gesture. "You see better than

we. It's smoke, isn't it?"

"Yes," a tentacle signified.

"Do you remember what was growing on the other side, there? It is explosive? Should we go closer,

or stay here, or go back?"

"Not explosive, as I recall," the Watcher signalled, "but of course it's weeks since we were here.

New things could have grown, especially with those Young Ones around."

"Do you really think they'd have that much influence? The normal Hiller would destroy anything that

hadn't been growing in the neighborhood for a hundred years."

"If they saw it in time," her husband pointed out. "Something could have gotten ahead of them.

But that doesn't answer the question—should we risk getting closer, or wait until it burns out?"

"It's safe enough to approach, I judge," replied Bones' tentacles—the being had neither voice nor

breathing equipment. "The floats are well varnished, and the tent tissue does not burn too easily. What

growth I see on this side of the hill is mostly low-power, though there are a few blasters, of course."

"Are you sure?" asked Kahvi. "It looks to me as though nearly everything has become a shade lighter

since we were last here. Couldn't there be overgrowth? Or have you seen this before, too?"

"No. You are right. There is overgrowth. I must withdraw my assurance of safety for the raft."

"And for the jail," Earrin pointed out. "If fire gets there, we'd have to walk quite a distance to the next

nearest air supply. I say it's safer to get in there and clear risky plants away from the walls, if we can

make it before the fire gets to this side of the hill."

"I see no people near the jail," Bones commented. "There might really be none, or they might be

inside and not have seen the smoke yet, or all be across the hill fighting the fire already. I agree; it will be

safest to protect the jail even at some risk to the raft. It would take little to unroof that structure."

Without further gesture the streamlined form plunged back into the water, and a moment later the tow

lines drew taut again.

Inside the tent, Danna was looking hopefully at her parents. She understood most of the

gesturespeech, but had evidently missed some of what had just been said. Catching her father's eye, she

picked up her own breathing kit and made an inquiring gesture. The parents looked at each other and

nodded. Dana's happy grin disappeared behind her mask.

Kahvi and her husband resumed rowing, but both kept more attention on the child than on their goal

for the next few minutes. Danna had been carefully brought up, but they would not have allowed her to

get dressed for outdoors unsupervised any more than either of them would have allowed the other to do

so. The little one finished donning the acid-tight shorts, halter, and face mask. She slung the oxygen and

absorber cartridges between her narrow shoulders, stood up, and turned slowly around for inspection.

Not until both parents had nodded approval did she step to the space where a float had been omitted

from the deck structure, and slip into the water

Both parents counted subvocally, but long before the twelve seconds which would have justified

action had passed, the five-year-old's head showed through the other opening in the deck.

She slid out of the water as smoothly as Bones; she had been swimming since before she could walk.

"Did Bones say it was a real fire?" The child was speaking as soon as her head was out of water. She

used more words and fewer gestures than her parents, since her voice penetrated the mask better.

"It must be big. Why are we going closer? Can I row too?"

"Bones doesn't know what's burning, but it is a big fire," replied her mother. "It may be dangerous,

but we have to go close enough to save the jail—the air place on shore—in case the fire gets close to it.

It will help if you row, but you must stay here when we get to shore. You'll have to take care of the raft

and the tent, in case any sparks—little pieces of fire—fall on them. You have buckets ready and spill

them on any fire that comes. If it doesn't come, it will be good to spill them on the tent anyway; if it's wet

the fire won't hurt it. All right?"

"Sure." Danna picked up her small oar, went to her regular rowing station, and began to pull. It was

doubtful whether Bones could feel the effect, but she put enough strain on the oar to feel useful.

The wind still held off, but as they approached the shore smoke came drifting to meet the raft.

Danna looked over her shoulder at it occasionally and Kahvi could see that the child was uneasy.

Neither adult, however, felt seriously concerned as long as the fire itself could not be seen, and their

calmness kept the little one from panic, though she had been told so much about the dangers of fire.

Fifty meters from shore Bones form appeared, rearing up from the water and evidently standing on

the bottom. The lines were still taut, but the human beings took the hint and stopped rowing.

The raft could not be brought ashore, since there had to be swimming space under it to enter and

leave the tent. Bones had no need for air, but had been with them since before Danna's birth and knew

some of their physical requirements. One of the great eyes rolled back at the raft, while the other

continued to watch the smoke, much heavier now, as it continued to jet upward from beyond the low

ridge two hundred meters away.

There had been no explosions, but this was only mildly encouraging. Many plants contained both

reducing tissue and nitrates, arranged with varying degrees of intimacy. They burned with varying rates

when something did light them; the nitrogen real-life mutated so frequently and grew so rapidly that one

could never be sure just what an apparently familiar type would do. Pseudolife was far more reliable, but

there was little of that in sight.

"Nothing I can see is burning," Danna said after looking carefully. "Do you think the fire will really

come over this way?"

"We can't be sure, so we'll have to watch," her father answered. "Your mother and Bones and I will

all have to go ashore as soon as we're anchored to clear plants away from the jail or do whatever else is

needed to keep it from losing its roof—stone won't burn, you know. You'll have to take care of home,

here." The child nodded, and tried to put on a firm expression under her mask.

Bones had pulled the raft in almost to the proper depth, and now gestured that the anchors should be

dropped. The adults went aft, and each lowered one of the tent-tissue sacks of boulders into the water.

Danna tried to get the bow anchor overboard, but its hundred kilogram weight was far too much for her.

Bones took a step toward the raft and eased the bag off the float; the child plunged in after it and swam

along as it was borne a dozen meters shoreward and set firmly on the muddy bottom. Then Bones

plunged back past the raft and positioned each of the other anchors in turn, the human beings paying out

enough line to allow for the tide. Danna remained in the water trying to help until this job was finished;

then a green-and-brown tentacle curled about her waist and lifted her, laughing, back to the deck beside

her parents. They joined in the laughter for a moment, and then reached for the tools stacked beside the

air tent.

"Get the buckets and keep the tent wet," the mother repeated. "We'll be able to hear you if you need

us, and will watch, so don't be afraid." Kahvi plunged from the bow carrying a hoe-like implement of

wood and glass. Her husband followed with a long pole carrying a sponge at the end.

Bones was already halfway to the beach. The others had no chance of catching up with the creature

either swimming or running, but in a meter or so of water-too shallow for Bones to swim, too deep for

the tentacular legs to work freely-they gained, and were close behind by the time they too had to wade.

The beach was slimy with nitro-life, which was (they hoped) too wet to be a fire hazard, but made

running difficult. The larger growths were mostly of the smoldering type as far as they could see, but there

was an occasional blaster among them.

As the party reached the base of the little peninsula to the south of their anchorage, with the jail some

forty meters ahead and inland, there came a thud which was felt rather than heard. A fountain of red-hot

coals rose into view from the other side of the ridge, spread slowly with eye-arresting slowness, and

descended again. Some of the glowing fragments landed quite close to the watchers and even closer to

the building, and any doubts about the nature of the bushes were quelled as half a dozen of them, struck

by the coals, began to smoke and glow. There was no flame, since there was practically no free oxygen

to react with the gases being distilled from the plant tissues; the latter burned at all only because of their

nitrate content.

The human couple paused and glanced at each other, but Bones kept running toward the jail. After a

moment they followed, but both kept glancing quickly to the fire, back to the raft, and forward to the

stone structure, while staying as far as possible from any bushes close to their path.

The native had almost reached the building, with the others eight or ten meters behind, when there

was a second, heavier explosion. All three stopped to watch the glowing fragments of stems, trunks, and

branches fly upward and outward, each trailing a line of red-brown nitrogen dioxide smoke and gas.

They tensed as some of the material passed over their heads, and Earrin and Kahvi held their breaths as

several incandescent fragments fell into the water on both sides of the raft.

Kahvi took a step back the way they had come, but stopped as she saw her daughter's tiny form

stand firm between two water buckets. Evidently nothing had hit the tent this time.

Then a scream, in a voice much deeper than Danna's, turned their attention back toward the jail.

Cooling, Carefully

The building had walls of rough stone, with no visible mortar. The cement which held it together as

flammable as ordinary tent tissue, but had been applied only to the inside of the walls; it was safe from

outside fire unless one of the more flammable varieties of slime were allowed to grow on the stones. The

roof, however, was another matter. It had to be transparent to let sunlight reach the oxygen plants inside.

Unless some change had been made since the Fyns' last visit, it was composed of the same material as

their own tent on the raft, and their other bases. It was not actually explosive, but vulnerable to fire when

dry.The scream seemed to suggest that there had been no change, not a surprising situation for the

Boston area.

Earrin dashed up to the building; he did not need Bones' gesture to tell him the cause of the outcry,

though only the Observer was tall enough to see all the roof. The man climbed the wall without difficulty,

using the ample toe-spaces between the stones. His sponge was already wet.

There were three widening holes in the roof, smoking briskly around their edges. Earrin got as close

as he could to the nearest, reached out with his pole, and began sponging its rim. It was tempting to move

the pole too fast, but nitrate-fed fires were not smothered; they had to be cooled. Earrin had had far too

much experience to let himself be rushed on this job.

This did not seen to be true of the person inside.

There had been no more screams, which was encouraging—perhaps the first had been mere

surprise, not panic. Now a sponge was dabbing at the second hole from underneath—but it was going

too fast; the widening rim of the opening resumed its hissing and smoking as the sponge passed on.

"Slow down!" Earrin cried as loudly as his mask would allow. "You're not getting it out!"

A less muffled male voice responded. "But there's more than one! If I don't go fast, the others will get

too big!"

Earrin was startled by this logic, but attacked from another direction. "We'll get the others. You stick

with that one, and slow down." His use of the plural had been slightly deceptive, he suddenly realized,

since neither Bones nor Kahvi had sponges, but there was no time to make amends for the moral slip. At

least it had been effective; the occupant of the jail followed instructions.

Earrin finished the hole he had started, and leaped along the wall to the remaining one. At the same

moment another explosion sounded, but he kept his attention on his job. Kahvi and Bones would warn

him if any other action was necessary. He wished they had more sponges, but there had been no way of

telling before they left the raft just what would be needed; it had been at least as likely that they would

have to be hoeing firebreaks around the jail. One thing did occur to him as he moved, and he called out,

"Kahvi! Bones! There's at least one more sponge inside. Check there before you go back to the raft for

anything!

"Right," his wife responded. "That last blast was weaker, and nothing got this far. If I go inside I'll let

you know so you can watch the raft. Danna can handle that much by herself."

"Right." Earrin had reached the last hole, and was working on it. It had had time to grow large, over

twenty centimeters across, and the sponge might not be enough, but one could only try.

The near edge of the sputtering circle sizzled more loudly as the still-wet tool drank its heat. Earrin

moved it along as fast as he dared. The sponge itself was only a dozen centimeters across—it would be

nice, he thought fleetingly, if larger ones could be found, but the pseudolife which produced the things had

apparently been designed for some long-forgotten purpose that needed small sponges. At least it was still

holding plenty of water.

By the time he was halfway around the hole, it was evident that geometry was against him. Without

stopping his own efforts, the man called out, "Bones! Knife work!"

The hole was near one corner of the roof, not quite a meter from the south and west walls. The

Observer was tall enough to see the situation without climbing, and the tentacles which extended from

just below the bulging eyes were more than long enough. One of them slipped the glass-bladed knife

from Earrin's pouch and began sawing at the rim of the hole. The blade was not really knifelike by earlier

standards—it would have done better as one half of a pair of scissors—but the tissue gave easily under

its attack. Bones started on the side where the fire was already out, slashed outward, and then began to

saw clockwise. A strip of separated material began to hang down into the room, and started to flame in

the breathable air inside. Bones worked faster, and got the strip separated before it had ignited more of

the roof, and the flaming stuff dropped out of sight inside. Earrin held his sponge ready for several

seconds, but luck had apparently been with them.

"All right, Kahv," he finally called. "We got two, the fellow inside put out the other. Can you see if

Dan's all right? This mask window is terrible."

"I can see her pretty well. She's just standing there, and there's no smoke, so I guess the raft wasn't

hit. I'll go back and make sure, and get another sponge; we won't need a fire break, I'd say. You and

Bones stay here—the fire over the hill is still going, judging by the smoke there."

"Maybe it would be better for Bones to go back," Earrin pointed out. "He can travel faster, and it

would be better for you to talk to this fellow inside."

"All right," the woman agreed. "Bones—" she shifted from mostly voice to mostly gesture. The

fishlike being waved agreement with an upper tentacle and moved away, the strangely rigid walking

tendrils moving almost invisibly fast.

Another explosion took the human beings' attention from raft and messenger for a moment, but again

nothing fell dangerously close to either structure.

"I don't see how this can last much longer," Earrin remarked. "It's strange that the smoke is all coming

up from one spot, as though the initial fire weren't spreading. How could it have so much fuel in one

spot?"

"You stay up there and watch. I'll go in and see if the jailbird knows anything about it," Kahvi

suggested. Earrin glanced downward. The transparent roof tissue reflected enough sky light to prevent a

clear view of what was under it, but he could make out some movement.

"Wait a minute," he said. "I think someone's coming out. He has a mask on, anyway."

"How can he do that? Has he fixed the roof already?"

"No. Maybe--" Earrin fell silent; he could think of no possible reason for letting roof repair drop from

top priority. "Maybe you'd better go in, at that," he said at last. "I'll watch." Neither of them was

suspicious by nature, but there was something strange here.

Kahvi was already heading for the air lock, a pool of water extending under the east wall. Her

husband watched her submerge and, with more difficulty, saw her emerge inside the building. With

difficulty, he reminded himself firmly that his current job was fire watch; but he still glanced downward

occasionally.

Kahvi straightened up—the pool was less than a meter and a half deep under the wall—and went up

the steps to the floor level. They had been here before many times, and a quick glance showed little

general change. Her main interest was in the room's single occupant.

This was a man—really little more than an adolescent—was years younger than either Kahvi or

Earrin, much thinner than even the latter, and several centimeters taller than either of the Fyns. He was

even thinner than the typical Hiller, and his skin showed no trace of the yellow characteristic of people

who spent much time outdoors. The hundredth-normal nitric acid of the oceans was too dilute to color

proteins, but the rain was sometimes another matter. His hair looked a little too long for comfortable

mask work. The woman took in all this at the first glance, while stepping quickly toward the wall

opposite the lock.

"Why don't you fix your roof?" she snapped as she threaded her way among the tables covered with

oxygen plants.

The boy swept off the mask he had been adjusting.

"I was going to. What's the rush?"

"You're letting oxygen out, and spores in. Here are your patches. Here's the cement. Get that small

hole at the north end—I can't reach it. I'll work on that big one over the table—you idiot! One of the

trays on that table is burning! Toss it into the lock, clean it out, finish patching these holes, and then get it

restocked. I suppose some stuff from the roof fell on it. Move! If you're here for education, it doesn't

seem to be taking!"

The youngster's face flushed, but he made no answer. He moved at about half Kahvi's speed to the

indicated table, picked up the tray of psuedolife which was flaming in the rich atmosphere, and carried it

to the air lock. The fire had started in the middle of the half-meter-square box, and had not yet come

close enough to the edges to make them impossible to handle; but he winced as the flames and smoke

curled upward from his burden, and held it as far from himself as his strength allowed. Kahvi noted that

he also held it away from the other tables, so perhaps he was somewhere above the moron level—when

she was annoyed, she sometimes didn't distinguish carefully between stupidity and the ignorance which

could, after all, be equally deadly.

She leaped to the table where the burning tray had been, and reached up with the patch she had been

cementing as she crossed the room. The roof was still somewhat out of reach, but a jump put her high

enough to slap the square of tissue against the hole. The cement would hold it in place for the few hours it

would need to grow into union with the rest of the roof. This was the largest hole, the one her husband

and Bones had extinguished last. The others were not directly over tables, but with a wordless gesture

she directed the jailbird to move two of the latter. Within two more minutes the roof was airtight, and she

descended from the last table to face the young Hiller.

"All right, I'm sorry I was insulting," she said after eyeing him silently for a moment. "I suppose there's

some reason why I found you fumbling with a mask as though you were going outside, instead of fixing

your roof."

"I was going out to help put out fires on the roof," he replied. "Suppose a whole lot of sparks had

come at once?"

"Suppose they had. You had a sponge and water in here, and could work just as well with them as

Earrin could from on top—better; you could wet your sponge more easily. There were no patches

outside, and a hole needs to be patched as soon as possible. Didn't anyone teach you that before they

sent you here?"

"Of course." The voice and expression were sullen, now. "I'd have done the patching when no more

fire arrived. Putting that out came first, it seemed to me."

"True enough, but someone else was taking care of that, and as I said you could do it better from

inside. Were you trying to think?"

"Of course. If you don't think before you act, you can kill people. Everyone knows that—or weren't

you taught anything?"

"Lots. Thinking may be all right inside a city, but outdoors or as near to outdoors are we are here,

you don't let thinking interfere with your hangups. Thinking is too slow to keep you alive. If you don't

have the right habits, then hoping is better than—grab a sponge! Here's some more!"

Two almost simultaneous thuds had sounded.

There were several of the sponge-tipped rods lying against the walls; Kahvi seized one as she spoke.

Simultaneously her husband's voice sounded from above. "Kahv! More fire! I'll take the east wall, where

I can wet my sponge in the lock pool!"

Kahvi tore off her mask to permit freer speech and shouted her agreement. For the next few

seconds she paid no attention to the jailbird, but he also seized a rod with commendable speed, and a

moment later they were far too busy to exchange anything but brief gestures as a dozen sputtering coals

landed on the roof. None of the resulting holes burned wider than sponge size before being chilled into

quiescence, but patches were still being applied when the next explosion sounded.

For a quarter of an hour everyone was too occupied to think, though in one brief lull Kahvi called up

to her husband, "What about the raft? Is Danna all right?" She did not allow her concern to interfere with

her activity.

I can't see very well," Earrin reminded her.

"There doesn't seem to be any smoke out that way, though, and Bones hasn't come back." He

suggested no reasons for the latter fact; Kahvi could make appropriate inferences for herself. If either

parent was worried, however, it didn't show while the work went on.

Eventually the smoke from beyond the ridge thinned and died, and the frightening thuds of exploding

wood ceased to sound. The roof of the jail was a mass of patches, but it was airtight.

"I think we're through with it," Earrin called.

"I'll stay up here for a while, though. You can relax inside."

"What about the others?" Kahvi asked.

"All right, I'm sure. The raft is there and looks all right. One of us is going to have to make me a

better mask. Maybe if the Hillers don't need all this shipment—yes, I can see them both coming this way,

now. Danna's in front, and she'd be hanging back if anything much had happened to the raft or the tent,

since we told her to take care of them."

"Glass? Raft? You must be the traders," the occupant of the jail cut in. "No wonder you were so full

of outside customs. I should have thought. I must have lost track of the days-you weren't due for a week

yet, were you?"

"They said two months, which would be the middle of May. I don't know the exact date—we always

seem to get out of step by a day or two—but I don't think we're that far off," the woman said. "How long

have you been here? Have they kept you completely out of touch? That's pretty stiff."

"I'm not a jailbird. I'm doing a job, not serving a sentence. I was supposed to be ready for you—they

told me by the middle of June. O'Donohugh must have—hmm. I think I know what happened. You'd

better have your friends come inside. I do hope you can live through this."

III

Morals, Mostly

Kahvi felt better. The words were not encouraging, but the young fellow seemed to have some of the

courtesy reflexes.

"Thanks , she replied. "There was no need to have anyone waiting especially for us, though; we could

have gone up to the Hill to let you know we were here."

"Well, we wanted to know as soon as possible. There are—or maybe were—some projects going

on here in Canton and we were using this building lot anyway. I hope you brought as much glass as we

asked for; it's badly needed@r was."

"Was needed? Had projects? What's changed? And what were the projects? Why did they need so

much glass—if you want to tell, of course."

"Well, I'm not really sure about the past tense, but the fire you just helped fight off seems to have

started very close to where we had things going. Whether anything is left I'll have to find out. I hope we

can still use your cargo."

"And that you can still pay for it," added Kahvi.

"We can take credit, of course; it's always nice to have someone who owes us air."

"That's right, there are two of you, aren't there-your partner is still up on the roof. I suppose you'll

need help in getting the cargo ashore. Should I come now? Or wait—you mentioned other names. Has

your group gotten larger?"

"Not really." Kahvi began to feel a little tense, and wondered whether he were making some

reference to her figure. "It's been the same group for years, but usually Earrin and I are the only ones to

trade. This time the cargo is bigger and the raft harder to move. We don't really need help in unloading,

and you'll have to restock your air tray anyway before you come out, of course. It was very lucky that

only one coal landed in an oxygen tray, wasn't it?" Kahvi had just realized how incredibly lucky this was,

and was wondering how it had been possible to save the roof at all.

If the boy read anything into her remark, however, his expression showed no sign of it. Kahvi felt her

own skin flush, and deliberately slowed her breathing. "We'll go back and start unloading now, as long as

you're all right here," she went on as calmly as she could. "Where did I put my mask? There—thanks.

You'd better fix that tray, and do something about patching tissue. We've used up three quarters of what

you had."

"No hurry about that," was the reply. "There's no way we can have another fire for a while—Oh,

sorry; that's another Nomad must-do, isn't it? Well, maybe you're right. I'll take care of them both before

I come out to help. Maybe you could bring some glass here right away; I don't have anything smooth

enough to grow good patch tissue on."

"All right." The woman had redonned her mask by this time, but still used spoken words. The Hiller

would not understand Nomad gesture speech, still less the symbols used by the Fyn family and Bones.

"One of us will be back in a few minutes. Do you want some help with nitrogen, too?"

She regretted this question the instant it was uttered, and glanced up at her husband. She could see

him clearly enough but knew that he could not see her nearly as well through the reflecting roof tissue,

and for a moment she felt a twinge of fear.

However, the young Bostonian seemed indifferent to any implications in her remark, and a moment

later she was through the air lock.

She looked up again at Earrin, and gestured him to come with her back toward the raft. Danna and

Bones were now only a few meters away, and she repeated the signal to them. Her husband glanced

toward the spot from which the smoke no longer rose, shrugged, and made his way down the wall. The

party was halfway back to the raft before Kahvi said anything.

"Could you hear him?" she asked her husband.

"Not very well. You seemed to be schoolmarming at first."

"I was. I'm not sure what we should be doing about him."

"Why anything? What's wrong with him? What's his name, and why is he there?"

"He said he wasn't a jailbird, but I don't believe him. He's a junky—a waster. There isn't a nitrogen

plant or intake tube in the place. Why the roof didn't go up in one big flare I can't see, and I'm still dizzy

from the oxygen—he's got a full atmosphere of it in there. He wants glass to grow patch sheets on, and I

suppose we'd better give, it to him, but we'll have to stay on the raft ourselves—that jail is no place for

Danna."

"What's his name?"

"I didn't get it."

"Then he'll know you spotted something wrong." Kahvi nodded slowly. Exchange of names was

another of the life-protecting habits of the nomadic people outside the cities. Without that information one

could not talk about another person to a third party without ambiguity, and precise communication was

one of the necessities of life. The same factor underlay the Nomad abhorrence of lying. Kahvi's failure to

ask for the jailbird's name would make it obvious that she was being disturbed or distracted by

something.

"He must know anyway," she said finally. "I did say something about his shortage of N-gear.

"Errin, what should we do? Of course we have to give him the life-support stuff he needs, but I'm

afraid of him. He doesn't care about rules—I don't know what he's likely to do."

"I'll bring him the glass," replied the man.

"Don't worry about that. Maybe this will help, in a way. We can let Bones help with the unloading; if

this fellow does see him, no one is likely to believe him anyway. It probably wouldn't even matter if he

saw Danna."

"I don't think we should take that chance. They'd grab her for Surplus school and think they were

doing her and us a favor. You know that as well as I do. Look, this junky spoke about a project where

the fire was, and if he wasn't dreaming there are probably other people over there, which is much too

close. They might be over any minute to see what happened to their jail, and if they see Bones or

Danna-well, they can't all be oxygenfreaks."

Earrin nodded. "You're right. They'd better get out of sight." He gestured briefly to Bones, and the

native disappeared without a splash into the water. Danna followed, unwillingly. She didn't want to go

back inside the tent, but was well enough brought up to know when things were necessary.

She gave a reproachful look at her father's gesture, and disappeared as smoothly as her nonhuman

friend. A minute or so later her head appeared briefly inside the tent, signifying her safe arrival; then she

dropped out of sight among the bubble-covered trays of air producers and food plants. Her parents saw,

but devoted most of their attention to the ridge for several more minutes.

Finally, however, they decided that there had been no witnesses to the presence of child or native,

and went to work on the cargo.

The copper was in sacks similar to the anchors, each containing twenty of the two-kilogram nuggets

brought ashore by the pseudoliving metal-collecting robots which still bred and operated in the oceans.

The change in Earth's air had been much harder on natural life than on the artificial varieties. Fifteen of the

sacks were on the raft. Kahvi dropped each in turn into the meterdeep acid, and her husband carried

them ashore, not lifting them above the surface until it was unavoidable. Bones moved some of them as

close to shore as possible without appearing above the surface.

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THENITROGENFIX Adistantsecond…butthanks Copyright1980by Illustrationscopyright1980byJanetAulisio CONTENTS Delivery,DelayedCooling,CarefullyMorals,MostlyUnknown,UnlessCaptive,CuriouslyInvaders,IndefinitelyCaptured,ConditionallyDoubt,DuplicatedArson,AggravatedContretemps,ConfusedExper...

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Hal Clement - The Nitrogen Fix

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