After only six hours sleep, George found himself awake again. He turned over in the dark space of his bunk, lit only by the soft flickering colored lights of his imp, and tried to go back to sleep again, but it didn't work. His mind started to go over the problems that lay ahead if he was to get his tiny command off this ball of water. He tried thinking about Katrina, then Red, another world away, then Jinjur, even more distant, but his brain rejected those diversions and continued to worry. George gave up and slammed the Sound-Bar door open and rolled out of bed.
"Another sign of getting old," he grumbled to himself. "Can't even get a good eight hours a night anymore."
He stumbled sleepily through his wake-up routine and went forward to the galley. David was there, plowing through one of his special dinners, a pseudoknackwurst sitting on a bed of sauerkraut, a heaping mound of real mashed potatoes, real green bean salad and a pint of dark beer.
"Looks good," said George enviously as he punched himself up a breakfast of algae omelet with pseudoham, algae toast with pseudobutter, and ersatz coffee with pseudocream.
"My last special," said David, handing him a crisp green bean, which George took gratefully. "We've been making fairly good progress. Eight to ten kilometers an hour doesn't seem like much for an airplane, but if you keep it up hour after hour it adds up. We've traveled almost a thousand kilometers in the past five days and are starting up the water mountain. Only about four hundred kilometers to go to the peak where Red can pick us off. If we can keep up the pace we should be there in two days, three days before the periapsis passage."
George listened to the report thoughtfully, taking little bites of the green bean. His breakfast was pushed out onto counter by the galley imp. George swallowed the last of the green bean and started to shovel the pseudobreakfast down as if he were refueling a machine.
"How's the weather?" he asked as he paused between drinks of coffee.
"It's getting worse," said David. "Each six-hour day-night cycle seems to generate a new storm in the hot crescent that spins its way into cold crescent to dump its load of supersaturated ammonia. Most of them seem to head up the mountain, pushing huge ring-waves ahead of them. There was a real doozy that passed over a few hours ago."
"I know," said George. "The thunder woke me up, and I just managed to get myself asleep again before I got seasick. I'm worried about the storms, though. That could make the pickup tricky."
"It's concerning Red, too. There are calm periods between storm fronts, but they're getting shorter and shorter."
"We'd better get a move on, then," said George. He pushed his empty tray back to the galley imp and went forward to relieve Arielle. David returned to his knackwurst, carved off a large slab, smothered it in sauerkraut, piled a dab of hot real mustard on top and put it into his smiling mouth.
"How's Dragonfly doing?" George asked as he reached the cockpit area. Arielle turned around and gave him a crooked smile, the neuskin patch distorting her lip shape. Flashes of colored lights could be seen from between her lips where the brace imp was still holding her tooth in place.
"That could start a whole new fad," thought George, looking at the literally sparkling smile. "Wait until the Space Administration medics release Arielle's picture to the press."
"We'f been making fifteen kilometer an hour, but tide now turn other way, and we will flow down," said Arielle.
"Can we put down an anchor?"
Jill answered for Arielle. "The ocean bottom is now two kilometers down. My sounding cable is long enough, but we really don't have anything that would act like an anchor and dig in the bottom instead of just sliding along."
"Are any of the flouwen around?" asked George. "Perhaps they would be willing to take the cable down to the bottom and tie it to something during the reverse tides."
"Loud Red is nearby," said Jill. "I will talk to it." There was a complex sound from the sonar dome at the front of the plane and soon a large red blob streaked by on the right side, circled the plane, and came to a halt in front of the slowly chugging ship.
*Hi! You call Loud Red!?!*
"Yes. We must move east to point under Sky¤Rock. Water moves west so we move west. Look under me. See thick string?" Jill let out a few meters of cable and Loud Red dove under the ship. There were a few strong tugs that had George reaching for a handhold as they shook the ship.
"It certainly has no trouble grabbing hold of it," George said.
The red blob appeared once again in the view of the half-submerged cockpit windows.
"Bottom of ocean does not move," said Jill. "If thick string attached to bottom, then Floating¤Rock not move. You attach thick string to bottom?"
*That dumb! Floating¤Rock want to move east. If Floating¤Rock attached to bottom, Floating¤Rock not move east. Not move at all! Dumb! If Floating¤Rock want to move east, I move Floating¤Rock east!*
Loud Red dove once again beneath the ship and shortly reappeared, swimming strongly forward. There was a jerk as the cable tightened, and soon they were under tow. After a few minutes Jill gave a report.
"We are moving at five kilometers an hour east in a current that is running twelve kilometers an hour west. Loud Red has almost doubled our speed through the water compared with what I could do with the fans alone."
"I wonder how long it can keep it up?" mused George.
Three hours later, sitting alone in the cockpit, he became more and more impressed by the alien's performance. Not that it was easy for Loud Red, as he let them know frequently.
*Hard work! Tired! Hungry! Go get something to eat!* Abruptly the Dragonfly slowed in the water until it reached the speed that its fans could maintain. It was dark and Loud Red disappeared as soon as the red body slipped out of the landing light beams.
George wondered if the flighty alien would return. It could well be that after catching and eating something, it would go off surfing and forget all about the humans. But he was wrong. Loud Red returned in a half-hour, fighting with his pack of pets over the remains of a large blue-green flitter. The alien finally threw the remainder of the carcass to the pets who went off with it. The cable was retrieved from beneath the ship and with a jerky start, the Magic Dragonfly was skimming through the seas again, heading east. Almost immediately the complaints started.
*Hard work!*
*Dumb!*
*Nothing to do!*
They were breasting large following waves. George looked back at the skyline.
"Another storm coming up on us," he said.
"It should be on us by dark," said Jill. A picture of the storm front appeared on George's cockpit display from the video cameras peering out the Magic Dragonfly's eyes.
*HI! HI!* called Loud Red, suddenly.
"What's that for?" asked George of Jill.
"I think Loud Red heard another flouwen off in the distance. Let's see if I can spot it." George heard the strength of the sonar pulses increase and watched the display on the cockpit console. Soon off to the edge of the screen was a small return blob, the blue color indicating an approaching object.
"Its about the right size for a flouwen," said George.
"It is," said Jill. "I can hear it talking to Loud Red. He has stopped using the simplified language we developed between ourselves and has switched to their more complicated form."
*Hi! Bitter†Orange†Chirr. You are a long way from your feeding jet.*
†So are you Roaring*Hot*Vermillion. I just finished a long surf in front of that storm. Good waves. Want to race me up the ocean? Last one to the top has to catch dinner for both.†
*Can't surf. Have to pull Floating¤Rock up the ocean. It can't swim too well.*
†Who is Floating¤Rock? Rocks can't float.†
*This one can! It can talk too! Come here and met it.*
†A talking, floating rock! I must see this!†
George watched the alien approach on the sonar. As it got closer he looked out the window to see if he could spot it. David and Katrina had joined him. Katrina had buckled herself in the copilot seat while David rode the wave-motion standing up, holding on to the backs of their seats.
"It's lost in the surface clutter," said George, looking up from the sonar screen. "But it's close, you should be able to see it soon."
"I can feel its sonar," said Jill. "It is giving me a good looking-over."
†That Floating¤Rock is big!†
*Come closer. It won't eat you.*
†Why is it holding on to you with a string?†
*I'm holding on to it. It can't swim well, so I am pulling it.*
Bitter†Orange†Chirr moved closer.
"I can see it," said David.
"Where?" said Katrina, sitting up to peer out over the nose of the plane.
"Off to the left and out about a hundred meters. It looks like a patch of orange juice."
"I see it," said George, pointing. "Can you talk to O.J., Jill?"
"I'll try," said Jill. The sonar sent out a burst of sound. Jill used the name combination that Loud Red had used for O.J.
The orange flouwen came closer as Jill talked to it. It was surrounded by Loud Red's orange pets.
"I don't see any difference between that flouwen and those pets except size," said Katrina. "Are we sure they are different creatures and not just the same type with differing levels of intelligence depending upon size? In color, there seems to be no difference between O.J., the pets, and the prey that the pets caught the first time we met them.
"There's a big difference," said David. "O.J. here has a greenish-orange color, like a not-quite-ripe orange, while the pets are yellow-orange. The prey, on the other hand, was a blue-orange, like a slightly smoky flame."
"I presume the aliens are as sensitive to color differences as David is," said George. "That would partially compensate for the fact that they don't have imaging eyes, even though they are photosensitive.
The sky darkened as a cloud drifted over Barnard. David looked up, then gasped.
"A water-spout! It's heading straight for us!"
George glanced at David, then whirled his head to look out the window. As soon as he had the water-spout in sight he froze. Keeping his head still he spoke over his shoulder to his imp.
"This is one time I wish you had your radar back," he said. "You'd be able to get bearing, range, and track in a second." He paused, his head still stiff, then went on. "...its drifting a little... Yep... definitely drifting forward. Tell Loud Red to stop pulling and reverse your engines! You'd also better tell the flouwen that a water-spout is coming."
There was a burst of sound from the sonar in the nose dome. The engines halted as Dragonfly slowed in the water, then resumed again as Jill tried to back up in the water. There was a loud gurgling from underneath as Jill flooded a compartment and Dragonfly settled slightly in the water, the waves breaking over the cockpit window. Through the waves George could see the water-spout moving lazily toward them, He continued to hold his head still so he could watch the motion of the column across the window. If that drift stopped while the size grew larger it meant that the spout was coming straight at them. Fortunately the drift continued, it looked like the twister was going to pass in front of them. It would be close though, and George found his muscles trying to help Jill back the Magic Dragonfly away from danger.
"Loud Red and I never developed a word for waterspout, so I couldn't warn them. I did tell them to dive to the bottom and Loud Red did so, since it is used to taking our advice, but O.J. either didn't hear me or else is ignoring me, and is still swimming in circles around us just under the surface. The sonar is now picking up the disturbed water at the base of the spout."
George looked down at the sonar display, it was an expanded picture of the region just in front of Dragonfly. There was a scintillating circle moving slowly in front of them, about two hundred meters away, and there was a steadier blob that looked like a flouwen, probably O.J. The steady blob and the scintillating circle intersected, then they were both gone.
"The spout has turned orange and lifted!" shouted Katrina. George looked up just as a wave broke over the windshield. It took a second for the heavy duty wipers to clean the film of ammonia water from the outside surface.
"Those are probably the cleanest windows in six light years," thought George to himself, then he too saw the orange-white spout.
"It's O.J.," said David. "I recognize that green-orange color."
"The spout is orange up for hundreds of meters," said George. "It's tearing poor O.J. to pieces!"
The spout had trouble digesting its viscous multiton sudden load. The column lifted, fattened, and slowed its whirling. There was a short attempt to speed up and dip down to the surface again, but finally the spout rose up into the clouds and disappeared.
George looked over at Katrina's stricken face. He opened his mouth to say something comforting, and was trying to think what he could say that would alleviate the loss of an intelligent being, one who was probably hundreds of years older than they were. Suddenly the heavens opened and large drops of water battered the window and the roof overhead in a drumming roar. Then there was a loud PLOP on the roof, and an orange blob slithered down over the cockpit window and down off the nose of Dragonfly. The blob screamed incoherently through the thick glass as it slowly fell in the weak gravity.
"It's a piece of O.J.," said Katrina. "It's acting like the sample that White Whistler let me have." Suddenly they were thrown upward as a strong thump came from underneath the airplane. Loud Red was back.
*Dumb! Bitter†Orange†Chirr eaten by whlee. Now I got work to do. Too much work!*
There were more plopping noises and tiny screams filtering through the incessant drumming of the rain. They could see out for an instant just in back of the beating windshield wipers. There were hundreds of blobs writhing on the surface. Swimming among them was Loud Red. It would gather a batch and bring them together where they instantly merged to form a larger blob. This would be left behind while Loud Red scooped up another batch of baby blobs. George could see the action better on the sonar. The screen was full of what looked like snow, tiny twisting points of light everywhere except for a blank trail left behind by a rapidly moving larger blob that collected the snow and packed it into snowballs, then moved on.
†Eeeeeeee!†
†Eeeaaaahhh!†
*Bitter†Orange†Chirr dumb! Gets caught in whlee and makes poor tired Roaring*Hot*Vermillion work. I ought to eat some of the little ones... Bah! Bitter! Not even good to eat!*
The large red blob molded together a batch of small orange blobs into a larger sphere. It spoke harshly at the sphere.
*I am Roaring*Hot*Vermillion. You stop screaming. You stop moving. You stay here. I will come back.*
†Yes, Roaring*Hot*Vermillion.†
Soon most of the tiny blobs had been rounded up. There were still many others, but they would be picked up later. The red flouwen retraced his path and began collecting the large orange spheres and merging them together. Soon there was a small orange youngling swimming along beside the large red cloud.
*You are dumb, Bitter†Orange†Chirr! Didn't you hear Floating¤Rock tell you to dive to the bottom?*
†The Floating¤Rock speaks so strangely I could barely understand it. Besides, what does a rock know?†
*Floating¤Rock is almost as smart as a flouwen, and it can do things that a flouwen can't do. It can fly like a flitter in the nothing above the ocean!*
†Then why doesn't it, instead of having you pull it along in the ocean?†
*Because it's not feeling well or something. Over there! Another sphere. I think that's the last one I made. Are you feeling big enough to find the rest of you by yourself?*
The distant orange sphere activated itself as it smelled the familiar bitter scent and came sprinting toward the larger orange youngling and merged.
†Yes. I can collect the rest of me.†
*Good! I'm going to get something to eat! Hard work makes me hungry!*
†Don't eat anything orange!†
*Bah! Would never do that! Too bitter!*
There was a piercing whistle and soon three orange snakes came scooting through the ocean to join their master. The first thing Roaring*Hot*Vermillion did was to grab each OrangeoxHunter and stretch them out. In two of them he spotted a blob of greenish-orange imbedded in the yellow-orange of their flesh. A sharp command and the tiny blobs were released, to go screaming off to join the growing body of Bitter†Orange†Chirr.
*We go!* and the red cloud with its orange snakes slithered into the depths, leaving Bitter†Orange†Chirr to collect the rest of its wits.
It was a dark and stormy night when Roaring*Hot*Vermillion returned two hours later. Bitter†Orange†Chirr was still searching out tiny segments of itself, and Roaring*Hot*Vermillion helped him finish off by sending his OrangeoxHunters off to round up any stragglers. Jill called to Roaring*Hot*Vermillion to resume pulling.
*No!*
"But we must get up the mountain!"
*No! Wrong way! Wrong time! Wave... Ocean...,* frustrated, Loud Red left at high speed.
*Wrong way! I get White Whistler!*
"It sounded like Loud Red was trying to explain something, but didn't have the words," said George.
"I could have worked out a joint understanding," said Jill. "But perhaps White Whistler would be less impetuous and easier to work with."
"There goes O.J.," said George. "Probably gone off to get something to eat. After that experience I would guess it is famished. Speaking of famished, I think I'll go back to the galley for a bite while we wait for White Whistler to show up. Keep those engines chugging."
Roaring*Hot*Vermillion streaked through the murky depths at top speed, sonar signals making the ocean as bright as day. Far off in the distance came voices. A slight change in course and the red cloud began to converge on the sounds.
«I hear Roaring*Hot*Vermillion approach.»
~I can hear him too!~
§Very good discrimination, Dainty~Blue~Warble. What else do you hear?§ The small pale blue cloud paused, and Clear«»White«»Whistle and Warm§Amber§Resonance stopped moving to reduce the local noise clutter.
~One... two... three... smaller sounds. They are the OrangeoxHunters of Old-one Roaring*Hot*Vermillion.~
§Excellent hearing, young one.§
«Yes. Now try seeing and let us know when you detect them.» Sharp bursts of directed sound piped from the little blue cloud as it attempted to see off into the distance by illuminating the distant figures with its sonar. The two elders added their own occasional bursts at a lower pitch.
Roaring*Hot*Vermillion heard them seeing him and started in talking as the distance closed.
*The Floating¤Rock is going to the inner point.*
«That is dangerous. It is getting near the time when one should stay away from the inner point.»
*I tried to tell it. But it doesn't know the words! You must tell it to stop!*
«It will take some time to teach Floating¤Rock the right words, but I will try.»
§Do we dare go close to the inner point when the time is so near?§
«I have watched a number of near times from the side of the mountain. There are still ten days left. We can find Floating¤Rock, warn it, and get back to a safe place in that time.»
§Did you say the Stiff¤Movers can look at a distance?§
«Yes. They have disks in their top lump like the ones that I make for looking.»
§Then I will come also. I have an idea for communicating the danger to the Stiff¤Movers that does not involve teaching them new words.§
«Then come along and tell me as we go.»
~I want to go too!~
§Dainty~Blue~Warble, dear. It is too dangerous for little ones.§
~I'm not little. I'm almost as big as you are. Besides, Old-one Clear«»White«»Whistle said there was plenty of time, and I swim fast.~
§But, dear...§
«Let the little one come. It will be good experience and there is really no danger provided we start back on time.»
The three colored clouds swam off toward the still approaching red cloud, which slowed and turned back the other way. Soon the four members of the pod were rejoined and swam as a group back toward the inner point.
It was daybreak and everyone except Katrina was awake to enjoy the next hour and a half of sunshine. The seas of Eau were relatively calm since Barnard had been heating up the backside of Roche rather than evaporating ammonia out of the seas of Eau. The high clouds that had been raining huge slowly-falling drops of ammonia on the inner pole were being parted by the warm dry breezes from Roche flowing through the narrow neck between the two planets. Through the hole in the clouds Barnard rose majestically over the mountains of Roche, the beams of light shooting down the long rift valleys that deepened as they furrowed their way to the oval end of the rocky globe.
Jill had been chugging her way toward the inner pole of Eau, trying to get as close to the gravity minimum as possible in order to make it easier on the ascent module when they picked them off.
"How are we doing, Jill?" asked George.
"We have been inside the ninety-five percentile pickup contours for the last half-hour. The high tide peaked not long ago, so the water mountain is dropping rapidly. We are starting to drift out again."
"We'll make it back again at next high tide if we can just keep chugging. Can you raise Rocheworld Base, Jill?"
"Rocheworld Base, here," said Carmen, her clear enunciated English penetrating through the haze of electronic noise generated by the multitude of storm cells wandering over the overheated ocean of Eau.
"We will be inside the pickup contours at the next high tide, three hours from now. It'll be dark here, but we'll have our lights on and you should have no trouble finding us."
"Right, George. I read you. Now let's see if Jack can read Jill." The humans kept silent as the two computers interchanged information.
"Communication complete," said Jill. "Even the Wolfe error correction code was never activated. The personnel transfer should proceed without any significant problem."
George grinned. Soon his command would be off this sodden planet and back into space where they belonged. He gazed up at the bright orb of Barnard. At this point in Rocheworld's orbit the red dwarf star was four times larger than the Sun, and looked even larger since it was still close to the horizon. Despite its brightness, he had no trouble looking at it, for it was no brighter than a charcoal fire. A charcoal fire with dark red clouds floating over its surface.
He thought of his last charcoal fire. The time he and Jinjur had traveled out to Annapolis to exercise her alumni privileges. A small sailboat with a huge sail and a night in a shoreside cabin. They had spent the evening tossing fuel into the hibachi on the patio and quietly getting drunk on white wine. Nothing had happened that night, for they knew they had the rest of their lives together.
"Hey!" yelled Shirley from the galley as the plane lurched upward. George turned in time to see the remains of an algae shake spin lazily through the air and glop onto the ceiling. He felt a thump and another, then watched the pseudoprotein start to drip downward in the low gravity. The Christmas Branch rescued the situation by grabbing the metal container out of Shirley's grasp and installing the shake back into the shaker before it hit the carpet.
"Loud Red has returned," said Jill. "Since I was heading up-mountain, they came at me from my blind side."
~That was fun! Can I bump it again?~
*No! One bump is enough!*
«One bump is probably too many for the humans inside.»
§I don't think you ought to be teaching Dainty~Blue~Warble your boisterous habits.§
~I bump Floating¤Rock again?~
*No!*
«Floating¤Rock is still moving toward the inner pole.»
*I tell it to stop, but it does not.*
«It is dangerous here on the surface of the ocean. Let's get it down on the bottom where it is safer, then we can try to talk with it. Bitter†Orange†Chirr! Come here! Attach yourself to the outer wing of Floating¤Rock and sink yourself. You others! Do the same!»
*Yes! Let's make this Floating¤Rock sink!*
"O.J. has attached itself to my wing," said Jill. "It seems to be extruding the water from its body and is dragging the wing-tip under."
"Tell it to stop!" said George. "We've got to maintain headway in this counter tide if we are going to make the pickoff at next sunrise."
"They don't seem to be paying any attention to me," said Jill. "They are too busy talking between themselves... There is another one on the other wing-tip. It's Loud Red. Rocking up like the other one."
"What's going on!" said George in alarm. He looked out the cockpit window as an amber blob and a pale-blue blob climbed up on the wing and proceeded to shower ammonia water from their cells.
"White Whistler has my tail!" said Jill. "They are pulling me under!"