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CHAPTER THREE - RETURNING

~Look! Look! Look!~ Dainty~Blue~Warble's cry echoed through the water. Long after the others had gotten bored with watching the sky and had gone to hunt some food, the young flouwen kept his lens focused on the skies overhead. Finally he saw the aeroshell carrying the lander, glowing with the heat of entry, streak across the sky.

~The humans are coming! The humans are coming!~

«Where?» asked Clear«»White«»Whistle as he rapidly formed a looking lens of his own. Long practice made the formation of a clear sphere of tissue almost automatic.

*Fractals!* cursed Roaring*Hot*Vermillion. He was having trouble with his eye, but after a moment he finally got the skies in focus.

Crack! A sonic boom cut through the air as the aeroshell passed overhead. Then, with a splash, the probe announced its arrival to all those living in the water. It sank to the bottom. Almost immediately, the aeroshell was surrounded by the curious flouwen, each one jockeying for a taste of the strange artifact.

The acoustic sensors of the crawler heard the crowd of strange voices examining it with complex sonar chirps.

~I cannot see inside it. It is as hard as a rock.~

*Look! It is crawling out of its shell!*

Using its flippered tread, the crawler left the aeroshell and then adjusted its buoyancy to match the density of the ammonia-water sea. By neither sinking nor floating, it allowed itself to be gently passed from flouwen to flouwen so that they would become accustom to it before the humans regained control.

*Hello! Hello!* Roaring*Hot*Vermillion surrounded the rowboat-sized vehicle and shook it gently as he roared at it. *The Crawling¤Rock is so small! How do all the humans fit in there!?!*

«Think before you speak!» Clear«»White«»Whistle chastised. «This is just another pet of the humans. Can't you taste how much it is like the winged Floating¤Rock? The humans do all their talking through such pets as this.»

The milky flouwen reached into the reddish blob and tried to pry the crawler out of his grasp. After a short struggle, only long enough for Roaring*Hot*Vermillion to prove that Clear«»White«»Whistle could not have forced the removal, Roaring*Hot*Vermillion released the crawler to the other.

«Hello? Shirley? Katrina? Are you listening?»

The computer in the crawler translated the sonic trills of the white flouwen and used its blue-green laser communicator to transmit the flouwen's question up through the water to the humans waiting above on Prometheus.

"We are here," answered Shirley. "We want for you to carry our crawler close to the shore where we can communicate better with you and with the elders. Take it toward the beaches where elders think, and show us a spot where our crawler will be safe under the tides, and can rest comfortably on the ocean bottom."

*Why does it want to be on the bottom? It will get all sandy there.* Roaring*Hot*Vermillion was still trying to work the tiny irritants from his body that he picked up when he was slammed into the bottom by the churning surf of the north shore.

"We have something to show you," Shirley's voice interrupted. "We are sending you a touchscreen console that will help us communicate more clearly. It would help us if the console were set down somewhere stable."

§I know of a quiet bay,§ offered Warm§Amber§Resonance. §I often go there to practice body plays so we will not be fighting the currents. It is one of the favorite places for elders that will only be rocked up to think for a short while, since for long periods of thought the tides are too mild. We can go there.§

Sensing no disagreement, the large white flouwen holding the crawler streaked off toward the cove, followed closely by the rest of the Pod. Clear«»White«»Whistle was the only one to maintain his eye and he closely scrutinised the crawler as he carried it along. The crawler was not heavy, but its awkward shape slowed the flouwen down. Dainty~Blue/\Warble hung back from the rest of the pod and kept his tutor company.

~These are certainly interesting times to be alive.~ «Indeed. You even owe your individuality to the coming of the humans. I have decided to make the Stiff¤Movers the subject of my research. Perhaps you too, would like to study them seriously.»

~Certainly there is much to learn about them. You say they build devices such as this Crawling¤Rock? It seems odd to use one's energy to change the shape of things instead of using one's mind to understand them as they are.~

Before too long, the pod had their prize installed in the shallow cove. Here, sheltered by high cliffs on three sides and by a reef on the fourth, the usual high waves of Eau were tamed into gentle swells. They softly lapped the shore which was studded with several colorful 'rocks' of thinking flouwen. They settled the crawler onto the soft sands on the bottom, in water just deep enough for a flouwen to float comfortably.

The crawler adjusted its density until it sank in the water and its treads were firmly embedded in the sand. From its rear, there rose a mast that extended out of the water. At the end of the mast, well above the wave tops, was a small laser transmitter that locked onto the commsat Walter hovering at the L-4 point just visible right on the horizon. Using one of its claw-like manipulators, the crawler reached over its back and opened up a cargo hold that was normally used for storing samples picked up during an exploration mission.

Inside the hold was the prototype of the custom touchscreen so carefully constructed by John, Carmen, and Caroline back on the Prometheus. The basic case of the custom console was that of a videoboard, the modernistic version of the old-time clipboard. A standard videoboard was a thin but stiff high resolution display screen the size of a standard piece of paper that operated by reflection in daylight and illumination at night. You could talk to it, write on it, move or touch menu icons on the screen with your finger, or punch in letters and numbers on keyboard icons along the bottom. In turn, the videoboard could show you anything it could access, or had stored in its memory.

Besides having a built-in flouwen-human translation program, this custom videoboard could also input two-dimensional sound, touch, and chemical patterns, and output sonar patterns that matched the underlying video patterns. The electrochemical receptors of the videoboard were still crude in both spatial and chemical resolution, but Nels and John had designed them to be adaptable, and hoped to refine their resolution as they and the flouwen got used to the strange interface between a culture who used chemical smells and tastes solely for gastronomy and a culture who used them in place of reference books.

As an introduction, to teach the flouwen how to use the videoboard, the screen replayed the picture of Rocheworld rotating around and around, with the ellipse of Prometheus off to one side, and a human spacecraft flying from the sailship to land on the outer pole of Eau.

"Where is Floating¤Circle?" trilled the videoboard in passable flouwen. "Touch the Floating¤Circle."

The flouwen clustered around, each one eager to try using the odd device. It wasn't long before they had moved on from simple pictures to complex mathematical discussions. Sweet•Green•Fizz was especially impressed with an imaginary sonovideo trip from the surface of Eau, out into space where the whole of the Barnard planetary system could be seen going through its gyrations, followed by an imaginary trip from Barnard back to Sol, a flyby of all the planets and moons in the solar system, and a landing on the shores of the blue-green oceans of Earth.

•What a marvelous pet! If only I could train my Pretty¤Smells to obey so well!•

«This is no natural pet, but one that had been built in order to do the humans' bidding. It is not alive.» Long ago during the first visit of the humans to Rocheworld, Katrina had explained the human habit of manipulating their environment to the technologically primitive flouwen, but Clear«»White«»Whistle hadn't bothered to share the taste of the memory with the frivolous Sweet•Green•Fizz.

•They change the nature of their pets?• Struggling to understand the strange idea, the green blob hardened into a rock and sank to the bottom, lost in thought.

#Let me see this new pet of the humans,# demanded Sour#Sapphire#Coo. The others made room for the large flouwen. The unusual amount of nearby activity had roused the ancient flouwen from his internal search for the fifth cardinal infinity. Lately it had been difficult to concentrate on that research problem. The dark blue elder had been disturbed not long ago in order to advise the pod on the mystery of the humans. Now, unbidden thoughts and questions about these strange beings had crowded out the computations. Sour#Sapphire#Coo had finally decided that perhaps it would be better to work on this new puzzle before going back to a peaceful rocky state and the comfort of pure mathematical theory.

Sour#Sapphire#Coo took the videoboard and chirped at the crawler. #I am Sour#Sapphire#Coo. You will show me how to use this thing.#

Working through the crawler's computer, James took over. Soon he had all the flouwen conversant in the use of the touchscreen and the capabilities and limitations of the laser communications link. Now that contact with the flouwen pod had been reestablished, the preparations of the landing party intensified.

 

"The flouwen are most happy about our coming down," Caroline reported to Jinjur. "I think we are the most exciting thing to happen to them in eons."

"Of course we are," the general laughed. "Just think how excited we would have been if any of the UFOs that had been reported over the years had bothered to land and prove they had intelligent beings on board. So, are they willing to teach us humans some of their "basic" math?"

"More than that," John said. "They are clamoring to come back with us to visit the Prometheus."

"Don't be ridiculous! How can we get something as awkward and bulky as a flouwen into a space suit?"

"Actually," George offered. "A spacesuit is only a bag to hold air. We can get one to hold water just as easily. Maybe we can design one to hold at least a portion of a flouwen."

"They don't breath, so we wouldn't need to add air tanks," said John. "And anything watertight would keep them safe from the vacuum and us safe from their ammonia."

"We have those large rescue bags that are designed for vacuum transport of an injured person," Shirley reminded them. "They're made out of the same tough flexible glassy-foil material used in our spacesuits, and are big enough to hold a person in a basket stretcher. Those would hold a large portion of a flouwen."

Designs for flouwen spacesuits began building themselves in her head. "Their sonar-vision wouldn't work in vacuum at all, and would be pretty poor in air, so we would need to build lenses for them right into the suit so they could look at things with their light sense." She looked at John. "We'll need to get the Christmas Branch to cast us some plastic helmets with built-in lenses and figure out how to attach the helmets to the rescue bag."

"We can weld the glassy-foil bags to a spare helmet neckring from our suit repair stocks, and design the base of the custom helmets to fit the neckring," said John. "We pour the flouwen into the bag through the zipper opening, and lock on the helmet for the vacuum seal."

"How are they going to move around?" asked George. "Are you going to sew arms and legs for them?"

"They don't have bones, so arms and legs would be worthless," John replied. "But they live and swim in low gee so I'm sure they could get around just fine in free-fall."

"They do form pseudopods to manipulate things," Caroline reminded them. "We really ought to put in some sleeves anchored to portholes in the neckring so they can have arms. Legs would be worthless, but Nels seems to get around fine without them. Still, don't see how they will move in gravity, even the ten percent gravity of Rocheworld. The higher levels of gravity we expect on the moons of Gargantua will be impossible for them."

"They could be very useful on those moons which have oceans," said George, thinking about the possibilities. "We could explore the land, and they could explore the oceans. The same undulating motion they use normally for swimming should work equally well when they are in a spacesuit. But, as for moving about on land, I'm afraid that's out. We'll have to roll them down to the water's edge like a beached whale."

"The flouwen seem to be pretty adaptable," John cautioned. "I've seen a lot of different techniques used for winning a sack race. Maybe the flouwen will work out some way to move about on land."

"We'll see," Jinjur interjected. "I'll make sure we test them out on land in their new 'drysuits'. After we see their performance on the islands of Eau, we can decide if they would be worth hauling up to Prometheus and out to the moons of Gargantua."

"One other problem ." George added. "How are we going to talk to them when they are in their suits?"

"Simple," said Caroline. "The rescue bags come with a standard communications pack so the people inside can make laser link calls for help and talk to their rescuers out in vacuum. All I'll need to do is insert a translation program into the communicator memory. It can take the sonar chirps from the flouwen and convert them into human language laser link signals, and vice versa. When the flouwen are in their drysuits on board one of our vehicles, your imp can pick up the chirps coming through the air, James or one of the vehicle computers can translate, and the imp can give you the translated sentence."

Caroline turned and looked at John and Shirley. "If you two will get started on the helmet and suit, I'll get started on the communicator." The three of them headed down the corridor leaving George and Jinjur looking after them, bemused.

"So I guess that I am going to have to make room for some passengers on the trip back up?" Jinjur joked.

"And I will have to see about preparing space for them when they arrive. I wonder how Nels will feel about flooding one of his hydroponic tanks with ammonia-water?"

 

Nels did not feel any too happy about it, but at least it meant that he would have his chance to study the fascinating alien creatures up close. By the time he managed to find the time to ask the General about his going to the surface, Jinjur had all ready picked the landing team. She had tried to soften his disappointment by letting him know that if any of those chosen had to be scrubbed, he would be the replacement, but Nels knew how unlikely that was. Still, at least Jinjur now knew how seriously he meant to be a complete part of the crew. In the meantime, he would need to decide which tanks could be converted into a flouwen apartment without upsetting his carefully balanced ecosystem.

Having Cinnamon so busy with her training and preparing for the surface, Nels had to do much of the scut work himself. It had been a long time since he had personally scrubbed out the tanks and Nels made a mental note to thank Cinnamon next time he had her do the dirty work. The lab had seemed so quiet lately without her; it made him edgy.

While the rest of the crew concerned themselves with the preparing of the landing craft, Nels studiously worked in his lab. He knew that the Christmas Bush was using most of its capacity in the construction of the flouwen spacesuits and the loading of the SLAM II so he set about doing all the preparing for the flouwen by himself. It gave him perverse pleasure to work hard at a task that took so little of his usually busy mind, but soon his intellect rebelled. Left with nothing to stimulate his thoughts, Nels began to remember tiny things that he had hardly paid attention to at the time. Songs that Cinnamon used to sing crept out of his memory only to dance unattainable on the tip of his tongue. Finally, in desperation he called out to his imp. "James? I know that you're busy. But can you please hook me into Cinnamon's music program?"

"Certainly Nels," the computer answered. "Cinnamon is currently singing this selection."

"Patch me through to her." Then, coming through his imp, Nels could hear Cinnamon's clear tenor voice singing softly.

"I'm leaving on a jet plane . Don't know when I'll be back again ."

 

Slowly the SLAM II was loaded with all their equipment, rations, and personal belongings for a three month stay on the surface. That would be enough time to go through two of Rocheworld's forty day "years", and be close at hand to observe two of the spectacular interplanetary waterfall cycles—this time at a safe distance instead of surfing it. All of the equipment had to go through the airlock that connected the SLAMto the ceiling of the hydroponics deck of Prometheus.

"This is going to be a close fit," said Shirley as she hoisted the automatic tracking telescope for the flouwen communications link toward the ceiling of the hydroponics deck.

"I've got it, but go slowly," warned Caroline from the airlock above. She guided the long tube through the two doors of the airlock where Richard grabbed it and pulled it through onto the bridge of the rocket lander.

"Need any help, Superman?" asked Thomas from the pilot harness. He and Tony were taking the SLAMthrough checkout.

"Not from any Jamaican beach bum," replied Richard. "Besides, this is the easy part, next we've got to haul it up the passway to the storage lockers on the engineering deck. The passway is even narrower than the airlock doors."

"Tony found a stuck lens cap on a scanner. I've got to go up to the engineering deck anyway to suit up for an outside inspection," Thomas said. "You stay down here and lift the telescope, and I'll climb on up ahead and guide it so it doesn't get dinged. It'll be a great partnership, your brawn and my brains."

"I'll brain you ." started Richard, reaching out to give Thomas a knuckle on the skull with his spare hand.

They were interrupted by a strange, yet somewhat familiar sounding computer voice. It was Jupiter, the persona for the main computer of the SLAM

II. Jupiter had a voice pattern that was distinctly different from the voice used by James, the persona for the main computer on Prometheus. The different voices helped the humans instantly identify which computer was talking to them. Jupiter's voice came from a Christmas Branch, a one-sixth version of the Christmas Bush assigned to the lander during its mission. The Christmas Bush had clambered down the rungs of the passway that led to the other decks and was waiting there, three hands holding onto the passway rungs, and three hands ready to grab the end of the bulky telescope tube.

"The passway only provides eighteen millimeters clearance for the telescope envelope," said Jupiter. "And that assumes a precise angular orientation. I recommend that the Christmas Branch be allowed to provide guidance through the passway."

Richard laughed. "You've been replaced, Thomas. I've finally got a partner with brains to match my brawn."

"There is also no need for you to go outside, Thomas," continued Jupiter. "I can have a section of the Christmas Branch remove the lens cap."

"George taught me in flight school to always check out my plane before I fly," said Thomas. He got out of his harness and quickly pulled himself up the passway, the Christmas Branch neatly dodging his movements.

"Don't forget that Prometheus is under acceleration," yelled Shirley from down below. "Make sure you use your safety lines!" She disappeared from view for a moment, then came back with another bulky package.

"Ready for the power supply?" she called up to Caroline.

 

When Thomas reached the engineering deck, David and Cinnamon were there. David was stripping down to his shorts prior to getting into his spacesuit.

"Where are you going?" asked Thomas.

"Cinnamon and I are going into the flyer to check it out," said David. "Shirley insists that the first person to cycle through the airlock into the flyer through must wear a full suit, even though the life support systems inside the plane indicate that the air pressure and composition are perfectly normal there."

"No need for you to do that," said Thomas. "I have to suit up to go outside, so I'll check out the airlock for you." He started to undress while Cinnamon busied herself getting his spacesuit ready. While Cinnamon was checking him out, Richard and the Christmas Branch arrived with the telescope and packed it carefully away in a rack in the equipment storage bay.

In his full spacesuit, Thomas went through the first door of the airlock that would take them to the cockpit entrance of the Dragonfly airplane. The door closed and David and Cinnamon listened to him talking to Jupiter through their imps.

"Boarding port pressurized, Jupiter?" asked Thomas through his laser communicator suit link.

"Indicators all green," reported the computer.

"Open the door." The door in the airlock opened into the wedged-shape boarding port that surrounded the cockpit windows and nose of the large aerospace plane. Between the edges of the boarding port and the fuselage of the aeroplane were meters and meters of plastic sealing material. The seal was holding and the air pressure was normal. Thomas carefully cracked the seal in his helmet and took a quick smell—nothing. Sealing his helmet again, he went to the access hatch built into the copilot side of the Dragonfly, and lifting panels and turning handles, he pushed the door inward. The door gave away easily and slowly and there was no sound of an air leak. He stuck his head inside, cracked the seal on his helmet again, took a quick whiff, then came back out through the airlock into the engineering deck of the Falcon.

"All safe," he said. "You two can go in without suits." He headed for the other airlock that exited to the vacuum outside the hull of the Falcon. Just as he got there, Caroline and Shirley arrived with the power supply.

"Did you get checked out properly?" said Shirley sternly.

"Cinnamon did a thorough job on me," replied Thomas.

Shirley paused to consider. "She's good . but I'm better. Hold still!" With a resigned sigh, Thomas grabbed a handhold and she took him through the checklist, his body rocking as she punched the buttons on his chestpack.

"Are both your 'stiction boots working?" she demanded. Thomas obediently turned them on with a flick of his tongue on his neckring control pad. They clicked tightly to the deck and he lifted them one at a time to show her they released properly.

"OK, you're cleared to exit," she finally said, reluctantly.

"Don't forget your safety lanyard. Remember ."

". James has Prometheus under acceleration. I know, I know. Honest, Shirley, I promise I'll be good and not fall off."

"You'd better, or I'll radio 'I told you so!' at you all the way down until you splash in the ocean." With that sobering parting thought, Thomas cycled through into the airlock, where he carefully fastened the safety lanyard before he opened the outer door to step outside onto the large curved hull.

Shirley turned to Caroline. "If you and Richard can haul the rest of the equipment in and get it stored, I'll help David and Cinnamon check out the flyer."

One by one Cinnamon, David, and Shirley cycled through to the boarding area and floated through the narrow hatch into the aerospace plane. Cinnamon was the first through the hatch and was greeted by Juno, the vocal persona for the semi-intelligent program in Dragonfly's computer.

"Hello, Cinnamon," said Juno, its throaty tenor voice coming through Cinnamon's headband imp. "Are you going to be piloting me?"

"Along with a few others," replied Cinnamon. "But I expect that you'll be doing most of the piloting yourself."

"I am a competent pilot. I also have in my memory all the experiences Service Excursion Module One underwent during the first mission, so I will be better able to respond to new situations. However, I will need you and the others to tell me where to go."

David swam in through the lock, all business.

"Self-check routine zero," he commanded.

Though his imp a mechanical voice replied, the Juno voice persona having been bypassed during the checkout routine. "Seven-six-one-three-F-F."

David consulted a printed checklist and nodded agreement.

"Self-check routine one."

"Surface Excursion Module Two going through systems check," reported Juno's voice. There was a long pause. During the wait, Shirley arrived and went down the long corridor of the aeroplane and through the privacy curtains to the engineering section at the rear.

"One external video camera stuck, evidence of bacterial contamination in the water tanks, and the x-ray crystallography analyzer inoperative," Juno finally reported.

"Did you hear that?" David called down the corridor to Shirley.

"Yep," she replied. "Juno fed it to my imp too. I'll pull the x-ray analyzer and get a replacement unit from stores on Prometheus. Juno should be able to take care of the water problem by recycling the tanks through the filter system." She paused. "Put me through to Thomas, Juno. Hello, Thomas," she called.

Thomas's voice answered back through her imp. "Yo. What's up?"

"Need to have you check out an external video camera on the Dragonfly hull. Juno will lead your imp to it. Give it a kick. If you can't bust it loose it so it can move, bring it in."

"Wilco."

Shirley and Cinnamon then took Juno through a few simulated landings, while David, back at the engineering console, inserted a few "emergencies" to keep them all in practice.

"That's enough," said Shirley, after she had botched an engine-out landing on a sandy beach and Cinnamon had intervened at the last second with an imaginary blast from the space thrustors that just allowed them to clear a huge boulder blocking their path. "Let's seal off Dragonfly and get some dinner."

"Fresh peas tonight," promised Cinnamon. "I pushed the growing season ahead and we have a large harvest, enough for everyone."

"I was going to stay and do some more checkouts," said David. "But those fresh peas convinced me otherwise. I hope Nels doesn't cook them too much."

 

It was finally time for the "goodbyes". One by one each member of the away team hugged the rest of the crew that was staying behind on Prometheus and jumped up through the airlock into SLAM II. As they passed the receiving line, each murmured special farewells to those closest to them.

"Well, George," Jinjur said softly, "This time you get to be the one to keep the home fires burning."

"I'll miss you," he said as he stroked her rounded cheek. "Be careful down there."

"I'll try to keep the Dragonfly in one piece," she teased. She reached for George's shirt front and half unbuttoned the top button. Then she fastened it again and patted his chest. "See you soon," she said, pulling him forward for a kiss. "Well, enough of this maudlin stuff!" she finally said as she slapped George's back heartily, and waited as Cinnamon came hurrying past. Jinjur let the civilian go through before her and then entered the tiny airlock herself. The last one through, she closed the lock door to seal off the connection between the SLAMand the hydroponics deck on Prometheus. There was the hiss of recycling air and her imp jumped from the side of her head and carefully checked the seal of the doors as it closed the connection between SLAMand the hydroponics deck of Prometheus. Jinjur felt a twinge as the imp deserted her, and only felt complete when it reformed its comb shape and nestled back into her thick afro hairdo. The lock sealed, Jinjur stepped out into the bridge of an independent ship. Her ship . the Falcon.

Tony and Thomas were fastened upside down into their pilot and copilot harnesses and were running through their final checklists. Thomas had let Tony be pilot for this first phase of the mission. This launching maneuver would be at low acceleration, so instead of going to her bunk and strapping in, Jinjur went to a viewport where she could see the action and grabbed some handholds.

"Jupiter is ready to release," Caroline announced from her computer console.

"Falcon has clearance for breakaway from the Prometheus," said Carmen, who was manning the communications console beside her. Carmen felt a moment's lightheadedness but attributed it to the unusual perspective. James had the Prometheus under acceleration, giving the illusion of gravity, and because of the inverted position of the SLAM II on the docking port, it seemed to those on the bridge that they were hanging upside down over a floor with triangular windows in it.

"Take us out, Captain Roma," said Jinjur, and with a loud clunk, the clamps that had held the Falcon to the lift shaft of the main ship released the lander.

Gently, Tony eased the throttle forward and lifted slowly away from the airlock. As they cleared the edge of the hydroponics deck, he switched to other control jets and maneuvered the ponderous cylinder out between the sail shrouds. There was a moment of disorientation as the control jets stopped and the Falcon went into freefall. Suddenly the perspective righted itself and the crew was sitting properly at their consoles, under a canopy of stars. Below them, visible out the viewports, was the gigantic silver sail of Prometheus, stretching out for hundreds of kilometers and slowly accelerating away under the light pressure from Barnard. Above them, now visible outside the wedge-shaped docking windows in the ceiling of the bridge, was the double planet Rocheworld, spinning itself into its unique symbol of infinity.

 

As they approached the planet's strange, double-lobed, rotating gravitational field, Tony turned control of the Falcon over to his co-pilot. After all, Thomas St. Thomas had coped with this anomalous gravity field before. Still, despite his fatigue from the long hours of carefully monitoring their long spiral in from orbit, Tony stayed at his station in order to watch Thomas's technique. Jinjur, wanting to be on the bridge during the landing, had taken over at the comm console and had sent Carmen off to strap herself into an empty sleeping rack.

They were approaching Rocheworld in the plane of their common rotation, going in the same direction as the two planetoids, but slower, since they were at a greater distance from the common center. As they moved closer, the plot of Falcon's orbital track on the pilot consoles took on a wavy appearance as the two lobes pulled the lander this way and that as they passed underneath.

"One-tenth gee coming up," Thomas told Jinjur, as the lander approached the planet's influence.

The general's voice sounded through the imps of all those on board. "All hands! Prepare for imminent gees!" After a moment, Jinjur felt the floor pushing up at her and was forcibly reminded of her normally forgotten diminutive stature. The trouble with gravity, she thought silently, is that it made too many things hard to reach.

For a while, Jinjur could look out the wedge-shaped docking windows in the ceiling of the bridge and see the outer poles of the two lobes moving majestically across her view, slowing perceptively as Thomas lowered the altitude and increased the orbital speed of the lander. As the thrust continued, the rocket tilted upward and the lobes could no longer be seen. Reluctant to leave the bridge, Jinjur called up the view of the Falcon that the commsat Barbara was recording from its position orbiting over the outer pole of Eau. From that perspective, it was easy to see that the tiny silver sliver with the bright yellow tail was headed toward the long chain of island craters on the outer pole of Eau the humans called the Hawaiian Islands and the flouwen called the Islands of Thought.

"Prepare for deorbit burn!" Jinjur called through the imps, as she, herself, made sure that her straps were snugly fastened. "Take us down, Captain," the General ordered.

Slowly, Thomas pushed forward on the throttle, increasing the thrust of the main rockets and slowing their plummeting decent. The crew sank in their harnesses as their bodies fought against the long forgotten gravity. Slowly the pressure built, from a tenth, to a half, to three gees just before reentry.

Muffled groans could be heard over the general comm link as personal imps passed on the sounds from each sleeping rack. Three gees was quite a load for people who had lived most of their lives in free fall.

"If you think it's bad now," spat the General through clenched teeth, "just wait until we have to lift off this rock again."

The rocket blasted a powerful glare over the choppy waves on the ocean-covered planet below, then throttled down into a more controlled thrust as the huge cylinder backed down through the miles of chill atmosphere, letting the friction of the thin air dissipate the energy of the eighty falling tons of massive silvery lander.

 

All around the island, the flouwen were gathered to watch. Most were utilizing Clear«»White«»Whistle's new way of looking at the world and were amazed at the amount of energy the rocket expelled in order to swim in the thin atmosphere. The roar grew louder as the exhaust flames from the four rocket engines beat against the sands, sending waves of noise echoing into the water.

Roaring*Hot*Vermillion was envious. *They make such wonderful noise! The sound of their coming must be audible for miles!*

§They certainly announce their presence. See around you. They have even awakened some of the Elders!§

All around in the shallow waters surrounding the island, "rocks" in a rainbow of colors were swelling with water. Soon the shallows were a swirling mass of flouwen, all tasting the memories of the others, catching up and getting reacquainted. The watching members of the pod rejoiced in the company of elder flouwen that had been rocked up since their youth and thought long dead. Many of the awakened elders soon lost all interest in the humans and the rocket that had called them from their thoughts, for they were most concerned with telling the others about the new theories and concepts they had developed during their long period of hibernation.

As important as it was to flouwen intellectual development, the hibernation process had its drawbacks. Extremely difficult mathematical and logic problems, such as the definition and ranking of the cardinal infinities, the fast bin-packing problem, and the tiling of n-dimensional planes, all required long periods of concentrated and uninterrupted thought.

Once an adult flouwen had developed enough mass, training, and experience to undertake one of those problems for its topic of research, it would shed most of the water from the cells in its body, in the process concentrating the thinking fluids that resided between its cells, and turn into a hibernating rock to think the problem out. The difficulty with the hibernation state was that as the flouwen became solid to increase their intellectual capabilities, they were no longer able to eat and maintain the large number of cells that were so important to the thought process. As the outsides of the hibernating "rocks" were worn away by tide and wind erosion, or nibbled away by tiny plant and animal life, the IQ of the flouwen rocks slowly decreased and the problem became that much harder to solve, forcing them to stay rocked up longer. Many flouwen had been known to have given themselves such a difficult problem to solve, that they never woke up from the effort.

These elders, however, had been awakened, and were hungry from their many years of thought. Despite all the interesting things that were going on, they soon surfed away on the waves into the deep ocean to hunt food to build up their body mass. It just wouldn't do to be known as a stupid elder.

 

Jinjur watched the changing shoreline with astonishment as it filled with colorful alien blobs gamboling in the waves and leaping up to look at them like a school of inquisitive porpoises. There was a jar, a rocking motion, then two more jars, as the landing pads hit the sandy surface of the beach.

"The Falcon has landed," Thomas reported laconically. He powered down the landing rockets and secured them, while Tony readied the ascent module stage in case it was needed for an emergency liftoff. Jupiter was unable to translate the cacophony coming from outside the ship, but did its best with the outside video cameras to show the humans the upheaval their landing had caused. Soon after the humans had freed themselves from their landing webbing and had regrouped at the various view ports, most of the beach was cleared, the newly awakened elders having surfed off to find food. However, three flouwen, Clear«»White«»Whistle, Dainty~Blue~Warble and Warm§Amber§Resonance continued to watch the tall spacecraft with their new eyes, waiting for the humans to appear.

"Well," said John, "What next?"

"I think we should let the flouwen have a little time to get used to our presence. Besides, we've got a lot of work to do. First we have to unship the Dragonfly. Then, some of us can get it ready for the airborne exploration program, while the rest of us set up the laser communications link we brought for the flouwen to use." Passing down through the wedge shaped corridor that went down the central column of consumables that made up the center of the lander, Jinjur moved purposefully down to the suit locker on the bottom deck. She nodded toward those who waited there for her. "Shirley and Thomas, you have done this once before. Suit up and join me in the airlock; we three will process through together."

Long practice allowed them to rapidly don the bulky space suits and they went through the safety check. Shirley double checked the telltale lights inside the panels of the others's backpacks, and had Jinjur check hers. Reassured, she nodded to Jinjur and Jupiter cycled them into the airlock. With a long hiss, the lock passed them through into the hostile world of methane and ammonia. They stood at the top of the lander's thirty-six-meter ladder that stretched down to the sand below. Before them the waves stretched to the horizon, while behind them the high mountains of the island curved away. Directly below the ship there was a slick circle, a marbled disc of glass formed when the rocket's flame had brushed the sand. The wide beach was dotted with black volcanic rock and the colorful stony bodies of flouwen that nothing would ever wake.

Holding carefully to the railing around the outer door, Jinjur stepped down the first of the ninety rungs on the Jacob's ladder that stretched down the side of the ship. Shirley and Thomas pushed out a beam from the ceiling of the airlock, rolled an electric winch out to the end of it, and Shirley started lowering Thomas down. At the bottom of the lander, the ladder's rungs turned into steps on one of the landing struts. Jinjur allowed herself a moment of private exaltation as she stepped from the landing pad on to the surface of the planet. Thomas soon joined her on the sands.

"Okay, folks!" Jinjur called, looking up, "Let's get a move on! We've only got a few hours before it gets dark again and I want the Dragonfly out on the sand ready to assemble by then."

Soon everyone was in their spacesuits and out on the surface of Eau, except Tony, who had Officer of the Day duty on the bridge of the Falcon. After clearing everyone a good distance away from the ship, Shirley walked to the landing strut that had been modified to double as a lowering rail for the aerospace plane.

"Release the hold-down lugs, Jupiter," she said, and the claw-like devices swung clear. Standing near the tail, she was able to see the aerospace plane shiver slightly as the hold on it was loosened, but it was still hanging vertically from its nose hook. Shirley stepped to one side and looked up the belly of the plane to the top.

"Lower the top winch," she called. Slowly the Dragonfly's nose tilted away form the lander; the tail remained against the lowering rail. Shirley could now see the cockpit windows, and the large triangular gap it left on the side of the lander as the plane pulled away from the Falcon. The rotation continued until the aeroplane was leaning away from the lander at an angle of some thirty degrees.

"Now both winches," said Shirley. Jupiter started letting out both the nose and the tail cables at the same speed. It lowered the aeroplane down the lowering rail, still at the thirty degree angle. The Dragonfly continued to move down the strut until the rudder cleared the lander. About two meters from the end of the rail, the tail winch stopped while the upper nose winch continued to pay out cable. Slowly the huge aeroplane rotated, pivoting. As it approached the horizontal orientation, the lander tilted noticeably as it reacted to the weight of the Dragonfly.

"Lower landing skids," said Shirley, and slots appeared in the belly of the aeroplane. Three skids came out. They reached to a half-meter of the surface.

"Lower her down," said Shirley, bending down to watch the underside. Slowly the Dragonfly was lowered to the surface.

"Done!" she yelled, then she raced to detach the lowering cables from the nose and tail of the plane. The winches retrieved their cables; their job was done. Shirley turned to the rest of the crew who were watching the lowering from a distance. Now she needed human power to assemble the Dragonfly's outer wing panels.

The panels were hollow graphite-fiber composite structures designed without internal bracing so that the wing panels could nest inside each other. The nested wing sections then fit neatly inside the lower portion of the lander on either side of the rudder of the Dragonfly. Using the upper winch that had let the aeroplane down to the surface, Shirley and Jupiter carefully pulled each section out one at a time and lowered them down to the team of humans waiting below.

"Let Jupiter winch the panel all the way down to the surface before you get close to it," Shirley warned. "Even in one-tenth gee these panels are dangerous. One nick in your suit, and this ammonia atmosphere will do more than clear more than your sinuses."

Slowly each segment was lowered to the ground and unfastened from the winch cable. Then the crew of eight would lift the five-by-eight-meter section of wing, and move it to its position on either side of the stub-winged Dragonfly. Once all the panels were unloaded and arranged on the ground, Shirley unpacked a bundle of small struts and long telescoping poles. These, too, joined the aeroplane parts on the surface.

First, the human crew set up a tripod and winch over one section of wing and let a piece of the Christmas Branch install the internal braces inside the wing section. Then they hooked the cable from the winch to the central lifting lug of the wing section and waited out of the way until it was raised into place, a sparkling imp from the Christmas Branch riding inside. Just as the hanging section met the wing stub, the spider-sized imp removed the thin, plastic, protective cover from the sealing material packed in the joint. Shirley straddled the small gap, and, using a long pointed pry bar, pulled the wing section into place. The internal fasteners clicked into place beneath her feet and the pressure on her pry bar lessened as the inside imp rotated the fasteners to pull the two wing segments together. The process was repeated with the next wing section and slowly the Dragonfly regained the shape of its namesake.

The outer wing segments were lighter, and easier to handle, and soon Jupiter was able to pump the wing tanks down, check them for leaks, and fill them with fuel from the storage tanks on the lander. The short, three hour day soon came to an end, and as night fell, the crew, tired, but filled with the sense of satisfaction from a job well done, gratefully reentered the relative comfort of the Falcon and Dragonfly where they could divest themselves of their bulky suits. The six who were going of to explore Eau and Roche in Dragonfly moved into the commodious bunks on the aeroplane, while the four that were assigned to stay at the landing site rearranged the ten cramped free-fall sleeping racks on the Falcon into four reasonably commodious bunks suitable for the tenth-gee gravity on Eau. Tomorrow they would start on the setup of the laser, and renew their acquaintance with their alien hosts. Now, they settled in for a light supper and their first night on the planet surface.

?What is going on?¿ asked a small chartreuse flouwen that had remained by the beach. ?Where are the strange creatures everyone is talking about?¿

«Who are you?» said Clear«»White«»Whistle, noticing the stranger for the first time.

?I am Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query, and I was working on a formula to predict the color of younglings. I suppose that I hadn't stored enough mass? Could it be that all I can remember now is the breeding table for my Pretty¤Smells?¿

«Welcome back,» said Clear«»White«»Whistle absently. The newcomers lilting speech patterns made it sound like it was always asking for confirmation of its own statements. «I can give you a taste of the other contact we have had with the humans.»

As the yellow-green flouwen sucked the drop of memory juices from Clear«»White«»Whistle's extended pseudopod, Clear«»White«»Whistle tasted a sense of the other's overwhelming hunger. The white flouwen withdrew its pseudopod quickly before the tiny newcomer forgot its manners and tried to eat it. Still, it impressed Clear«»White«»Whistle that Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query's curiosity was able to override the need for food.

Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query had a hard time accepting all that the humans had done. ?Can all this really have happened? Where did the strange creatures come from?¿ There was a pause as the yellow-green alien struggled with all the information it had tasted. ?I will need to eat before I will be able to understand all this, but I hate to leave. Do you think they will be doing much more soon?¿

«They have always been more active while Hot is in the sky. I believe that they are not able to see, and need the light to look at the world.»

?Look?¿

Again Clear«»White«»Whistle shared a taste of its memories. This time it was the memory of the method of forming an eye out of flouwen flesh.

?Is that what those hard spots are on your bodies? I wish I could think straight. If you think they won't do much until Hot rises, then I'll go hunt for a while, shall I?¿

~I'll help you.~ Dainty~Blue~Warble was entranced at the idea of teaching someone else for a change. This person might be an elder, but until it regained some mass, it would need some help. Dainty~Blue~Warble wanted to ask the elder about the past, and about what the world was like back when Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query rocked up the last time. The two left the cove and headed for deeper waters, leaving Clear«»White«»Whistle alone in its observation of the visitors.

Dainty~Blue~Warble and Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query had to travel far to find anything to eat. The initial flood of elders had hunted ruthlessly and even the wild Pretty¤Smells had disappeared. Finally they managed to find a pod of Sharp¤Flyers, and with Dainty~Blue~Warble's help, Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query managed to eat enough to satisfy the gnawing hunger. It would take a few turns for the new material to be completely assimilated into the body of Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query, so, for a while, the small elder would have to struggle with a diminished intellect. Dainty~Blue~Warble found the other's habit of making everything a question irritating, but by not trying to answer everything, the youngling was soon able to ignore it. It was a speech habit no worse than Roaring*Hot*Vermillion bellowing everything.

Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query was amazed at all the changes that the tides had made in the lay of the ocean bottom. After such a long think, Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query was a time traveler of sorts, and told the youngling all about life back in the old days. Apparently the greenish-yellow flouwen had done a good deal of research into the chemical make up of living things. It even claimed to have "bred" the first of the Pretty¤Smells, although it could no longer remember just how it was managed. Dainty~Blue~Warble greeted this claim with polite skepticism, but decided that Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query should meet Sweet•Green•Fizz. As the first light from Hot began warming the east sides of the waves, they headed back to the spot that Dainty~Blue~Warble last saw Sweet•Green•Fizz, rocked up and slowly settling toward the bottom.

~Hello! hello! hello!~ Dainty~Blue~Warble engulfed the jade-colored rock sitting on the bottom of the ocean on the south side of the Hawaiian Islands where the crawler first splashed down. ~I have made a new friend! He says he knows all about Pretty¤Smells! He also says that he made the first one!~ While Dainty~Blue~Warble believed that Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query was confused after such a long thought, he figured such an outrageous statement would be able to reach the deeply thinking flouwen, who was considered the expert on Pretty¤Smells.

Sweet•Green•Fizz was now more concentrated than it had ever been before. While Sour#Sapphire#Coo found amusement with the various infinities and Clear«»White«»Whistle watched the movements of the stars, Sweet•Green•Fizz grew bored with such dry things. Preferring to enjoy and watch the Pretty¤Smells and learn all their habits, Sweet•Green•Fizz had spent many happy hours training them. Unfortunately, his study of them dead-ended because of their low intelligence. The idea that pet can be more than trained, that a pet could be created, was absorbing. To create a pet more beautiful, that smelled better, that was more intelligent—how would you start? Each Pretty¤Smell was almost the same, and yet unique. But it was becoming hard to think with all this noise; someone was yelling about "making Pretty¤Smells" . With a sudden rush, Sweet•Green•Fizz filled up with sea water, and found himself squashed underneath Dainty/\Blue~Warble.

•What are you raving about, youngling?• Sweet•Green•Fizz moved out from under the blue flouwen.

~A old one has woken from a long sleep. He says that, well—you explain, Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query.~

?Are you the one that likes my Pretty¤Smells? I wanted to continue working on them once they had advanced a few generations on their own? To see if I had missed some inherent weakness? I don't see any around here now, do you have a safe place for them or have they been eaten?¿

•Eaten!? By whom?!• Sweet•Green•Fizz was alarmed. Loving the little pets, the thought of them being simply eaten was appalling. Dainty~Blue~Warble handed over a taste of the last day, with all its extraordinary events. Sweet•Green•Fizz called out shrilly for its pets. After a few moments, the colorful little animals appeared from where they had been hiding in a niche that the rocky body of Sweet•Green•Fizz's had protected. The Pretty¤Smells unrolled their wide wings and started to flap them as they clustered about their master. They circled, twittering excitedly, their wings were alight with iridescent colors flashing out in multicolored brightness from the arrays of liquid crystals inside. With their flashing colors, delicate aroma, and trilling tones, the Pretty¤Smells were a delight to every sense.

?Ah, they are beautiful. I had hoped to make them smarter?

So they could help with the hunting? I always thought that the Orange¤Hunters were useful but ugly. I wanted a pet that would be more aloof? More adult? So I went to work on them? I bred them for passiveness and intelligence, and for beauty, too, of course. The young gradually became smaller and plumper, with more color, but they could probably still interbreed even now.¿

•I was just thinking of how to best alter my Pretty¤Smells to be more responsive to commands. Here, taste this thought.•

?Don't you think it is better to interbreed them thusly?¿ Shining?¿Chartreuse?¿Query gave Sweet•Green•Fizz another taste.

•Yes!• cried Sweet•Green•Fizz. Soon their conversation traveled far beyond Dainty~Blue~Warble's inclination to follow.

 

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