Free Jem by Frederik Pohl Page A

you?" requested the translator.
    "I don't know. Are they saying something like, 'Don't bother us for a couple of months'?"
    "Is more like to drop dead," the pilot put in.
    "I don't think so. They aren't being unfriendly," Harriet said, recapturing the fax and squinting at it. "Notice that they referred to Kung Fu-tze by the latinized form of the name. That's a pretty courteous thing for them to do. Still— " She frowned. At best Harriet's eyes were always faintly popped, like a rabbit's, because of the heavy contacts she wore. Now her lips were pursed like a rabbit's too. "On the other hand, they were careful to point out we're the second expedition."
    "Meaning they're the first. But what's the difference? They can't make territorial claims because they got here ahead of us; that's all spelled out in the UN accords. Nobody gets to claim any more than a circle fifty kilometers around a self-sustaining base."
    "But they're pointing out that they could have."
    Gappy was bored with the protocol. "Any love letters from the Oilies, Gasha?"
    "Just a received-and-acknowledged. And now, about that latrine—"
    "In a minute, Harriet. What about the Pak who's stranded?"
    "He's still stranded. You want to hear the latest tapes?" She didn't wait for an answer; she knew what it would be. She plugged in a coil of tape and played it for them. It was the Peeps' automatic distress signal: every thirty seconds a coded SOS, followed by a five-second beep for homing. Between signals the microphone stayed open, transmitting whatever sounds were coming in.
    "I've cut out most of the deadwood. Here's the man's voice.
    Neither Dalehouse nor Kappelyushnikov included Urdu among their skills. "What is he say?" asked the pilot.
    "Just asking for help. But he's not in good shape. Most of the time he doesn't talk at all, and we get this stuff."
    What came out of the tape player was a little like an impossibly huge cricket's chirp and quite a lot like a Chinese New Year festival in which Australian aborigines were playing their native instruments.
    "What the hell is that?" Danny demanded.
    "That," she said smugly, "is also language. I've been working on it, and I've sorted out a few key concepts. They are in some sort of trouble, I'm not sure what."
    "Not as much as Pak is," grunted Kappelyushnikov. "Come, Danny, is time we go to work."
    "Yes, that latrine is—"
    "Not on latrine! Other things in life than shit, Gasha."
    She paused, glowering at him. Kappelyushnikov was almost as dispensable as Danny Dalehouse. Maybe more so. After the expedition was well established, Dalehouse's skills would come into play, or so they all hoped, in making contact with sentient life. The pilot's main skill was piloting. A spacecraft by choice. If pressed, a clamjet, a racing vessel, or a canoe. None of those existed on Klong.
    But what he had that was always useful was resourcefulness. "Gasha, dear," he coaxed, "is not possible. Your Morrissey still has his micetraps in the trench. And besides, now we have water, I have to make wasserstoff. "
    "Hydrogen," Harriet corrected automatically. "Hydrogen? What in the world do you want with hydrogen?"
    "So I will have a job, dear Gasha. To fly."
    "You're going to fly with hydrogen?"
    "You understand me, Gasha," the Russian beamed. He pointed. "Like them."
    Danny glanced up, then ran for the tent and the one remaining decent pair of binoculars—two pairs of them, too, had turned up missing after the thunderstorm.
    There they were, the windblown flock of balloonists, high and near the clouds. They were at least two kilometers away, too far to hear the sounds of their song, but in the glasses Dalehouse could see them clearly enough. In the purplish sky they stood out in their bright greens and yellows. It was true, Dalehouse verified. Some of them were self-luminous, like fireflies! Traceries of veins stood out over the great five-meter gasbag of the largest and nearest of them, flickering with racing sparks of