Free Jem by Frederik Pohl Page B

bioluminescence.
    "Damn," he snarled. "What are you saying, Gappy? Do you think you can fly up there?"
    "With greatest of ease, Danny," the pilot said solemnly. "Is only a matter of making bubbles and putting wasserstoff in them. Then we fly."
    "You've got a deal," said Dalehouse firmly. "Tell me what to do and I'll do it. I'll—wait a minute! What's that?"
    The balloon swarm was scattering, and behind it, coming through the place it was vacating, was something else, something that beat with a rhythmic flash of light.
    The sound reached him then. "It's a helicopter!" he cried in astonishment.

    The chopper pilot was short, dark, and Irish. Not only Irish, but repatriated to the UK from eleven years in Houston, Texas. He and Morrissey hit it off immediately. "Remember Bismarck's?" "Ever been to La Carafe?" "Been there? I lived there!" When they were all gathered he said:
    "Glad to meet you all. Name's Terry Boyne, and I bring you official greetings from our expedition, that's the Organization of Fuel-Exporting Nations, to yours, that's you. Nice place you've got here," he went on appreciatively, glancing around. "We're down toward the Heat Pole—ask my opinion, you folks picked a better spot. Where we are it's wind you wouldn't believe and scorching hot besides, if you please."
    "So why'd you pick it?" asked Morrissey.
    "Oh," said Boyne, "we do what our masters tell us. Isn't it about the same with you? And what they told me to do today was to come over and make a good-neighbor call."
    Harriet, of course, stepped right in. "On behalf of the Food-Exporting States we accept your friendly greetings and in return—"
    "Please to stow, Harriet?" rumbled Kappelyushnikov. "But we are not only other colony on Klong, Terry Boyne."
    "What's 'Klong'?"
    "It's what we call this place," Dalehouse explained.
    "Um. 'Klong.' We've been told to call it 'Jem'—short for 'Geminorum', you see. Heaven knows what the Peeps call it."
    "Have you been to see them?"
    Boyne coughed. "Well, actually that's more or less what it's about, if you see what I mean. Have you people been monitoring their broadcasts?"
    "Sure we have. Yours too."
    "Right, then you've heard their distress signals. Poor sod, stuck with those beasts that our translator says call themselves 'Krinpit'. The Peeps don't respond. We offered to help out, and they as much as told us to fuck off."
    Morrissey glanced at Harriet. Their translator was doing better than she. He said, "We've had much the same experience, Terry. They indicated we weren't welcome in their part of the world. Of course, they have no right to take that kind of a stand—"
    "—but you don't want to start any bloc-to-bloc trouble," finished Boyne, nodding. "Well, for humanitarian reasons—" He choked, and took a great swig of the drink Morrissey had handed him, before going on. "Hell, let's be frank. For curiosity's sake, and just to see what's going on over there—but also for humanitarian reasons—we want to go and fish the guy out of there. The Peeps obviously can't. We suppose the reason they shut you and us out is that they don't want us to see how bad off they are. You folks can't—" He hesitated delicately. "Well, obviously it would be easier for us to go in with a chopper than for you to send an expedition overland. We're willing to do that. But not alone, if you see what I mean."
    "I think I do," Harriet sniffed. "You want somebody to share the blame."
    "We want to make it a clearly interbloc errand of mercy," Boyne corrected. "So I'm all set to go over there and snatch him out this minute. But I'd like one of you to go along."
    Eight out of the ten members of the expedition were speaking at once then, with Kappelyushnikov's shouted "I go!" drowning out the rest.
    Harriet glared around at her crew and then said petulantly, "Go then, if you want to, although we're so shorthanded here—"
    Danny Dalehouse didn't wait for her to finish. "That's right, Harriet! And that's why it ought to be me. I can be