Dillingham was about to make a very large cast. To begin the complex procedure, he had to fill every crevice of the cavity with colloid. Since the volume of the cleaned cavity came to about forty cubic feet, and supercolloid weighed fifty pounds per cubic foot when set, he required a good two thousand pounds of it, at the very least.
A full ton—to fill a single cavity. "Think big," he told himself.
He set up the tank and hauled the long hose into the pit. Once more he crawled headfirst into the lateral expansion, no longer needing the face mask. He aimed the nozzle without fear and squirted the foamy green liquid into the farthest offshoot, making certain that no air spaces remained. He backed off a few feet and filled the other crevices, but left the main section open.
In half an hour the lateral branch had been simplified considerably. It was now a deep, flat crack without offshoots. Dillingham put away the nozzle and crawled in with selected knives and brushes. He cut away projecting colloid, leaving each filling flush with the main crevice wall, and painted purple fixative over each surface.
Satisfied at last, he trotted out the colloid hose again and started the pump. This time he opened the nozzle to full aperture and filled the main crevice, backing away as the foam threatened to engulf him. Soon all of the space was full. He smoothed the green wall facing the main cavity and painted it in the same manner as the offshoots.
Now he was ready for the big one. So far he had used up eight cubic feet of colloid, but the gaping center pit would require over thirty feet. He removed the nozzle entirely and let the tank heave itself out. The cavity was rapidly being filled.
"Turn it off," he yelled to the Enen by the pump as green foam bulged gently over the rim. One ton of supercolloid filled the tooth, and he was ready to carve it down and insert the special plastic loop in the center.
The foam continued to pump. "I said TURN IT OFF!" he cried again. Then he remembered that he had no transcoder for Enen. They could neither hear him nor comprehend him.
He flipped the hose away from the filling and aimed it over the edge of the tooth. He had no way to cut it off himself, since he had removed the nozzle. There couldn't be much left in the tank.
A rivulet of green coursed over the pink tissues, traveling toward the squidlike tongue. The tentacles reached out, grasping the foam as it solidified. They soon became festooned in green.
Dillingham laughed—but not for long. There was a steamwhistle sigh followed by a violent tremor of the entire jaw. "I'm going to... sneeze," the Gleep transcoder said, sounding fuzzy.
The colloid was interfering with the articulation of the Gleep's tongue.
A sneeze! Suddenly he realized what that would mean to him and the Enen crew.
"Get under cover!" he shouted to the Enens, again forgetting that they couldn't perceive the warning. But they had already grasped the significance of the tremors and were piling into the sub frantically.
"Hey—wait for me!" But he was too late. The air howled by with the titanic intake of breath. There was a terrible pause.
Dillingham lunged for the mound of colloid and dug his fingers into the almost-solid substance. "Keep your jaws apart!" he yelled at the Gleep, praying it could still pick up the message. "KEEP THEM OPEN!"
The sound of a tornado raged out of its throat. He buried his face in green as the hurricane struck, wrenching mercilessly at his body. His arms were wrenched cruelly; his fingers tore through the infirm colloid, slipping...
The wind died, leaving him gasping at the edge of the tooth. He had survived it. The jaws had not closed.
He looked up. The upper cuspids hung only ten feet above, visible in the light from the charmed lamp hooked somehow to his foot.
He was past the point of reaction. "Open, please," he called in his best operative manner, hoping the transcoder was still in the vicinity, and went to peer over the edge.
There was no sign of the sub. The tank, with its discharging hose, was also gone.
He took a walk across the neighboring teeth, looking for whatever there was to see. He was appalled at the amount of decalcification and outright decay in evidence. This Gleep child would shortly be in pain again, unless substantial restorative work was done immediately.
But in a shallow cavity—one barely a foot deep—he found the transcoder. "It's an ill decalcification that bodes nobody good," he murmured, retrieving it.
The sub reappeared and disgorged its somewhat shaken passengers. Dillingham marched back over the rutted highway and joined them. But the question still nagged his mind: how could the caries he had observed be reconciled with the muckamuck's undoubtedly sincere statement that there had never been dental trouble before? What had changed?
He carved the green surface into an appropriate pattern and carefully applied his fixative. He was ready for the next step.
Now the derrick was brought up and put in play. Dillingham guided its dangling hook into the eyelet set in the colloid and signaled the Enen operator to lift. The chain went taut; the mass of solidified foam eased grandly out of its socket and hung in the air, an oddly shaped boulder.
He turned his attention to the big crevice-filling. He screwed in a corkscrew eyelet and arranged a pulley so that the derrick could act on it effectively. The purple fixative had prevented the surface of the main impression from attaching to that of the subsidiary one—just as it was also protecting the several smaller branches within.
There was no real trouble. In due course every segment of the impression was marked and laid out in the makeshift laboratory he had set up near the waterlift of the Gleep's mouth. They were ready for one more step.
The tank of prepared investment arrived. This, too, was a special composition. It remained fluid until triggered by a particular electric jolt, whereupon it solidified instantly. Once solid, it could not be affected by anything short of demolition by a sledgehammer.
Dillingham pumped a quantity into a great temporary vat. He attached a plastic handle to the smallest impression, dipped it into the vat. withdrew it entirely covered by white batter and touched the electrode to it. He handed the abruptly solid object to the nearest Enen.
Restorative procedure on Gleep differed somewhat from established Earth technique. All it took was a little human imagination and Enen technology.
The octopus-tongue approached while he worked. It reached for him. "Get out of here or I'll cram you into the burnout furnace!" he snapped into the transcoder. The tongue retreated.
The major section was a problem. It barely fit into the vat, and a solid foot of it projected over the top. He finally had the derrick lower it until it bumped bottom, then raise it a few inches and hold it steady. He passed out brushes, and he and the Enen crew went to work slopping the goo over the top and around the suspending hook.
He touched the electrode to the white monster. The derrick lifted the mass, letting the empty vat fall free. Yet another stage was done.
Two ovens were employed for the burnout. Each was big enough for a man to stand in. They placed the ends of the plastic rods in special holders and managed to fit all of the smaller units into one oven, fastening them into place by means of a heat-resistant framework. The main chunk sat in the other oven, propped upside-down.
They sealed the ovens and set their thermostats for 2000°. Dillingham lay down in the empty vat and slept.
Three hours later burnout was over. Even supercolloid took time to melt completely when heated in a fifteen-hundred-pound mass. But now the green liquid had been drained into reservoirs and sealed away, while the smaller quantities of melted plastic were allowed to collect in a disposal vat. The white investments were hollow shells, open only where the plastic rods had projected.