“Of course, Captain. Both bow and stern safety bladders have been expanding ever since we began to float. We’ve descended about six body lengths in twice that many minutes. I’m about ready to tap more argon.” Dondragmer acknowledged, and looked back at his helmsman. “Good for you. I should have thought of that. That means we are being carried by current as well as wind and all bets on speed, distance, and where we stop are off. There couldn’t be a current unless the air scouts missed a slope, and if there’s a slope this plateau must drain somewhere.”
“We’re secure for rough travel, sir. I don’t see what else we can do.”
“There’s one thing,” Dondragmer said grimly. He reared to the tubes again, and emitted the sirenlike general quarters call. Reasonably sure that all were listening, he pulled his head back so as to be equally distant from all the tubes, and spoke loudly enough to get through them all. “All hands into air suits as quickly as possible. You are relieved from stations for that purpose, but get back as soon as you can.” He lowered himself to his command bench and addressed Beetchermarlf. “Get your suit and mine, and bring them back here. Quickly!” The helmsman was back with the garments in ninety seconds. He started to assist the captain with his, but was dismissed by an emphatic gesture and went to work on his own. In two minutes both, protected except for head covering, were back at their stations. The haste, as it turned out, was unnecessary. More minutes passed while Beetchermarlf toyed with the useless helm, and Dondragmer wondered whether the human scientists were ever going to come through with any information and what use it was likely to be if they did. He hoped that satellite fixes could give him some idea of the Kwemb/y’s speed; it would, he thought rather cynically, be nice to know how hard they were likely to hit whatever finally stopped them. Such fixes were, he knew, hard to get on order; there were over thirty of the “shadow satellites” in orbit but they were less than three thousand miles above the surface. No attempt had been made to arrange their orbits so that their limited fields of visual and microwave coverage would be either uniform or complete; communication was not their primary purpose. The main human base, in synchronous orbit over six million miles above the Settlement meridian, was supposed to need no help with that task. Also, the ninety-plus mile per second orbital speed of the lower satellites, helpful though the human observers claimed it to be for moving-baseline location checking, still seemed to Dondragmer an inevitable cause of difficulty. He was not at all hopeful about getting his speed from this source. That was just as well, because he never did. Once, about half an hour after they had gone adrift, a brief shudder ran through the
Kwembly and the captain duly reported to the station that they had probably touched bottom. Everyone else on board made the same assumption and tension began to mount. There was a little warning just before the end. A hoot from the laboratory speaking tube was followed by a report that pressure had started to rise more rapidly, and that an additional release of argon into the ship’s atmosphere had been necessary to keep the safety bladders from rupturing. There was no sensation of increasing speed, but the implication of the report was plain enough. They were descending more rapidly. How fast were they going horizontally? The captain and helmsman looked at each other, not asking the question aloud but reading it in each other’s expressions. More minutes passed; the tension mounted, chelae gripping stanchions and holdfasts ever more tightly. Then there was a thunderous clang, and the hull swerved abruptly; another, and it tilted sharply to starboard. For several seconds it pitched violently, and those near bow and stern could feel it yawing as well, though the fog still blocked any outside view which might have explained the sensation. Then there was another, much louder clang and the Kwembly rolled some sixty degrees to starboard; but this time she did not recover. Scraping, grinding sounds suggested that she was moving slightly, but no real change of attitude accompanied them. For the first time, the sound of liquid rushing past the hull became noticeable. Dondragmer and his companion were unhurt. To beings who regarded two hundred Earth gravities as normal and six hundred as a most minor inconvenience, that sort of acceleration meant nothing. They had not even lost their grips, and were still at their posts. The captain was not worried about direct injuries to his crew. His first words showed that he was considering matters much further ahead. “By stations, report!” he bellowed into the speaking tubes. “Check hull soundness at all points, and report all cracks, open breaks, dents, and other evidence for leaks. Lab personnel to emergency stations, and check for oxygen. Life-support, cut tank circulation until the oxygen check is done. Now!” Apparently the speaking tubes were intact, at least. Hoots of response began to return immediately. As the reports accumulated, Beetchermarlf began to relax. He had not really expected the shell which protected him from Dhrawn’s poisonous air to withstand anything like such a shock and his respect for alien engineering went up several grades. He had regarded artificial structures of any sort as normally inferior in strength and durability to any living body. He had, of course, excellent reason for such an attitude. Nevertheless, it appeared when all the reports were finally in, that there were no major structural failures or even visible cracks. Whether the normal leaks, unavoidable in a structure which had to have entrances for personnel and equipment, not to mention hull openings for instruments and control lines, were any worse than they had been, would not be known for a while. Pressure monitoring and oxygen checking would of course continue as normal routine. Power was still on, which surprised no one. The twenty-five independent hydrogen converters, identical modules which could be moved from any energyusing site in the