Mersereau subsided, a little irritated at Ib for the latter’s choice of words but with his resentment of Aucoin’s attitude diverted for the moment. The planner took over the conversational lead again, looking down the table toward the point where the scientists had now fallen silent.

“All right, Dr. McDevitt. Has any agreement been reached as to what probably happened?”

“Not completely, but there is an idea worth checking further. As you know the Kwembly’s observers had been reporting nearly constant temperature since the fog cleared — no radiational cooling, if anything a very slight warming trend. Barometric readings have been rising very slowly at that place ever since the machine was stranded; readings before that time are meaningless because of the uncertain change in elevation. The temperatures have been well below freezing points of either pure water below the freezing points of either pure water or pure ammonia, but rather above that of the ammonia monohydrate — water eutectic. We’re wondering wheter the initial thaw might now have been caused by the ammonia’s fog reacting with the water snow on which the Kwembly was riding — Dondragmer was afraid of that possibility; and if so, the present freeze might be due to evaporation of ammonia form the eutectic. We’d need ammidity readings—”

“What?” cut in Hoffman and Aucoin almost together.

“Sorry. Office slang. Partial pressure of the ammonia relative to the saturation value-equivalent of relative humidity for water. We’d need readings on that to confirm, or kill, the notion, and the Mesklinites haven’t been taking them.”

“Could they?”

“I’m sure we could work out a technique with them. I don’t know how long it would take. Water vapor wouldn’t interfere; its equilibrium pressure is four or five powers of ten smaller than ammonia’s in that temperature range. The job shouldn’t be too hard.”

“I realize this is an hypotheses rather than a full-blown theory, but is it good enough to base action on?”

“That would depend on the action.” Aucoin made a gesture of impatience, and the atmospheric physicist continued hastily. “That is, I wouldn’t risk an all-or-nothing breakout effort on it alone, but I’d be willing to try anything which didn’t commit the Kwembly to exhausting some critical supply she carries, or put her in obvious danger.”

The planner nodded. “All right,” he said. “Would you rather stay here and supply us with more ideas, or would it be more effective to talk this one over with the Mesklinites?”

McDevitt pursed his lips and thought for a moment.

“We’ve been talking with them pretty frequently, but I suppose there’s more good likely to come from that direction than—” he stooped and Easy and her husband concealed smiles. Aucoin appeared not to notice the near faux pas, and nodded.

“All right. Go on back to Communications, and good luck. Let us know if either you, or they, come up with anything else that seems worth trying.”

The four scientists agreed to this, and left together. The ten remaining conference members were silent for some minutes before Aucoin voiced what they were all thinking — all but one.

“Let’s face it,” he said slowly. “The real argument is going to come when we relay this report to Barlennan.”

Ib Hoffman jerked upright. “You haven’t yet?” he snapped.

“Only the fact of the original stranding, which Easy told them, and occasional progress reports on the repair work. Nothing yet about the freeze-up.”

“Why not?” Easy could read danger signals in her husband’s voice, and wondered whether she wanted to smooth this one over or not. Aucoin looked surprised at the question.

“You know why as well as I do. Whether he learned about it now, or ten hours from now, or from Dondragmer when he gets back to the Settlement a year from now would make little difference. There is nothing Barlennan could do immediately to help, and the only thing he could do at all is something we’d rather he didn’t.”

“And that is?” interjected Easy sweetly. She had about made up her mind which line to take.

“That is, as you well know, sending one of the two land-cruisers still at the Settlement off to rescue the Kwembly, as he wanted to do for the Esket.”

“And you still object to that.”

“Certainly, for exactly the same reasons as before — which Barlennan, I admit, accepted that time. It’s not entirely that we have other specific plans for those two cruisers, but that’s part of it. Whatever you may think, Easy, I don’t dismiss life as unimportant merely because it isn’t human life. I do object, though, to wasting time and resources; and changing policy in the middle of an operation generally does both.”

“But if you claim that Mesklinite lives mean as much to you as human ones, how can you talk about waste?”

“You’re not thinking, Easy. I understand and don’t really blame you, but you’re ignoring the fact that the Kwembly is something like ten thousand miles airline from the Settlement, and more like thirteen thousand by the route they took. A rescue vehicle could not possibly follow that track in less than two hundred or two hundred and fifty hours. The last part of it, which the Kwembly traversed by being washed down a river, they might not be able to follow at all; the last four thousand miles across the snowfield may no longer be passable.”

“We could give them directions with satellite fixes.”

“We could, no doubt. The fact remains that unless Dondragmer can get himself, his crew, and his vehicle out of their present trouble, nothing Barlennan can send out for him is likely to be of the slightest help — if the Kwembly is in real and immediate danger. If she is not — if it’s just a matter of being frozen in like a nineteenth century whaler — they have indefinite supplies with their closed-cycle life system and fusion converters, and we and Barlennan can plan a nice, leisurely rescue.”

“Like Destigmet’s Esket,” retorted the woman with some bitterness. “It’s been over seven months, and you squelched all rescue talk then — and ever since!”

“That was a very different situation. The Esket is still standing there, unchanged as far as her vision sets can tell us, but her crew has dropped out of sight. We haven’t the faintest idea what happened to them or how, but, since they’re not on board and haven’t been for all this time it’s impossible to believe they’re still alive. With all their abilities and physical toughness, even Mesklinites don’t live on Dhrawn for seven months without a good deal more of artificial assistance than their airsuits.”

Easy had no answer. On pure logic, Aucoin was perfectly right; but she had trouble accepting the idea that the situation was purely logical. Ib knew how she felt, and decided that the time had come to change course again. He shared the planner’s opinion, up to a point, on basic policy; but he also knew why his wife could not possibly do that.

“The real, immediate problem, as I see it,” Hoffman interjected, “is the one Don has with the men who are still outside. As I get it, two are under the ice, as far as anyone can tell; and no one seems to know whether that puddle is frozen to the bottom. In any case, judging by the work they were supposed to be doing, they’re in among the Kwembly’s trucks somewhere. I suppose that means a straight ice-pick-and-search job. I can’t guess what the chances are of an airsuited Mesklinite’s living through that sort of thing. The temperature won’t bother them that far below melting water-ice, but I don’t know what other physiological limitations they may have.

“The other missing one is Don’s first officer, who is overdue from a helicopter flight. We can’t help directly, since he didn’t take a communicator with him, but there is another flier available. Has Dondragmer asked us to assist while a search is made with the other machine and a vision set?”