“It sounded that way, sir. He didn’t see our communicator until it was too late, and none of us thought for an instant that there was a chance of a human being telling one of us from another — at least, not between the time we recognized him ourselves and the time it was too late.”

“but what is he doing here? This planet has three times the area of Mesklin; there are plenty of other places to be. I knew the commander was going to hit shoals sooner or later playing this Esket trick on the human beings, but I certainly never thought he’d ground on such silly bad luck as this.”

“It’s not entirely chance, sir. Kabremm didn’t have time to tell us much, we took advantage of your order about exploring the stream to break up and get him out of sight of the communicator — but I understand this river has been giving trouble most of the night. There’s a buildup of ice five million or so cables downstream, no very far from the Esket, and a sort of ice river is flowing slowly into the hot lands. The Esket and the mines and the farms are right in its way.”

“Farms?”

“That’s what Destigmet calls them. Practically a Settlement with hydroponic tanks — a sort of oversized life — support right that doesn’t have to balance as closely as the cruiser ones do. Anyway, Destigmet sent out the Gwelf under Kabremm to explore upstream in the hop of finding out how bad the ice river was likely to get. They had grounded where we met them because of the fog — they could have flown over it easily enough, but they couldn’t have seen the riverbed through it.”

“Then they must have arrived since the flood that brought us here, and if they were examining the riverbed they flew right over us. How could they possibly have missed out light?

“I don’t know, sir. If Kabremm told Stakendee, I didn’t hear him.”

Dondragmer gave the rippling equivalent of a shrug. “Probably he did, and made it a point to stay out of reach of our human eyes. I suppose Kervenser and Reffel ran into the Gwelf, and Reffel used his vision shutter to keep the dirigible from human sight; but I still don’t see why Kervenser, at least, didn’t come back to report.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know about any of that, either,” replied the sailor.

“Then the river we’ve washed into must bend north, if it leads to the Esket area.” The other judged correctly that Dondragmer was merely thinking out loud, and made no comment. The captain pondered silently for another minute or two. “The big question is wheter the commander heard it, too, when the human — I suppose it was Mrs. Hoffman, she is about the only one that familiar with us — called out Kabremm’s name. If he did, he probably thought that someone had been careless back at the Esket, as I did. You heard her on your set and I heard her one mine, but that’s reasonable; they’re both Kwembly communicators, and probably all in one place up at the station. We don’t know, though, about their links with the Settlement. I’ve heard that all their communication equipment is in one room, but it must be a big room and the different sets may not be very close together. It’s equally possible that Barl did, or did not, hear her.

“What it all shapes up to is that one human being has recognized an Esket crew member, not only alive long after they were all supposed to be dead , but five or six million cables from the place where they presumably died. We don’t know how certain this human was of the identification; certain enough to call Kabremm’s name on impulse, maybe no certain enough to report to other humans without further checking. After all, such a report could sound pretty silly without strong evidence. We don’t know wheter Barlennan knows of this slip; and worst of all, we can’t tell what he’s likely to answer when questions about it come his way. His safest and most probably line would be complete ignorance seasoned with shocked amazement, and I suppose he’ll realize that, but I certainly wish I could talk to him without having human beings along the corridor.”

“Wouldn’t your best line be complete ignorance, too?” queried the sailor. Like all the Mesklinites on Dhrawn, he was fully aware of the trick being played on the human beings to get the Esket off their books. He also knew as much of the reason for it as Barlennan had made public. Very few — Dondragmer not among them — had been let all the way into the commander’s thinking.

“It would be,” the captain answered, “but I can’t get away with it. I’ve already told the humans about your return. The most hopeful notion I have at the moment centers around the possibility of mistaken identity; how sure is Mrs. Hoffman, or whoever it was — the more I think of it, the more certain I am it was her voice; I wish I’d been paying more attention — that it was really Kabremm she saw? How does she tell us apart anyway? Coloration pattern? Walking style? Can she recognize any of us at a glance, or just a few whom she knows especially well, or does one have to have a missing leg, or no red on his head?

“I’d use that line, except that I just don’t know what Barlennan is going to do — or if he’s in a position to have to do anything. If he didn’t hear that call, and the human is really suspicious, it wouldn’t take many trick questions to catch him out. Even if he did, and is warned, he’s in trouble, because then he’ll be worrying about what I’m likely to say. That’s the sort of thing I’ve been worried about ever since the beginning; with all long distance communication having to go through the humans, coordination of this trick was bound to get difficult. If we could have avoided slips until Destigmet had made enough wire to reach form the mines to the Settlement, and gotten it strung, the chances of getting away with the while thing would have gone up a lot.”

“all that ever worried me,” replied the sailor as he resumed his chipping at the ice, “was what would happen when they did learn about what we were doing. I don’t suppose they’d really abandon us here — human beings don’t seem to be quite that firm, even on business deals — but they could as long as we don’t have spaceships of our own.”

“That was the basic argument the commander gave, as you know,” returned Dondragmer. “They seem to be dependable beings, and personally I’d trust them as far as I would anyone, but they are different in some ways and one is never quite sure what they will consider an adequate motive, or excuse, for some action. That’s why the commander wanted to get us self-supporting on this world without their knowing about it. I’m glad Destigmet has done so well with his ‘farm.’ The mines were a long step, and the dirigibles were a triumph; but we’re a long, long way from being able either to make, or to do without, the human-made energy boxes; and I sometimes wonders if the commander realizes just how beyond us those are.

“But that’s not the immediate problem. I’m going to have to talk to the station again. I suppose my best policy is not to mention Kabremm unless they ask me, and if they do, try to convince them it was mistaken identity.”

“Not mentioning it might make them suspicious,” pointed out the sailor.

“It would be consistent with the mistaken-identify line, though. Thanks for the point; I hadn’t considered it. Carry on, and give me a wave on the bridge when the lock is clear.”

The sailor gestured agreement, and Dondragmer at last got to the bridge.

There was plenty to say to the human beings without mentioning Kabremm, and the captain began saying it as soon as he had doffed his airsuit.

“At least one of the helmsmen was under the hull for a while, and probably both of them were, but I couldn’t find any trace of either one just now except work they had done trying to get out — at least, I can’t see any other reason for it; it certainly wasn’t an assigned job. They wrecked, or nearly wrecked, two of the trucks in the process. Much of the space under there is still frozen up, and I’m afraid they’re probably in the ice. We’ll search more carefully, with lights, when the crew comes back and I can spare the men. The water, or whatever it was, that was boiled away by our heater coated an ice layer on the hull which has sealed the main lock; we must get that back into service as quickly as possible. There is much equipment which can’t now be moved out if we have to abandon the Kwembly, and much which can’t be moved back inside if we don’t, because it won’t go through any other lock.