As a matter of fact, the trip was brief Most of it appeared to be outdoors because of the settlers’ attitude toward massive objects overhead:

an attitude hard to overcome even on a world where gravity was only a fraction of its normal Mesklin value. The roofs of the Settlement were almost all of transparent film brought from their home world. The only departure from a common, city-wide floor level was dictated by terrain. The thought of either a basement or a second story would never have occurred to a Mesklinite. The many-decked Kwembly and her sister vehicles were of basically human and Paneshk design.

The messenger wove through a maze of corridors for some two hundred yards before reaching the commander’s office. This was at the northern edge of the cluster of foot-high structures which formed the greater part of the Settlement. The Settlement itself was close to the edge of a six-foot cliff extending almost a mile east and west, broken by a dozen or so artificial ramps. On the ground below the cliff, but still with their bridges looming above the transparent coverings of the “city,” were two of the huge land-cruisers. The wall of Barlennan’s room was also transparent and looked directly out on the nearer of these vehicles; the other was parked some thousand feet to the east. A few air suited Mesklinites were also visible outside, dwarfed by the monstrous vehicles they were tending.

Barlennan was watching this group of mechanics critically when the runner entered. The latter used no formality, but burst into Easy’s relayed report as he entered the compartment. By the time the commander had swerved around to receive the written version, he had heard it all orally.

It was not satisfactory, of course. Barlennan had had time to think up a number of questions since the first messenger had arrived, and this message answered none of them. The commander controlled his impatience.

“I take it there hasn’t been anything useful from the human weather experts yet.

“Nothing at all, sir, to us. They may have been talking to the Kwembly without our hearing, of course.”

“True enough. Has word gone to our own weather people?”

“Not as far as I know, sir. There’s been nothing very useful to tell them, but Guzmeen may have sent a message there, too.

“All right. I want to talk to them myself anyway. I’ll be at their complex for the next half hour or more. Tell Guz.”

The messenger made the affirmative nipper gesture and vanished through the door he had entered by. Barlennan took another, making his way slowly westward through building after building and over the enclosed connecting ramps which made the Settlement a single unit. Most of the ramps on his course sloped upward, so that by the time he turned south away from the cliff he was some five feet higher than his office, though not yet on a level with the bridges of the land-cruisers behind him. The roof fabric bulged a little more tautly above him, since the nearly pure hydrogen in the station did not drop as rapidly in pressure with increasing altitude as did Dhrawn’s much denser gas mixture. The Settlement had been built at an elevation which was quite high for Dhrawn. The total outside pressure was about the same as that at Mesklin’s sea level. It was only when the land-cruisers descended to lower elevations that they carried extra argon to keep their internal pressure balanced.

Since Dhrawn’s air carried about two per cent oxygen, the Mesklinites were careful about leaks. Barlennan still remembered the awkward results of an oxygen-hydrogen explosion shortly after he had first encountered human beings.

The research complex was the westernmost and highest side of the colony. It was fairly well separated from most of the other structures and differed from them in having a solid, though still transparent, roof. It also came closer than any other part of the Settlement to having a second story, since a number of instruments were mounted on the roof where they could be reached by ramps and liquid-trap air locks. By no means all the instruments had been furnished by the alien sponsors of the Settlement; the Mesklinites had been using their own imaginations and ingenuity for fifty years, although they had not really felt free about doing so until reaching Dhrawn.

Like the exploring vehicles, the laboratory complex was a mixture of crudeness and sophistication. Energy was supplied by hydrogen-fusion units; chemical glassware was home-made. Communication with the orbiting station was by solid-state electromagnetic beam transmitter; but messages were carried physically about the complex by runners. Steps were being taken to change this, unknown to the human beings. The Mesklinites understood the telegraph and were on the verge of making telephones able to transmit their own voice range. However, neither telephone nor telegraph was being installed in the Settlement because most of Barlennan’s administrative effort was being concentrated on the project which had provoked Easy’s sympathy for the Esket crew. It takes a lot of work to lay cross-country telegraph lines.

Barlennan was saying nothing about this to his sponsors. He liked human beings, though he did not go as far in that direction as Dondragmer: he was always aware of their amazingly short life span, which prevented him from getting to really know the people he worked with before they were replaced by others. He was rather concerned about the possibility of human, Drommian, and Paneshk finding out just how ephemeral they all were, for fear it might depress them. It had, in fact, become Mesklinite policy to evade discussion on the matter of age with aliens. It was also policy not to depend more heavily than could be avoided on them. You never knew whether the next ones to take over would have the same attitudes. They were intrinsically undependable, most Mesklinites felt; Dondragmer’s confidence in them was a glaring exception.

All this was known to the Mesklinite scientists who saw the commander arrive. Their first concern was with the immediate situation. “Is someone in trouble, or are you just visiting?”

“Trouble, I’m afraid,” replied Barlennan. He briefly outlined Dondragmer’s situation. “Collect anyone you think may be useful and come to the map.” He made way to the forty-foot-square chamber whose floor was the “map” of Low Alpha, and waited. Very little of the area had been “mapped,” so far. He felt, as he had so often before, that there was a long, long job ahead. Still, the map was more encouraging to him than its human counterpart some millions of miles above was to its human viewers. Both showed the arc covered by the land cruisers and something of the landscape. The Mesklinites had indicated this in spidery black lines suggesting a sketch of human nerve cells, complete with cell bodies.

The specific Mesklinite data centered mostly around the spot where the Esket lay. This information, marked in red, had been obtained without direct human assistance. This was one place in the Settlement where there would be no vision transmitter as long as Barlennan was running things.

Now, however, he focused his attention several feet to the south of the Esket, where there was discouragingly little data in either red or black. The line representing the track of the Kwembly looked lonesome. Barlennan had raised his front end as high as was comfortable, bringing his eyes six or seven inches from the floor, and was looking at the map gloomily when the scientists began to arrive. Bendivence was either very optimistic or very pessimistic. The commander couldn’t decide which was the more likely reason for his having called nearly twenty people to the conference. They gathered a few feet from him, reared up and waited politely for his information and questions. He started without preamble.

“The Kwembly was here at her last report,” he indicated. “It had been crossing a field of snow, water snow, nearly clear of dissolved material but quite dirty according to Don’s science people.”