The Nitrogen Fix by Hal Clement

Author:Hal Clement [Clement, Hal]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: sf
Published: 1980-08-31T20:00:00+00:00

XI

Experiment, Educational

The spear hurt, and pulling it out hurt a good deal more. Bones expected another flight of the weapons as the process was tried, but the human beings watched with interest as the handling tentacles pulled the long shaft on through and dropped it on the floor. The flow of nearly colorless blood ceased quickly. The Observer body was by no means either immortal or invulnerable, but most of the organs which would be vital to a human being were decentralized. There was no single heart, but hundreds of far smaller pump muscles along the blood vessels; nerve cells used internal information storage instead of the human method of coding connections, and travelled freely though the body both in the circulatory system and among the cells of the other tissues. Even muscles were not connected groups of tissue-forming cells but protean structures which could change their shapes and regroup as needed. The Observer muscle could actually push.

Bones, therefore, was extremely uncomfortable, but not incapacitated. The fact that such major damage usually stimulated the long body to a budding reaction was a nuisance, but not a catastrophe; buds were sometimes even convenient, if they actually duplicated properly. Usually, of course, they didn’t.

The fishlike form’s failure to fall down startled the human witnesses, and a buzz of conversation broke out.

Bones could not, as usual, understand enough of the syllables to make any sense, and human facial expressions had never been very meaningful to the Observer. It was necessary to wait for overt actions before the thoughts of these people could be guessed. The one they had made so far was mystifying, butwas at least a datum to remember.

Until they made another, it seemed reasonable to eat some more. This would be useful even if it did not stimulate the witnesses to some informative reaction. Bones removed the bubble from another planter and reached for the contents. The reaction, unfortunately, was too quick to allow a taste of the material; there was a single, sharp syllable barked by one of the tallest of the people, and six more spears were poised for throwing.

Bones did not have combat-type reflexes, but was a reasonably intelligent being. The basic idea of throwing things at beings whose actions were undesirable was new, but not essentially difficult Actual execution of it might take practice — Bones suspected that making the spear which had already been thrown return point first to its senders would be more difficult than it appeared; but some things could be thrown without knowing about their travel attitude.

The planter was heavy, but not too heavy. Two strong tentacles lashed out, and the box of dirt and plants went flying toward the spearsmen.

Two of them had time to launch their weapons, while the other four dropped theirs and ducked, in one case too slowly. More spears were raised.

Bones, who had had no trouble dodging the pair just thrown once it was obviously the thing to do, reached for and raised another planter.

The voice which had given orders before sounded again, this time in a monosyllable that Bones was able to understand.

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