"Escape From The Crater"

Escape From The Crater

by Carl L. Biemiller

Published by Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York.

They had been more than a week in what Moses called the Kirl’s base colony, stuffing full days to bursting with curiosity, enthusiasm, and unflagging energy. They were one with the Kirl, and as much at ease with them as though they had forepaws and fur. Genright had taken to swimming on his back so the Kirl pups could ride on his tummy as they did on their mommas’. Tuktu experimented with dining on his back in mid-lake, using a flat rock over his navel to crack mussel shells like the Kirl’s sea-otter ancestors. Major Bell, with easy athletic competence and much drill, learned to handle a variety of diving gear and became something more than competent in and under water. Genright wore the Bible dog-eared finding new names for new friends: Pekah, Rezin, Lemuel, Malachi, David, Saul. Tuktu and Genright became fans of the claygooey sport of otter sliding, and laid secret plans to improve on the hilarious business of chuting down a mud slope into the lake.

They saw little of the Kirl leader, although Kim checked in with him daily for talk of the day’s activities, which were strenuous. Each of the hydronauts, including Major Bell, followed a checklist duty roster, most of which was concerned with exploring the area.

The lake itself was unique. It had characteristics of both the sea and a body of fresh water in clearly divided areas. It was brackish where it was apparent that fissures and what looked like man-made laterals vanished within its confining cliffs to meet sea water. It was fresh where many little creeks from the hill supplied runoff waters and seasonal melts, and also many nutrients for lake life. Its warmth, at least in the colony area, testified to the presence of neighborhood volcanoes and, perhaps, a most uneasy bed.

“It’s a geological monster. And not the lake so much as this whole region, disturbs me. There has been engineering here, and I seem to find it familiar,” said Major Bell.

“Water analysis is crazy too,” said Tuktu. “I found a salinity count higher than in open ocean in one patch of what should have been merely brackish water. Finally figured that crazy air was doing it in that spot. Cool air flowing over warm water making big evaporation and a higher concentration of salts.”

One day Kim and Toby and Major Bell were resting on the bank of a fresh-water cove when Toby picked a small, about one-twentieth of an inch, eight-legged creature from a clump of we moss. “Ha,” she said. “Major Bruce, here’s a fellow absolutely unique in nature that reminds me of you.”

“You mean he’s ugly?” asked the cryo grumpily.

“Tardigrade?” queried Kim.

“Right.. No, Major, because this little chap can ‘die’ and ‘return to life’ without making any fuss about it at all. If I remember my textbooks, he goes into what is called cryptobiosis and sort of dries out to the point where only extensive scientific tests can find any signs of life.

“As I recall, one of them was found in a piece of moss that had been in some museum for a hundred and twenty years. When the moss was moistened the little guy came back to life.

“Tardigrades,” she continued, “have survived boiling water for minutes and revived. Tardigrades have been exposed to within a fraction of a degree of absolute zero… that’s the lowest possible temperature in the universe, about four hundred and fifty degrees below zero.. for more than eight hours, and were well and happy again when they warmed up. They’ve been dried out for eighteen months, practically to dust, and made one hundred percent recoveries.”

“That reminds you of me?” asked Major Bell.

“Don’t be moody… Tardigrades have been put in a vacuum for eight days, then in helium gas at room temperature for three days, then subjected to absolute zero for hours, and then brought back to room temperature. They revived. What’s more, they can stand radiation five hundred times as strong as any other mammals could tolerate…”

“Don’t let her fool you, Major Bruce,” said Kim. “there are other reasons you remind her of the Tardigrades, especially this little feller Eschiniscus. He’s some kind of spider relative… I had the same biology course, you know … and he doesn’t breathe, doesn’t have any heart or blood system. Gets air through his skin the way we do when we use the silco suits underwater. He does have a nervous system, though, so he can duck trouble.”

“Well, thank you all. The guy would have made a great astronaut.” The Major looked at them. “One of our Outer Space explorers,” he added.

“Class is over,” said Kim.

“Not quite,” said Toby Lee. “That cryptobiosis, or secret life business, stretches the life span of these critters enormously. One of them that stays active, without ever going into cryptobiosis, lives only half a year. The little pond types who do go into the state have lived as long as sixty-seven years.”

“What is all this?” asked the cryo.

“Just in case you get feeling sorry for yourself now and then without counting your blessing,” said Toby sweetly.

“Eccckk,” said the Major. He thumped Toby on the shoulder. “All you’re doing is telling me to drop dead again so I can live longer. Can’t I see how this comes out first?”

“Staring at us from that weed bed is a great northern pike which probably weighs twenty pounds,” said Kim, “and while the meat is coarse, broiled with watercress garnish, we can have a dandy fresh-fish picnic supper.”

“Don’t miss, Major,” said Toby Lee.

Kim kept them to work schedules during most of the long days, made sure that the data banks were kept current when they were not in the lake or probing the cliffs beneath it. But there was always time for talk. The hydronauts quizzed the cryo incessantly. Toby Lee and Tuktu asked over and over again about humanity’s long vanished ventures into Outer Space. The pictures of destruction taken by men “off earth,” which had upset Toby so much when she viewed the Kirl history, remained vivid to her. How did mankind get into Space? Tuktu was fascinated by the mechanics, the vehicles, and the science.

“We were not taught this part of our history,” said Genright, “although there must be records and much, much information about space travel in the archives.”

They were talking about space one evening when Moses dropped by to listen for a few minutes. They had moved to the shore from the confinement of the Adam, and The Kirl took the trouble to shake water over Genright’s sprawled length.

“Can you think of a reason why man’s move to the stars remains hidden from the people of your cities?” he asked.

“Not really,” said Toby.

“No,” said Tuktu firmly. “It should be taught as a matter of pride to all of us.”

“It may be linked to the old wars and the knowledge forbidden as too dangerous,” said Genright slowly.

Kim was thoughtful and silent. The Kirl leader looked at him. “Have you no ideas?”

“Even in my time there were many who thought that space was too big and expensive a dream when earth’s own problems seemed too stubborn to solve,” said Major Bell.

“Kim?” Moses was insistent.

“I think there was a good survival reason in not teaching everything in our history, even if the records existed. It would interfere with psych-conditioning, population control and grading, and necessary disciplines. It would not be sensible to teach concepts of unlimited space with the fate of the race dependent upon pockets of people jammed into very little room by a poisoned earth. Besides, I know that not all of the technology of those who destroyed the world was saved. Nor do we have enough of the basic materials, stable metals, for instance, to regain that same technology even if we wanted it. We go a different route to survive and increase and to find living room someday outside the hives.”

“The long head, the instinct knowledge, and so young,” muttered the old Kirl.

“We can’t stay cooped up forever,” said Tuktu.

“For as long as it takes,” answered Kim. “Be glad we’re part of the Service, and we have the seas.”

“Well, it’s why we save cryos,” said Genright.

“What is?” asked Tuktu.

“So we can learn things we’re not supposed to know. Did you ever kill people, Major Bruce, throw bombs at ‘em and blow up millions?”

“Bad manners,” snapped The Kirl.

There was no concept of war in the hydronauts’ training; of killing for survival, yes; of the recycling of life forms for population stability, yes. But humanity was too precious and people too few to waste. Killing was a bad dream, a horror, and therefore fascinating. The hydronauts were eaten with curiosity by someone who had known barbarism as a way of life. They embarrassed the cryo.

“I did my duty,” said Major Bell stiffly. “There was civil war in the United States. People died and maybe I killed some during the Conservations Rebellion and the Welfare Wipeout.”

“Tell,” said Kim succinctly.

“Sensible men long realized that our earth was becoming defiled by a technology too good at producing comforts and comfort machines to support human life or any other kind. They did something about it. Necessary things to keep air breathable, water pure, land fertile, to save our country as a livable place for their children’s children. They demanded that people sacrifice comforts. But a lot of other people decided they’d rather have the things they’d worked for and let nature take her own chances. They rebelled, and conservationists were killed by the thousands.

At the same time, there were about ten million people who, for one reason or another, made little contribution to the well-being of the country, but were supported and given a living by the general economy because they were citizens. They saw what was happening and decided that if there was no government to give them anything, they’d better take what they could get. They finished off some more conservationists and then attacked the military.

“The fighting went on for four years,” continued Major Bell ruefully, “Then I was in Alaska boring holes and doing my job.”

“That sounds insane,” said Tuktu incredulously.

“Some sort of shark or bluefish feeding frenzy,” added Toby Lee.

“Who won?” asked Kim.

Major Bell pursed his lips thoughtfully.

“Well, the Army restored order and discipline finally. But even though there were only a handful of conservationists left, I’d have to say they achieved their basic objectives. There wasn’t much workable technology around to pollute anything, and the military had that locked up. And, as for energy sources, we sort of kept atomic power for governmental use, and went back to nature anyhow—wind, sun, tides, earth heat. I’d say the sciences generally got a new thrust in the direction of nature, heavy biological with neuro and psych breakthroughs, gene tamperings, social and ecosystem relationships. But I was military, basically a geological engineer, and not a super-think man. And to answer all your morbid questions, I did not throw any fission, fusion, or horror weapons at anybody, and further, none were thrown at all, to my knowledge. We hadn’t reached the ultimate insanity, the thing I saw in the Kirl archives.”

“You admit you were all pretty left-handed in the head, don’t you?” asked Genright with a grin. “You do? Fine. Tuk and I have this little project with sort of super mud slide, and we want an engineer’s advice on it—a nutty engineer’s though. But we can’t talk in front of Moses, because we want a lot of his people to work on it…”

“I am going,” said The Kirl, “probably to alert my healers. Good night.” He paused a moment. “I saw the whale briefly today. He looks as though he needs a change and misses the sea. Good night again.”

Chapter One	Chapter Two	Chapter Three	Chapter Four	Chapter Five
Chapter Six	Chapter Seven	Chapter Nine	Chapter Ten	Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve	Chapter Thirteen	Chapter Fourteen	Chapter Fifteen

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Back to Book Two, Follow The Whales

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