“No, go on, if you’ve a thought,” she said. “I just wanted to listen, not dispute. I’ll save an ear for you. Science too is a set of arts.”
Rueda smiled lopsidedly. “I’m no scientist. A Sunday dabbler in it at most… We are getting this scene on tape, aren’t we?”
“Aye, of course.”
“Good,” Dozsa said bleakly. “Life like this on a world like this. It’ll give us much to talk about in the years ahead.”
The pageant went on. Humans spoke amidst its melodies, staring at its motion, as they flew between red dwarf sun and sea of cloud.
“I think they must be live lighter-than-air ships,” Rueda ventured.
“Those giant bodies are mostly gas bags, inflated by their own heat. Vents help them rise or sink, the wings catch winds, and probably there’s a jet arrangement as well, using a bellows or – I don’t know; but the atmosphere’s dense enough at this level to make it practical. They breathe hydrogen instead of oxygen, naturally, but I suspect they’re otherwise not so unlike us, they’re also made of proteins in water solution.”
“Where do they come from?” Dozsa wanted to know. “What made them evolve?
How did life start in the first place? Where does the food chain begin?”
“How many years and research organizations will you allow me for those questions, my friend? If you want my guess, I’d say thèprimordial ocean’ is down under the clouds, where the air gets really dense and chemicals can concentrate – originally on colloids? Remember, this planet is like Jupiter or Zeus or Epsilon. It radiates more than it receives. That means a thermal gradient to drive biochemistry, especially when the sun is weak. Energy comes more from below than above. I daresay our altitude here is marginal for life, like Antarctica or the sea bottoms of Earth.”
Side 121
Anderson, Poul – Avatar, The Dozsa scowled at the dancers. “Intelligence developing when the whole ecology floats? How would it? No stone for tools, no fire-”
Rueda nodded. “That’s why I confess to doubts about those otherwise delightful animals.”
Caitlin straightened in her harness. “Wurra, wurra, where have you two parked your imaginations?” she challenged. “Can you not think of growths adrift for use, like kelp and fish bones, only better? If you must have a thing that answers to fire, what about enzymes that catalyze reduction of organic compounds? And do we know what made apes turn manward on Earth, let alone dogmatizing about the subject on a foreign planet?”
Rueda stroked his mustache. “True. However, I decline to believe in the possibility of electronics without solid materials, minerals, being available.
Yes, conceivably the Others know tricks with pure force-fields. But how does one get from here to there? Not in a single bound! Native Danaan sentience might develop, it might get as noble and artistic and intellectual as you please, but by itself it has no way to build a scientific-technological civilization.” His laugh came brittle. “E por si muove. We’ve detected transmitters.” He sagged.
Weariness flattened his voice. “Never mind. I’m afraid this gravity is getting to my marrow. I can’t think very well. How I hope something more happens soon.”
Dozsa nodded. He had no reason to repeat what they knew. Their stay was sharply limited in time. Muscles might adapt to high weight, but the cardiovascular system, the entire fluid distribution of the human body, could not. Blood was pooling in the lower extremities; the laboring heart grew less and less able to supply the brain; seepage out of cells would bring edema; eventually the damage would be irreversible.
Meanwhile the hull was not impermeable. At this pressure, molecules of hydrogen were leaking through metal. The mixture would at last become explosive.
“Well, we planned on remaining till near sundown.” Dozsa sighed.
“Probably we were too optimistic. Distances must be great everywhere on Danu.
Those people, if they are intelligent, must be those that happened to be close by. The others- the Others-”
“The true Others would have arrived sooner, is that what you are saying, Stefan?” Caitlin asked.
Again he nodded.
“It’s right you are, I fear.” She looked back outward. “But how lovely they are here, how full of bliss!”