“It would seem so. Apparently your natives are not quite so completely diurnal as you gave me to understand.” Ken was not intentionally defending his actions, but he could have found no better answer. Laj Drai paused momentarily.
“Yes, that is a point that surprises me a little. For twenty years they have never signalled except during their daytime. I wonder if the flatlanders had anything to do with it? I can’t imagine what or how, though. Did you finish your tests?”
“Enough, I guess. We’ll have to bring the torpedo back here, so I can find out just what that atmosphere did to my samples. Some of them burned, we already know, but I’d like to know what was produced.”
“Of course it couldn’t be sulfides. That’s what one thinks of as the natural product of combustion.”
“Not unless frozen sulfur dust is suspended in the atmosphere in tremendous quantities. I hadn’t thought of that, though — I’ll check for it when the samples come back. Actually, I’m a little bothered by the results so far. I couldn’t think of anything gaseous at that temperature which would support combustion, and something definitely does.”
“How about fluorine?” Laj was digging in the dim memories of an elementary science course.
“Maybe — but how come it exists free in the atmosphere? I should think it would be too active, even at that temperature. Of course, I suppose the same would be true of anything which would support combustion, so we’ll simply have to wait until the samples are back. You know, I’m almost at the point where I’d be willing to risk a landing there, to see what the place is like.” Drai shrugged expressively.
“If you and Feth can figure out a way of doing it, I won’t stop you. We might even see our way to offering a bonus. Well, it’ll be nearly three days before your stuff is back here, and there won’t be much to do in the meantime. Feth will cut it in on the beam when it’s far enough from Three.”
Ken took this as a hint to leave, and drifted aimlessly out into the corridors. He had some thinking of his own to do. As Drai had said, nothing could be done about Planet Three until the return of the torpedo, and he had no excuse for not considering Rade’s problem for a while.
The product was called “tofacco.” That, at least, was information. Rade had had no name for the narcotic he sought, so the information was of questionable value so far.