Alan E. Nourse (5 page)

Chapter
4
"
There's
Trouble at the
Co/
ony
/"

or
a
moment
they
stood in shocked silence, staring at the big man. The Colonel's face was pale,
and all traces of his smile had fled. "If that was meant as a threat, I'm
afraid you're talking to the wrong man," he said quietly. "I'm not
here to listen to threats. I'm here to collect facts, and to draw my own conclusions
on the basis of those facts."

Anson
Torm
was shaking his head. "That was not a
threat. It was a simple statement of fact. I don't care to see the mines shut
down—I'll do everything in my power to keep them
open.That's
why I'm here, to talk to you before you go on to the colony." He eyed Tuck
and the pilot with frank hostility. "I'd prefer to talk privately."

The
Colonel hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then he nodded. "Would you
mind, Tuck? Perhaps you could get the gear ready to go back to the
colony." He turned to the pilot. "Tuck and I will plan to go to the
colony after I've talked with Mr.
Torm
. I'd like you
and your crew to stay with the ship, at least for the time being. And we'd
rather not be disturbed by anyone for a while."

Tuck made his way down the corridor toward
the sleeping quarters, trying to make some sense from the colony leader's
words. He was shocked by the big man's appearance far more than he realized.
Granted that he hadn't been entirely sure of what to expect a colonist to look
like—he had had mental pictures of crafty, shifty-eyed, bitter-faced people,
more animal than human—after all, that
was
the
generally accepted picture back home. But Anson
Torm's
cold blue eyes could hardly have been called shifty, and far from giving a
crafty appearance, he had struck Tuck as the sort of man who would prefer sharp
conflict to any kind of trickery. Almost shamefacedly, Tuck realized that he
had liked the big man on sight, liked him without any basis whatsoever. Yet
Torm
, he realized, was a Titan colonist with a record for
treachery a mile long; no matter how he looked, he couldn't be trusted.

Swiftly
Tuck packed the great pressure-sealed bag that was to be taken back to the
colony, impatient for the conference to end. He was eager to move, anxious to
get out of the ship, to get his feet on the ground of this strange world. What
would the colony be like, how could the people live under a plastic bubble?

An
idea struck him suddenly, and he hurried aft and poked his nose into the
control room. The pilot was sitting at his desk, working on a pile of reports;
he looked up and grinned when he saw Tuck. "Looking for something?"

"Well—maybe.
I just had an idea. Do we have pressure suits for the outside here on the
ship?"

"Of course.
Specially made for the surface
of Titan, with built-in heaters."

"How
about letting me go outside for a while? I'd like to go up on the ridge and see
if I can see the colony."

The
pilot shrugged. "No harm in that." He stepped into the corridor,
broke open one of the storage bins hanging from the overhead. The suit was
bulky, well-padded, with the heating element and compressed oxygen tanks built
into a compact unit on the back. "Ever been in one of these things?"

"Oh,
sure, I went out with the crew when we had to repair that sprung hull plate, on
the way out here."

"That's
right. Well, then you know how to handle the palm controls for heat and air
conditioning and all. Just remember, though—the oxygen supply will last for
eight hours, but you'll probably get cold long before that. Keep an eye on the
peripheral circulation gauge, and when it says your feet are getting cold,
come in!
It
means
your
feet are getting cold, whether they feel cold or not. And don't hesitate to let
out a loud yowl if something happens. If you rip that suit on the rocks, clamp
down the section sealer, and scream bloody murder."

Tuck
clambered into the clumsy suit, adjusting his fingertips to the row of buttons
on the palm, and made sure he could work the joints with ease. On the surface
of Titan the suits were more necessary to keep out the cold and the poisonous
atmosphere than to regulate body pressures, but without some care in handling
the joints of the suit, he would soon be spread-eagled and helpless. Once
securely inside, with die oxygen flow adjusted, he lumbered down the corridor
into the lock, waved to the pilot, and dogged down the pressure hatches. The
pumps whirred until the pressure registered "even" with the
atmospheric pressure of the planetoid's surface; then he opened the outer
hatch, and stepped onto the crane.

When
he stepped off onto the ground, a wonderful feeling of excitement struck him.
For the first time, he was setting foot on another world, a world so alien to
the warm, comfortable Earth he knew that it seemed impossible that the two could
be in the same universe. This was a cruel, cold world, yet just five miles away
was a little nucleus of the same warm Earth that he had left behind, a single
oasis in a barren wilderness. Man could not live with the hostile cold of
Titan's surface, but they could do the next best thing: adapt part of the
surface to conditions they
could
live
with. Slowly Tuck walked out on the flat crater floor, turned and looked back
at the ship, standing like a slender silver finger against the dark blue sky.
The white powder crunched under his feet as he walked, and rose in little
whirlwinds around his legs, and though it was only two inches deep, he could
feel the unearthly chill under his feet. Glancing down, he saw the frost
already forming knee-high on the legs of his suit. But close to the skin of his
feet he could feel the soft pads of the thermocouples, constantly registering
the temperature of his feet. If the blood flow to his feet slowed below a
critical level, the thermocouple would register a danger signal, the signal
that all spacemen knew too well, which meant that they must return to the
warmth of their ships or their feet would be frozen. Tuck shivered, even in the
warmth of his suit. He'd wait until he had a half-track before he strayed too
far.

The
floor of the crater was covered with small, jagged rocks; he carefully picked
his way between them, moving off in the direction of the worn path of the
half-track. Perhaps up over the first ridge he would be able to see the colony,
if the terrain were smooth enough. The going was rough, but by following the
ruts, he was able to make good time. These ruts had been worn by the heavy
tread of the half-tracks for the past hundred and fifty years, ever since the
colony was built, and since the first of the semiannual supply ships had
selected this crater as the closest landing place to the colony that would be
safe. How could the colonists dare to close down the mines, even to make such
threats, if their food and other living necessities must come by such a precarious
pipe line from Earth? It seemed incredible to
Tuck
, as
he clambered up the rugged pathway, but he had heard Anson
Torm's
words, and he had seen the paleness of his father's face. Whatever the answer,
the mines were in danger of closing.
And that, above all,
they had to prevent.

He
had almost reached the top of the ridge when he suddenly froze in his tracks,
staring at the large black rock in the path before him. Frantically he shook
his head,
then
looked again, and his skin broke into a
sweat. But there was no question about what he had seen. Just as he had started
to pass it,
the
black rock had moved—

Panic
rose up in Tuck's throat, but he stood steady. Then it moved again, and Tuck
recoiled in horror. It looked just like all the rest of the black rocks, but it
slowly changed shape, and slithered down the grade a few inches, then stopped
and lay motionless, like a black rock again. Even as Tuck watched it, he saw
the bit of rock that lay under the thing dissolve away, and suck up into it,
like ink into a sponge—

And
then Tuck remembered the paragraph on one of the microfilms he had read,
describing these strange black creatures, an incredible sort of half-living
thing with a silicon-based metabolism. The report had called them "
clordelkus
" and said they were quite harmless, but
could dissolve away and suck up almost any kind of silicon rock. Tuck
shuddered, starting up in the opposite direction from the creature. Harmless or
not, it had given him a horrible start.
For the first time he
realized, almost with a shock, the true strangeness and desolation of the
place.
This was a harsh world—what could it mean to live here, actually
live
under a plastic bubble, with a cruel, barren, frozen world on all sides,
just waiting for the seal to break? These colonists—how could they feel? How
could anyone help but hate a life on such a wasteland, in an outpost so remote
that contact with Earth could come but once or twice a year? How could anyone
live here, and not become desperate after a while? Suddenly Tuck felt terribly
alone. There were so many dangers, so many pitfalls, so many ways they might
simply disappear on a world like this—

He had started on toward the ridge again when
the whine of a motor came to his ear. Suddenly, from over the ridge there was a
flash of silver, and a tiny jet plane swooped in, extremely low, skimming
through the thin atmosphere with an angry squeal. Tuck stared open-mouthed at
the plane as it swung up, barely missing the ship, then made a great whining
arc, and settled smoothly in, dropping like a graceful bird onto the smooth
floor of the crater not fifteen yards from the crane. Almost immediately the
cockpit swung open, and a space-suited figure clambered out, started swiftly
for the crane of the Earth ship. Tuck turned and started back for the ship in
alarm, moving as fast as his clumsy suit would allow. The plane was a
curious-looking thing, hardly twenty feet long from air-scoop to jet, and was
shaped short and squat, for
all the
world like a
rocket lifeboat which had been clumsily rebuilt by an inexpert hand. Tuck
stared at it in amazement. The exhaust had been so fragile and pencil-thin that
he had hardly believed his eyes when it had slid into a landing-Tuck was
thoroughly acquainted with small jets back home, and he'd never seen an exhaust
cone like that! He longed to stop and inspect this ship more closely, but the
stranger was already at the outer lock of the ship. Quickly Tuck moved to the
crane, started up, and then waited for the lock to empty and open again, a hard
core of fear in his mind. Finally the door swung open; in a moment he stepped
into the corridor of the ship, and then stopped short in surprise.

The
stranger was not a man, but a youth, hardly older than himself, a stout,
muscular fellow who seemed to be attempting to take the ship by storm, in the
face of two very angry crewmen. As the lock closed, Tuck saw one of them motion
toward the lock, gun in hand, saying, "I told you they're in conference,
and they left orders that they weren't to be disturbed under any circumstances.
Now will you get out, or do we have to throw you out?"

"But
I've
got
to see him," the boy cried.
"Look—it wouldn't hurt you to bang on the door and tell him David is
here—he won't eat you—"

"We've got our
orders—"

"Orders!
Bah! What good are orders? You may be dead
in five minutes!" The fellow's excitement was expansive, his voice filling
the corridor. "Look, I'm David
Torm
—the man in
there is my father. My
father,
can't you hear that? I've
got to see him—" Swiftly the boy's voice became wheedling. "What will
it hurt to let me see him for just ten seconds? What can they do to you for
that? Hang you by your toes? Or aren't they doing that on Earth
any more
? Let me see him, and your commander will be
forever grateful. You'll be the apple of his eye! Just one moment to see my
father, I beg of you—"

The
man, who was growing redder by the minute, nearly exploded at this outburst.
"You move an inch further into this ship, sonny, and you'll be dead."

The boy's eyes flashed angrily, and he shook
his fist in the guard's face. "Hah! You'd not have the nerve to shoot me,
you chicken! I'll see my father if I have to slice your ears off, clod! May
your suit spring a leak, may your airline clog—
don't lay a hand on me, or you'll regret
it—"
The boy's voice rose shrilly, and he ducked
nimbly back when the guard took an angry swipe at his head. Swiftly he turned
to Tuck, his eyes bright.
"You!
Explain to this dolt, in simple terms, that I've got to see my father
before it's too late!" He stared in utter contempt at the crewman, whose
face had gone purple, then turned his entire attention to
Tuck
,
as if the man had ceased to exist. "It's urgent," he said quite
seriously. "I must see him."

"Why?"
Tuck eyed the youth coldly, fighting down an impulse to laugh aloud at the
crewman's discomfort. "They're busy. Why can't you wait?"

David
Torm
groaned in exasperation, brushing thick blond
hair out of his eyes. His face had the same healthy, weathered look as his
father's, and the eyes were the same startling blue—but this lad's eyes were
quicker, with a twinkle of exuberant mischief in them, not in the least clouded
by his excitement. "I've been trying to explain to this toad over here for
fifteen minutes. There's trouble at the colony. My father must get back as soon
as possible."

"What kind of
trouble?"

The
blue eyes flashed in disgust.
"You too?
Questions,
always questions! A
clordelkus
is attacking. He's
chewing up the bubble. In half an hour the colony will be frozen to death.
Can't you see it's urgent?" David didn't even crack a smile.