Half Life (13 page)

There was no basis actually for sight judgment; the space behind the smashed plate and some of the region outside it were solid with frost. Inger’s mustache was still invisible; no one would ever remember it.

The rest of the body was not yet frozen; the environment armor was effective where it was intact. Most of the group could see how this accounted for the frost in the helmet, but nothing was said about the details.

No one, not even Belvew, displayed feelings, unless the lack of conversation counted. Like the soldiers they had become in name and almost in fact, they were hardened to sudden death and to the knowledge that any of them might be next. The large fraction of the original group which had gone merely in the setup of the station and its relay units had been expected and accepted by the survivors and, apparently, by the victims; but there would always be sorrow and memory.

Belvew did note that his sight was slightly blurred as he gathered up the kilograms of mass which had been for many months now his best friend, but he refused to admit to himself what might be causing this.

There was still a job to do; the body had to be gotten off Titan quickly. There was little likelihood in this chill that it would cause chemical—still less, biological—contamination and invalidate the entire project’s labors, but this was research; the chance had to be eliminated as completely as possible.

To his relief and very slightly to his guilt, Belvew found his main conscious emotion one of thankfulness that the body was still flexible enough to be fitted into the ramjet’s coffin—he was bothered, fleetingly, by the appropriateness of the name—and that since Ginger’s escapade an override system had been installed in both surviving craft to allow them to be controlled from outside even when the coffin was occupied.

What Goodall was thinking at this point the others of course did not know, but he was still thinking.

Inger’s condition might affect part of his plan; should he suggest that the body be placed at the site he had almost decided on for himself? Or would that give some of the others a clue—too early a clue—to what he had in mind? Someone, probably more than one, would wonder what had called the commander’s attention to this particular spot on Titan. Explaining why it was nice to have the place isolated by a ringwall would cause someone to wonder whether he had been thinking about deliberate local contamination, which he was. And that, in the main plan, was not supposed to happen until ground laboratories had been built.

Pain made the decision.

Belvew reboarded his own jet and lifted off, after spending some reaction mass to swivel
Theta
far enough to point her nose to one side of the ice cliff; he could not possibly have climbed fast enough to clear the elevation. Ginger took control of
Crius
and did the same without the preliminary, since it already had a safe heading. Maria guided them to different cumulus clouds to tank up. This was the first time two of the jets had been in the same airspace at the same time, and some of the group wondered whether Status would have done anything about traffic control if Maria hadn’t. No one but Belvew was moved to ask, and he restrained himself.

Tanks full,
Crius
headed eastward and upward, climbing back toward orbit.
Theta
turned south to resume the air-current study; there was no hurry for Belvew to get back personally to the station, since his suit was well charged, and he could stand missing an occasional real-surroundings interruption for the next few hours. It would be nice to have the sight of his real surroundings continuous and relevant.

The station’s mausoleum, a fifty-meter cube of emptiness among the roughly welded ice chunks that was separated from the living space inside the original hull, already held twenty-six occupants. Goodall offered to remove Inger’s remains from the docked jet and convey them through the passages to join the others. Not even Yakama, officially in charge of such station maintenance as could not be handled by Status, objected. Contagion-fear was realism, not paranoia, and no one had the slightest idea that the old man might have any ulterior motive.

Actually, the motive was now a little shaken; the sight of his frozen friend brought forcefully to Goodall the fact that one aspect of his plan was now superfluous.

But there was another facet. He did what he had to do, returned to his quarters, and reported to the others that his quarters were prion-tight once more.

Gene Belvew conducted the memorial. He had been the most closely associated with Inger, and knew more and could say more about him than anyone else.

He couldn’t remember afterward just what he had said, but he knew he had meant it.

The job left unfinished by Inger’s death still had to be done somehow. Just
how
was a subject of intense discussion, but no one seriously advised that drilling with the present equipment be tried again, or that anyone should be present physically no matter what was attempted. Common sense overrode heroism.

Thermite was suggested, with the admission that this might be risky for the root being checked. The risk was, after some argument, accepted; then it was realized that while oxygen was plentiful and aluminum at least available in the silicate dust of Titanian soil, there was probably not enough iron, oxidized or otherwise, accessible on any square kilometer of Titan’s surface to make a child’s horseshoe magnet.

There might be lots of heavy elements in the satellite’s core, and tectonics plainly did occur; but how much core material had ever been brought to the surface was still an open question. One which had low priority on the basic plan, and which the present situation wouldn’t change.

Goodall surprised himself, though not the others, by coming up with a workable suggestion inspired by this general line of thought. The gel of the patch could be analyzed for trace elements and the input from the various roots could be monitored thereafter for a statistical match. This should eventually identify the north root. He did not mention that this might also furnish a chance to check for carbon-carbon double bonds in this batch of tar.

He was delighted at the opportunity, but deeply worried by the immediate and uncritical acceptance of his suggestion by the others. They shouldn’t be that dependent on
him
.

And if they were, should he carry out his plan?

Of course. What else would cure them?

Yes, this provided another justification for what he was going to do—soon now, he had to admit. No research group could ever function effectively staffed exclusively or even largely by Arthur Goodall fundamentalists, and this one had to function. He had no living children, but he did want the human species to go on. It might still accomplish something if it got itself past this crisis, and in any case it could certainly enjoy itself. He had been able to do that himself, once.

Arthur Goodall would have to keep his mind on his own problems for just a little while longer, but at least there were no more policy decisions to make. Just tactical details.

Those could keep his mind off his pain, but for how long? Status would He would have to think about Status.

First, though, a careful job of data processing had to be finished; he needed a very detailed chart, in three dimensions, of his crater and its lake, its tar patches, and all its other features—detailed enough to satisfy his own conscience in the matter of isolating the planned contamination. The information was available in Maria’s surface studies, of course. It just had to be compiled.

Five-centimeter radar got through the smog easily but did not resolve one-centimeter details. Images from points—many points—many meters apart along the station’s orbit had to be combined using interferometric algorithms which were straightforward but tedious without Status’s public assistance.

Analyzing some forty square kilometers of surface to one-millimeter accuracy took even the station equipment many hours. Status took no “conscious” part; this was theoretical work which might come to nothing. Only when results seemed valid and relevant would they become part of the basic record, and it was up to Goodall to decide when and if they were. So far, therefore, there was no worry that he could see of anyone’s noticing his activities.

With the detailed map’s completion came the need for personal judgment, which meant careful examination of the model. This took even longer.

The twenty-two kilometers of the nearly circular ring had to be examined for possible cracks which would let a methane stream flow outward. There were rivers, or at least brooks, on Titan; most of the lakes were fed largely by small, winding methane-courses, fed in turn principally by rain from their own cumulus clouds. Very little rain had been seen to fall elsewhere than on or very close to the lakes themselves. There was nothing like the vast drainage basins so characteristic of Earth’s topography. This was why no one felt confident that all the lakes would turn out to have the same detailed composition. Each gathered its solutes from its own neighborhood.

The lake which was currently keeping Goodall’s attention from his own troubles was small, about six hundred meters east to west and little more than half that north and south, about a hundred and fifty thousand square meters of, presumably, impure methane. It had the usual smooth shoreline except at the dozen or so points where rivulets entered it. The number of these was unusually large for the size of the lake; presumably the crater funneled an even higher percentage of the precipitation than usual back to its source.

GO6-inspired conscience deflected the colonel’s train of thought for a moment here; he should, of course, try to produce an alternative hypothesis for the cause of the extra brooks. None presented itself for several seconds, however, and this was no time to publish a request for one.

Besides, he wouldn’t be reporting to higher authority. And the problem didn’t seem serious.

The depth and detailed composition of the liquid would of course have to be determined. There was more than one way to do this; Goodall had not yet decided which to use.

One of the tar patches was less than a hundred meters from the shore, of typically amoeboid shape, and little more than twenty-five meters in average diameter. The other had nearly ten times the area and was located, to Goodall’s surprise, within half a kilometer of the northeast rim of the crater. He noted the sizes, shapes, and locations of these as precisely as he could, and filed the information in his private speculation record, to be released to Status on his personal order. This file was getting quite large.

There was no evidence here of tectonic activity—no ridges, ice boulders, nothing like the tilted block near the first factory. He wondered briefly whether he’d better search for still another site, but convinced himself that the small number of variables was really an advantage.

Besides, the general smoothness had another good point, he suddenly realized. He was certainly not a good pilot. An obstructed landing area might make the whole project impossible.

The major remaining decision was
when
. One problem presented by Status still had to be solved. He had had one idea about this, but the inspiration had not come until after he had left the mausoleum, and it was then too late.

Distracting the robot was pointless as well as impractical, since the device could do nothing in any case but inform the rest of the staff; it controlled little physical except its communication links, pressure safety valves and doors, and some dedicated medical equipment. It was the people who had to have their attentions distracted.

If Goodall left his quarters without announcing his intent, Status would certainly warn everyone about the quarantine violation and keep them informed of his moment-by-moment location. There had to be a good reason for leaving again, one which would either satisfy Status that no warning was needed or satisfy his colleagues that the action was line-of-duty.

Naturally this reason should involve no danger to any of his friends.

Well,
preferably
no
real
danger. But each time the pain came back this restriction seemed less essential, and Goodall was getting worried about this in his more objective moments.

What problem—not too major a problem—would call for his roaming the corridors again?

Certainly nothing involving life support,
even
if that was an acceptable risk from his own viewpoint. He’d be the last to be chosen to do station maintenance; the nature of his illness was known, as was its effect on his manual skills.

Observing equipment? More promising, but he’d have to go out first to cause the trouble—and causing real trouble there would do more to harm the main project than his current plan possibly could to help it.

So would
real
damage of any other sort.

How about unreal damage? He had the normal scientific abhorrence of intentionally falsifying data, a repugnance which for thinking people both long preceded and vastly exceeded the military offense of violating regulations, but if he could straighten out such an offense before any ripples spread…

Yes, he could indeed. Slowly a smile spread over Goodall’s lined face. It hurt, but he did it anyway.

“Sergeant Belvew, are you awake?”

“Of course, Colonel. I’m flying—I mean, I’m actually down here.”

“Sorry. I lost track of time, I’m afraid. I knew you had stayed down after picking up Barn, but I thought your suit would have needed recharging by now.”

“Another few hours. I thought I might as well be here on the spot for as long as possible, since I had to come down anyway. If there’s something you’ve thought of for me to do I should have stocked up on suit power and sleep earlier; I can’t stay down too much longer now.”

“It was just a question. When you retrieved Barn, did you shut off his suit heaters? His body was flexible when I took it from the ship.”

“No, I didn’t. Silly of me, but I couldn’t bring myself—and if he’d frozen while Ginger was bringing him up, you might have had trouble getting him out.”

“He wouldn’t have
frozen;
the coffin
is
heated. But he might have—well, the fact is that I didn’t think about that, and I didn’t power his suit down either. I’ll have to go back to take care of it. I know it’s not exactly critical, but the sooner the better.”