Complete Short Fiction, page 275
Belvew entered atmosphere, made a routine tank refill, and sent his aircraft plunging toward the factory site, following the vectors prescribed by the still deadly serious Maria. Neither he nor anyone else expected to reach the place in time to do Inger any good, but the effort had to be made. Humanity was still, in spots, more moral than logical; the word “inhuman” still carried its ancient pejorative meaning. And Barn was—had been—a good friend.
Theia flashed across the factory site half a kilometer up, banked sharply, and worked herself into a landing pattern. For just a moment her pilot allowed himself to picture all three of the jets on the ground at the same place and time, and to think what would happen to the whole project if even more than one of them should fail to get off again; then he focused on his landing.
He chose to come in from the west rather than the north, as the other set-downs had been made; he knew that if he overshot he would have the ice cliff ahead of him, but the cliff itself made a landing in the opposite direction impossible and he didn’t want the complications which might ensue from involving the “tar” in his landing slide. He had gotten away with it once, and felt he knew how much luck had been involved. He was going to land hot, to make allowances for the wing “ice” which had wrecked Oceanus, and could not even guess what the higher friction would do to the gel.
The need to stop as close as possible to his partner left only the eastward landing feasible.
He was out and running the three hundred meters, if high speed human locomotion on Titan could be called running, the moment he had completed his landing check list. Neither he nor any of the others was surprised to see the shattered face plate, nor at Inger’s failure to show any sign of life.
The suits, like the station, contained pure oxygen at one fifth of a standard atmosphere, an eighth of the Titanian surface pressure. A flood of ninety-Kelvin nitrogen must have washed into the victim’s face; it was unlikely that he felt much, if anything. Certainly he had made no sound. There was no basis for sight judgment; the space behind the smashed plate was full of frost. Inger’s mustache was still invisible.
The rest of the body was not yet frozen; the environment armor was effective where it was intact. If anyone saw how this accounted for the frost in the helmet, nothing was said.
No one, not even Belvew, displayed feelings. 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.
Belvew did note that his sight was lightly blurred as he gathered up the few 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 real 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, Belvew found his main emotion one of thankfulness that the body was still flexible enough to be fitted into the control compartment of the ramjet, 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 a suit was in the pod.
What Goodell was thinking at this point the others of course did not know, but he was still thinking. This might affect part of his plan; should he suggest that Inger’s 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?
His pain gave the answer.
Belvew reboarded his own jet and lifted off, after spending some reaction mass to swivel Theia far enough to point her nose to one side of the 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 she 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 she 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. Theia 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 do very gladly without the real-surroundings interruptions for a few hours.
The station had a cemetery, a fifty meter cube of emptiness among the roughly welded ice chunks, which already held about a dozen occupants. Goodell offered to remove Inger’s remains from the docked jet and convey them through the passages to join the others, and not even Yakama, basically in charge of station maintenance objected. Contagion-consciousness 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 acquaintances brought forcefully to Goodell the fact that one aspect of his plan was really superfluous.
But there was another facet. He did what he had to do, returned to his quarters, and reported to the others that his room was virus tight once more.
The job left unfinished by Inger’s death still had to be done somehow. How was a subject of intense discussion, but no one seriously advised that drilling should 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 possibly sufficient in the dirt either of the Station ice or Titanian soil, there was probably not enough iron within reach of Titan’s surface or near its orbit to make a child’s horseshoe magnet.
Goodell surprised himself, though not the others, by coming up with a workable suggestion. The gel of the “patch” could be analyzed for trace elements and the input from the various roots be monitored thereafter for a 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 the “tar”. He was delighted at the opportunity, but deeply worried by the immediate and uncritical acceptance of his suggestion by the others.
Of course, this provided another justification for what he was going to do—soon now, he had to admit. The place just wouldn’t function staffed by Arthur Goodell fundamentalists, and it had to function. He had no living children, but did want the human species to go on. It might still accomplish something, if it got itself past this crisis.
Arthur Goodell would have to keep his mind on its own problems.
For just a while longer.
Crius would not be descending for a while; the new suggestion had made that unnecessary.
A detailed job could keep his mind off his pain—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 contained lake and tar patches; detailed enough to satisfy his own conscience on the matter of spreading contamination. The information was available in Maria’s surface studies, of course. It just had to be assembled.
Five-centimeter waves 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 formulas which were straightforward but tedious. Analyzing some forty square kilometers of surface to one-millimeter accuracy took even Station equipment many hours. Status took no 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 Goodell to decide when and if they were. So far, therefore, there was no worry about 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 either way. There were rivers, or at least brooks, on Titan; most of the lakes were fed partly by small, winding methane courses, though they seemed to get their principal feed 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 topology. This was why no one felt much confidence that the lakes all would turn out to have the same composition, other than the basic methane, of course. Each gathered its solutes from its own neighborhood.
The lake which currently kept Goodell’s attention from his pain 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, with the usual smooth shore line except at the points where a dozen or so rivulets entered it. The number of these was unusually great for the size of the lake; presumably the crater tunneled an even higher percentage of the precipitation than usual back to its source. The depth and detailed composition of the liquid would of course have to be determined later. There was more than one way to do this; Goodell had not yet decided which to use.
One of the patches was less than a hundred meters from shore, of typically ameboid shape, and little more than twenty-five meters in average diameter. The other had nearly ten times the area and was located, rather to Goodell’s surprise, within half a kilometer of the northwest side of the crater. He noted the sizes, shapes, and locations of these as precisely as he could, and filed the information for release to Status on his personal order.
There was no evidence of tectonic activity—no ridges, ice boulders, or anything like the features around the factory. He wondered briefly whether he’d better search for still another site, but convinced himself that the small number of variables might be helpful.
Besides, the general smoothness had another advantage, he suddenly realized. He was not, most certainly, a good pilot.
It also dawned on him that he was now thinking less of what he might do sometime than of what he was going to do soon. He was not even yet quite sure just when; one problem presented by Status still had to be solved. He had had one idea, but not until after leaving the cemetery, 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 nothing physical except its communication links. It was the people who had to have their attentions captured. If he 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, which would satisfy his colleagues that the action was line-of-duty.
Naturally it should involve no danger to any of his fellows.
Well, preferably. But each time the pain came back this restriction seemed less essential, and Goodell 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 were an acceptable risk from his own viewpoint. He’d be the last to be chosen to do repair work on anything of that sort; the cause of his illness was known, but no treatment was.
Observing equipment? More promising, but he’d have to go out first to cause the trouble—and causing real trouble there would do more harm to the main project than his current plan possibly could help it. So would real damage of any other sort.
How about unreal damage? Ha had the normal scientific abhorrence of falsifying data, repugnance which for a scientist both long preceded and vastly exceeded the military offense of violating regulations, but could he straighten this out before any ripples spread? Yes, he could indeed. Slowly a smile spread over Goodell’s face. It hurt, but he did it anyway.
“Sergeant Belvew, are you awake?”
“Of course. I’m flying—I mean I’m actually down here.”
“Sorry. I’d lost track of time, I’m afraid. I knew you had stayed down after picking up Barn, but thought your suit would have needed recharging by now.”
“Another few hours. It seemed a good idea to be here on the spot for as long as possible, since I’d had to come down anyway. Maybe if there’s something you’ve thought of for me to do I should have stocked up on 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.”
“True enough. The fact is that I didn’t think about that, and I didn’t power him 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.”
“I can do it myself when I come back. I could start now, and meet the Station in—how long Maria?”
“Just a moment.” The woman had been busy, of course, but nothing ever seemed to disconcert her. “Since you’re just about at a pole—one hundred twelve minutes to the equator, half a minute to turn, seven and a quarter to orbit speed and clearance of atmosphere, one hundred ten to intercept and two more to match—”
“Forget it,” Goodell interrupted firmly. “It should have been done long ago, and I can do it in a few minutes. You must be flying a planned pattern, Gene. Finish it out and come back when you’d planned. I’m leaving quarters, everyone, as soon as I’ve cleaned my suit.”
There may have been doubts, but there was no objection; almost certainly no suspicion. Goodell was a theoretician, with rank to do as he saw fit. He was, in fact, the boss. The others were qualified, and often willing, to raise what they considered reasonable objections to his decisions; but none was likely to do it on such a trivial issue. Five minutes later he was climbing toward the station axis.
He actually visited the cemetery. He had indeed failed to shut down Inger’s heaters—that memory was what had inspired his present plan. A direct and total falsehood would probably never have occurred to him. He was now facing a probable need to lie—really lie—probably in a very few minutes, but he didn’t want to do that until he absolutely had to. Not until it became unimportant whether anyone ever believed him again.
The body had stiffened by now, though not from cold. This bothered Goodell slightly; it was general policy to forestall as effectively as possible the irreversible chemistry which followed death. One never knew when more information might be needed. However, there were other subjects—other former friends, he thought briefly and grimly—and as long as the error was on file with Status it shouldn’t matter much.
He made it so, without caring whether any others noticed the report. He left the cemetery, and headed not back to his own laboratory/hospital-cell/quarters but toward the pole of the station and Crius’ dock. Status would pay no attention, and his living colleagues wouldn’t know, yet.
The remotely controlled override which would allow the jets to be handled from the station even if a waldo suit were aboard was a recent improvisation, motivated by Ginger Xalco’s recent unauthorized trip. It was considered less effective, and less important, than the unanimous agreement whose breach was about to make Arthur Goodell a liar. He knew how the device worked; he had indeed been mainly responsible for its design. Disabling it was a matter of disconnecting a single jack, easily done even while wearing a suit.
He did not remember whether this would be noted by Status, but this no longer mattered. He was aboard now, everyone would know what was happening in a dozen minutes or so, and no one including Status could do anything about it.
He closed the hatch, and started the prelaunch check. This was entirely passive at first, a matter of reading instruments, and would call no attention to the ship. All seemed ready. The tanks were not full, of course—but there was much more than enough to break orbit and get back to atmosphere. The fuses were solid-state devices which only went wrong catastrophically and must certainly be all right now since the jet was in one piece. Chemical batteries were at a reasonable charge. So was Goodell’s own environment suit; he had made sure of that before leaving his own quarters. He could see that the launching springs were compressed, as they had been when Ginger docked. There was no status indicator for the remote controller which would release them from inside the jet, but there was no reason to worry about it; the device was too simple to be tricky. At least, nothing had gone wrong with any of them so far.
He energized the small heater which would make sure some of the reaction mass was vapor and would reach the feed pipes, waited for the required three seconds in tense anticipation of Status’ voice asking what was going on, realized at last that the jets were not part of the robot’s responsibility at all, and sprung the launcher.
That brought questions, a confusion of voices from everyone in the station. Goodell ignored them. He had never actually flown one of the craft before, but had followed through with his suit many times while others were doing so; and like the others, he had received plenty of training before they left Earth. He had more than one reason for concentrating on flying now, of course. He had no intention of being talked out of this, and if he allowed himself any distraction he’d be noticing his pain again. Right now it took all his attention, blissfully.
