Planets of Adventure [сборник]

There had been incredible hardships at first, and heroic feats. There had been an attempt to ferry water-supplies down from the pole by aircraft. It was not practical, even to build up a reserve of fluid. Winds carried sand particles here as on other worlds they carried moisture. Aircraft were abraded as they flew. The last working flier made a forced landing five hundred miles from the colony. A caterwheel expedition went out and brought the crew in. The caterwheel trucks were armored with silicone plastic, resistant to abrasion, but when they got back they had to be scrapped. Men had been lost in sudden sand squalls, and heroic searches made for them, and once or twice rescues. There had been cave-ins in the mines, and other accidents.

Bordman went to the door of the hull which was Ralph Redfeather's office. He opened it, and stepped outside.

It was like stepping into an oven. The sand was still hot from the sunshine just ended. The air was so utterly dry that Bordman instantly felt it sucking at the moisture of his nasal passages. In ten seconds his feet—clad in indoor footwear—were uncomfortably hot. In twenty the soles of his feet felt as if they were blistering. He would die of the heat even at night, here! Perhaps he could endure the outside near dawn, but he raged a little. Here Amerinds and Africans lived and throve, but he could live unprotected for no more than an hour or two—and that only at one special time of the planet's rotation!

He went back in, ashamed of the discomfort of his feet and angrily letting them feel scorched rather than admit to it.

Aletha turned another page.

"Look here!" said Bordman. "No matter what you say, you're going to go back on the Warlock before—"

She raised her eyes.

"We'll worry about that when the time comes. But I think not. I'd rather stay here."

"For the present, perhaps," snapped Bordman. "But before things get too bad you go back to the ship! They've rocket fuel enough for half a dozen landings of the landing boat. They can lift you out of here."

Aletha shrugged.

"Why leave here to board a derelict? The Warlock's practically that. What's your honest estimate of the time before a ship equipped to help us gets here?"

Bordman would not answer. He'd done some figuring. It had been a two-month journey from Trent, the nearest Survey base, to here. The Warlock had been expected to remain aground until the smelter it brought could load it with pig-metal. Which could be as little as two weeks, but would surprise nobody if it was two months instead. So the ship would not be considered due back on Trent for four months. It would not be considered overdue for at least two more. It would be six months before anybody seriously wondered why it wasn't back with its cargo. There'd be a wait for lifeboats to come in, should there have been a mishap in space. Eventually a report of non-communication would be made to the Colonial Survey headquarters on Canna III. But it would take three months for that report to be received, and six more for a confirmation—even if ships made the voyages exactly at the most favorable intervals—and then there should at least be a complaint from the colony. There were lifeboats aground on Xosa II, for emergency communication, and if a lifeboat didn't bring news of a planetary crisis, no crisis would be considered to exist. Nobody could imagine a landing-grid failing.

Maybe in a year somebody would think that maybe somebody ought to ask around about Xosa II. It would be much longer before somebody put a note on somebody else's desk that would suggest that when or if a suitable ship passed near Xosa II, or if one should be available for the inquiry, it might be worth while to have the non-communication from the planet looked into. Actually, to guess at three years before another ship arrived would be the most optimistic of estimates.

"You're a civilian," said Bordman. "When the food and water run low, you go back to the ship. You'll at least be alive when somebody does come to see what's the matter here!"

Aletha said mildly:

"Maybe I'd rather not be alive. Will you go back to the ship?"

Bordman flushed. He wouldn't. But he said:

"I can order you sent on board, and your cousin will carry out the order."

"I doubt it very much," said Aletha.

She returned to her task.

There were crunching footsteps outside the hulk. Bordman winced a little. With insulated sandals, it was normal for these colonists to move from one part of the colony to another in the open, even by daylight. He, Bordman, couldn't take out-of-doors at night!

Men came in. There were dark men with rippling muscles under glistening skin, and bronze Amerinds with coarse straight hair. Ralph Redfeather was with them. Dr. Chuka came in last of all.

"Here we are," said Redfeather. "These are our foremen. Among us, I think we can answer any questions you want to ask."

He made introductions. Bordman didn't try to remember the names. Abeokuta and Northwind and Sutata and Tallgrass and T'chka and Spottedhorse and Lewanika. . . . They were names which in combination would only be found in a very raw, new colony. But the men who crowded into the office were wholly at ease, in their own minds as well as in the presence of a Senior Colonial Survey Officer. They nodded as they were named, and the nearest shook hands. Bordman knew that he'd have liked their looks under other circumstances. But he was humiliated by the conditions on this planet. They were not. They were apparently only sentenced to death by them.