Planets of Adventure [сборник]

Therefore Senior Officer Werner, of the Colonial Survey, received his instructions from Sandringham. Bordman never knew the details of the instructions Werner got. They were possibly persuasive, or they may have been menacing. But Werner ceased to argue for the movement of any fraction of the island's population to the arctic ice-cap, and instead made frequent eloquent addresses to the planetary population on the scientific means by which their lives were to be saved. Between the addresses, perhaps, he sweated cold sweat when a tree sedately tilted in what had seemed solid soil, or a building settled perceptibly while he looked at it, or when a section of the island's soil bulged upward.

Instead, he headed citizens' committees, and grandly gave instructions, and spoke in unintelligible and therefore extremely scientific terms when desperately earnest men asked for explanations. But he was perfectly clear in what he wanted them to do.

He wanted drill-holes in the arable soil down to the depth at which the holes began to close up of themselves. He wanted those holes not more than a hundred feet apart in lines which slanted at a little less than forty-five degrees to the gradient of the bed-rock.

Sandringham checked his speeches, at the rate of four a day. Once he had Bordman called away from where he supervised some improbable operations. Bordman was smeared with the island's grayish mud when he looked into the phone-plate to take the call.

"Bordman," said Sandringham curtly, "Werner's saying those holes you want are to be in lines exactly forty-five degrees to the gradient."

"That—I'd like a little less," said Bordman. "If they slanted three miles across the grade for every two downhill, it would be better. I'd like to put a lot more lines of holes. But there's the element of time."

"I'll have him explain that he was misquoted," said Sandringham, grimly. "Three across to two down. How close do you really want those lines?"

"As close as possible," said Bordman. "But I've got to have them quickly. How does the barometer look?"

"Down a tenth," said Sandringham.

Bordman said:

"Damn! Has he got plenty of labor?"

"All the labor there is," said Sandringham. "And I'm having a road laid along the cliffs for speed with the trucks. If I dared—and if I had the pipe—I'd lay a pipe-line."

"Later," said Bordman tiredly. "If he's got labor to spare, set them to work turning the irrigation systems hind part before. Make them drainage systems. Use pumps. So if rain does come it won't be spread out on the land by all the pretty ditches. So it will be gathered instead and either flung back over the cliffs or else drained downhill without getting a chance to sink into the ground. For the time being, anyhow."

Sandringham said:

"Has it occurred to you what a good, pounding rain would do to Headquarters, and consequently to public confidence on this island, and therefore to the attempt of anybody to do anything but wring his hands because he was doomed?"

Bordman grimaced.

"I'm irrigating, here. I've got a small-sized lake made, and an ice coffer-dam, and the water-freshener is working around the clock. If there is labor, tell 'em to fix the irrigation systems into drainage layouts. That'd cheer them, anyhow."

He was very weary. There is a certain exhausting quality in the need to tell other men to do work which may cause them to be killed. The fact that one would certainly be killed with them did not lessen the tension.

He went back to his work. And it definitely seemed to be as purposeless as any man's work could possibly be. Downgrade from the now thoroughly deserted area in which ship-fuel tanks had leaked—quite far down-grade—he had commandeered all the refrigeration equipment in the warehouses. Since refrigeration was necessary for fuel-storage, there was a great deal. He had planted iron pipes in the soil, and circulated refrigerant in it. Presently there was a wall of solidly frozen soil which was shaped like a shallow U. In the curved part of that U he'd siphoned out a lake. A peristaltic pump ran seawater from the island's lee out upon the ground—where it instantly turned to mud—and another peristaltic pump sucked the mud up again and delivered it down-grade beyond the line of freezing-pipes. It was in fact a system of hydraulic dredging such as is normally performed in rivers and harbors. But when top-soil is merely former abyssal mud it is an excellent way to move dirt. Also, it does not require anybody to strike blows into soil which may be explosive when one has gotten down near bedrock, and in particular there are no clanking machines.