Planets of Adventure [сборник]

Sandringham pointed to leeward, where a black, thick procession of human beings trooped toward the Survey area on foot and by every possible type of vehicle.

"I've ordered them turned into the ship-sheds and warehouses," said the Sector Chief. "But of course we haven't shelter for all of them. At a guess, when they feel safe they'll go back to their homes even through the storm."

The sky to windward grew blacker and blacker. There was no longer a steady flow of wind coming over the cliff's edge. It came in gusts, now, of extreme violence. They could make a man stagger on his feet. There were more flecks of white on the ocean's surface.

"The boats," added Sandringham, "were licked. There simply wasn't enough oil to maintain the slick. The radio reports were getting hysterical before I ordered them told that we had it beaten on shore. They're running for shelter now. I think they'd have stayed out there trying to hold the slick in place with their tow-line, if I hadn't said we had matters in hand."

Werner said, tight-lipped:

"I hope we have!"

Bordman shrugged.

"The wind's good and strong, now," he observed. "Let's find out. You've got the starting system all set?"

Sandringham waved his hand toward a high-voltage battery. It was of a type designed for blasting on airless planets, but that did not matter. Its cables led snakily for a couple of hundred feet to a very small pile of grayish soil which had been taken out of a bore-hole, and went over that untidy heap and down into the ground. Bordman took hold of the firing-handle. He paused.

"How about the highways?" he asked. "There might be some steam out of this hole."

"All allowed for," said Sandringham. "Go ahead."

There was a gust of wind strong enough to knock a man down, and a humming sound in the air, as wind beat upon the four-thousand-foot cliff and poured over its top. There were gradually rising waves, below. The sky was gray, the sea slate-colored. Far, far to windward, the white line of pouring rain upon the water came marching toward the island.

Bordman pumped the firing-handle.

There was a pause, while wind-gusts tore at his garments and staggered him where he stood. It was quite a long pause. Then a vapor came jetting out of the bore-hole. It was perfectly white. It came out with a sudden burst which was not in any sense explosive, but was merely a vast rushing of vaporized water. Then, a hundred yards away, there was a mistiness on the grassy surface. Still farther, a crack in the surface-soil let out a curtain of white vapor.

Here and there, everywhere, gouts of steam poured into the air and tumbled into the storm-wind. It was noticeable that the steam did not come out as an invisible vapor and condense in mid-air. It poured out of the ground in clouds, already condensed but thrust out by more masses of vapor behind it. It was not super-heated steam that came out. It was simply steam. Harmless steam, like the steam out of the spouts of tea-kettles. It rose from individual places everywhere. It made a massive coating of vapor which the storm-wind blew away. In seconds a half-mile of soil was venting steam. In seconds more a mile. The thick fleecy vapor swept across the landscape. The storm-wind could only tumble it and sweep it away.