In a way, it might have been better had a living pilot—even a student one—handled the last part of the landing. The boat itself had such perfect inertial sensing and such quick response that neither Molly nor any of the others felt the wind. The craft’s guidance equipment had already detected the planet’s solid surface and was allowing for air currents, and the faint trembling of the structure that they all felt was assumed to be normal aerodynamic stress—even Joe and Charley had made landings on planets with atmosphere, virtually airless though their own worlds were.
Once into the white clouds, Jenny paid no attention to the boat’s behavior; she was occupied in collecting samples for analysis. Molly kept her attention outside, shifting the sensors that fed her vision screen up and down the spectrum, but for some minutes was unable to tell whether the lack of view was due to lack of penetration or lack of anything to see. The other three remained apparently calm; all were accustomed to automatically controlled flight under varying conditions, though this was certainly different from space.
The pilot screen eventually cleared. They seemed to be beneath the solid cloud deck, but in either a snow or dust storm—Molly was using what she considered ordinary light, so the stuff must have been really white. All that was getting through the clouds was a dim glow, crepuscular even to the other team members. Visibility was fair, perhaps ten kilometers, and in another minute or two ground appeared below.
It looked about the way the radar map had implied: ripply, with an occasional peak strongly suggestive of a volcano. None of the hills was large—none had been on the map, either. Neither she nor Charley had had any success whatever in matching the charts they had made during approach with those they had obtained from the records. There had been no large-scale features for guidance; one might as well have tried to match two areas of pebble sidewalk that did not include ends or edges. Even an hour of computer comparison did no good; either there were more possible scales and orientations than the machine could handle in that time, or the surface had made significant and general changes in its detailed topography since the earlier map had been produced. Knowing the machine, Molly was inclined to the latter view.
This had interesting implications, even if a few thousand of her years had passed since the previous map had been made. The implications were even more interesting if the time were much shorter. There seemed no way to tell from the records.
The boat’s two-hundred-meter hull settled to the surface and sank some meters into it—Molly still could not decide whether the material was soil, sand, or snow.
“First requirement is a life center independent of the ship,” Joe pointed out. “I’ll go outside to see whether the ground is suitable for the tent.”
“But shouldn’t we…” Molly started. Then she remembered and smiled.
“You’re too environment conscious, Molly.” The Nethneen chuckled. “The temperature is quite comfortable, and I don’t care what the air is made of. The pressure is high enough to keep me from boiling—a good deal higher than normal”—he gestured toward the instrument panel…” and for once the gravity is respectable.”
Jenny gave a snort through several sets of breathing vents at once. “I’m glad there’s someone here who can feel gravity,” she muttered. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re still floating.” Molly felt much the same, though her home gravity was little more than half that of the Rimmore, and nodded in sympathy.
“Joe, it still seems to me that checking outside details would make a lot of sense before anyone stepped out. We don’t know that the air isn’t corrosive—there are worlds like Jenny’s or mine with free oxygen, and that wouldn’t be good for your skin even if you don’t ingest it, would it?”
“I’ve spent time in oxygen atmospheres,” the Nethneen replied, “and even without analysis I refuse to worry about that element here. It is thermodynamically unstable, strictly a product of life, and if there is any life on a planet this young, I’ll be delighted to take the risk of an oxygen bum just to see it.”
“But how about the stuff that’s blowing? Surely you’re not claiming that no chemical can hurt you.”
Joe hesitated for several seconds. “Perhaps that would be a bit excessive,” he said at last. “Jenny, have you made anything of the cloud composition and of this precipitate that presumably is coming from them?”
The centipedelike form turned back to her instruments and was busy for a minute or so.
“Not a simple substance,” she said at last. “Largely ammonium salts; carbamate, carbonate, amide, traces of water ice, urea, and a lot more—it will take a long time to run a complete list. A good deal of what you’d expect from reactions between gases in this atmosphere.”
“But nothing clearly dangerous.”
“Nothing that waves a flag to me.”
Joe gave the rippling arm gesture that was his equivalent of an affirmative head nod and was at the door in two long, gliding steps, something his tentacular legs could not have managed under decent gravity, Molly reflected. “We’ll keep lock protocol,” he said as he opened it. “Outer atmosphere could be a nuisance to some of the rest of you.” He closed the valve behind him, and Molly activated the screen showing the inside of the air lock. The Nethneen had already opened a bleeder valve and was letting outside air in to bring the pressure up. This was causing him no visible distress.
The team watched him reach for the key that opened the outer door, and as he did so the ship trembled very slightly.
Jenny, Molly, and Carol simultaneously shouted a warning.
“Joe! No! Wait!”
They were too late.
Chapter Five
Of Course The Boat Won’t Last
“You knew what was going to happen!” cried Charley. Molly shook her head. “We should have. Any air breather should have, but we were too slow. It didn’t occur to either of us—to any of us…” she included Carol with her glance—“that he would never think of wind, or what wind would do on a low-gravity world like this. Blame me or us all you want, but let’s decide what to do.”
“Ask him what condition he is in, I would say” was the suggestion from the Shervah.
“How—? Oh, of course. His translator should still be in touch. Joe? Can you hear us? Are you hurt?”
“Clearly enough. I am not hurt but greatly embarrassed. I was thinking only of the chemical effects of gases and had forgotten their physical potentialities.”
“Where are you? Are you still being blown away?” “I can offer no answer to the first question, even assuming the boat’s location as starting coordinate. I traveled for an unknown but brief time at an unknown speed in whatever direction the gas carried me. Just now I am no longer traveling. I struck a sloping surface composed of powdery material, was carried up it and over the top. I fell down the farther side, where the gas was not moving nearly so rapidly but much more erratically. I have dug my way into the surface, to avoid further involuntary travel, since I don’t know that the gas speed will remain low. I am presumably not very far from the boat. Since we have no absolute direction reference as yet, I suggest that you find which way the gas is moving now, as soon as you can; I would judge that its inertia would prevent a really great velocity change in this short time. This should provide the only clue I can think of at the moment to my direction.”
“How do we do that?” asked Charley. “I don’t think we have an instrument that would ...” His voice trailed off.