Once dressed, he pushed back the blanket and strode into the main room. The pale morning light was streaming in the open door, and Mrs. Torm was busy in the far end of the room that served as a kitchen. She smiled and nodded him to a table. “You’re deserted. Your father and Anson left just after daybreak. They’re going to tour the mines and check the production schedules today—”
“But they’re up so early!”
“You’ll have to get used to the short nights—you slept eight hours, and our nights are only six hours long.” She set Tuck’s breakfast plate down before him. “You’ll find it getting dark long before you expect it, too, until you get accustomed to it. The days are shorter.” She poured out the milk concentrate and dried, pressed bacon in front of him. The food had a strange look; Tuck tasted it hesitantly, then tore into it like a hungry bear. It seemed like the most delicious breakfast he had ever eaten.
Mrs. Torm left before he had finished, brushing her hair back from her tired face. She explained that she was responsible for the trading post store three days out of six. Tuck finished breakfast slowly, taking in every detail of the rude cabin that he had missed in his weariness the night before. Once again he was struck by the simplicity, the absence of any of the little decorations and refinements that were to be found in every college dormitory room, or every apartment at home. At the far end of the room hung the only picture in the whole place—a gray, faded photograph of a large, strong-faced man, bearing a striking resemblance to Anson Torm, yet even older, with a flowing beard and a fine wide forehead. Probably Davids grandfather, he thought—also a leader of the mining colony years before. And how about David’s great-grandfather? Also a leader? Probably. There seemed to be some sort of family succession. That would mean that sometime David might be in line for leadership here. Tuck stared at the picture for a long time. What about the great-great-grandfather? A convict? A murderer? One of the original miners, sent out here to the prison colony, back while Earth was still powered exclusively by atomics? Possibly. There was no way to tell, short of asking, and it struck Tuck that that was hardly the proper sort of question to ask.
“Isn’t this a little late to be rolling out of the sack?” The voice boomed from the doorway, and Tuck dropped his fork with a clatter. With a roar of laughter, David Torm was in the room, hands on his hips, grinning broadly at Tuck. “I always heard you folks on Earth were late sleepers—”
Tuck reddened and picked up his fork again, feeling foolish for his sudden start. “I wouldn’t say that. You just run a short day out here.” He stared at the blond-haired youth. David was even huskier than Tuck had remembered, a powerfully built lad who was never still, always moving. There was a solidity about him that Tuck, with his slender, wiry build, couldn’t help but envy. David would be a good friend to have around in a free-for-all, and an unpleasant foe indeed. “I thought you were dying,” Tuck said, his eyes twinkling. “Who let you out?”
David chuckled, and started preparing some breakfast with an amazing clatter of pans. “Leetle Davey let himself out. Through the roof. You’d think I’d broken every bone in my body—”
“Ah, well,” said Tuck. “They’ll just come and drag you back again—”
“They’ll need a half-track to do it!”
There was a flicker of concern in Tuck’s eyes. “All joking aside—are you sure you feel all right?”
David grinned. “Now I ask you—what kind of pilot would I be if I couldn’t crash land a little crate like the Snooper without getting hurt? I ask you.”
“Well, you were slightly unconscious, no matter what. You scared your father out of ten years.”
David shrugged his broad shoulders good-naturedly, and sank down to breakfast. “I’ve been doing that ever since I learned to walk. Dad’s used to it by now. Anyway, there wasn’t anything else to do.”
“Then you knew there was a trap?”
David shrugged. “It looked like a good bet. I heard that Cortell had something up his sleeve, and it looked to me like a perfect setup for him to wing dad and you folks at the same time—so I just kept you company on the way back.” His blue eyes caught Tuck’s and held them gravely. “You should have let me talk to dad, back there on the ship. He could have taken a different route back to the colony.”
Tuck reddened. “I know. I’m sorry—really I am. I thought you were spying or something—maybe planning to blow us up yourself—”
David threw back his head and roared. “What, and miss a chance to show off the Snooper? Everybody thinks its a big joke around here—Davey’s Coffin, they call it.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Just an old junk lifeboat that was lying around the colony.”
“You fixed it up yourself?”
“Sure. Rebuilt the engine completely. Only jet engine in the Solar System that will fly in Titan atmosphere and nowhere else!”
“What did you do to it?” Tuck felt excitement stir.
David grinned. “Trade secret. Just modified the motor a little, that’s all. Everyone said it’d never take off. They just didn’t know Leetle Davey.” He tossed the metal dishes in the sink. “Don’t say anything to mother—but I think we can get permission from dad to go out and try to fix up the Snooper tomorrow—if you’d want to give me a hand.”
“You mean try to make it go again?” Tuck looked dubious. “Do you think it’s possible?”
“Won’t hurt to try. You ever play around with rocket motors?”
Tuck chuckled. “I’ve taken so many jet scooters apart and made them go that I could do it in my sleep.”
“Good! Maybe between us we can dig it out. But we’ll have to wait until dad gets used to my being up and around. He’s slow sometimes. Want to take a look around the colony, for the time being?”
“Say, that would be great. I was noticing the big beehive affair in the center of the dome—what is it?” Tuck pulled on his jacket, and stepped out into the street with the other youth, warming to him as they talked. Could a person like that actually be born and grow up in a colony of thieves and murderers? It seemed incredible. They started across the street and up a narrow lane between the cabins toward the odd-looking building. “That’s a crude-ore refinery,” David was saying. “Can’t ship crude ore back to Earth—they haven’t got enough ships to carry it. They only get a few grams of pure metal from a ton of ore, and you know about tonnage and pay loads. But we don’t have enough power to completely refine the ore, here in the colony, so we split the job halfway. That beehive is the main refining oven, where we break the metal away from the largest bulk of rock.” He pointed to the thick metal pipe that led from the building down into the ground. “That pipe carries the slag out about three miles from the colony, where there’s a big gorge. We just dump it there. When the gorge gets filled, well run it to another gorge. That’s one thing about this place—there’s plenty of waste space around.”
Tuck shook his head as they walked along the rough street.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I don’t see how you live out here.”
“Were used to it. You probably wouldn’t last six weeks—you’ve had it too soft back on Earth. We do what we can to make a little Earth to live in—even if it doesn’t seem much like Earth—”
Tuck s eyes were filled with wonder, as they walked. The colony seemed roughly similar to the picture he had in his mind of the old colonial towns in the “wild west” he had loved to read about when he was younger—except that these cabins were made of black rock hewn from the cliffs, and the dust in the road was coal black, and instead of a hot western sun, there was a dull, cold, yellow sun, and the much bigger, brighter planet Saturn giving luster to the landscape. Here and there was a small half-track sitting in the road near a cabin—a far cry from the horses of the days gone by—but there were the same men, with the craggy, weather-beaten faces and powerfully muscled arms, the same plainly dressed women, cheerful even in such gloomy surroundings as these. Occasionally they passed boys and girls their own age, who nodded to David in greeting. As the boys trudged along, Tuck’s confusion grew and grew. This colony—a strange place, yes, but basically it was just another town. And the people seemed ordinary enough, just like other people. His face must have registered his feelings.