They worked even faster. Tuck studied the wiring in the engine while David worked on the siding metal. The wires were twisted almost beyond recognition, but Tuck was familiar with wiring of such engines from years of jet scooter building and racing; he went back to the half-track and selected three spools of wire, ripping down the insulation to examine the fine strands of copper and silver. Then he came back, and slowly began rewiring the torn and shredded masses of wires, squatting down, his hands clumsy in the unaccustomed padded fingers of the suit. He soon found there was no way to grip the wires with his fingers satisfactorily. After some experimentation with pliers, wire and welding rod, he worked out a fair approximation of the remote-control pincers he had seen used in radioactives lab to manipulate the wires and the contacts. He was thoroughly engrossed in his work, so engrossed that he became oblivious of himself, or the ship, or anything but the delicate and demanding task at hand—
And then, a bolt of fear went through him as he heard a little musical ping in his earphones. His hands froze and he sat staring, listening, almost fascinated—
Ping—ping—ping—ping—ping—ping—ping—ping—ping—pingpingpingpingping—
It was a gentle sound, and a terrifying sound, a sound that meant that horrible death was near, hovering over his shoulder—the sound every spaceman had had conditioned into his very soul—the sound that said better than any words: get inside, fast, your circulation is down, your feet are getting cold, too cold—
Tuck jumped up with a cry, tried to run for the half-track. He could feel the numb coldness around his feet and legs now, and he stumbled and fell heavily. The warmth of the pressure suit was deceptive, it was all too easy to forget that he was working in an atmosphere so cold that his own expired air would freeze into a choking blob in his throat if he were unprotected. He struggled to his feet, shouting to David as he ran, and clambered stiffly into the half-track; then he leaned out to motion David frantically. David stared at him for a moment; then he too came running. Together they frantically slammed down the plastic top, sealed it tight. David snapped on the engine controls and the pumps began to work against the deadly cold, letting the engine heat in once more around their feet. Tuck sat panting, his heart racing, his feet tingling and burning with a strange kind of pain. And then the boys looked at each other, and burst out laughing, more in relief than anything else. “We should have kept an eye on the time,” David panted. “Shouldn’t have been out there more than two hours at a stretch without warming up. And I forgot you aren’t as used to the cold as I am—”
Tuck clutched his side, still gasping for breath. “Scared me to death,” he choked. “They’ve made movies of the helpless spaceman, marooned on an Asteroid with his engines dead, and that nasty little bell was the sound track.”
“There are lots of spacemen who can thank that little bell for their lives. It doesn’t give them much time, but it does give them some.”
Tuck shook his head. “You must have a terrible time in the colony, with the cold.”
“Not too much. We’re used to a chillier atmosphere than you. And the heat of the refinery keeps the dome warm.”
“But the mining tunnels—”
“Forty feet of rock is good insulation.”
“That’s true. Still—”
“There’s a lot worse problem than cold, when it comes to living and working in the colony,” said David.
“Something that four generations of colonists haven’t been able to find an answer to, completely.” “What’s that?”
“It may seem funny to you. Claustrophobia. Morbid fear of being closed in. The men get it every now and then down in the tunnels, especially when there’s been a recent cave-in. Works on their minds, and as soon as they get to thinking about it, it really hits them. Sometimes they get violent, can’t even stand being inside the bubble—”
“But can’t you send them back to Earth? Rest cure, something like that?”
“Aw—quit joking.”
Tuck’s eyes widened. “I’m dead serious!”
“Well, we could go back to Earth for vacations, all right—but we couldn’t buy food, because nobody would sell us food. We couldn’t stay anywhere, because no hotel would take us. And then there’s always the risk of being mobbed and lynched—most people don’t think a trip to Earth is worth it.”
A core of anger began burning in Tuck’s mind. “But you must have some sort of protection. After all, Earth is civilized. There are laws protecting people’s rights—” David nodded sourly. “If the people know what their rights are. But that involves education. And we don’t have much education out here—oh, sure, the kids in the colony go to a school to learn reading and writing, the lucky ones—and there are apprenticeships in technology and mechanics for the older boys, to teach them to run the mining equipment and the refinery. I was taught enough accounting to help dad with the administration work of the colony, and one of my pals is working with Doc Taber, just in case Security doesn’t send another doctor out here when Doc is gone. But there hasn’t been a colonist boy or girl admitted to an Earth University in over seventy-five years.”
“Have they tried to get in?”
David gave him a long look. “Take me, for instance. I wanted to study rocketry—rocket engineering, that was for me. Yes, sir. I wrote the Polytechnic Institute for information. Did they even answer my letter? Ha! They did not. So I wrote Earth Security. They told me I would need a fully accredited high-school education before I could even apply. So I wrote the preparatory schools. Know what they said? They all said, fine, come right along—but you’ll have to pay tuition, because you were born and live outside the planetary limits of Earth. Know what the tuition was? More money than my dad’s been paid in ten years!”
Tuck’s eyes blazed. “They’ve admitted Mars colony boys without tuition!”
David shrugged. “It was only a stall, I know that. If we could have taken it to court, we might have broken the stall, too. But what if we had? My work wouldn’t be good enough. My eyes would be the wrong color. They’d find a way to keep me out. Earth Security has seen to that.”
Tuck stared through the plexiglass windshield at the little jet plane across the rocks, feeling sick. “Dad doesn’t know what a hornet’s nest he’s working in—he couldn’t know. He just doesn’t realize these things, he doesn’t know the true picture.”
“He’s in a position to do a lot of good for Titan, if he would—”
Tuck nodded. “If he could be made to understand. Look—you told me you had a plan—”
“That’s right. I’ve already set it in motion. I’ve let the Big Secret out of the bag—to you.” David scowled, and started to tighten down his helmet. “I think we should get dad and the Colonel together and tell both of them what we’ve been talking about.”
“It might do some good—”
David looked worried. “But the Colonel could send the word straight back to Earth if he didn’t want to co-operate—”
“He wouldn’t if we made him promise before we told him.”
“Would he keep his promise?”
Tuck bit his lip. “He’s never broken a promise to me before. Never.”