Trouble on Titan Read online

  TROUBLE ON TITAN

  ALAN E. NOURSE

  a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  To JOE

  For his help along the way

  Contents

  I’ve Never Been There

  1. The Mission

  2. The Letter

  3. The Land of Incredible Cold

  4. “There’s Trouble at the Colony!”

  5. Ambush

  6. The Prisoner

  7. Revolt!

  8. “That Man Is Dangerous — ”

  9. The Big Secret

  10. The Wreck of the Snooper

  11. The Ultimatum

  12. A Desperate Chance

  13. The Secret of the Tunnel

  14. Trapped!

  15. The Closing Ring

  16. “I’ll Back You to a Man!”

  17. A Fearful Choice

  18. “When Two Strong Men — ”

  I’ve Never Been There

  One of the most exciting things about science fiction, both reading it and writing it, is the freedom of imagination it offers to both the reader and the writer.

  It’s perfectly true that adventure stories, and Indian stories, and mystery stories, and stories of history and exploration are imaginative. I’d be the last to deny it. But they all have strings attached. We know a great deal about the Indians, for instance — historical facts, figures, geographical data, biographies. We can’t make Sitting Bull a Navaho. We can’t write a story about the Indians that violates any of the known facts about them, and if we read a story that does, we toss the book aside and say, “That fellow isn’t much of a writer — ”. But in science fiction, neither the writer nor the reader has any such narrow limitations.

  Perhaps I’d better modify that just a little, before the tried-and-true science fiction readers start crawling down my throat. There are limitations in science fiction which the readers demand, and which the writers must obey. But the limitations are different in science fiction — and it’s that difference that makes these stories so exciting to me.

  I think TROUBLE ON TITAN is a good story to illustrate my point. Basically, this is a free-wheeling adventure story. But in writing it, I could not violate what is already proved, known fact about the background where the story is set, or the events in the course of the story. If my book had been set in San Francisco during the great earthquake, I’d have been very limited in the picture I could have painted with the story. But it wasn’t set in San Francisco. It was set on Titan, the fifth moon of Saturn — and here, my friends, we can take off with a vengeance. Because I’ve never been on Titan — and neither has anybody else!

  In planning the story, I had to ask myself, “What do we really know about Titan?” A surprising amount, for a place we’ve never come close to approaching. We know, for instance, that it is a moon, circling the sixth planet of our Solar System much the same as our Moon circles the Earth. We know that it has at least eight brother and sister moons circling the same planet: Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Hyperion, Japetus, and Phoebe. We even know that it might have another — Themis, which was reported by Professor Pickering in 1905, and has not been seen since. But of all these moons, we know that Titan is the largest, approximately 3,550 miles in diameter (compared to our own Moon’s 2,160 miles in diameter). We know that Titan makes one complete revolution around Saturn in a period of 15.94 days, that its mean distance from its planet is 759,000 miles, and that of all the moons of Saturn, Titan is the only one that has an atmosphere.

  Well, that still gave me room enough to move around quite a bit. What kind of atmosphere could we look for on Titan? By use of the spectrograph, astronomers have determined that it contains large amounts of methane. The astronomers suspect ammonia, too, as well as cyanogen and water vapor. In short, a thoroughly poisonous atmosphere very similar to, but less dense than, that of Saturn herself. Further, since the structure of Saturn, like Jupiter and Uranus, is probably a huge core of rock and mineral material surrounded by a thick ice pack and an outer blanket of volatile material, it’s safe to assume that Titan would be a rather large and bitterly cold chunk of rock and metal.

  You can see upon examination of these facts that we still aren’t hemmed in very much. We can have fun speculating on some of the possibilities of a planetoid with a methane atmosphere. Mines, under the surface, would require either positive pressure oxygen to enable the miners to work, or else they would have to work constantly in protective suits — a clumsy arrangement, as you know if you’ve ever hopped into a diver’s suit. But with oxygen in the tunnel, and methane on the surface — leaks would spell trouble. Still, the same principle of methane burning in oxygen would be very useful if one wanted to do some welding out on the surface — or if one wanted to pilot a small jet plane, for that matter.

  There were other limitations, too. One of them was quite basic to the story, and is basic to thinking about space travel and eventual travel to other star systems. It’s a point that many science fiction writers either ignore altogether or sideswipe in a most disgraceful fashion. Taking a rocket ship to the Moon, or to Mars, or to Venus, or to Titan is one thing. Taking a rocket to another star system is quite different. The distance is prohibitive, unless a ship could somehow accelerate enough to cut the time of the star-journey down to something reasonable. But a fine old gentleman named Einstein has put the lid on that for us. The speed of light is approximately 186,000 miles per second. Thou shalt not even approach that speed without having upsetting things happen — unless the current theories of the nature of space and time are way off base. And we have no right to assume that they are without a great deal of justification.

  Well, to a culture which has gone to the planets, and is looking for new worlds to conquer, an interstellar drive of any sort would be quite a plum. Yet we know of one interstellar drive that exists right now — !

  TROUBLE ON TITAN is a free-wheeling adventure story. It makes no claim to be anything else. But if the story of Tuck Benedict and David Torm makes you pause and think a bit, perhaps even to reshape your ideas about the people in the world about you just a trifle, it was worth the writing a thousand times over. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

  A.E.N.

  Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

  Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

  But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

  When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

  — Rudyard Kipling

  1

  The Mission

  “TELEGRAM! TELEGRAM FOR Tucker Benedict!” Tuck Benedict awoke with a start, jarred from his troubled, fuzzy dream. At first he couldn’t orient himself; then he recognized the curved glass windows and the corridor of the giant cross-country jet liner. The trim, blue-uniformed figure of the stewardess was moving down the aisle, and he caught her eye as she passed his seat.

  “I’m Tucker Benedict,” he said.

  The stewardess smiled, and handed him the folded blue envelope. ‘This came in just after we left Denver,” she said. “Hope it’s good news!”

  Tuck nodded and took the envelope, pulling the little plastic opener-tab with trembling fingers. In these days of fast rocket mail, a telegram was an event. Who could be wiring him? Certainly not someone back at school. He was a graduate now, his diploma was carefully placed away in its folder in his inside jacket pocket, and with it the letter that was far more precious to him than any diploma in the world: the letter from the Dean of Admissions of the Polytechnic Institute of Earth, announcing that he had been accepted at the Institute with the next incoming class. Even as he thought of it, Tuck’s heart skipped a
beat, and a chill of apprehension shivered up his spine. Could something have gone wrong with the scholarship? They couldn’t have changed their minds now, not with the formal announcements to be made at the International Rocketry Exhibit in just two days — The blue tissue of the telegram crackled in his hand as he laid it open, and he hardly dared to breathe as he read it:

  PERSON TO PERSON TUCKER BENEDICT

  CARE OF INTERNATIONAL JET LINERS INC.

  EN ROUTE NEW YORK:

  DEAR TUCK ARRIVED CATSKILL ROCKET PORT THIS

  MORNING WILL MEET YOUR JET IN NEW YORK CAN

  YOU MISS A DAY OF THE EXHIBIT? MARS JOB

  CLEANED UP HOME FOR A SANDWICH AT LEAST

  LOVE DAD

  Tuck sat back in the deep jet-liner seat, undecided whether to laugh or cry or whoop for joy. Dad was home! After three long, long years, dad was home again, waiting to meet him in New York! He sat staring through the plexiglass window, looking down on the green and white and silvery pattern passing on the ground far below, hardly able to believe the wonderful news. He remembered clearly the note his father had sent him from Mars at Christmas time — and at that time Colonel Benedict had not expected to be home for another two years at least. But now — in his excitement Tuck could hardly sit still. In just another half-hour he would be seeing his father!

  Tuck and his father had been very close, not so many years before. Tuck had been too young to remember when his mother died, and his earliest recollections were of life with dad in the big, spacious New York apartment, high above the Hudson River overlooking the beautiful terraced parks and smoothly winding highways of the great metropolis. Those had been happy years, before his father had been persuaded to join the Security Commission, the “Interplanetary Trouble Shooters,” as the Colonel called it, to be sent from one end of the solar System to the other on jobs of investigation and diplomacy. The Colonel had been with the Commission for over eight years, and Tuck was justifiably proud that his father had risen to a position of importance — after all, the Security Commission was one of the most critical cogs in the whole great commercial machine that had spread out from the cities of Earth to all corners of the Solar System. But Tuck was jealous of the times when his father was away, perhaps tracing down missing supplies that had never reached their destination at the colony on Mars, perhaps smoothing out the bitter feelings of the groups working on the rehabilitation of Venus, perhaps persuading the miners far out in the Asteroid Rings to obey the channeling and landing procedures when they came back home to weigh in their precious cargoes of platinum and uranium. These trips had been long, sometimes taking Colonel Benedict away for years, and busy as Tuck was with his studies, he had always dreamed of the time when dad would come home for good, and the two of them could take up the old life where they had left it.

  Tuck frowned, his steady gray eyes scanning the telegram again, a puzzled frown crossing his forehead. “Home for a sandwich at least,” his father had said. Could that mean that this was to be only a short stay, another of those brief visits back to Earth after a long assignment? There was something odd about the tone of the telegram — it didn’t sound quite like dad. But they could worry about that together when the liner reached New York. It was enough for now that he was to see his father again, after all these long years.

  Happily, Tuck stared through the observation bay that opened almost to the floor alongside his feet. He was a sturdy-looking youth, rather slight of build, but wiry, and browned from the West Coast sun. His gray eyes were lively in a grave, thoughtful face, and his short brown hair had succumbed to a neat combing, perhaps for the first time in months, and only after long and diligent persuasion. As the jet motors hummed in his ears, he was far too excited to sleep again, and the minutes passed slowly. Far, far below, through the blanket of hazy white clouds, he caught a glimpse of the long, straight double ribbons of silver crossing the broad plains, the New York-Los Angeles Rolling Roads that carried the huge volumes of overland freight across the continent. Far to the north the Rocky Mountains were giving way to rolling plains, and by squinting a good deal and watching closely he could just make out the great glowing dome of the Montana Solar Energy Converter. He had visited this great plant once, during the years at Prep, and he knew several of his classmates who had been accepted at the Solar Energy School in Helena, to study the theory and engineering behind Solar Energy Conversion. The great plants all over the world converted the enormous energy of the sunlight into heat, light and power to supply the luxurious cities and quiet suburban towns, and the ruthenium from the lonely outpost mining colony on Titan was the catalyst which made this energy conversion possible.

  Yet for all its importance and complexity, Tuck could never have become interested in Solar Energy work as a career. For him there was only one field, only one work of importance, and he itched with impatience to get started, to begin the studies that would lead him to his goal.

  It was not that there was anything so wonderful and new about rocket travel. The first rocket from Earth had reached the moon well over two hundred years before, in 1976. In a.d. 2180, the year that Tuck was born, the rocket ship Planet Nine had returned from Pluto, the farthest planet from the sun, with a complete file of maps, surface data, exploratory notes, and astronomical data on Pluto, as well as astro-photographs of the tenth planet that had been discovered skimming its frigid course still farther out in the blackness of space. A large farming colony had been thriving on Mars for a hundred and fifty years, and the great Solar converter being built on Venus would soon be at work reconverting those arid deserts and windswept crags into a lush tropical paradise for farmers and vacationers. The exploration of the Solar System was almost complete, except for the mopping up — but there were other frontiers, greater frontiers, and these were the frontiers that excited Tuck. For beyond the limits of the Solar System lay the black wastes of deep space, the unbridgeable gulf that led to the stars. And someday, Tuck knew, some man would find a way to go to the stars —

  Tuck sat back in his seat, fingering the letter of acceptance to the Polytechnic Institute excitedly. Some man would learn a way, some man would discover how to take a rocket ship and leave the Solar System light-years behind, and go to the stars. And all his life Tuck had dreamed that he might be that man —

  • • •

  The liner landed just at dusk. From the bay Tuck strained his eyes trying to see his father’s familiar figure, waiting in the crowd behind the blast barrier, but the bright lights threw the people into darkness. Carefully he checked his bags with the automatic redcap, punching the address of his father’s apartment on the metal consignment tape; then he gathered up his coat and followed the crowd down the gangway onto the smooth concrete of the landing platform, still trying to peer ahead into the darkness. And then he saw Colonel Benedict, standing tall and straight, his gray hair crisp, blue eyes wrinkled into a quizzical smile. Tuck let out a cry, and broke into a run, working his way through the crowd, and then he was wringing his father’s hand, and the two of them were trying to talk at once as they made their way down into the Terminal Building.

  “But you said in your last letter that it might be two more years — I had no idea that you’d be back so soon — ”

  The Colonel’s eyes twinkled. “I just wanted to see if you could still take a surprise.”

  “Surprise! I almost dropped through the seat!” Tuck regarded his father proudly. “Dad, it’s wonderful. You couldn’t look better.”

  “Feel great, too. I don’t like getting out of bed in the morning as much as I used to, but I’m probably getting old — ”

  Tuck grinned. “Then I’m getting old, too. How was the passage home?”

  “Not bad. They don’t jockey those ships around like they once did — steady, responsible hands at the wheel, you know, now that the Mars-Earth run is just a trip around the block. Feels fine to be back Earthside, though — those ships have plenty of good clear air and all that, but there’s nothing to compare with a bre
eze in off the ocean.”

  “And the Mars job is all finished? Everything done, and you can stay home for a while now?” Tuck’s eyes were eager. “Just think, we could spend the whole summer here in New York, and maybe we could get in a fishing trip up North, if you could get away. Remember how we used to fish, Dad?”

  “Yes, I remember. I could never forget.” The Colonel’s face was suddenly grave, and he started down into the taxi terminal, effectively cutting off further conversation. Minutes later they were settling back in the taxi seat, waiting for the little jet car to pull out of the terminal into the broad Middle Level thoroughfare. Finally the Colonel said, “I know a quiet place for supper. You were on your way up to Catskill for the Exhibit, weren’t you?”

  Tuck nodded enthusiastically. “That’s right. The Forty-Seventh International Rocketry Exhibition. I’ve heard it’s really great this year. They’re showing all the latest model Interplanetaries, and I’ve also heard that they’re exhibiting the blueprints of the big Venus converter plant.” He looked up at his father. “They’re also making formal announcements of the Polytechnic Institute scholarship winners for this year — ”

  Colonel Benedict looked up sharply. “Scholarship winners?”

  Tuck nodded. “All tuition and expenses paid for five years of study, and a guaranteed position in mechanics, engineering, or research when you’re through. You remember — I wrote you about the competition. I took the qualifying exams in March, and they’ve already notified the winners informally — ”

  The Colonel’s eyes were wide. “Do you mean — ”

  Tuck handed him the letter, his face glowing. “This came the day before graduation. I got one, Dad. No hitches, nothing to go wrong. I can start with the incoming class in September.”

  The Colonel took the letter, and read it very carefully, then reread it. When he finally looked up, his face held a curious expression. “That’s great, son — I’m proud of you. I — I really am.”