Trouble on Titan Read online

  A moment later Tuck was on the telephone, waiting for the operator to locate Colonel Benedict, somewhere in the Security Commission conference rooms. At last he heard his father’s voice, and he tried frantically to keep his own voice level, to keep his words from choking. “I’ve been thinking about the trip, Dad,” he said. “When did you say your rocket was leaving?”

  The Colonel’s voice was puzzled. “0800, day after tomorrow. What’s the matter, son? Something wrong?”

  “No — ” Tuck gritted his teeth in the face of the lie. “Nothing wrong. I’ve just changed my mind, that’s all. I’ve decided to go with you.”

  3

  The Land of Incredible Cold

  AN ALARM BELL clanged in Tuck’s ears, and he sat bolt upright, staring out into the darkness. Then he felt his heart jump as the pilot’s deep voice rang out over the public address system: “All hands, muster in landing quarters! Prepare ship for landing! Landing scheduled for 0900 hours — ”

  Tuck snapped on the cabin wall lamp, and checked his wrist watch. It seemed as if he had barely gotten to sleep; actually, he had slept a full eight-hour period, and his watch read five minutes to eight.

  In an hour they would be landing! Excitedly, Tuck dressed, and then threw open the oval-shaped lock to his father’s sleeping quarters. “Come on, Dad! We’re going down in an hour!”

  Colonel Benedict was half dressed, his eyes still blurry from interrupted sleep. “So I hear,” he said dryly, rubbing his ear. “I was wondering why they had those speakers built so close to the heads of the bunks.”

  Tuck took a deep breath, and lifted his feet experimentally. “We’re decelerating lots faster, too. I’ve been feeling like I was sliding out onto the floor for the past six hours.”

  The Colonel chuckled. “You get used to it, after a while. Let’s go forward. The orders for landing are very strict — we’ll have to strap down, and prepare for a good jolting.” Carefully he packed some gear into a footlocker near his bunk. “We won’t be needing these magnetic boots any more — and you might as well store your wrist watch out of harm’s way, too. It won’t do you any good, once we land. An hour on Titan is only forty minutes long.”

  Tuck stored his own gear in the footlocker, and together they started up the corridor. There was a breath of excitement throughout the ship. Crewmen were moving swiftly from chamber to chamber, checking the thousand details that must be checked prior to landing operations. Far down in the rear of the ship the engines were whining, and every so often the ship shuddered as the forward and belly jets took hold. Tuck and the Colonel reached the landing bunks, and settled back in the deep, spongy seats, strapping belts tightly around their shoulders and hips as they waited for the landing hour to approach. The tedious journey was nearly at an end.

  It had been a long trip out. Even with the powerful atomic engines to accelerate the ship, the journey had taken over two months. For many it might have been dull, but for Tuck it had been wonderful — two long months to become reacquainted with his father, two months to talk, to plan, two months to get used to the idea of once more being father and son. There had been no trouble about the scholarship. The Institute had promised to hold it open for Tuck when he returned, and the journey seemed almost like an incredible vacation trip.

  But the time was not spent loafing. Crates of information tapes and microfilm spools had come aboard the rocket before they left, and both Tuck and his father had spent hours every day listening and reading — data and reports on the planet Saturn, studying about her major and minor satellites, reading up on the founding of the colony on Titan, about the working of the mines. Tuck had found the study a little tiresome; he would much rather have spent his time with the pilot and navigator of the ship, and he often managed, on one pretext or another, to turn up in the control room. There he would settle down on the nearest stool, and spend hours listening to the navigator hold forth enthusiastically on the problems of celestial navigation.

  But there were many other times when Tuck and his father had sat up in the rear plexiglass bay in the nose of the ship, staring out at the black, diamond-studded expanse of space through which the ship sped. They talked of many things, watching Saturn, a tiny dot far in the distance, gradually become bigger, day by day, watching the strange, disklike rings as the planet rotated, one day so far on edge that they were all but invisible, another day surrounding the planet like a halo. Tuck made a game of counting the tiny bright dots circling the planet, the moons of Saturn, considering this an acceptable measure of how close they were coming.

  “Hey!” he cried out one day. “I can see another!”

  “Where?” The Colonel had peered in the direction Tuck was pointing. “I can’t see any that we didn’t see yesterday.”

  “Sure you can — away out, just a little tiny one.”

  “Right you are! That would be Phoebe, the baby of the lot. Looks like we’ve counted all nine moons now — ”

  “I wonder,” said Tuck, “why they picked Titan.”

  The Colonel looked up, and drew out his pipe. “For what?”

  “For the mining colony. What was wrong with Japetus, for instance? Or Rhea? They’re almost as large as Titan. Why is Titan the only moon of Saturn with a mining colony?”

  “Probably because it’s richest, among other things. The ore from the Titan mines is very rich — comparatively speaking. Of course, that doesn’t mean much, since ruthenium ore is almost as poor in the metal as uranium ore is in uranium. Probably they could have mined Rhea, or Tethys, or any of the other moons, except Japetus — ”

  “Why not Japetus? It’s big enough.”

  The Colonel chuckled. “You’ll also notice that it’s half gone. They’ve never landed on Japetus — the Geiger counters wouldn’t let them. The whole moon is radioactive, too hot to toy around with. But when the moons were explored, the explorers spotted a tremendous vein of ruthenium ore running close to the surface on Titan, so they chose that as a likely starting place. And then, Titan is the largest of the nine, the closest to Earth-size of all Saturn’s satellites. It’s probably as ideal for establishing a permanent colony as any. That’s not to say that any of them are particularly cozy. Maybe you can’t blame people too much for making trouble when they get out there.”

  Tuck nodded, his conscience giving him a sudden sharp jab. Half a dozen times he had almost blurted out to his father the whole story of the booby trap in the apartment, and then at the last moment held off. It disturbed him greatly; he had always been straightforward with dad before, and he knew how hurt the Colonel would be. Sometimes Tuck almost wondered if it had really happened, if he had not made up the whole thing to give himself an excuse to come, but then he would smell that acrid smoke again, see in his mind’s eye the sputtering, evil-smelling bomb, stripped of its explosive power, burning in the washbasin. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to reveal it, until one day the Colonel had made the overture himself.

  It was during one of the observation sessions, near the end of the third week out. It seemed that the Colonel had been watching him that afternoon with far more interest than he watched the stars, and Tuck was becoming increasingly nervous. Finally the Colonel said, “When are you going to tell me about it, son?”

  Tuck started, his eyes wide. “What do you mean?”

  A smile touched the Colonel’s lips. “You know what I mean. Your sudden decision to come along with me. Something happened to change your mind. I was hoping you’d tell me — ”

  “Aw, Dad — you wouldn’t have let me come, and I had to come, after what I found!” Almost tearfully Tuck blurted out the whole story — his worry, the spurious return address, the bomb in the envelope. When he had finished, the Colonel sat still for a long, long time. Then he said, “I wish you’d told me this before.”

  “I couldn’t, Dad, I just couldn’t — ”

  “I know. Sometimes it’s the hardest thing in the world.” He stared into the darkness. “That puts a different complexion on things, all right.
And it begins to make things add up.” The Colonel’s eyes were grave. “You remember that call I got the evening you came home?”

  Tuck nodded unhappily.

  “We’d had men checking the invoices on supplies that have been coming out to the Titan colony. We suspected that there had been some funny business — extra supplies, misplaced consignments, ‘lost’ invoices — but there had never been a double Security Commission check before — ”

  “You mean there’s been smuggling?”

  The Colonel nodded. “Food, equipment — tremendous quantities over their quota.”

  Tuck’s eyes widened. “But I thought Security controlled shipments very carefully.”

  “They’re supposed to. But this has been going on for years. All neatly hidden behind such a screen of confusion and inefficiency and red tape that even regular FBI checks couldn’t spot it.” He shook his head and knocked out his pipe. “Yes, you should have told me about the booby trap — it’s bad. The leader of the colony, a man named Anson Torm, knows we’re coming. According to the reports, he’s one of the biggest troublemakers. And he’ll probably be out to meet us when we land.” He looked up at Tuck, his eyes filled with concern. “You bit off a mouthful, son. It looks like we’re in trouble — real trouble. I only hope it wasn’t too big a mouthful.”

  • • •

  For a moment Tuck lay still, almost stunned by the terrific jolt. The ship shook from stem to stern, then settled down on its tail in the shallow, rocky crater where supply ships had been landing for over a hundred and fifty years. Carefully Tuck stripped away the straps, examining himself for bruises, and moved forward into the observation bay. Slowly he walked to the great plexiglass window and stared out, hardly daring to breathe.

  The sky was dark blue, the darkest, coldest, most hostile blue Tuck had ever seen in his life. The stars stood out like brilliant gems against that blue, and hanging low near the horizon was the huge, luminous globe of Saturn, six times the size of Earth’s moon, her rings forming a razor-sharp line around her silvery middle. She was tilted slightly, so that she looked like a huge, off-center top, hanging in the sky. But it wasn’t the immense, luminous beauty of Saturn that made Tuck gasp. It was the utter, unbroken desolation of Titan that sent a chill down his back. The surface of the planetoid looked utterly dead.

  If there had been a howling wind swirling around the ship, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But there was no sound, no motion. The ship’s silvery nose rose high above the ground, but on three sides of her were huge black crags jutting up sheer and barren against the cold blue sky. The ground was covered with a blanket of glistening white, covering the jagged rocks, giving way to crevices that sliced deep into the black crater floor. As far as Tuck’s eyes could see there was no change, no difference — only the endless succession of jagged rocks, sheer cliffs, and vast gorges, reflecting the pale bluish sunlight from their harsh faces.

  “It looks so cold,” Tuck murmured.

  “It is cold,” replied the Colonel, at his elbow. “It’s incredibly cold. There aren’t words to describe how horribly cold it is, and the cold goes right down to the core of the planetoid.”

  “But what temperature is it out there? That looks like fresh-fallen snow — ”

  “Well — it is snow, in a way. And it might have been fresh-fallen ten million years ago — we don’t have any way of telling. Part of it is water vapor, frozen before it ever became water. Part of it is carbon dioxide, and part is frozen ammonia. And the atmosphere is almost all methane, with a little ammonia and cyanogen mixed in. It’s more than 250° below zero out there — ”

  Tuck stared, hardly believing his eyes. “Is the whole planet like this?” He pointed to the ragged, impossible tumult of rocks and crevices. “It’s — amazing.”

  “The geologists have had a field day studying the surface. They say some of those crevices go down for miles. They’re probably volcanic in origin, judging from the type of rock. Or maybe there were Titanquakes, millions of years ago.”

  Tuck shook his head, still scanning the jagged horizon. “Gee,” he said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Suppose a ship crashed out here somewhere. It would be lost for good.”

  The Colonel nodded. “It happened, once.”

  “You’re kidding!” Tuck looked horrified.

  “No such thing. Back in the days before the colony, it happened. Exploratory ship, instruments fouled. It crashed out in that wilderness, somewhere, and they never found it. Probably smashed to smithereens on the rocks. They’re more careful, nowadays — ”

  The navigator popped into the room. “Something for you to see, Colonel.” He handed the Colonel a pair of binoculars. “Over there to the left.”

  The Colonel stared through the binoculars for a moment. “Well, well,” he murmured, handing Tuck the glasses. “See what you see.”

  At first Tuck saw the same picture he had seen before — black rocks, gorges, sheer cliffs. Then his eyes caught something moving, far in the distance, something that looked like a small black bug, crawling up through one of the gorges, slowly but steadily moving toward the ship. Tuck blinked, stared closer, then looked up in alarm. “That’s a half-track, or I’ll eat my shirt.”

  “That won’t be necessary. It’s a half-track, all right. Looks as if we’re going to have visitors.” He took the glasses again, scanning the horizon. “I’d hoped to see the colony from here, but that ridge obscures it. It’s only about five miles away.”

  “But why don’t they fly over here, instead of driving that clumsy thing?” Tuck took the glasses again, and found the little machine crossing a level stretch of white, then disappearing behind the nearest ridge of rock.

  “Half-track is smarter, in the long run. It doesn’t go very fast, but it gets here. The colony probably has some jets, but they’re not much good for anything but exploration on this terrain. The half-track has power, and it’s heavy, and it can easily be sealed against the atmosphere.”

  “But what about the colony?”

  “It’s sealed, too. Plexiglass dome. Not very big, either, considering that there are five hundred people living in the colony, including wives and children. And most of the mine shafts open right up inside the dome.”

  Quite suddenly the creeping half-track appeared, lumbering over the ridge of rocks surrounding the ship, making its way slowly, carefully, down into the shallow center of the crater where the ship stood. It was a strange-looking vehicle, with fat pillow tires eighteen inches thick in front, and heavy caterpillar treads on the back to drive it. It was exactly what they called it, a half-tractor, and it wasn’t nearly so small as it had looked. The whole top part was sealed in with a clear plastic bubble, rounding out over the top where a single figure sat, guiding the car in its path. Tuck squinted, but the dull bluish sunlight reflected from the plastic, and he could not get a clear view.

  The pilot stuck his head in the door. “Shall I let him aboard? We ran the crane out when we first landed — ”

  “Better let him come. If we’re to have a welcoming committee, we might as well get things off to a good start. This may be one of Anson Torm’s men.”

  Tuck frowned, watching the half-track move down near the ship and grind to a halt. “Don’t you think we’d better have guns ready?” he asked. “You never can tell — ”

  “I’ll leave that up to the crewmen. I want to make arrangements for living quarters in the colony, and see what I can find out at the start about the trouble we’ve been hearing about. Probably it would be best to be as friendly as possible.”

  The dome of the half-track suddenly sprang open, and a curious-looking figure struggled out, clumsy in the great padded pressure suit that covered his body. A heavy transparent dome covered the man’s head, and he stopped momentarily when he reached the ground to seal the half-track up tightly again. Then he moved toward the ship, and in a moment Tuck heard the crane winches hum with the unaccustomed strain as the man was hauled up to the spaceloc
k.

  Moments later the lock opened, and a man walked in, his transparent helmet thrown back, his body still clad in the thickly padded space suit. Tuck stared at the man, hardly believing what he saw. He was huge, over six feet tall. Even with the suit he would have looked like a powerfully built man. His hair was thick and sandy, and his cheeks were pale; shaggy brown eyebrows jutted out over ice-blue eyes.

  For a long moment the stranger stared coldly at the Colonel and Tuck; then his eyes flashed, and he looked straight at the Colonel. “My name is Anson Torm,” he said, in a rich bass voice. “What’s yours?”

  “Benedict — Robert Benedict. This is my son, Tuck.” The Colonel stepped forward, offering his hand. “Take off the suit, and make yourself comfortable. You’ll roast if you wear that thing in here.”

  Very briefly the man’s eyes flickered over Tuck’s face; then he looked back at the Colonel, ignoring the hand. “The supply ship isn’t due to arrive for four months yet,” he said finally, not making a move.

  “This isn’t a supply ship.”

  “Then what is it?”

  The Colonel smiled. “Call it an informal check on production in the mines, if you like,” he said.

  Anson Torm’s face darkened. “So you’re the trouble shooter that Security was going to send?”

  “I’m representing the Earth Security Commission, yes.”

  Slowly the big man began to peel off his pressure suit. His clothing was coarse, with a multitude of patches and careful repairs, and his heavy face was wrinkled with worry and strain. But there was something arresting about the man’s face, something that brought a flicker of warmth to Tuck’s mind. Anson Torm looked like a powerful man, and not only in terms of physical strength. There was a light of pride in his eyes, a curious air of fierce bravery about him that the coarsest of clothing could not diminish. He stepped from the suit like a man completely in command of himself and of all those around him, and when he turned to the Colonel, it was as if he were meeting the Security Commission President on his own grounds. “All right — I’m representing the interests of the Titan colonists,” he said. “I suggest that we go where we can talk, and without delay. I also suggest that you, sir, talk more sensibly than the last few representatives of Earth Security — ”