Short Fiction Poul Anderson (reading a book .TXT) 📖

“I’ll have a stat of the findings made up and issued. Suggestions are welcome, but please take them to my office⁠—the engineers have their own work to do. Above all, don’t panic! This is a nuisance, I know, but there’s no reason to be afraid.

“All personnel not needed at once, stand by. The following specialists please report to me⁠—”

He read off the list, all physicists, and closed his talk with a forced grin and thumbs up.

As if it had broken a dam, the message released a babble of words. Gilchrist saw Catherine striding out of the room and hastened after her.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Where do you think?” she replied. “To put on six layers of clothes.”

He nodded. “Best thing. I’ll come along, if I may⁠—my room’s near yours.”

A woman, still in her smock, was trying to comfort a child that shivered and cried. A Malayan geologist stood with teeth clattering in his jaws. An engineer snarled when someone tried to question him and ran on down the corridor.

“What do you think?” asked Gilchrist inanely.

“I don’t have any thoughts about the heating plant,” said Catherine. Her voice held a thin edge. “I’m too busy worrying about food and air.”

Gilchrist’s tongue was thick and dry in his mouth. The biochemistry of food creation and oxygen renewal died when it got even chilly.

Finished dressing, they looked at each other in helplessness. Now what?

The temperature approached its minimum in a nosedive. There had always been a delicate equilibrium; it couldn’t be otherwise, when the interior of the domes was kept at nearly 240 degrees above the surrounding world. The nuclear pile devoted most of its output to maintaining that balance, with only a fraction going to the electric generators.

Gilchrist thrust hands which were mottled blue with cold into his pockets. Breath smoked white before him. Already a thin layer of hoarfrost was on ceiling and furniture.

“How long can we stand this?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Catherine. “Not too long, I should think, since nobody has adequate clothes. The children should⁠ ⁠… suffer⁠ ⁠… pretty quickly. Too much drain on body energy.” She clamped her lips together. “Use your mental training. You can ignore this till it begins actually breaking down your physique.”

Gilchrist made an effort, but couldn’t do it. He could stop shivering, but the chill dank on his skin, and the cold sucked in by his nose, were still there in his consciousness, like a nightmare riding him.

“They’ll be dehumidifying the air,” said Catherine. “That’ll help some.” She began walking down the hall. “I want to see what they’re doing about the food and oxy sections.”

A small mob had had the same idea. It swirled and mumbled in the hall outside the service rooms. A pair of hard-looking young engineers armed with monkey wrenches stood guard.

Catherine wormed her way through the crowd and smiled at them. Their exasperation dissolved, and one of them, a thickset redhead by the name of O’Mallory, actually grinned. Gilchrist, standing moodily behind the girl, could hardly blame him.

“How’s it going in there?” she asked.

“Well, now, I suppose the Old Man is being sort of slow about his bulletins,” said O’Mallory. “It’s under control here.”

“But what are they doing?”

“Rigging electric heaters, of course. It’ll take all the juice we have to maintain these rooms at the right temperature, so I’m afraid they’ll be cutting off light and power to the rest of the Hill.”

She frowned. “It’s the only thing, I suppose. But what about the people?”

“They’ll have to jam together in the refectories and clubrooms. That’ll help keep ’em warm.”

“Any idea what the trouble is?”

O’Mallory scowled. “We’ll get it fixed,” he said.

“That means you don’t know.” She spoke it calmly.

“The pile’s all right,” he said. “We telemetered it. I’d’a done that myself, but you know how it is⁠—” He puffed himself up a trifle. “They need a couple husky chaps to keep the crowd orderly. Anyhow, the pile’s still putting out just as it should, still at 500 degrees like it ought to be. In fact, it’s even a bit warmer than that; why, I don’t know.”

Gilchrist cleared his throat. “Th-th-then the trouble is with the⁠ ⁠… heating pipes,” he faltered.

“How did you ever guess?” asked O’Mallory with elaborate sarcasm.

“Lay off him,” said Catherine. “We’re all having a tough time.”

Gilchrist bit his lip. It wasn’t enough to be a tongue-tied idiot, he seemed to need a woman’s protection.

“Trouble is, of course,” said O’Mallory, “the pipes are buried in insulation, behind good solid plastic. They’ll be hard to get at.”

“Whoever designed this farce ought to have to live in it,” said his companion savagely.

“The same design’s worked on Titan with no trouble at all,” declared O’Mallory.

Catherine’s face took on a grimness. “There never was much point in making these outer-planet domes capable of quick repair,” she said. “If something goes wrong, the personnel are likely to be dead before they can fix it.”

“Now, now, that’s no way to talk,” smiled O’Mallory. “Look, I get off duty at 0800. Care to have a drink with me then?”

Catherine smiled back. “If the bar’s operating, sure.”

Gilchrist wandered numbly after her as she left.

The cold gnawed at him. He rubbed his ears, unsure about frostbite. Odd how fast you got tired⁠—It was hard to think.

“I’d better get back to my lab and put things away before they turn off the electricity to it,” he said.

“Good idea. Might as well tidy up in my own place.” Something flickered darkly in the girl’s eyes. “It’ll take our minds off⁠—”

Off gloom, and cold, and the domes turned to blocks of ice, and a final night gaping before all men. Off the chasm of loneliness between the Hill and the Earth.

They were back in the chemical section when Alemán came out of his lab. The little man’s olive skin had turned a dirty gray.

“What is it?” Gilchrist stopped, and something knotted hard in his guts.

“Madre de Díos⁠—” Alemán licked sandy lips. “We are finished.”

“It’s not that bad,” said