and inclined his head to indicate the doorway. “Come on. I’ll show you
something.” He cleared the distance to the bay area outside in one of the long,
slow-motion bounds that was the most economical way to move around in almost
zero-gravity surroundings. Zambendorf unfolded himself from his seat and
followed.
O’Flynn led between rows of packing cases and halted at a larger area where
three surface vehicles were stacked one above the other in their stowage frames
to just below the ceiling. At the bottom of the next stack, a couple of NASO
mechanics working at the open hatch of a tracked vehicle, and another who was
inspecting something from a movable work platform higher up, carried on without
paying much attention. O’Flynn gestured toward the lowermost vehicle in front of
them—a personnel carrier about fifteen feet high, painted mainly yellow, with
six huge wheels. An enclosed cabin with lots of antennas and protrusions made up
its forward two-thirds, and a clutter of girderwork, pipes, and tanks formed its
rear.
“See them wheels,” O’Flynn said, pointing. “Them’s high-traction, low-friction
treads—not what you’d need if you wanted to go joy-riding off across a place
like Mars.” He ducked forward and indicated a pair of short, fat nozzles
projecting from below the vehicle’s front end. “Know what they are? Plasma
torches and blowers—not the best thing in the world if you get bogged down in a
sand drift now, is it?”
“What would things like that be better for?” Zambendorf asked, peering more
closely.
“Ice,” O’Flynn told him. “Lots of ice.” He jerked his thumb stemward. “And the
equipment holds back there are full of things like steam hoses and superheated
suction tubes, which are also the kinds of things you’d want to take along with
you if you expected to be bothered by ice. Now, where would all that ice be on a
place like Mars?” He straightened out from under the vehicle and rapped his
knuckle on the outside wall of the cab. “Them walls will withstand four
atmospheres—outside, not inside. Mars has a low-pressure atmosphere.”
Zambendorf searched O’Flynn’s face for a second or two and then looked back at
the personnel carrier. O’Flynn stepped back a pace and pointed up at the
fuselage of a low-altitude, fifteen-man airbus secured in the top frame of the
stack. “And do you see that flyer up there? Its wings are detached so you can’t
see them for now, but they’re too short and small to be any use at all in thin
air. Now Mars must have changed quite a bit since I last read anything about it,
unless I’m very much mistaken.”
“But . . . this is incredible!” Zambendorf injected an appropriate note of
astonishment into his voice while his mind raced through possible explanations.
“Have you asked anyone in authority about it?”
O’Flynn shrugged. “What business is it of mine to be asking people about
something they’d already have told me if they wanted me to know?” He hooked his
thumbs in his belt and stood back. “Anyhow, we’ve almost got everyone aboard
now. Soon they’ll all be talking, and then the questions will start getting
asked. I’m not much of a clairvoyant meself, you understand, but I’ve a sneaky
feeling it won’t be much longer before we get the answers too.”
“Wow! Two hydrogen bombs every second? You’re really not joking?” Thelma stared
wide-eyed across the table at the young NASO captain smartly attired in his
flight-officer’s uniform. Around them, with only two days to go before the
Orion’s departure, the atmosphere in the crowded bar on the Recreation Deck of
Globe IV was getting quite partylike.
Larry Campbell, proud of his recent promotion to the staff of General Vantz,
commander of the Orion, sipped his gin and tonic and grinned reassuringly.
“Well, they’re really only small ones, and completely under control. There’s
nothing to be concerned about. We’ll take good care of you.”
“But it sounds so scary. I mean, how can anybody understand how to control
something like that? You must be very clever. What sign were you born under?”
Beneath the table, Thelma had pushed Campbell’s briefcase back along the wall
and within reach of the fingertips of one arm, which was draped casually over