Assigned tasks. Civic projects, especially work on improving the interior of the vessel. Research, or writing a book, or the study of a subject, or sports, or hobby clubs, or service and handicraft enterprises, or more private interactions, or-There was a wide choice of television tapes, but Central Control made sets usable for only three hours in twenty-four. You dared not get into the habit of passivity.
Individuals grumbled, squabbled, formed and dissolved cliques, formed and dissolved marriages or less explicit relationships, begot and raised occasional children, worshiped, mocked, learned, yearned, and for the most part found reasonable satisfaction in life. But for some, including a large proportion of the gifted, what made the difference between this and misery were their psychodramas.
-Mmamoto
Dawn crept past the ice, out onto the rock. It was a light both dim and harsh, yet sufficient to give Garcilasothe last data he wanted for descent.
The hiss of the motor died away. A thump shivered through the hull, landing jacks leveled it, and stillness fell. The crew did not speak for a while. They were staring out at Iapetus.
Immediately around them was desolation like that which reigns in much of the Solar System. A darkling plain curved visibly away to a horizon that, at man-height, was a bare three kilometers distant; higher up in the cabin, you could see farther, but that only sharpened the sense of being on a minute ball awhirl among the stars. The ground was thinly covered with cosmic dust and gravel; here and there a minor crater or an up thrust mass lifted out of the regolith to cast long, knife edged, utterly black shadows. Light reflections lessened the number of visible stars, turning heaven into a bowlful of
night. Halfway between the zenith and the south, half-Saturn ` and its rings made the vista beautiful.
Likewise did the glacier-or the glaciers? Nobody was sure. The sole knowledge was that, seen from afar, Iapetus gleamed bright at the western end of its orbit and grew dull at the eastern end, because one side was covered with whitish material while the other side was not; the dividing line passed nearly beneath the planet which it eternally faced. The probes’ from Chronos had reported that the layer was thick, with puzzling spectra that varied from place to place, and little more about it.
In this hour, four humans gazed across pitted emptiness and saw wonder rear over the world-rim. From north to south went ramparts, battlements, spires, depths, peaks, cliffs, their, shapes and shadings an infinity of fantasies. On the right Sat-urn cast soft amber, but that was nearly lost in the glare from ~: the east, where a sun dwarfed almost to stellar size nonetheless blazed too fierce to look at, just above the summit. There the silvery sheen exploded in brilliance, diamond-glitter of shattered light, chill blues and greens; dazzled to tears, eyes saw the vision glimmer and waver, as if it bordered on dreamland, or on Faerie. But despite all delicate intricacies, underneath was a sense of chill and of brutal mass; here dwelt also the Frost Giants.
Broberg was the first to breathe forth a word. “The City.. of Ice.”
“Magic,” said Garcilaso as low. “My spirit could lose itself forever, wanderin’ yonder. I’m not sure I’d mind. My cave is nothin’ like this, nothin’
“Wait a minute!” snapped Danzig in alarm.
“Oh, yes. Curb the imagination, please.” Though Scobie was quick to utter sobrieties, they sounded drier than needful.:: “We know from probe transmissions that the scarp is, well. Grand Canyon-like. Sure, it’s more spectacular than we realized, which I suppose makes it still more of a mystery.” He turned to Broberg. “I’ve never seen ice or snow as sculptured
as this. Have you, Jean? You’ve mentioned visiting a lot of mountain and winter scenery when you were a girl in Canada.”
The physicist shook her head. “No. Never. It doesn’t seem possible. What could have done it? There’s no weather here … is there?”
“Perhaps the same phenomenon is responsible that laid a hemisphere bare,” Danzig suggested.
“Or that covered a hemisphere,” Scobie said. “An object seventeen hundred kilometers across shouldn’t have gases, frozen or otherwise. Unless it’s a ball’ of such stuff clear through, like a comet,-which we know it’s not.” As if to demonstrate, he unclipped a pair of pliers from a nearby tool rack, tossed it, and caught it on its slow way down. His own ninety kilos of mass weighed about seven. For that, the satellite must be essentially rocky.