At least he had electric light. The fuel cells, insufficient to operate the air conditioning system, would at least keep Sofia from dying in the dark.
His head ached and his ears buzzed. Occasional dizziness seized him. He gagged on the warm fluid he must continually drink. And no more salt, he thought. Maybe that will kill us before the heat does, the simmering, stilt, stifling heat. His bones felt heavy, though Venus has in fact a somewhat lesser pull than Earth; his muscles sagged and he smelled the reek of his own disintegration.
Forcing himself to concentrate, he checked what he had written, a, dry factual account of the breakdown of the reactor. The next expedition would read what this thick, poisonous inferno of an atmosphere did to graphite in combination with free neutrons; and the engineers could work out proper precautions.
In sudden fury, Moshe seized his brush and scrawled at the bottom of the metal sheet: “Don’t
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give up! Don’t let this hellhole whip you! We have too much to learn here.”
A touch on his shoulder brought him jerkily around and onto his feet. Sofia Chiappellone had entered the office. Even now, with physical desire roasted out of him and she wetly agleam, puffy-faced, sunken-eyed, hair plastered lank to drooping head, he found her lovely.
“Aren’t you through, darling?” Her tone was dull but her hand sought his. “We’re better off in the main room. Mohandas’ punkah arrangement does help.”
“Yes, I’m coming.”
“Kiss me first. Share the salt on me.”
Afterward she looked over his report. “Do you believe they will try any further?” she asked. “Materials so scarce and expensive since the war”
“If they don’t,” he answered, “I have a feeling oh, crazy, I know, but why should we not be crazy?I think if they don’t, more than our bones will stay here. Our souls will, waiting for the ships that never come.”
She actually shivered, and urged him toward their comrades.
Maybe I should go back inside. Mother might need me. She cries a lot, still. Crying, all alone in our little apartment. But maybe she’d rather not have me around. What can a gawky, pimply-faced fourteen-year-old boy do?
What can he do when he grows up?
O Dad, big brave Dad, I want to follow you. Even to Murphy’s .. . Hold?
170
The Unicorn Trade
Director Saburo Murakami had stood behind the table in the commons and met their eyes, pair by pair. For a while silence had pressed inward. The bright colors and amateurish figures in the mural that Georgios Efthimakis had painted for pleasure beings that never were, nymphs and fauns and centaurs frolicking beneath an unsmoky sky, beside a bright river, among grasses and laurel trees and daisies of an Earth that no longer wasbecame suddenly grotesque, infinitely alien. He heard his heart knocking. Twice he must swallow before he had enough moisture in his mouth to move his wooden tongue.
But when he began his speech, the words came forth steadily, if a trifle flat and cold. That was no surprise. He had lain awake the whole night rehearsing them.
“Yousouf Yacoub reports that he has definitely succeeded in checking the pseudovirus. This is not a cure; such must await laboratory research. Our algae will remain scant and sickly until the next supply ship brings us a new stock. I will radio Cosmocontrol, explaining the need. They will have ample time on Earth to prepare. You remember the ship is scheduled to leave at … at a date to bring it here in about nine months. Meanwhile we are guaranteed a rate of oxygen renewal sufficient to keep us alive, though weak, if we do not exert ourselves. Have I stated the matter correctly, Yousouf?”
The Arab nodded. His own Spanish had taken
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on a denser accent, and a tic played puppet-master with his right eye. “Will you not request a special ship?” he demanded.
“No,” Saburo told them. “You are aware how expensive anything but an optimum Hohmann orbit is. That alone would wipe out the profit from this stationpermanently, I fear, because of financing costs. Likewise would our idleness for nine months.”