A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke Read Free Book Online Page B

plenty of things
     to talk about.” And plenty of time too, he added silently.
    He was conferring with Pat in the pilot’s cubicle when they were joined by Dr. McKenzie,
     the Australian physicist. He looked very worried—even more so than the situation merited.
    “There’s something I want to tell you, Commodore,” he said urgently. “If I’m right,
     that seven day’s oxygen reserve doesn’t mean a thing. There’s a much more serious
     danger.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Heat.” The Australian indicated the outside world with a wave of his hand. “We’re
     blanketed by this stuff, and it’s about the best insulator you can have. On the surface,
     the heat our machines and bodies generated could escape into space, but down here
     it’s trapped. That means we’ll get hotter and hotter—until we cook.”
    “My God,” said the Commodore. “I never thought of that. How long do you think it will
     take?”
    “Give me half an hour, and I can make a fair estimate. My guess is—not much more than
     a day.”
    The Commodore felt a wave of utter helplessness sweep over him. There was a horrible
     sickness at the pit of his stomach, like the second time he had been in free fall.
     (Not the first—he had been ready for it then. But on the second trip, he had been
     over-confident.) If this estimate was right, all their hopes were blasted. They were
     slim enough in all conscience, but given a week there was a slight chance that something
     might be done. With only a day, it was out of the question. Even if they were found
     in that time, they could never be rescued.
    “You might check the cabin temperature,” continued McKenzie. “That will give us some
     indication.”
    Hansteen walked to the control panel and glanced at the maze of dials and indicators.
    “I’m afraid you’re right,” he said. “It’s gone up two degrees already.”
    “Over a degree an hour. That’s about what I figured.”
    The Commodore turned to Harris, who had been listening to the discussion with growing
     alarm.
    “Is there anything we can do to increase the cooling? How much reserve power has our
     air-conditioning gear got?”
    Before Harris could answer, the physicist intervened.
    “That won’t help us,” he said a little impatiently. “All that our refrigeration does
     is to pump heat out of the cabin and radiate it away. But that’s exactly what it
can’t
do now, because of the dust around us. If we try to run the cooling plant faster
     it will make matters worse.”
    There was a gloomy silence that lasted until the Commodore said: “Please check those
     calculations, and let me have your best estimate as soon as you can. And for heaven’s
     sake don’t let this go beyond the three of us.”
    He felt suddenly very old. He had been almost enjoying his unexpected last command;
     and now it seemed that he would have it only for a day.
    At that very moment, though neither party knew the fact, one of the searching dust-skis
     was passing overhead. Built for speed, efficiency and cheapness, not for the comfort
     of tourists, it bore little resemblance to the sunken
Selene
. It was, in fact, no more than an open sledge with seats for pilot and one passenger—each
     wearing space-suits—and with a canopy overhead to give protection from the sun. A
     simple control panel, motor and twin fans at the rear, storage racks for tools and
     equipment—that completed the inventory. A ski going about its normal work usually
     towed at least one carrier sledge behind it, sometimes two or three, but this one
     was travelling light. It had zigzagged back and forth across several hundred square
     kilometres of the Sea, and had found absolutely nothing.
    Over the suit intercom, the driver was talking to his companion.
    “What do
you
think happened to them, George? I don’t believe they’re here.”
    “Where else can they be? Kidnapped by Outsiders?”
    “I’m almost ready to buy that,” was the half-serious answer. Sooner or