Half Life by Hal Clement Read Free Book Online Page B

passed over. He reached his target area, however, without coming up with any shapes more meaningful than constellations.
    Maria, who had also slept briefly, warned that it was time to decrease thrust. The jet began to slow and settle. A real-surroundings interruption occurred just after the descent started, and Belvew wondered briefly whether he should have Status stop this procedure for a while. He decided against it: his tanks were full, he would be traveling high enough and fast enough to preclude any kind of stall as he sowed the cans, and vertical disturbances could be seen at a safe distance. It was only while inside them, slowed down to juice-collecting speed, that there was any danger.
    Any known danger, he reminded himself. Any known danger except the ever-to-be-remembered one of identifying too closely with the aircraft, which the reality interruptions were intended to prevent. He brought his attention back to the job as Maria began issuing more specific directions.
    He had lined up on course, reached standard speed and delivery altitude, and released the first dozen of the Line Five cans when an interruption came from a voice rarely enough heard to catch everyone’s attention.
    Its most recent and important all-hands announcement had come when the last of the six relay units which kept the station in potential instant contact with all of Titan’s surface was properly adjusted in orbit, thus clearing the crew to get the actual project under way. Few had thought of it since except when receiving personal health guidance; it was as much background as traffic noise had once been.
    “There is a change in map detail at the factory site. Someone should evaluate.” The speaker was Status, the data processor dedicated to constant recomparison of surface maps, maintaining of orbits, supervising the operation of all closed-cycle life support systems, and monitoring the current medical condition of each of the explorers. Its announcement automatically put Maria, currently responsible for surface mapping, in charge. As usual, the voice with which she responded was calm.
    “Gene, you’re still on track. You have forty-four cans on board, which will complete about two-thirds of Line Five. When they’re gone, your heading back to the factory starts at three eleven. I’ll get back to you with more headings for the great circle when you need them, or have Status do it if it seems likely I’ll be too busy. Barn, standard; monitor Gene. Art, get any readings you can from the factory itself while I check details Status couldn’t sense. The rest of you carry on. I’ll keep everyone informed.” She fell silent for several minutes while she examined the surface around the factory with every frequency at her command.
    “The change,” she resumed at last, “seems to be the appearance of another of what you so kindly call Collos patches. Its texture is identical with the others’, as far as I can tell. It is almost perfectly circular, just over twenty meters across, is essentially flat, and its center is one hundred forty-four meters from the opening of the factory’s delivery port and directly in line with that opening—that is, directly north. Azimuth zero.”
    “How long did it take to reach that size?” asked Goodall. “Can you or Status tell us when the last check of the site was made? And are there enough observations to tell whether it appeared all at once or grew from a center?”
    “Less than four hours, four hours, and no,” replied the mapper. “That’s the time of the last routine check of the spot, and there was no sign of the patch then. Does the factory itself have any data?”
    “ ’Fraid not. It’s been finishing twenty cans and one lab an hour and paying no attention to aboveground surroundings since it ripened.”
    Everyone could hear this exchange, of course, and Belvew cut in without allowing his eyes to leave his screen.
    “Aboveground? But how about below? Do any of its roots go toward the