Outland by Alan Dean Foster Read Free Book Online

living on Io demanded that anything involving air be controlled by several backups. Cane was very thorough. When he was positive he'd carried out the prescribed procedure properly he turned his attention to another row of buttons, pressed one.
    There was a soft whine behind the door on his right, signalling that the mine elevator was starting upward toward his position.
    A small group of men and women had finished topping off and checking out their air supplies. They'd donned the suits hanging in wait for them and were moving toward the hatchway, helmets in hand.
    The usual joking and complaining ceased when one of them happened to glance curiously through the hatchway port to see Cane standing inside the sealed lock. It wasn't Cane's presence inside that cancelled the laughter: it was the fact that he wasn't wearing a suit.
    They started pounding on the door and shouting.
    From inside, Cane noticed the movements and smiled placidly back at them. He'd turned the airlock speaker off, preventing their frantic yells from reaching him. Not that anything they could have said would have made a difference. He might have listened, but he wouldn't have heard.
    The other miners continued to beat on the door and port. The muffled shouts and pounding penetrated the lock to the point where Cane decided it might be nice if he responded. So he grinned at them and waved.
    A buzzer sounded, heralding the arrival of the elevator. The thick door slid open and Cane stepped leisurely inside. He bestowed a final smile on the distorted faces gesticulating at him from behind the port. The smile was temporarily interrupted while the lift door slid shut, became visible once more through the elevator's port.
    Inside, Cane studied the panel a moment before finally selecting a button and pushing it in. Nice button, he thought. Nice elevator, too.
    From the other side of the airlock hatch the miners watched helplessly as Cane's face sank out of view. The elevator was on its way down. There wasn't a damn thing they could do about it, since the call controls were inside the airlock and that had been sealed from the inside.
    One of them had the bright idea of calling Energy Central in the hope of having the elevator's power cut off. A friend reluctantly reminded him that the lifts were independently powered to provide service in case of emergency. The irony of that passed all of them.
    "Damn, I'm beat," the tall driller declared, his voice echoing through his buddies' suit speakers. His hand came up and brushed lightly over his helmet faceplate. "Wish they'd figure out a way to let you wipe your nose in these things."
    "That'll be the day," another tired worker snorted. "It'd mean they'd have to add another servo arm inside. Be glad they designed 'em to give you food and water."
    "Food?" Another worker let out a derisive guffaw. "You call the mush they let you suck through these face tubes food? "
    They shuffled about, impatient to be on their way upward. Their shifts had ended some ten minutes ago. Each moment spent in their suits was a moment lost, another minute of real life wasted. A minute when they could be eating real food, relaxing in the real air of the rec room or Club instead of standing around smelling their own recycled sweat.
    So they waited resentfully while the elevator dropped patiently down to pick them up. The counter light set in the wall next to the elevator door marked its progress. Lights flashed on as the lift passed through ATMOSPHERE, travelled past GROUND LEVEL, DECOMPRESSION, NO ATMOSPHERE and thence to FIRST LEVEL, SUB ONE, SUB TWO, SUB THREE. It slowed and at last the SUB FOUR light winked beckoningly at them.
    The elevator came to a halt. Red paint or something had been smeared across the port. Somebody's idea of a gag. The door slid aside
    When what was inside became visible, the waiting cluster of workers forgot their initial impatience and made time to be sick . . .
    O'Niel was tired. It was amazing how exhausting ensuring