PLATINUM POHL by Frederik Pohl Read Free Book Online Page A

soon as they dropped free. It doesn’t much matter where they go, within broad limits, which is a good thing. They dropped like javelins at first, then flew around like straws until the little rockets cut in and the ground-seeking controls fired them to the ground.
    Every one embedded itself properly. You aren’t always that lucky, so it was a good start.
    I verified their position on the detail charts; it was close enough to an equilateral triangle, which is about how you want them. Then I opened the scanning range and began circling around.
    “Now what?” bellowed Cochenour. I noticed the girl had put the earplugs back, but he wasn’t willing to miss a thing.
    “Now we wait for the probes to feel around for Heechee tunnels. It’ll take a couple of hours.” While I was talking I brought the airbody down through the surface layers. Now we were being thrown around. The buffeting got pretty bad, and so did the noise.
    But I found what I was looking for, a surface formation like a blind arroyo, and tucked us into it with only one or two bad moments. Cochenour was watching very carefully, and I grinned to myself. That was where pilotage counted, not en route or at the prepared pads around the Spindle. When he could do that he could get along without somebody like me.
    Our position looked all right, so I fired four hold-downs, tethered stakes with explosive heads that opened out in the ground. I winched them tight and all of them held.
    That was also a good sign. Reasonably pleased with myself, I opened the belt catches and stood up. “We’re here for at least a day or two,” I said. “More if we’re lucky. How did you like the ride?”
    The girl was taking the earplugs out, now that the protecting walls of the arroyo had cut the thundering down to a mere constant scream. “I’m glad I don’t get airsick,” she said.
    Cochenour was thinking, not talking. He was studying the control board while he lit another cigarette.
    Dorotha said, “One question, Audee. Why couldn’t we stay up where it’s quieter?”
    “Fuel. I carry about thirty hours, full thrust, but that’s it. Is the noise bothering you?”
    She made a face.
    “You’ll get used to it. It’s like living next to a spaceport. At first you wonder how anybody
stands the noise for a single hour. After you’ve been there a week you miss it if it stops.”
    She moved over to the bull’s-eye and gazed pensively out at the landscape. We’d crossed into the night portion, and there wasn’t much to see but dust and small objects whirling through our external light beams. “It’s that first week that I’m worried about,” she said.
    I flicked on the probe readout. The little percussive heads were firing their slap-charges and measuring each other’s sounds, but it was too early to see anything. The screen was barely beginning to build up a shadowy pattern, more holes than detail.
    Cochenour finally spoke. “How long until you can make some sense out of that?” he demanded. Another point: He didn’t ask what it was.
    “Depends on how close and how big anything is. You can make a guess in an hour or so, but I like all the data I can get. Six or eight hours. I’d say. There’s no hurry.”
    He growled, “I’m in a hurry, Walthers. Keep that in mind.”
    The girl cut in. “What should we do, Audee? Play three-handed bridge?”
    “Whatever you want, but I’d advise some sleep. I’ve got pills if you want them. If we do find anything—and remember, if we hit on the first try it’s just hundred-to-one luck—we’ll want to be wide awake for a while.”
    “All right,” said Dorotha, reaching out for the spansules, but Cochenour demanded:
    “What about you?”
    “Pretty soon. I’m waiting for something.” He didn’t ask what. Probably, I thought, because he already knew. I decided that when I did hit my bunk I wouldn’t take a sleeping pill right away. This Cochenour was not only the richest tourist I had ever guided, he was one of the