Bordman climbed awkwardly into the boxlike back of the car. He bestrode
one of the cylindrical arrangements. With a saddle on it, it would
undoubtedly have been a comfortable way to cover impossibly bad terrain
in a mechanical carrier. He waited. About him there were the squatty
hulls of the space-barges which had been towed here by a colony ship,
each one once equipped with rockets for landing. Emptied of their
cargoes, they had been huddled together into the three separate,
adjoining communities. There were separate living quarters and mess
halls and recreation rooms for each, and any colonist lived in the
community of his choice and shifted at pleasure, or visited, or remained
solitary. For mental health a man has to be assured of his free will,
and over-regimentation is deadly in any society. With men
psychologically suited to colonize, it is fatal.
Above--but at a distance, now--there was a monstrous scarp of mountains,
colored in glaring and unnatural tints. Immediately about there was raw
rock. But it was peculiarly smooth, as if sand grains had rubbed over it
for uncountable aeons and carefully worn away every trace of unevenness.
Half a mile to the left, dunes began and went away to the horizon. The
nearer ones were small, but they gained in size with distance from the
mountains--which evidently affected the surface-winds hereabouts--and
the edge of seeing was visibly not a straight line. The dunes yonder
must be gigantic. But of course on a world the size of ancient Earth,
and which was waterless save for snow-patches at its poles, the size to
which sand dunes could grow had no limit. The surface of Xosa II was a
sea of sand, on which islands and small continents of wind-swept rock
were merely minor features.
Dr. Chuka adjusted a small metal object in his hand. It had a tube
dangling from it. He climbed into the cargo space and fastened it to one
of the two tanks previously loaded.
"For you," he told Bordman. "Those tanks are full of compressed air at
rather high pressure--a couple of thousand pounds. Here's a
reduction-valve with an adiabatic expansion feature, to supply extra air
to your heat-suit. It will be pretty cold, expanding from so high a
pressure. Bring down the temperature a little more."
Bordman again felt humiliated. Chuka and Redfeather, because of their
races, were able to move about nine-tenths naked in the open air on this
planet, and they thrived. But he needed a special refrigerated costume
to endure the heat. More, they provided him with sunshades and
refrigerated air that they did not need for themselves. They were
thoughtful of him. He was as much out of his element, where they fitted
perfectly, as he would have been making a degree-of-completion survey on
an underwater project. He had to wear what was practically a diving suit
and use a special air supply to survive!
He choked down the irritation his own inadequacy produced.
"I suppose we can go now," he said as coldly as he could.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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