The ship's engineer rumbled disgustedly. But then Bordman saw how sane
this method of riding was--here. The ground vehicle lurched and swayed
and rolled and pitched and tossed as it came over the uneven ground. To
sit in anything like a chair would have been foolish. A back rest would
throw one forward in a frontward lurch, and give no support in case of a
backward one. A sidewise tilt would tend to throw one out. Riding a
ground car as if in a saddle was sense!
But Bordman was not so sure about the costume. The engineer opened the
port and spoke hostilely out of it:
"D'you know there's a lady in this thing?"
The young Indian grinned. He waved his hand to Aletha, who pressed her
nose against a viewport. And just then Bordman did understand the
costume or lack of it. Air came in the open exit port. It was hot and
desiccated. It was furnace-like!
"How, 'Letha," called the rider on the caterwheel steed. "Either dress
for the climate or put on a heat-suit before you come out of there!"
Aletha chuckled. Bordman heard a stirring behind him. Then Aletha
climbed to the exit port and swung out. Bordman heard a dour muttering
from the engineer. Then he saw her greeting her cousin. She had slipped
out of the conventionalized Amerind outfit to which Bordman was
accustomed. Now she was clad as Anglo-Saxon girls dressed for beaches on
the cool-temperature planets.
For a moment Bordman thought of sunstroke, with his own eyes dazzled by
the still-partly-filtered sunlight. But Aletha's Amerind coloring was
perfectly suited to sunshine even of this intensity. Wind blowing upon
her body would cool her skin. Her thick, straight black hair was at
least as good protection against sunstroke as a heat-helmet. She might
feel hot, but she would be perfectly safe. She wouldn't even sunburn.
But he, Bordman----
He grimly stripped to underwear and put on the heat-suit from his bag.
He filled its canteens from the boat's water tank. He turned on the
tiny, battery-powered motors. The suit ballooned out. It was intended
for short periods of intolerable heat. The motors kept it inflated--away
from his skin--and cooled its interior by the evaporation of sweat plus
water from its canteen tanks. It was a miniature air-conditioning system
for one man, and it should enable him to endure temperatures otherwise
lethal to someone with his skin and coloring. But it would use a lot of
water.
He climbed to the exit port and went clumsily down the exterior ladder
to the tail fin. He adjusted his goggles. He went over to the chattering
young Indians, young man and girl. He held out his gloved hand.
"I'm Bordman," he said painfully. "Here to make a degree-of-completion
survey. What's wrong that we had to land by boat?"
Aletha's cousin shook hands cordially.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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