The ragged circle of the plain was unbroken for almost as far as he
could see in the dim reflected light of the satellite's primary, save
for recent fissures in its surface that had been caused by wrenching
quakes during the failure of the Geejay, and occasional pockmarks left
by the wandering bits of cosmic flotsam that had been ensnared by
the surprisingly slight Callistan gravity. The plain on which he had
touched down was ringed with low mountain chains that looked like giant
dragon's teeth poised to impale him at any moment. And Jove itself
looked weirdly tilted with its atmospheric bands now inclined steeply
away from the horizontal. Its pale light cast eerie shadows across the
plain; made the cracks in its surface and miniature craters deceptively
large and small.
And there was no sign of human habitation, no artificial structure
shone against the dark horizon, and it meant he would have to
waste precious fuel, blasting in great leaps across the moon's not
inconsiderable surface, looking. He was not even certain for what.
If Zetterman had intended to have him find this particular one of
eleven satellites, then why had he not included grid co-ordinates
of latitude and longitude? Or had the man been about to when death
intervened?
Unless ... whatever artificial installation existed on the planet could
be located with the same co-ordinates! It would be ingenious....
Rapidly, Jon envisioned a standard tri-dimensional system grid in
his mind's eye; applied it to the satellite upon which he stood,
substituting its ecliptic-apparent north-south axis and solar-apparent
X and Y equatorial axes for the Z, X and Y axes of the standard
celestial sphere. Applying Zetterman's co-ordinates, then, his
direction would be generally north-northwest, to a point below the
satellite's surface!
For a moment the thought sent his mind spinning back into confusion,
and then he realized that by the standard spherical method of point
determination, his chances would have been one in a theoretical
infinity of arriving at a point exactly on the planetoid's surface.
The installation was subterranean, then, which was logical, but which
made matters all the more difficult. Unless, of course, there would be
some slight surface indication. God, if only Zetterman had lived an
instant longer.
With a muttered prayer that his deductions and dead reckoning
calculations were substantially more than empty rationalizations of
desperation, Jon thumbed the power toggles of his suit pack and leapt
lightly off across the planetoid's hostile surface. He would, of
course, have to be right. For there was only a limited amount of oxygen
left in his tanks, and his power would certainly not last forever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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