Short Fiction by Poul Anderson (free ebook novel .txt) 📕

in there for a short time. But I don’t expect to find anything. It’s mostly to keep them busy.”

“How about the pipes, then?” asked Gilchrist.

“Internal gas pressure and velocity of circulation is just about what it always has been. According to the meters, anyway, which I don’t think are lying. I don’t want to block off a section and rip it out except as a last resort. It would just be wasted effort, I’m sure.” Jahangir shook his turbanned head. “No, this is some phenomenon which we’ll have to think our way through, not bull through.”

Vesey nodded curtly. “I suggest you three go back to the common rooms,” he said. “We’ll be shunting all the power to food and oxy soon. If you have any further suggestions, pass them on⁠ ⁠… otherwise, sit tight.”

It was dismissal.

The rooms stank.

Some ninety human beings were jammed together in three long chambers and an adjacent kitchen. The ventilators could not quite handle that load.

They stood huddled together, children to the inside, while those on the rim of the pack hugged their shoulders and clenched teeth between blue lips. Little was said. So far there was calm of a sort⁠—enough personnel had had intensive mind training to be a steadying influence; but it was a thin membrane stretched near breaking.

As he came in, Gilchrist thought of a scene from Dante’s hell. Somewhere in that dense mass, a child was sobbing. The lights were dim⁠—he wondered why⁠—and distorted faces were whittled out of thick shadow.

“G-g-get inside⁠ ⁠… in front of me,” he said to Catherine.

“I’ll be all right,” answered the girl. “It’s a fact that women can stand cold better than men.”

Alemán chuckled thinly. “But our Thomas is well padded against it,” he said.

Gilchrist winced. He himself made jokes about his figure, but it was a cover-up. Then he wondered why he should care; they’d all be dead anyway, before long.

A colleague, Danton, turned empty eyes on them as they joined the rest. “Any word?” he asked.

“They’re working on it,” said Catherine shortly.

“God! Won’t they hurry up? I’ve got a wife and kid. And we can’t even sleep, it’s so cold.”

Yes, thought Gilchrist, that would be another angle. Weariness to eat away strength and hope⁠ ⁠… radiation would work fast on people in a depressed state.

“They could at least give us a heater in here!” exclaimed Danton. His tone was raw. Shadows muffled his face and body.

“All the juice we can spare is going to the food and air plants. No use being warm if you starve or suffocate,” said Catherine.

“I know, I know. But⁠—Well, why aren’t we getting more light? There ought to be enough current to heat the plants and still furnish a decent glow in here.”

“Something else⁠—” Gilchrist hesitated. “Something else is operating, then, and sucking a lot of power. I don’t know what.”

“They say the pile itself is as hot as ever. Why can’t we run a pipe directly from it?”

“And get a mess of fast neutrons?” Catherine’s voice died. After all⁠ ⁠… they were being irradiated as they stood here and trembled.

“We’ve got batteries!” It was almost a snarl from Danton’s throat. “Batteries enough to keep us going comfortably for days. Why not use them?”

“And suppose the trouble hasn’t been fixed by the time they’re drained?” challenged Gilchrist.

“Don’t say that!”

“Take it easy,” advised another man.

Danton bit his lip and faced away, mumbling to himself.

A baby began to cry. There seemed no way of quieting it.

“Turn that bloody brat off!” The tone came saw-toothed from somewhere in the pack.

“Shut up!” A woman’s voice, close to hysteria.

Gilchrist realized that his teeth were rattling. He forced them to stop. The air was foul in his nostrils.

He thought of beaches under a flooding sun, of summer meadows and a long sweaty walk down dusty roads, he thought of birds and blue sky. But it was no good. None of it was real.

The reality was here, just beyond the walls, where Neptune hung ashen above glittering snow that was not snow, where a thin poisonous wind whimpered between barren snags, where the dark and the cold flowed triumphantly close. The reality would be a block of solid gas, a hundred human corpses locked in it like flies in amber, it would be death and the end of all things.

He spoke slowly, through numbed lips: “Why has man always supposed that God cared?”

“We don’t know if He does or not,” said Catherine. “But man cares, isn’t that enough?”

“Not when the next nearest man is so far away,” said Alemán, trying to smile. “I will believe in God; man is too small.”

Danton turned around again. “Then why won’t He help us now?” he cried. “Why won’t He at least save the children?”

“I said God cared,” answered Alemán quietly, “not that He will do our work for us.”

“Stow the theology, you two,” said Catherine. “We’re going to pieces in here. Can’t somebody start a song?”

Alemán nodded. “Who has a guitar?” When there was no response, he began singing a capella:

La cucaracha, la cucaracha,
Ya no quiere caminar⁠—

Voices joined in, self-consciously. They found themselves too few, and the song died.

Catherine rubbed her fingers together. “Even my pockets are cold now,” she said wryly.

Gilchrist surprised himself; he took her hands in his. “That may help,” he said.

“Why, thank you, Sir Galahad,” she laughed. “You⁠—Oh. Hey, there!”

O’Mallory, off guard detail now that everyone was assembled here, came over. He looked even bulkier than before in half a dozen layers of clothing. Gilchrist, who had been prepared to stand impotently in the background while the engineer distributed blarney, was almost relieved to see the fear on him. He knew!

“Any word?” asked Catherine.

“Not yet,” he muttered.

“Why ’ave we so leetle light?” inquired Alemán. “What is it that draws the current so much? Surely not the heaters.”

“No. It’s the pump. The air-intake pump down in the pile room.” O’Mallory’s voice grew higher. “It’s working overtime, sucking in more hydrogen. Don’t ask me why! I don’t know! Nobody does!”

“Wait,” said Catherine eagerly. “If the room’s losing its warm