Read Alan E. Nourse for Free Online Page B

struck Tuck as the sort of man who would prefer sharp
conflict to any kind of trickery. Almost shamefacedly, Tuck realized that he
had liked the big man on sight, liked him without any basis whatsoever. Yet Torm , he realized, was a Titan colonist with a record for
treachery a mile long; no matter how he looked, he couldn't be trusted.
    Swiftly
Tuck packed the great pressure-sealed bag that was to be taken back to the
colony, impatient for the conference to end. He was eager to move, anxious to
get out of the ship, to get his feet on the ground of this strange world. What
would the colony be like, how could the people live under a plastic bubble?
    An
idea struck him suddenly, and he hurried aft and poked his nose into the
control room. The pilot was sitting at his desk, working on a pile of reports;
he looked up and grinned when he saw Tuck. "Looking for something?"
    "Well—maybe.
I just had an idea. Do we have pressure suits for the outside here on the
ship?"
    "Of course. Specially made for the surface
of Titan, with built-in heaters."
    "How
about letting me go outside for a while? I'd like to go up on the ridge and see
if I can see the colony."
    The
pilot shrugged. "No harm in that." He stepped into the corridor,
broke open one of the storage bins hanging from the overhead. The suit was
bulky, well-padded, with the heating element and compressed oxygen tanks built
into a compact unit on the back. "Ever been in one of these things?"
    "Oh,
sure, I went out with the crew when we had to repair that sprung hull plate, on
the way out here."
    "That's
right. Well, then you know how to handle the palm controls for heat and air
conditioning and all. Just remember, though—the oxygen supply will last for
eight hours, but you'll probably get cold long before that. Keep an eye on the
peripheral circulation gauge, and when it says your feet are getting cold, come in! It means your
feet are getting cold, whether they feel cold or not. And don't hesitate to let
out a loud yowl if something happens. If you rip that suit on the rocks, clamp
down the section sealer, and scream bloody murder."
    Tuck
clambered into the clumsy suit, adjusting his fingertips to the row of buttons
on the palm, and made sure he could work the joints with ease. On the surface
of Titan the suits were more necessary to keep out the cold and the poisonous
atmosphere than to regulate body pressures, but without some care in handling
the joints of the suit, he would soon be spread-eagled and helpless. Once
securely inside, with die oxygen flow adjusted, he lumbered down the corridor
into the lock, waved to the pilot, and dogged down the pressure hatches. The
pumps whirred until the pressure registered "even" with the
atmospheric pressure of the planetoid's surface; then he opened the outer
hatch, and stepped onto the crane.
    When
he stepped off onto the ground, a wonderful feeling of excitement struck him.
For the first time, he was setting foot on another world, a world so alien to
the warm, comfortable Earth he knew that it seemed impossible that the two could
be in the same universe. This was a cruel, cold world, yet just five miles away
was a little nucleus of the same warm Earth that he had left behind, a single
oasis in a barren wilderness. Man could not live with the hostile cold of
Titan's surface, but they could do the next best thing: adapt part of the
surface to conditions they could live
with. Slowly Tuck walked out on the flat crater floor, turned and looked back
at the ship, standing like a slender silver finger against the dark blue sky.
The white powder crunched under his feet as he walked, and rose in little
whirlwinds around his legs, and though it was only two inches deep, he could
feel the unearthly chill under his feet. Glancing down, he saw the frost
already forming knee-high on the legs of his suit. But close to the skin of his
feet he could feel the soft pads of the thermocouples, constantly registering
the temperature of his feet. If the blood