blizzard from the geyser region—he remembered its appearance during the chase—make use of the radiator. He came to the place where the fata morgana, with its trick mirror of clouds and gases, had disoriented him completely. Or possibly he had gone soft in the head sooner, when he suffered not the optical but the acoustical illusion and stopped comparing the route indicated by the beacon with the terrain map in his cabin.
In the place to which his own phantom had led him, not that far from the designated path—nine miles in all, according to the odometer—there were no geysers shown on the map. Their border ran farther north, judging by the last survey made. On the basis of flight reports and the radar pictures taken via the patsat, Marlin had ordered that the route from Roembden to Grail be changed to a roundabout southern course, so that it would run—inconveniently but safely—through a shallow of the Depression which had never yet been inundated though it was covered with snow from the geysers. The bed of this shallow might at worst become obstructed with drifts of dioxide snow, but a Digla had sufficient power to wade through drifts five meters deep; and if it got stuck, it could radio and Grail would send unmanned bulldozers, redirected from the mines. The problem was that no one knew exactly where the three striders vanished. On the old trail, abandoned after previous disasters, the Depression had permitted uninterrupted radio contact, but shortwave signals didn't reach the southern syncline directly, and one couldn't use reflection, since Titan possessed no ionosphere. It was necessary to employ relay satellites, but for a week now Saturn had interfered, drowning out with the tail of its stormy magnetosphere all emissions except lasers. Grail's lasers, indeed, could penetrate the cloud layers and thus reach the patsats. The patsats, however, not equipped with wave transformers over such a wide range, were unable to convert light impulses into radio. True, they could collimate the received flashes and send them into the Depression, but that would be futile. In order to penetrate the geyser storms it would be necessary to beam with an energy that would melt the satellite mirrors. Put into orbit when Grail was still in the setting-up stage, the mirrors had undergone slow corrosion; clouding, they absorbed too much radiant energy, not reflecting it with 99-percent efficiency.
Into this concatenation of oversight, poorly conceived economizing measures, haste, shipping delays, and ordinary foul-ups—typical of people everywhere and therefore in space as well—went one unfortunate strider after the other. The solid ground of the southern shallow was supposed to have been a last resort. How solid it actually was, Parvis would soon find out. He had counted on coming across the trail of his predecessors, but quickly gave up that hope. He followed the azimuth, trusting it, because the terrain rose and led him away from the blizzard. To the left he saw slopes of old magma, topped with clouds and swept clear of snow. He traversed these with caution. He walked through a quarry, across ice-filled gullies, but the ice contained bubbles of unfrozen gas. When once or twice the iron foot broke through the ice crust and sank into an empty space, the noise of the engines ceased and his ears were filled with a rattling and snapping so loud, it was like being aboard an icebreaker battering its way through polar ridges. Carefully, each time, he inspected the foot pulled from the hole before moving on. He labored in this way until the radio dialogue, keeping the same tone and pitch, began to stammer. The right gave a strangled whistle, and the left dropped to a bass. Parvis turned until the notes were equal. Then before him opened a wide passageway between high stacks of ice slabs, except that it wasn't ice, he knew, but congealed hydrocarbons. Down dry, coarse-grained scree he stepped, braking as much as possible to contain the
In the place to which his own phantom had led him, not that far from the designated path—nine miles in all, according to the odometer—there were no geysers shown on the map. Their border ran farther north, judging by the last survey made. On the basis of flight reports and the radar pictures taken via the patsat, Marlin had ordered that the route from Roembden to Grail be changed to a roundabout southern course, so that it would run—inconveniently but safely—through a shallow of the Depression which had never yet been inundated though it was covered with snow from the geysers. The bed of this shallow might at worst become obstructed with drifts of dioxide snow, but a Digla had sufficient power to wade through drifts five meters deep; and if it got stuck, it could radio and Grail would send unmanned bulldozers, redirected from the mines. The problem was that no one knew exactly where the three striders vanished. On the old trail, abandoned after previous disasters, the Depression had permitted uninterrupted radio contact, but shortwave signals didn't reach the southern syncline directly, and one couldn't use reflection, since Titan possessed no ionosphere. It was necessary to employ relay satellites, but for a week now Saturn had interfered, drowning out with the tail of its stormy magnetosphere all emissions except lasers. Grail's lasers, indeed, could penetrate the cloud layers and thus reach the patsats. The patsats, however, not equipped with wave transformers over such a wide range, were unable to convert light impulses into radio. True, they could collimate the received flashes and send them into the Depression, but that would be futile. In order to penetrate the geyser storms it would be necessary to beam with an energy that would melt the satellite mirrors. Put into orbit when Grail was still in the setting-up stage, the mirrors had undergone slow corrosion; clouding, they absorbed too much radiant energy, not reflecting it with 99-percent efficiency.
Into this concatenation of oversight, poorly conceived economizing measures, haste, shipping delays, and ordinary foul-ups—typical of people everywhere and therefore in space as well—went one unfortunate strider after the other. The solid ground of the southern shallow was supposed to have been a last resort. How solid it actually was, Parvis would soon find out. He had counted on coming across the trail of his predecessors, but quickly gave up that hope. He followed the azimuth, trusting it, because the terrain rose and led him away from the blizzard. To the left he saw slopes of old magma, topped with clouds and swept clear of snow. He traversed these with caution. He walked through a quarry, across ice-filled gullies, but the ice contained bubbles of unfrozen gas. When once or twice the iron foot broke through the ice crust and sank into an empty space, the noise of the engines ceased and his ears were filled with a rattling and snapping so loud, it was like being aboard an icebreaker battering its way through polar ridges. Carefully, each time, he inspected the foot pulled from the hole before moving on. He labored in this way until the radio dialogue, keeping the same tone and pitch, began to stammer. The right gave a strangled whistle, and the left dropped to a bass. Parvis turned until the notes were equal. Then before him opened a wide passageway between high stacks of ice slabs, except that it wasn't ice, he knew, but congealed hydrocarbons. Down dry, coarse-grained scree he stepped, braking as much as possible to contain the
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