Sand Doom
Page 8
slapped his sweating thighs, and Bordman wentout in a caterwheel truck, wearing a heat-suit, to watch it for all oftwenty minutes. When he got back to the Project Engineer's office hegulped iced salt water and dug out the books he'd brought down from theship. There was the specbook for Xosa II, and there were the othervolumes of definitions issued by the Colonial Survey. They weredefinitions of the exact meanings of terms used in brieferspecifications, for items of equipment sometimes ordered by the ColonyOffice.
* * * * *
When Chuka came into the office, presently, he carried the first crudepig of Xosa II iron in his gloved hand. He gloated. Bordman was thenabsent, and Ralph Redfeather worked feverishly at his desk.
"Where's Bordman?" demanded Chuka in that resonant bass voice of his."I'm ready to report for degree-of-completion credit that the miningproperties on Xosa II are prepared as of today to deliver pig iron,cobalt, zirconium and beryllium in commercial quantities! We require oneday's notice to begin delivery of metal other than iron at the moment,because we're short of equipment, but we can furnish chromium andmanganese on two days' notice--the deposits are farther away."
He dumped the pig of metal on the second desk, where Aletha sat with herperpetual loose-leafed volumes before her. The metal smoked and began tochar the desk-top. He picked it up again and tossed it from one glovedhand to the other.
"There y'are, Ralph!" he boasted. "You Indians go after your coups!Match this coup for me! Without fuel and minus all equipment except ofour own making--I credit an assist on the mirror, but that's all--we'reset to load the first ship that comes in for cargo! Now what are yougoing to do for the record? I think we've wiped your eye for you!"
Ralph hardly looked up. His eyes were very bright. Bordman had shown himand he was copying feverishly the figures and formulae from a section ofthe definition book of the Colonial Survey. The books started with thespecifications for antibiotic growth equipment for colonies withproblems in local bacteria. It ended with definitions of the requiredstrength-of-material and the designs stipulated for cages in zoos formotile fauna, subdivided into flying, marine, and solid-groundcreatures: sub-sub-divided into carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores,with the special specifications for enclosures to contain abyssalcreatures requiring extreme pressures, and the equipment for maintaininga healthfully re-poisoned atmosphere for creatures from methane planets.
Redfeather had the third volume open at, "Landing Grids, LightestEmergency, Commerce Refuges, For Use Of." There were some dozens ofnon-colonized planets along the most-traveled spaceways on which refugesfor shipwrecked spacemen were maintained. Small forces of Patrolpersonnel manned them. Space lifeboats serviced them. They had theminimum installations which could draw on their planets' ionospheres forpower, and they were not expected to handle anything bigger than atwenty-ton lifeboat. But the specifications for the equipment of suchrefuges were included in the reference volumes for Bordman's use in themaking of Colonial surveys. They were compiled for the information ofcontractors who wanted to bid on Colonial Survey installations, and forthe guidance of people like Bordman who checked up on the work. So theycontained all the data for the building of a landing grid, lightestemergency, commerce refuge for use of, in case of need. Redfeathercopied feverishly.
Chuka ceased his boasting, but still he grinned.
"I know we're stuck, Ralph," he said amiably, "but it's nice stuff togo in the records. Too bad we don't keep coup-records like you Indians!"
Aletha's cousin--Project Engineer--said crisply:
"Go away! Who made your solar mirror? It was more than an assist! Youget set to cast beams for us! Girders! I'm going to get a lifeboat aloftand away to Trent! Build a minimum size landing grid! Build a fire undersomebody so they'll send us a colony ship with supplies! If there's nonew sandstorm to bury the radiation refrigerators Bordman brought tomind, we can keep alive with hydroponics until a ship can arrive withsomething useful!"
Chuka stared.
"You don't mean we might actually live through this! Really?"
Aletha regarded the two of them with impartial irony.
"Dr. Chuka," she said gently, "you accomplished the impossible. Ralph,here, is planning to attempt the preposterous. Does it occur to you thatMr. Bordman is nagging himself to achieve the inconceivable? It isinconceivable, even to him, but he's trying to do it!"
"What's he trying to do?" demanded Chuka, wary but amused.
"He's trying," said Aletha, "to prove to himself that he's the best manon this planet. Because he's physically least capable of living here!His vanity's hurt. Don't underestimate him!"
"He the best man here?" demanded Chuka blankly. "In his way he's allright. The refrigeration proves that! But he can't walk out-of-doorswithout a heat-suit!"
Ralph Redfeather said dryly, without ceasing his feverish work:
"Nonsense, Aletha. He has courage. I give him that. But he couldn't walka beam twelve hundred feet up. In his own way, yes. He's capable. Butthe best man----"
"I'm sure," agreed Aletha, "that he couldn't sing as well as the worstof your singing crew, Dr. Chuka, and any Amerind could outrun him. EvenI could! But he's got something we haven't got, just as we havequalities he hasn't. We're secure in our competences. We know what wecan do, and that we can do it better than any--" her eyestwinkled--"paleface. But he doubts himself. All the time and in everyway. And that's why he may be the best man on this planet! I'll bet hedoes prove it!"
Redfeather said scornfully:
"You suggested radiation refrigeration! What does it prove that heapplied it?"
"That," said Aletha, "he couldn't face the disaster that was herewithout trying to do something about it--even when it was impossible. Hecouldn't face the deadly facts. He had to torment himself by seeing thatthey wouldn't be deadly if only this one or that or the other weretwisted a little. His vanity was hurt because nature had beaten men. Hisdignity was offended. And a man with easily-hurt dignity won't ever behappy, but he can be pretty good!"
Chuka raised his ebony bulk from the chair in which he still shifted theiron pig from gloved hand to gloved hand.
"You're kind," he said, chuckling. "Too kind! I don't want to hurt hisfeelings. I wouldn't, for the world! But really ... I've never heard aman praised for his vanity before, or admired for being touchy about hisdignity! If you're right ... why ... it's been convenient. It might evenmean hope. But ... hm-m-m---- Would you want to marry a man like that?"
"Great Manitou forbid!" said Aletha firmly. She grimaced at the bareidea. "I'm an Amerind. I'll want my husband to be contented. I want tobe contented along with him. Mr. Bordman will never be either happy orcontent. No paleface husband for me! But I don't think he's through hereyet. Sending for help won't satisfy him. It's a further hurt to hisvanity. He'll be miserable if he doesn't prove himself--to himself--abetter man than that!"
Chuka shrugged his massive shoulders. Redfeather tracked down the lastitem he needed and fairly bounced to his feet.
"What tonnage of iron can you get out, Chuka?" he demanded. "What canyou do in the way of castings? What's the elastic modulus--how muchcarbon in this iron? And when can you start making castings? Big ones?"
"Let's go talk to my foremen," said Chuka complacently. "We'll see howfast my ... ah ... mineral spring is trickling metal down thecliff-face. If you can really launch a lifeboat, we might get some helphere in a year and a half instead of five----"
* * * * *
They went out-of-doors together. There was a small sound in the nextoffice. Aletha was suddenly very, very still. She sat motionless for along half-minute. Then she turned her head.
"I owe you an apology, Mr. Bordman," she said ruefully. "It won't takeback the discourtesy, but--I'm very sorry."
Bordman came into the office from the next room. He was rather pale. Hesaid wryly:
"Eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves, eh? Actually I was on theway in here when I heard--references to myself it would embarrass Chukaand your
cousin to know I heard. So I stopped. Not to listen, but tokeep them from knowing I'd heard their private opinions of me. I'll beobliged if you don't tell them. They're entitled to their opinions ofme. I've mine of them." He added grimly, "Apparently I think more highlyof them than they do of me!"
Aletha said contritely:
"It must have sounded horrible! But they ... we ... all of us thinkbetter of you than you do of yourself!"
Bordman shrugged.
"You