Astounding British Edition, Vol. 9, No. 7 — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

struck pay. Manue sat around the camp ~ and worked at breathing. It was becoming a conscious effort now, and if he stopped thinking about it for a few minutes, he found himself inspiring shallow, meaning- less little sips of air that scarcely moved his diaphragm. He kept the aerator as low as possible, to make himself breathe great gasps that hurt his chest, but it made him dizzy, and he had to increase the oxygenation lest he faint. Sam Donnell, the troffie mech-repair- man, caught him about to slump dizzily from his perch atop a heap of rocks, pushed him erect, and turned his oxy back to normal. It was late afternoon, and the drillers were about to change shifts. Manue sat shaking his head for a moment, then gazed at Donnell grate- fully. “That’s dangerous, kid,” the troffie wheezed. “Guys can go psycho doing that. Which you rather have: sick lungs or sick mind?” “Neither.” “T know, but—” “I don’t want to talk about it.” Donnell stared at him with a faint smile. Then he shrugged and sat down on the rock heap to watch the drilling. “Oughta be hitting the tritium ice in a couple of days,” he said pleasantly. “Then we'll see a big blow.” Manue moistened his lips nervously. The troffies always made him feel un- easy. He stared aside. “Big blow?” “Lotta pressure down there, they say. Something about the way Mars got formed. Dust cloud hypothesis.” Manue shook his head. “I don’t under- stand.” “I don’t either. But I’ve heard them talk. Couple of billion years ago, Mars was supposed to be a moon of Jupiter. Picked up a lot of ice crystals over a rocky core. Then it broke loose and picked up a rocky crust—from another belt of the dust cloud. The pockets of tritium ice catch a few neutrons from uranium ore—down under. Some of the tritium goes into helium. Frees oxygen. Gases form pressure. Big blow.” “What are they going to do with the ice?” CRUCIFIXUS ETIAM cS ‘The troffie- shrugged. “The engineers 3 might know.” Manue snorted and spat. “They know how to make money.” “Heh! Sure, everybody’s gettin’ rich. an The Peruvian stared at him g pens tively for a moment. “Senor Donnell, I—” “Sam ll do.” “I wonder if anybody knows why .. . well. . . why we’re really here.” Donnell glanced up to grin, then wag- gled his head. He fell thoughtful for a moment, and leaned forward to write in the earth. When he finished, he read it aloud. ““A plow plus a horse plus land equals the necessities of life.” He glanced up at Manue. “Fifteen Hundred A.D.” — The Peruvian frowned his bewilder- ment. Donnell rubbed out what he had written and wrote again. “A factory plus steam turbines plus raw materials equals necessities plus luxuries. Nineteen Hundred A.D.” He rubbed it out and repeated the scribbling. “All those things plus nuclear power and computer controls equal a surplus of everything. Twenty-One Hun- dred A.D.” “So?” “So, it’s either cut production or find an outlet. Mars is an outlet for surplus energies, manpower, money. Mars Pro- ject keeps money turning over, keeps everything turning over. Economist told me that. Said if the Project folded, surplus would pile up—big depression on Earth.” The Peruvian shook his head and. sighed. It didn’t sound right somehow. Yt sounded like an explanation some- body figured out after the whole thing started. It wasn’t the kind of goal he wanted. Two days later, the drill hit ice, and the “big blow” was only a fizzle. There was talk around the camp that the whole operation had been a waste of time. The hole spewed a frosty breath for several hours, and the drill crews crowded around to stick their faces in it and breathe great gulps of the helium oxygen mixture. But then the blow subsided, and the hole leaked only a wisp of steam. Technicians came, and lowered sonar Eomicbooks.com