Read Half Life for Free Online

degree or so of horizontal. Luck occasionally assisted virtue, Belvew reflected.
    “If it’s a crust, it’s pretty solid,” Goodall remarked.
    “Unless the jets melted their way down and just produced more of it,” rejoined Ginger.
    “Could be, but they didn’t touch the spot where we are now,” the commander pointed out. Like the rest, he knew that at least one alternative hypothesis, however unlikely or unappetizing, should always be proposed as soon as possible after a first public speculation; Ginger had behaved properly. Still, it was so much better if the alternative was reasonable…
    It had also been quite proper for the commander to point out possible flaws. Objectivity was, after all, important. “Let’s get samples.”
    Belvew had powered down the flight controls, except for those which might be needed for emergency takeoff, and could safely nod his head, not that the others could see him from their own quarantine compartments.
    “All right, in a few minutes. Nondestructive examination first. I assume everything in sight’s been recorded; now let’s look .”
    “Right.” Goodall’s voice was a fraction of a syllable ahead of the others’. Belvew activated the short-focus viewers on the lower part of Oceanus’s fuselage and allowed their images to take over the Mollweide screen as his friends above chose—no, not above, he reminded himself; he was above with them; another real-surroundings reminder must be about due. No one, however, said anything for several minutes; the surface still resembled obsidian or tar at every magnification available and at every point the viewers could reach. The depression seen from the air was now hidden by the curve of the hill ahead, even though they were looking from the top of the bulge, and the nearest point of the track left by the landing approach was too distant for a really good look.
    “I guess we dig,” Pete said at last. Belvew nodded again, as uselessly as before, but operated more of his controls.
    The object which dropped from between the keels might almost have been an egg-shaped piece of the surface itself, as far as texture went, though its color was much lighter. It measured about fifty centimeters in its longest dimension. Until it reached the ground, which took an annoyingly long two seconds in Titan’s gravity, it appeared totally featureless. When it did strike, it flattened on the bottom to keep from rolling, uncovered a variety of optical sensors on the top and sides, and deployed handling, liquid-sampling, and digging apparatuses, coring tools, and locomotion equipment.
    Structurally and functionally, it straddled the accepted arbitrary borderline between nanotech equipment and pseudolife; it had been grown like the cans and the jets, not manufactured, and much of its internal machinery was on a molecular scale. It was about as capable of self-repair as a healthy human being, both ranking far below a starfish.
    “Take it, Art. Where to?”
    “Aft, I’d say. I’ll sample at each meter until we reach the exhaust trail, if that’s what it is, and then really dig. The smellers report ready.”
    The “smellers” were of course the analytical equipment, and everyone began to tense up again as the egg crawled to its first sampling point and its iridium-coated scraper went to work.
    “How hard?” queried several voices at once.
    “Only about three. If it’s a crust, it must be pretty thick to take Oceanus’s weight.”
    “Composition?” This answer was slower in coming, naturally, but overall percentages were ready in less than a minute.
    “Carbon fifteen point seven one; nitrogen eighteen point eight eight; hydrogen four point one one two; oxygen twenty-eight point two five; phosphorus—”
    “Phosphorus?” Again several voices merged. The first three elements had all been observed in samples of the atmospheric smog, and there was nothing surprising about the oxygen in view of all the water ice; but this was the first