Free Half Life by Hal Clement Page A

implication from her words understood a few seconds later as a fluorescent orange environment suit with a black “GX” stenciled front and back entered the field of view of Theia ’s eyes and started to make its way toward the wreck. Its walk was unsteady; even Titan’s less than fourteen percent of Earth gravity was a lot more than most of the group had experienced for many months. The station rotated, but very slowly. Centripetal acceleration just inside the equator of the original ship’s skin was much less than a hundredth of a gee.
    Few of the crew could now have stood a full Earth gravity. The major made good speed, however, never actually fell, and reached Oceanus’s remains very quickly.
    “I don’t see anything white on the ground,” she said. “It either fell off farther back or got buried in the dirt Oceanus plowed up. Here, Art.” She needed to jump only a short distance to bring one glove against the rime on the wing. It stuck to her suit when she tried to set it down beside the nearest lab, and she had to shake it off, leaving some liquid on her palm. All watchers tried to draw inferences while the lab unit inhaled this juice through its gold-plated liquid sampler and did its work.
    “Mostly ethylene, a trace of acetylene,” Goodall reported tersely after a moment.
    “Melting points?” Gene asked promptly, sure that Maria would have them on her screen at once. He was right.
    “About one hundred four and one hundred ninety-two respectively,” she reported promptly. “Check your own wings, Ginger; if you picked any up after you cooled down from entry, it would still be there.”
    “It is. I see it. It’s lucky I landed fast, I guess. I’ll wipe it off right now.”
    “Bring the lab and sample yours, too,” said Goodall.
    “Right.” Her suit disappeared intermittently, its image reappearing as odd patches and parts from time to time as she moved into and out of the parts of view fields the computer was using for Mollweide projection.
    “Why did we pick that up these two times, and not on any of the earlier landings? And why pick it up at all, for that matter? There isn’t much of either of those in the atmosphere.” Gene was still puzzled.
    “I think I can guess,” Barn said slowly. “You don’t need much, after all; water vapor usually doesn’t compose very much of Earth’s air, but it freezes on wings if they’re cold enough. These landings are the only ones made so far so soon after the jet had spent a long time up at compromise altitude or in space, and really got its wings chilled. I spent a lot of time on practice stalls before the first landing. We can test that, if there’s ever time, by going back up for a while and doing stall exercises, at a safe altitude of course, after we get down again.” He did not suggest merely asking Status to make wings visible; this was a scientific problem, not just a matter of safe flying. Avoiding the problem would not have answered questions.
    “And we make it a point to land a little hotter than we have been.” Gene was relieved. “Good work, Ginger. You’d better come back up; you’ve used up hours of suit time already.”
    “I have plenty more. I’m going to take a close look at this patch while I’m here.”
    “I don’t mean to be insulting, but I trust you’re budgeting time to refill your tanks after takeoff,” Goodall interjected.
    “I am. But thanks for asking. Don’t apologize.” Her suited figure dwindled on the screens.
    “The labs can do gas analyses, can’t they?” she asked suddenly. “Sure.”
    “Then hadn’t we better look for free hydrogen? Remember the idea about the methanol production.”
    “We’d need water, too,” pointed out Barn. Ginger kicked at one of the boulders, almost overbalancing in the weak gravity. “These look like ice,” she assured him.
    “They are. I checked them already,” growled Goodall. “If you want a repeat—”
    “I know. That can wait. I want to see this