Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Planet Stories September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
BIG PILL
By RAYMOND Z. GALLUN
Child, it was, of the now ancient H-bomb. New. Untested.Would its terrible power sweep the stark Saturnian moon ofTitan from space ... or miraculously create a flourishingparadise-colony?
nder the glow of Saturn and his Rings, five of the airdomes of thenew colony on Titan were still inflated. They were enormous bubbles ofclear, flexible plastic. But the sixth airdome had flattened. Andbeneath its collapsed roof, propped now by metal rods, a dozen men inspacesuits had just lost all hope of rescuing the victims of theaccident.
Bert Kraskow, once of Oklahoma City, more recently a space-freighterpilot, and now officially just a colonist, was among them. His small,hard body sagged, as if by weariness. His lips curled. But his fullanger and bitterness didn't show.
"Nine dead," he remarked into the radio-phone of his oxygen helmet."No survivors." And then, inaudibly, inside his mind: "I'm a stinkin'fool. Why didn't we act against Space Colonists' Supply Incorporated,before this could happen?"
His gaze swung back to the great rent that had opened in a seam in theairdome—under only normal Earthly atmospheric pressure, when itshould have been able to withstand much more. Instantly the warmed airhad rushed out into the near-vacuum of Titan, Saturn's largest moon.Those who had been working the night-shift under the dome, to set upprefabricated cottages, had discarded their spacesuits for betterfreedom of movement. It was the regulation thing to do; alwaysconsidered safe. But they had been caught by the sudden dropping ofpressure around them to almost zero. And by the terrible cold of theTitanian night.
For a grief-stricken second Bert Kraskow looked down again at the bodybeside which he stood. You could hardly see that the face had beenyoung. The eyes popped. The pupils were white, like ice. The fluidwithin had frozen. The mouth hung open. In the absence of normalair-pressure, the blood in the body had boiled for a moment, beforethe cold had congealed it.
"Your kid brother, Nick, eh, Bert?" an air-conditioning mechanic namedLawler said, almost in a whisper. "About twenty years old, hunh?"
"Eighteen," Bert Kraskow answered into his helmet-phones as he spreadthe youth's coat over the distorted face.
Old Stan Kraskow, metal-worker, was there, too. Bert's and Nick's dad.He was blubbering. There wasn't much that anybody could do for him.And for the other dead, there were other horrified mourners. Some ofthem had been half nuts from homesickness, and the sight of harsh,voidal stars, even before this tragedy had happened.
It was Lawler who first cut loose, cursing. He was a big, apish man,with a certain fiery eloquence.
"Damned, lousy, stinkin' obsolete equipment!" he snarled. "Breathe onit and it falls apart! Under old Bill Lauren, Space Colonists' Supplyused to make good, honest stuff. I worked with it on Mars and themoons of Jupiter. But now look what the firm is turning out underTrenton Lauren, old Bill's super-efficient son! He was so greedy forquick profits in the new Titan colonization project