anyhow.
When there is no Time, you make one up; and man-made time is always fast. At least in the beginning, I would have eaten five
or six meals a day, slept twice as often as usual, and wound up the week on only three of four clock-days, had it not been
for clocks and the wise condescension of old Arctic hands among the young draftees on the base. My metabolism was enormously
speeded up, by the cold perhaps, and. I think, by my drive to get through the calendar months and back home. Without clocks,
I would have aged several years in those two months, out of inability to recognize when a given astronomical day actually
was over.
By the time I arrived in the cave where the snowmobiles were stored, it was already deafening with the echoes of two of their
engines. Mechanics were heating the block of the third engine with a huge blowtorch, and before long it too was slamming noise
off the walls. In the darkness after the snow-glare, the buggies looked like crouching animals, their gigantic tyres—almost
as high as they were—tucked under their blunt chins like paws.
Inside, however, they were warm and comfortable, and surprisingly roomy. If you take a vehicle almost as big as a two-story
house, and apportion the space inside it as economically as you would apportion it in a submarine, you can pack in a lot of
living space along with the necessary equipment, and Farnsworth’s designer hadn’t stinted. The impression of being on shipboard
was heightened in the tiny driver’s cab, which was laid out like a miniature ship’s bridge.
Farnsworth was up there when I came in, humming something repetitious and full of flatted fifths which I suppose wasAfrican, and watching the elaborate dashboard while the engine warmed up.
“Hello, Julian,” he said abstractedly. “Find your cabin all right? Enough room? Got your things stowed away?”
I gave him a blanket yes and watched over his shoulder. The doors to the cave were being swung open now, letting in the intense
white glare and lighting up the hunched shoulders of Hanchett’s snowmobile ahead of us. Abruptly the basketwork dish atop
Hanchett’s machine began to revolve on its alt-azimuth mounting. The astronomer was testing his radar, the invisible lifeline
he would use to keep us together across the ice.
“Geoffrey, this is Number One,” his voice squawked abruptly from the radio imbedded in the dash. “Do you read me?”
“Loud and clear,” Farnsworth said into his hand mike.
“Jayne, come in. Do you read me?”
“Loud and clear, Number One.”
“Number Two to Number One,” Farnsworth said. “Let’s check out on the engines.”
“I’m missing Wentz here,” Jayne said. “Hold it—they tell me he’s here. Evidently he slept here. All right, Geoffrey, call
’em off.”
They were as formal as airline pilots in calling in their oil temperature, magneto readings, and twenty other details, but
I was in no doubt that the instrumental ballet was necessary. It reassured me, a little. At last Farnsworth said: “All right,
Number One, it’s your lead.”
There was a moment’s pause through which the three snowmobile engines snarled
sotto voce.
Then Dr. Hanchett sounded his air-horn—a ferocious, inanimate bugling which made my scalp tighten—and his snowbuggy hunched
down and rolled out into the intolerable day. Farnsworth Shifted gears, our own engine roared, and I felt us begin to move
out after him.
“Here we go,” Farnsworth said detachedly. “You look a little nervous, Julian. Did you sleep poorly?”
“I was awake a good deal,” I admitted. “The wind was noisy.”
“Tcha. Here.” He produced a small round pillbox of transparent plastic, rather like a glass model of a young oyster,from his pocket and handed it to me. It was full of little orange tablets.
“What are these?”
“Tranquizol, ten milligrams. Something Pfistner makes; good for the nerves.”
The hell with that; I handed it back to
When there is no Time, you make one up; and man-made time is always fast. At least in the beginning, I would have eaten five
or six meals a day, slept twice as often as usual, and wound up the week on only three of four clock-days, had it not been
for clocks and the wise condescension of old Arctic hands among the young draftees on the base. My metabolism was enormously
speeded up, by the cold perhaps, and. I think, by my drive to get through the calendar months and back home. Without clocks,
I would have aged several years in those two months, out of inability to recognize when a given astronomical day actually
was over.
By the time I arrived in the cave where the snowmobiles were stored, it was already deafening with the echoes of two of their
engines. Mechanics were heating the block of the third engine with a huge blowtorch, and before long it too was slamming noise
off the walls. In the darkness after the snow-glare, the buggies looked like crouching animals, their gigantic tyres—almost
as high as they were—tucked under their blunt chins like paws.
Inside, however, they were warm and comfortable, and surprisingly roomy. If you take a vehicle almost as big as a two-story
house, and apportion the space inside it as economically as you would apportion it in a submarine, you can pack in a lot of
living space along with the necessary equipment, and Farnsworth’s designer hadn’t stinted. The impression of being on shipboard
was heightened in the tiny driver’s cab, which was laid out like a miniature ship’s bridge.
Farnsworth was up there when I came in, humming something repetitious and full of flatted fifths which I suppose wasAfrican, and watching the elaborate dashboard while the engine warmed up.
“Hello, Julian,” he said abstractedly. “Find your cabin all right? Enough room? Got your things stowed away?”
I gave him a blanket yes and watched over his shoulder. The doors to the cave were being swung open now, letting in the intense
white glare and lighting up the hunched shoulders of Hanchett’s snowmobile ahead of us. Abruptly the basketwork dish atop
Hanchett’s machine began to revolve on its alt-azimuth mounting. The astronomer was testing his radar, the invisible lifeline
he would use to keep us together across the ice.
“Geoffrey, this is Number One,” his voice squawked abruptly from the radio imbedded in the dash. “Do you read me?”
“Loud and clear,” Farnsworth said into his hand mike.
“Jayne, come in. Do you read me?”
“Loud and clear, Number One.”
“Number Two to Number One,” Farnsworth said. “Let’s check out on the engines.”
“I’m missing Wentz here,” Jayne said. “Hold it—they tell me he’s here. Evidently he slept here. All right, Geoffrey, call
’em off.”
They were as formal as airline pilots in calling in their oil temperature, magneto readings, and twenty other details, but
I was in no doubt that the instrumental ballet was necessary. It reassured me, a little. At last Farnsworth said: “All right,
Number One, it’s your lead.”
There was a moment’s pause through which the three snowmobile engines snarled
sotto voce.
Then Dr. Hanchett sounded his air-horn—a ferocious, inanimate bugling which made my scalp tighten—and his snowbuggy hunched
down and rolled out into the intolerable day. Farnsworth Shifted gears, our own engine roared, and I felt us begin to move
out after him.
“Here we go,” Farnsworth said detachedly. “You look a little nervous, Julian. Did you sleep poorly?”
“I was awake a good deal,” I admitted. “The wind was noisy.”
“Tcha. Here.” He produced a small round pillbox of transparent plastic, rather like a glass model of a young oyster,from his pocket and handed it to me. It was full of little orange tablets.
“What are these?”
“Tranquizol, ten milligrams. Something Pfistner makes; good for the nerves.”
The hell with that; I handed it back to
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