"Nope. For one thing, they're honeymooning where no one knows. And so
we'll just leave quietly and when they come back, they'll find that
Venus Equilateral is a large empty house. Run off on us, will they!"
"Making any public announcements?" asked Keg.
Don shook his head. "Why bother?" he asked. "People will know sooner or
later, and besides, these days I'd prefer to keep the coupled-crystal
idea secret as long as possible. We'll get more royalty, because once
it is known, the duplicators will go crazy again. So long as Venus
Equilateral--the generic term--maintains interplanetary communications,
that's all that is necessary. Though Venus Equilateral as an identity
is no more, the name of the interplanetary communications company
shall be known as Venus Equilateral as a fond tribute to a happy memory
of a fine place. And--"
"And now we can haul off and have a four-alarm holiday brawl," said
Arden.
Farrell noted the thermometers that measured the temperature of the
cold room. "About all we'd have to do is to hold the door open and
Venus Equilateral will have its first snow storm."
"Just like Mars," said Jim. "No wonder Christine eloped with Walt. Bet
they're money-hooning on Venus."
"Well," said Channing, "turn up the gain on that ice-cream freezer of
Walt's, and we'll have our winter snowstorm. A white Christmas, by all
that's good and holy!"
Farrell grinned widely and reached up to the servo panel. He twisted
the master control dial all the way clockwise and the indicators read
high on their scales. Imperceptibly, the recording thermometers started
to creep downward--though it would take a day or so before the drop
became evident.
"Get everything in motion," said Channing. "Arden, make plans to clean
out about an acre of former living space--make a one-room apartment out
of it. Get the gals a-decorating like mad. Wes, get someone to make a
firebrick and duplicate it into enough to build a fireplace. Then make
enough fireplaces to go around to all as wants 'em. For draft, we'll
tie the chimneys together and let it blow out into space at fourteen
pounds per square inch of draft. Better get some good dampers, too.
We'll have the air-duplicator running at full blast to keep up. We've
got some crude logs--duplicate us a dozen cords of wood for fire-wood.
Tell the shopkeepers down on the Mall that the lid is off and the
Devil's out for breakfast! We'll want sleds, fur coats, holly and
mistletoe by the acre. And to hell with the lucite icicles they hang
from the corridor cornices. This year we have real ones.
"Oh," he added, "better make some small heating units for living rooms.
We can freeze up the halls and 'outdoor' areas, but people want to come
back into a warm room, shuck their earmuffs and overcoats and soak up
a cup of Tom and Jerry. Let's go, gang. Prepare to abandon ship! And
let's abandon ship with a party that will go down in history--and make
every man, woman, and child on Venus Equilateral remember it to the end
of their days!"
"Poor Walt," said Arden. "I wish he could be here. Let's hope he'll
come back to us by Christmas."
* * * * *
For the ten thousandth time Walt inspected the little metal house.
It was made of two courses of metal held together with an insulating
connector, but these metal walls had been coupled with water now, and
they were bitter cold to the touch.
Lights were furnished from outside somewhere, there was but a switch
in the wall and a lamp in the ceiling. Walt thought that he might be
able to raise some sort of electrical disturbance with the lighting
plan, but found it impossible from the construction of the house. And,
obviously Kingman had done the best he could to filter and isolate any
electrical fixtures against radio interference that would tell the men
in Venus Equilateral that funny-work was a-foot. Kingman's duplicator
had been removed along with anything else that would give Walt a single
item that he could view with technical eye.
Otherwise, it was a miniature model of a small three-room house; not
much larger than a "playhouse" for a wealthy child, but completely
equipped for living, since Kingman planned it that way and lived in it,
needing nothing.
"Where do we go from here?" asked Walt in an angry tone.
Christine shuddered. "What I'm wondering is when these batteries will
run out," she said.
"Kingman has a horse-and-buggy mind," said Walt. "He can't understand
that we'd use miniature beam-energy tubes. They won't give out for
about a year."
"But we can't hold out that long."
"No, we damwel can't," grunted Franks unhappily. "These suits aren't
designed for anything but a severe cold. Not a viciously killing kind.
At best, they'll keep up fairly well at minus forty degrees, but below
that they lose ground degree for degree."
Christine yawned sleepily.
"Don't let that get you," said Walt nervously. "That's the first sign
of cold-adaptation."
"I know," she answered. "I've seen enough of it on Mars. You lose the
feeling of cold eventually, and then you die."
Walt held his forehead in his hands. "I should have made an effort,"
he said in a hollow voice. "At least, if I'd started a ruckus, Kingman
might have been baffled enough to let you run for it."
"You'd have been shot."
"But you'd not be in this damned place slowly freezing to death," he
argued.
"Walt," she said quietly, "remember? Kingman had that gun pointed at me
when you surrendered."
"Well, damn it, I'd rather have gone ahead anyway. You'd have been--"
"Not better off. We're still alive."
"Fine prospect. No one knows we're here; they think we're honeymooning.
The place is chilling off rapidly and will really slide like hell once
that room and the original tube reaches absolute zero. The gang below
us don't really know what's going on because they left the refrigerator
tube to my care--and Channing knows that I'd not go rambling off on a
honeymoon without leaving instructions unless I was certain without
doubt that the thing would run without trouble until I returned. I'm
impulsive, but not forgetful. As for making any kind of racket in
here--we're licked."
"Can't you do something with the miniature power tubes that run these
suits?"
"Not a chance--at least nothing that I know I can do between the
removal of the suit and the making of communications. They're just
power intake tubes tuned to the big solar beam jobs that run the
station. I--"
"Walt--please--no reproach."
He looked at her. "I think you mean that," he said.
"I do."