Harmon had parked the car, depressurized the cabin, and was now standing back, admiring the machine, seen for the first time in its natural setting. The other two came up behind him, noting that he'd not chosen the turquoise color of his space suit at random. It matched the aerodynamic-lookingbody coves in the sides of the car. He seemed oblivious to their presence.
Sealock said, 'What've you got there, Harmon?'
The man turned to face him. 'You like it?'
'Well ... I think it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.' He laughed unpleasantly. Krzakwa said, 'For Christ's sake . . . why do you have to be like that?'
'Because I feel like it. Besides, it
'No. Go ahead.'
Sealock looked in, gauging the fit between the seat and his worksuit. 'I suppose I could go change to a regular suit. . . .'
Prynne snickered. 'Fat people could use these too, you know.' He reached in, did something, and the seat slid back to its rear stops. There was now enough room for Sealock to get in, though it would be cramped.
Brendan got in and closed the door. A small, bright cross-hatch cursor appeared on his vision, scanning, as he looked around on the puzzlingly complex control panel for a 'net input. He snorted suddenly, realizing his mistake, and the marker disappeared. Well, he thought, I ought to be smart enough to figure this out. He hunted, then twisted an odd, flat switch on the dashboard to the right of the steering column that had 'on/off' printed beneath it. Everything was carefully labeled, and he felt a sudden appreciation for the fact that he could read. It was an increasingly uncommon skill. A green light came on above the switch and dozens of gauges that he didn't know how to interpret came alive. Now what?
He thought about it for a minute, trying to remembersomething from Prynne's endless babblings about cars, then gave up and popped a line of data from the 'net. Ah. He looked at the floor. There were three pedals at his feet and a bellows/rod contraption sticking from the longitudinal bulge in the middle of the floor. Now then ... He consulted Shipnet again, pushed in the clutch, set the transmission to the numeral 1, and, shoving down on the accelerator, took his foot off the other pedal, so that it snapped up from spring tension.
It was impossible for the Stirling engine to stall, so the wheels spun, despite the best efforts of the fields holding them to the ice.
'You rotten son of a bitch,' Sealock muttered. He found the rheostat that controlled the wheel fields and increased their intensity, then pressed down heavily with his foot. He spun the steering device as his speed increased and the car rammed into a sharp skidding turn, throwing up a high, slow rooster tail of fine, glittering ice chips.
He straightened the thing out and let its velocity grow again. He was facing out into the ocellus as he whipped past the drill tower and, suddenly, he felt the flat distances, the bright ice beneath a black sky, calling to him. He wanted to drive to the end of the world. And why not? he wondered. Maybe I should say the hell with the rest of these jerks. He pushed cautiously down on the brake and tried to steer into a slower turn, but the car skidded again, two wheels breaking free of the ice. . . . Abruptly, he was headed toward the colony. He managed to get the car stopped fairly near the two men without further mishap. As he climbed out, feeling slightly weak-kneed, Prynne said to him, 'Well, what do you think now?' Sealock stood facing him. 'OK. I take back what I said, Harmon. It's great.'
'Yeah.'
Brendan banged the car's fender lightly near where a metal device that said 'Stirling' was affixed. It made what was amuffled thump for him, silence to the others. 'Let's take it out to the edge of the mare.'
'Really?' Prynne was surprised but pleased.
'Sure. You want to go, Tem?'
'I wouldn't miss it. ... Uh. Shouldn't we drill the hole first, though?' Krzakwa smiled to himself and shook his head. Even after all these months he still couldn't follow the man's sudden sea changes. One moment he was a hulking monster, the next an enthusiastic child. At least he wasn't boring. It took a few days to get ready, and then they went. . . .
It was the second day outward bound from the colony, and the three explorers were finding the surface topography, if one could call it that, fantastically dull. Initially, the sublimation of the volatile regolith, which parted before them like a miniature Red Sea only a stone's throw away, kept them entertained, but the ocellus was largely featureless, and it was hard to avoid the feeling that they were sitting motionless, at times, in the center of a small, blue-white disk. Worse still, they found that the tenuous grip that the electrostatic tires had on the ice could be broken by the slightest bump or ripple, sending the car flying on a long arc, sometimes at a precarious attitude, since it wasn't gyrostabilized. Amusing at first, these flights began to cause motion sickness, and they had to slow down to less than forty kilometers per hour.