Sand Doom

by Murray Leinster

thesteel-construction men of the cosmos, and more than two-thirds of thelanding grids in the whole galaxy had their coup-feather symbols on thekey posts. But the planet government on Algonka V was housed in athree-thousand-foot white stone tepee, and the best horses known to menwere raised by ranchers with bronze skins and high cheekbones on thellano planet Chagan.

  * * * * *

  Now, here, in the _Warlock's_ landing boat, the engineer snorted. Avehicle came around a cliff wall, clanking its way on those eccentriccaterwheels that new-founded colonies find so useful. The vehicleglittered. It crawled over tumbled boulders, and flowed over fallenscree. It came briskly toward them. The engineer snorted again.

  "That's my cousin Ralph!" said Aletha in pleased surprise.

  Bordman blinked and looked again. He did not quite believe his eyes. Butthey told the truth. The figure controlling the ground car wasIndian--Amerind--wearing a breechcloth and thick-soled sandals and threestreamlined feathers in a band about his head. Moreover, he did not ridein a seat. He sat astride a semi-cylindrical part of the ground car,over which a gaily-colored blanket had been thrown.

  The ship's engineer rumbled disgustedly. But then Bordman saw how sanethis method of riding was--here. The ground vehicle lurched and swayedand rolled and pitched and tossed as it came over the uneven ground. Tosit in anything like a chair would have been foolish. A back rest wouldthrow one forward in a frontward lurch, and give no support in case of abackward one. A sidewise tilt would tend to throw one out. Riding aground car as if in a saddle was sense!

  But Bordman was not so sure about the costume. The engineer opened theport and spoke hostilely out of it:

  "D'you know there's a lady in this thing?"

  The young Indian grinned. He waved his hand to Aletha, who pressed hernose against a viewport. And just then Bordman did understand thecostume or lack of it. Air came in the open exit port. It was hot anddesiccated. It was furnace-like!

  "How, 'Letha," called the rider on the caterwheel steed. "Either dressfor the climate or put on a heat-suit before you come out of there!"

  Aletha chuckled. Bordman heard a stirring behind him. Then Alethaclimbed to the exit port and swung out. Bordman heard a dour mutteringfrom the engineer. Then he saw her greeting her cousin. She had slippedout of the conventionalized Amerind outfit to which Bordman wasaccustomed. Now she was clad as Anglo-Saxon girls dressed for beaches onthe cool-temperature planets.

  For a moment Bordman thought of sunstroke, with his own eyes dazzled bythe still-partly-filtered sunlight. But Aletha's Amerind coloring wasperfectly suited to sunshine even of this intensity. Wind blowing uponher body would cool her skin. Her thick, straight black hair was atleast as good protection against sunstroke as a heat-helmet. She mightfeel hot, but she would be perfectly safe. She wouldn't even sunburn.But he, Bordman----

  He grimly stripped to underwear and put on the heat-suit from his bag.He filled its canteens from the boat's water tank. He turned on thetiny, battery-powered motors. The suit ballooned out. It was intendedfor short periods of intolerable heat. The motors kept it inflated--awayfrom his skin--and cooled its interior by the evaporation of sweat pluswater from its canteen tanks. It was a miniature air-conditioning systemfor one man, and it should enable him to endure temperatures otherwiselethal to someone with his skin and coloring. But it would use a lot ofwater.

  He climbed to the exit port and went clumsily down the exterior ladderto the tail fin. He adjusted his goggles. He went over to the chatteringyoung Indians, young man and girl. He held out his gloved hand.

  "I'm Bordman," he said painfully. "Here to make a degree-of-completionsurvey. What's wrong that we had to land by boat?"

  Aletha's cousin shook hands cordially.

  "I'm Ralph Redfeather," he said, introducing himself. "Project engineer.About everything's wrong. Our landing grid's gone. We couldn't contactyour ship in time to warn it off. It was in our gravity field before itanswered, and its Lawlor drive couldn't take it away--not workingbecause of the field. Our power, of course, went with the landing grid.The ship you came in can't get back, and we can't send a distressmessage anywhere, and our best estimate is that the colony will be wipedout--thirst and starvation--in six months. I'm sorry you and Aletha haveto be included."

  Then he turned to Aletha and said amiably:

  "How's Mike Thundercloud and Sally Whitehorse and the gang in general,'Letha?"

  * * * * *

  The _Warlock_ rolled on in her newly-established orbit about Xosa II.The landing boat was aground, having removed the two passengers. Itwould come back. Nobody on the ship wanted to stay aground, because theyknew the conditions and the situation below--unbearable heat and thecomplete absence of hope. But nobody had anything to do! The ship hadbeen maintained in standard operating condition during its two-months'voyage from Trent to here. No repairs or overhaulings were needed. Therewas no maintenance-work to speak of. There would be only stand-bywatches until something happened. There would be nothing to do on thosewatches. There would be off-watch time for twenty-one out of everytwenty-four hours, and no purposeful activity to fill even half an hourof it. In a matter of--probably--years, the _Warlock_ should receiveaid. She might be towed out of her orbit to space in which the Lawlordrive could function, or the crew might simply be taken off. Butmeanwhile, those on board were as completely frustrated as the colony.They could not do anything at all to help themselves.

  In one fashion the crewmen were worse off than the colonists. Thecolonists had at least the colorful prospect of death before them. Theycould prepare for it in their several ways. But the members of the_Warlock_'s crew had nothing ahead but tedium.

  The skipper faced the future with extreme, grim distaste.

  * * * * *

  The ride to the colony was torment. Aletha rode behind her cousin on thesaddle-blanket, and apparently suffered little if at all. But Bordmancould only ride in the ground-car's cargo space, along with the sack ofmail from the ship. The ground was unbelievably rough and the joltingintolerable. The heat was literally murderous. In the metal cargo space,the temperature reached a hundred and sixty degrees in the sunshine--andgiven enough time, food will cook in no more heat than that. Of course aman has been known to enter an oven and stay there while a roast wascooked, and to come out alive. But the oven wasn't throwing himviolently about or bringing sun-heated--blue-white-sun heated--metal topress his heat-suit against him.

  The suit did make survival possible, but that was all. The contents ofits canteens gave out just before arrival, and for a short time Bordmanhad only sweat for his suit to work with. It kept him alive by forcedventilation, but he arrived in a state of collapse. He drank the icedsalt water they gave him and went to bed. He'd get back his strengthwith a proper sodium level in his blood. But he slept for twelve hoursstraight.

  When he got up, he was physically normal again, but abysmally ashamed.It did no good to remind himself that Xosa II was rated minimum-comfortclass D--a blue-white sun and a mean temperature of one hundred and tendegrees. Africans could take such a climate--with night-relief quarters.Amerinds could do steel construction work in the open, protected only byinsulated shoes and gloves. But Bordman could not venture out-of-doorsexcept in a heat-suit. He couldn't stay long then. It was not aweakness. It was a matter of genetics. But he was ashamed.

  Aletha nodded to him when he found the Project Engineer's office. Itoccupied one of the hulls in which colony-establishment materials hadbeen lowered by rocket power. There were forty of the hulls, and theyhad been emptied and arranged for inter-communication in three separatecommunities, so that an individual could change his quarters andordinary associates from time to time and colony fever--franticirritation with one's companions--was minimized.

  Aletha sat at a desk, busily making notes from a loose leaf volumebefore her. The wall behind the desk was fairly lined with similarvolumes.

  "I made a spectacle of myself!" said Bordman, bitte
rly.

  "Not at all!" Aletha assured him. "It could happen to anybody. Iwouldn't do too well on Timbuk."

  There was no answer to that. Timbuk was essentially a jungle planet,barely emerging from the carboniferous stage. Its colonists thrivedbecause their ancestors had lived on the shores of the Gulf of Guinea,on Earth. But Anglos did not find its climate healthful, nor would manyother races. Amerinds died there quicker than most.

  "Ralph's on the way here now," added Aletha. "He and Dr. Chuka were outpicking a place to leave the records. The sand dunes here are terrible,you know. When an explorer-ship does come to find out what's happened tous, these buildings could be covered up completely. Any place could be.It isn't easy to pick a record-cache that's quite sure to be found."

  "When," said Bordman skeptically, "there's nobody left alive to point itout. Is that it?"

  "That's it," agreed Aletha. "It's pretty bad all around. I didn't planto die just yet."

  Her voice was perfectly normal. Bordman snorted. As a senior ColonialSurvey officer, he'd been around. But he'd never yet known a humancolony to be extinguished when it was properly equipped and after aproper pre-settlement survey. He'd seen panic, but never real cause fora matter-of-fact acceptance of doom.

  * * * * *

  There was a clanking noise outside the hulk which was the ProjectEngineer's headquarters. Bordman couldn't see clearly through thefiltered ports. He reached over and opened a door. The brightnessoutside struck his eyes like a blow. He blinked them shut instantly andturned away. But he'd seen a glistening, caterwheel ground car stoppingnot far from the doorway.

  He stood wiping tears from his light-dazzled eyes as footsteps soundedoutside. Aletha's cousin came in, followed by a huge man with remarkablydark skin. The dark man wore eyeglasses with a curiously thick, corklikenosepiece to insulate the necessary metal of the frame from his skin. Itwould blister if it touched bare flesh.

  "This is Dr. Chuka," said Redfeather pleasantly, "Mr. Bordman. Dr.Chuka's the director of mining and mineralogy here."

  Bordman shook hands with the ebony-skinned man. He grinned, showingstartlingly white teeth. Then he began to shiver.

  "It's like a freeze-box in here," he said in a deep voice. "I'll get arobe and be with you."

  He vanished through a doorway, his teeth chattering audibly. Aletha'scousin took half a dozen deliberate deep breaths and grimaced.

  "I could shiver myself," he admitted "but Chuka's really acclimated toXosa. He was raised on Timbuk."

  Bordman said curtly:

  "I'm sorry I collapsed on landing. It won't happen again. I came here todo a degree-of-completion survey that should open the colony to normalcommerce, let the colonists' families move in, tourists, and so on. ButI was landed by boat instead of normally, and I am told the colony isdoomed. I would like an official statement of the degree of completionof the colony's facilities and an explanation of the unusual points Ihave just mentioned."

  The Indian blinked at him. Then he smiled faintly. The dark man cameback, zipping up an indoor warmth-garment. Redfeather dryly brought himup to date by repeating what Bordman had just said. Chuka grinned andsprawled comfortably in a chair.

  "I'd say," he remarked humorously, in that astonishingly deep-tonedvoice of his, "sand got in our hair. And our colony. And the landinggrid. There's a lot of sand on Xosa. Wouldn't you say that was thetrouble?"

  The Indian said with elaborate gravity:

  "Of course wind had something to do with it."

  Bordman fumed.

  "I think you know," he said fretfully, "that as a senior Colonial Surveyofficer, I have authority to give any orders needed for my work. I giveone now. I want to see the landing grid--if it is still standing. I takeit that it didn't fall down?"

  Redfeather flushed beneath the bronze pigment of his skin. It would behard to offend a steelman more than to suggest that his work did notstand up.

  "I assure you," he said politely, "that it did not fall down."

  "Your estimate of its degree of completion?"

  "Eighty per cent," said Redfeather formally.

  "You've stopped work on it?"

  "Work on it has been stopped," agreed the Indian.

  "Even though the colony can receive no more supplies until it iscompleted?"

  "Just so," said Redfeather without expression.

  "Then I issue a formal order that I be taken to the landing-grid siteimmediately," said Bordman angrily. "I want to see what sort ofincompetence is responsible! Will you arrange it--at once?"

  Redfeather said in a completely emotionless voice:

  "You want to see the site of the landing grid. Very good. Immediately."

  He turned and walked out into the incredible, blinding sunshine. Bordmanblinked at the momentary blast of light, and then began to pace up anddown the office. He fumed. He was still ashamed of his collapse from theheat during the travel from the landed rocket-boat to the colony.Therefore he was touchy and irritable. But the order he had given wasstrictly justifiable.

  He heard a small noise. He whirled. Dr. Chuka, huge and black andspectacled, rocked back and forth in his seat, suppressing laughter.

  "Now, what the devil does that mean?" demanded Bordman suspiciously. "Itcertainly isn't ridiculous to ask to see the structure on which the lifeof the colony finally depends!"

  "Not ridiculous," said Dr. Chuka. "It's--hilarious!"

  He boomed laughter in the office with the rounded ceiling of a remaderobot hull. Aletha smiled with him, though her eyes were grave.

  "You'd better put on a heat-suit," she said to Bordman.

  He fumed again, tempted to defy all common sense because its dictateswere not the same for everybody. But he marched away, back to thecubbyhole in which he had awakened. Angrily, he donned the heat-suitthat had not protected him adequately before, but had certainly savedhis life. He filled the canteens topping full--he suspected he hadn'tdone so the last time. He went back to the Project Engineer's officewith a feeling of being burdened and absurd.

  * * * * *

  Out a filter-window, he saw that men with skins as dark as Dr. Chuka'swere at work on a ground car. They were equipping it with a sunshade andcurious shields like wings. Somebody pushed a sort of caterwheelhandtruck toward it. They put big, heavy tanks into its cargo space. Dr.Chuka had disappeared, but Aletha was back at work making notes from theloose-leaf volume on the desk.

  "May I ask," asked Bordman with some irony, "what your work happens tobe just now?"

  She looked up.

  "I thought you knew," she said in surprise. "I'm here for the AmerindHistorical Society. I can certify coups. I'm taking coup-records for theSociety. They'll go in the record-cache Ralph and Dr. Chuka arearranging, so no matter what happens to the colony, the record of thecoups won't be lost."

  "Coups?" demanded Bordman. He knew that Amerinds painted feathers on thekey-posts of steel structures they'd built, and he knew that the postingof such "coup-marks" was a cherished privilege and undoubtedly asurvival or revival of some American Indian tradition back on Earth.But he did not know what they meant.

  "Coups," repeated Aletha matter-of-factly. "Ralph wears threeeagle-feathers. You saw them. He has three coups. Pinions, too! He builtthe landing grids on Norlath and--Oh, you don't know!"

  "I don't," admitted Bordman, his temper not of the best because of whatseemed unnecessary condescensions on Xosa II.

  Aletha looked surprised.

  "In the old days," she explained, "back on Earth, if a man scalped anenemy, he counted coup. The first to strike an enemy in a battle countedcoup, too--a lesser one. Nowadays a man counts coups for differentthings, but Ralph's three eagle-feathers mean he's entitled to as muchrespect as a warrior in the old days who, three separate times, hadkilled and scalped an enemy warrior in the middle of his own camp. Andhe is, too!"

  Bordman grunted.

  "Barbarous, I'd say!"

  "If you like," said Aletha. "But it's something
to be proud of--and onedoesn't count coup for making a lot of money!" Then she paused and saidcurtly: "The word 'snobbish' fits it better than 'barbarous.' We aresnobs! But when the head of a clan stands up in Council in the Big Tepeeon Algonka, representing his clan, and men have to carry the ends of thefeather headdress with all the coups the members of his clan haveearned--why one is proud to belong to that clan!" She added defiantly,"Even watching it on a vision-screen!"

  Dr. Chuka opened the outer door. Blinding light poured in. He did notenter--and his body glistened with sweat.

  "Ready for you, Mr. Bordman!"

  Bordman adjusted his goggles and turned on the motors of his heat-suit.He went out the door.

  * * * * *

  The heat and light outside were oppressive. He darkened the gogglesagain and made his way heavily to the waiting, now-shaded ground car. Henoted that there were other changes beside the sunshade. The cover-deckof the cargo space was gone, and there were cylindrical riding seatslike saddles in the back. The odd lower shields reached out sidewisefrom the body, barely above the caterwheels. He could not make out theirpurpose and irritably failed to ask.

  "All ready," said Redfeather coldly. "Dr. Chuka's coming with us. Ifyou'll get in here,