The Space Trilogy: Islands of the Sky Earthlight the Sands of Mars by Clarke Arthur C

Author:Clarke, Arthur C. [Clarke, Arthur C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy
ISBN: 9781857987805
Amazon: 1857987802
Goodreads: 140195
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 2000-04-01T08:00:00+00:00

Eleven

The amber light was on. Gibson took a last sip of water, cleared his throat gently, and checked that the papers of his script were in the right order. No matter how many times he broadcast, his throat always felt this initial tightness. In the control room, the program engineer held up her thumb; the amber changed abruptly to red.

“Hello, Earth. This is Martin Gibson speaking to you from Port Lowell, Mars. It’s a great day for us here. This morning the new dome was inflated and now the city’s increased its size by almost a half. I don’t know if I can convey any impression of what a triumph this means, what a feeling of victory it gives to us here in the battle against Mars. But I’ll try.

“You all know that it’s impossible to breathe the Martian atmosphere—it’s far too thin and contains practically no oxygen. Port Lowell, our biggest city, is built under six domes of transparent plastic held up by the pressure of the air inside—air which we can breathe comfortably though it’s still much less dense than yours.

“For the last year a seventh dome has been under construction, a dome twice as big as any of the others. I’ll describe it as it was yesterday, when I went inside before the inflation started.

“Imagine a great circular space half a kilometre across, surrounded by a thick wall of glass bricks twice as high as a man. Through this wall lead the passages to the other domes, and the exits direct on to the brilliant green Martian landscape all around us. These passages are simply metal tubes with great doors which close automatically if air escapes from any of the domes. On Mars, we don’t believe in putting all our eggs in one basket!

“When I entered Dome Seven yesterday, all this great circular space was covered with a thin transparent sheet fastened to the surrounding wall, and lying limp on the ground in huge folds beneath which we had to force our way. If you can imagine being inside a deflated balloon you’ll know exactly how I felt. The envelope of the dome is a very strong plastic, almost perfectly transparent and quite flexible—a kind of thick cellophane.

“Of course, I had to wear my breathing mask, for though we were sealed off from the outside there was still practically no air in the dome. It was being pumped in as rapidly as possible, and you could see the great sheets of plastic straining sluggishly as the pressure mounted.

“This went on all through the night. The first thing this morning I went into the dome again, and found that the envelope had now blown itself into a big bubble at the centre, though round the edges it was still lying flat. That huge bubble—it was about a hundred meters across—kept trying to move around like a living creature, and all the time it grew.

“About the middle of the morning it had grown so much that we could see the complete dome taking shape; the envelope had lifted away from the ground everywhere.

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