The Escape Orbit by James White Page B

which is driving you. I am aware of the situation here, you see, and I can say that I have the greatest respect and admiration for officers like yourself who have resisted the pressures to adopt polygamy as a solution. But there are certain aspects of this duty, certain dangers, which you should consider. Not only is the terrain rugged between Hutton’s mountain and this town, with the danger of battlers every mile of the way, but at the end of the trip there is the frightful risk of being mauled by two hundred and fifty men who have not seen a girl for…”
    They laughed longer than the crack warranted, he thought, but when they had settled down again the questions were simply requests for information rather than subtly worded objections. And by the time the meeting ended Warren had eight more volunteers and the questioning had turned to the possibility of obtaining leave on their various home planets after the Escape.
    He knew than that he had them, and that there was little if anything that Peters would be able to do about it.

Chapter 9

    The complex system of tunnels and chambers had been carved out of the solid rock to duplicate the major corridors and compartments of the great Bug guardship, Hutton told him, and the dimensions and proportions were as accurate as repeated psychological probing of the memories of the prisoners could make them. As he spoke the major sounded intensely proud of the place—with justification, Warren thought.
    “This was part of the mine’s original workings,” Hutton went on, “since bypassed because of low yield. Someone remembered that the useless tunnel was approximately the same length as the central corridor of the guardship, so we decided to cut out Control, Drive and shuttle-cock compartments and use it for training assault groups. The later additions and refinements—cross corridors, the Bug living quarters that we know about, dummy controls and Drive housings—were and are useful in training, but they also served as make-work for the people who, with nothing but assault drills to occupy them, would otherwise go stale. Only the more important compartments have been reproduced and the bulkheads are, of course, greater than scale thickness because of the necessity of supporting the system. The entry locks have been made as bulky and difficult to operate as the real ones, but the two things which we cannot hope to reproduce are the Bug lighting and the weightless conditions…”
    Hutton broke off as another assault group pounded along the corridor past them. The men wore kilts, but there were bulky wickerwork baskets covering their heads and heavy logs strapped to their shoulders to simulate the equipment they would have to carry.
    “Those kilts give too much freedom of movement,” Warren said. “The drills should be more life-like. Can you reproduce the Bug atmosphere…” he broke off, nearly strangling himself in an effort not to cough.
    “It is bad today, sir,” said Hutton apologetically. “The wind must be blowing up the gorge again.”
    The base of Hutton’s Mountain was riddled with interconnecting tunnels, labs, living quarters and the ventilating system which rendered them livable. The air inlets, which also served as observation and communications tunnels, joined the main network at several points while a single outlet used the chimney effect to carry away the smoke and heat from the smelter and machine shops, at the same time drawing fresh air into and through the rest of the system. This outlet emerged some distance up the mountain in a gorge so narrow and steep that the river responsible for its formation fell in a series of spectacular cataracts, the spray from which merged with the smoke so effectively that it was impossible to distinguish them at a distance of a few hundred feet much less from an orbiting guardship. But when the wind blew directly into the gorge, as it did a few times a month, the smoke did not escape completely and the interior of the