Niflheim was worse than airless, much worse.
The chief engineer sat at his controls, making the minor lateral
adjustments in the vehicle's position which were not possible to the
automatic controls. One of the radiomen was receiving from the orbital
base; the other was saying, over and over, in an exasperatedly
patient voice: "Dr. Murillo. Dr. Murillo. Please come in, Dr.
Murillo." At his own panel of instruments, a small man with grizzled
black hair around a bald crown, and a grizzled beard, chewed nervously
at the stump of a dead cigar and listened intently to what was--or for
what wasn't--coming in to his headset receiver. A couple of assistants
checked dials and refreshed their memories from notebooks and peered
anxiously into the big screen. A large, plump-faced, young man in
soiled khaki shirt and shorts, with extremely hairy legs, was doodling
on his notepad and eating candy out of a bag. And a black-haired girl
in a suit of coveralls three sizes too big for her, and, apparently,
not much of anything else, lounged with one knee hooked over her
chair-arm, staring into the screen at the distant horizon.
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