Big Pill

Big Pill is a Science Fiction Story Book. Child, it was, of the now ancient H bomb. New. Untested. Would its terrible power sweep the stark Saturnian moon of Titan from space … or miraculously create a flourishing paradise colony? Under the glow of Saturn and his Rings, five of the airdomes of the new colony on Titan were still inflated. They were enormous bubbles of clear, flexible plastic. But the sixth airdome had flattened. And beneath its collapsed roof, propped now by metal rods, a dozen men in spacesuits had just lost all hope of rescuing the victims of the accident. Bert Kraskow, once of Oklahoma City, more recently a space freighter pilot, and now officially just a colonist, was among them. His small, hard body sagged, as if by weariness. His lips curled. But his full anger and bitterness didn't show. "Nine dead", he remarked into the radio phone of his oxygen helmet. "No survivors". And then, inaudibly, inside his mind: "I'm a stinkin' fool. Why didn't we act against Space Colonists' Supply Incorporated, before this could happen?" His gaze swung back to the great rent that had opened in a seam in the airdome under only normal Earthly atmospheric pressure, when it should have been able to withstand much more. Instantly the warmed air had rushed out into the near vacuum of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Those who had been working the night shift under the dome, to set up prefabricated cottages, had discarded their spacesuits for better freedom of movement. It was the regulation thing to do; always considered safe. But they had been caught by the sudden dropping of pressure around them to almost zero. And by the terrible cold of the Titanian night.