HOT PLANET
Mercury had no atmosphere—everyone knew
that. Why was it developing one now?
I
The wind which had nearly turned the Albireo's landing into a disaster instead of a mathematical exercise was still playing tunes about the fins and landing legs as Schlossberg made his way down to Deck Five.
The noise didn't bother him particularly, though the endless seismic tremors made him dislike the ladders. But just now he was able to ignore both. He was curious—though not hopeful.
"Is there anything at all obvious on the last sets of tapes, Joe?"
Mardikian, the geophysicist, shrugged. "Just what you'd expect ... on a planet which has at least one quake in each fifty-mile-square area every five minutes. You know yourself we had a nice seismic program set up, but when we touched down we f
