Fiasco Read Online Free PDF

hips, the beams and drive shafts of the thighs, the shielding on the knee joints, the ribwork of the shins—everything shone, spotless, indicating that the giant had as yet done no work. Parvis experienced both joy and butterflies in the stomach. He swallowed with difficulty. As the light moved off, he walked around behind the Digla. Its foot, as he approached it, bore less and less of a resemblance to a human foot of steel; it became a caricature, and then, near the sole sunken in the dust, bore no resemblance at all. Parvis stood as if at the base of a dock derrick that nothing could budge. The armored heel could have served as the support of a hydraulic press. The ankle had cotter pins like screw propellers, and the knee, bulging halfway up the leg, at a height of at least two stories, was like the drum of a steam roller. The hands of the giant, larger than power-shovel dippers, hung motionless, frozen at attention.
    Though Goss had gone off somewhere, the pilot did not intend to wait. He saw the steps that jutted from the back edge of the heel, and the grip bars, so he began to ascend. The ankle was encircled by a small platform from which rose, now inside the trusswork of the calf, a vertical ladder. It was not difficult so much as strange to climb its rungs. The ladder led him to a hatch that was situated not too conveniently above the right thigh—for the reason that the original, most logical place (for the builders) had become the butt of endless jokes. The designers of the first striders ignored this low humor, of course, but later they had to take it into account. It came to light that operators were reluctant to sign up for these Atlases, teased by their colleagues about how one got inside them.
    Unbolting the hatch activated a garland of tiny lights. He took a spiral staircase to the cabin. The cabin was like a great glass barrel or section of pipe transfixing the chest of the Digla—not in the center but on the left, as if the engineers had wanted to put a man in the place the heart would be if the giant were living.
    He cast his eyes around the interior, now also lit, and with considerable relief saw that the control systems were familiar. He felt at home. Quickly removing his helmet and getting out of his suit, he turned up the heat: all he was wearing was a jersey and tights, and to move the giant he would need to strip completely. Warm air filled the cabin. At the convex front pane, he gazed into the distance. It was daybreak, and gloomy as usual; on Titan a storm always seemed to be brewing. In the dim light he observed the scattered rocks of a region far beyond the landing field. He was eight stories up, and it was like looking from the window of an office building. He could even look down on the mushroom of the control tower. Except for the mountain peaks at the horizon, only the prow of the Helios stood above him. Through the side walls of glass, also curved, he could see into the dark shafts, poorly illuminated, full of machinery that slowly, steadily sighed, as if awakened from a trance or sleep. The cabin contained no control consoles, no steering wheels, no viewscreens; there was nothing but a piece of clothing, crumpled on the floor like an empty, metallically glittering skin, and two mosaics of black cubes fastened to the front glass. The cubes were like blocks in a child's playpen, because their surfaces held silhouettes of tiny arms and legs—the right on the right mosaic, the left on the left. When the colossus walked and everything in it functioned smoothly, each little picture glowed a peaceful willow-green. In the event of a disturbance, the color changed to brown if the problem was minor, and purple for emergencies.
    This was a segmented image of the entire machine projected onto the black mosaic. The young man, in a current of heated air, removed the rest of his clothes; he tossed the jersey in a corner and began pulling on the operator's suit. The elastic material, yielding, clung to