"We'll get used to it pretty quick, Diana—also more expert," he said when the task was done. "We now have raw material for bow-strings and clothes, as well as food."
"The word 'raw' being heavily accented," Nadia declared, with a grimace. "But how do we know that they're good to eat?"
"We'll have to eat 'em and see," he grinned. "I don't imagine that any flesh is really poisonous, and we'll have to arrive at the ones we like best by a process of trial and error. Well, here's your job—I'll get busy on mine. Don't go more than a few hundred meters away and yell if you get into a jam."
"There's a couple of questions I want to ask you. What makes it so warm here, when the sun's so far away and Jupiter isn't supposed to be radiating any heat? And how about time? It's twelve hours by my watch since sunrise this morning, and it's still shining."
"As for heat, I've been wondering about that. It must be due to internal heat, because even though Jupiter may be warm, or even hot, it certainly isn't radiating much, since it has a temperature of minus two hundred at the visible surface, which, of course, is the top of the atmosphere. Our heat here is probably caused by radioactivity—that's the most modern dope, I believe. As for time, it looks as though our days were something better than thirty hours long, instead of twenty-four. Of course I'll keep the chronometer going on I-P time, since we'll probably need it in working out observations; but we might as well let our watches run down and work, eat, and sleep by the sun—not much sense in trying to keep Tellurian time here, as I see it. Check?"
"All x. I'll have supper ready for you at sunset. 'Bye!"
A few evenings later, when Stevens came in after his long day's work, he was surprised to see Nadia dressed in a suit of brown coveralls and high-laced moccasins.
"How do I look?" she asked, pirouetting gayly.
"Neat, but not gaudy," he approved. "That's good mole-skin—smooth, soft, and tough. Where'd you make the raise? I didn't know we had anything like that on board. What did you do for thread? You look like a million dollars—you sure did a good job of fitting."
"I had to have something—what with all the thorns and brush, there was almost more of me exposed than covered, and I was getting scratched up something fierce. So I ripped up one of the space-suits, and found out that there's enough cloth, fur, and leather in one of them to make six ordinary suits, and thread by the kilometer. I was awfully glad to see all that thread—I had an idea that I'd have to unravel my stockings or something, but I didn't. Your clothes are getting pretty tacky, too, and you're getting all burned with those hot coals and things. I'm going to build you a suit out of leather for your blacksmithing activities."