Something else did. The freezer element of his deep-freeze locker broke down. He didn't notice it. He had a small kitchen locker in which food for week-to-week use was stored. He didn't know anything about the deep-freeze unit that held a whole growing season's supply of food. The food in it—all imported from Earth and very expensive—thawed, fermented, spoiled, developed evil smelling gases, and waited for an appropriate moment to reveal itself as a catastrophe.
There were other things to worry about at the time. A glacier up at Cetis Gamma Two's polar region began to retreat, instead of growing as was normal for the season. There was a remarkable solar prominence of three days' duration swinging around the equator of the local sun. There was a meeting of directors of the Cetis Gamma Trading Company, at which one of the directors pointed out that the normal curve of increase for profits was beginning to flatten out, and something had to be done to improve the financial position of the company. Ugly sun-spots appeared on the northern hemisphere of Cetis Gamma. If there had been any astronomers on the job, there would have been as much excitement as a four alarm fire. But there were no astronomers.
The greatest agitation on the second planet of Cetis Gamma Two was felt by Lon Simpson. Cathy had made friends with a married woman colonist who would chaperon her on a visit to Lon's farm, and was coming out to visit and see the place that was to be the scene of the ineffable, unparalleled happiness she and Lon would know after they were married.
She came, she saw, she was captivated. Lon blissfully opened the door of the house she was to share. He had spent the better part of two days cleaning up so it would be fit for her to look at. Cathy entered. There was a dull, booming noise, a hissing, and a bubbling, and then a rank stench swept through the house and strangled them.
The boom, of course, was the bursting open of the deep-freeze locker from the pressure of accumulated gases within it. The smell was that of the deep-freeze contents, ten days thawed out without Lon knowing it. There are very few smells much worse than frozen fish gone very, very bad in a hot climate. If there are worse smells, they come from once-frozen eggs bursting from their shells when pressure outside them is relieved. In this case, trimmings were added by fermenting strawberries, moldy meat and badly decayed vegetables, all triumphantly making themselves known at the same instant.
Cathy gasped and choked. Lon got her out of doors, gasping himself. It was not difficult to deduce what had happened.
He opened the house windows from the outside, so the smell could go away. But he knew despair.
"I—can't show you the house, Cathy," he said numbly. "My locker went bad and all the food followed suit."
"Lon!" wailed Cathy. "It's terrible! How will you eat?"