Samuel J. Sackett

“ Erskine said as he climbed into the scout and clanged the door shut behind him. He pressed a button which cleared out the faint traces of Uranian atmosphere in the cabin and pumped in an Earth-type mixture. Then he unscrewed his helmet and grinned at Nils, who by then was struggling with his own. "I hear you got your sixth one today," he said, starting up the jets.
"That's right," Nils answered self-consciously.
"Well, that's good. There aren't many men with six lions to their credit." He took off, and Nils could feel the scout rising, heading out into space. ”

“ Up on the raft, where they heard the message, the drum went round and paid out another twenty feet of the cable by which Nils Borgmann was suspended in the Uranian atmosphere. Borgmann took aim and fired.
The shape kept moving. An air lion's hide is so tough that you have to hit it right under the ribs or through the eye in order to kill it, and Nils could not see that one clearly enough, despite the headlamp on his helmet. ”

“ Realizing that he must have looked puzzled, he laughed. "It slipped my mind completely," he explained. "When you're on another planet, Earth dates get all mixed up."
Kerr said, "The captain's ordered you aloft for a physical check-up. It came over the radio while you were down."
Nils Borgmann stopped laughing. That could mean he'd never get a chance to make another plunge, never have another crack at an air lion, never collect that seventh bonus. They'd rotate him, put him on the mother ship and fill in on the raft with a substitute. ”

“ One would say that a bountiful Providence had been good to the air lion. Granted the inconveniences of its environment, certainly the air lion was efficiently equipped by Nature to live on its home planet. But Providence also provided the air lion with a natural enemy which bade fair to exterminate the species. ”

“ The "northern" hemisphere, then, is that side of the planet which is always turned toward the sun—for which the sun is the pole star. This restriction on the area in which air lions may thrive imposed a natural limitation on the number of animals which there were in the first place. The demand for air lion pelts—despite the fact that the beasts were so large that an entire coat might be made from one of them—caused a dangerous depletion.
Nils's helmet broke atmosphere, and then hands were grappling him, helping him up the ladder, and pulling him aboard the "raft." ”

“ For six of them you man the pumps or the radio equipment or the cable drum while the other men plunge, and you make your plunges in the other two.
When Nils went on duty that day, he was on the radio, and Kerr was down below. The optimism he had felt after his talk with the captain was dissipated. He realized that, after all, the air lions were a disappearing species. He had been here hunting them for six months and had bagged only six. One a month—yet that was the best record of any of the men. ”

“ Nils, you've been on Uranus about six Earth months, now. The doctor says you shouldn't take even one more plunge. It's hard work, and it's a strain, and you're wearing out. You're wearing out gradually—but still faster, much faster, than a man would on Earth, no matter what he did. But this isn't something that just happened yesterday, Nils ”

“ Nils said, grinning. That was another bonus, and each time Nils got a bonus, one of his kids had enough money to get through college. He threw the harpoon and snagged the beast just behind it's right foreflipper. Pulling in the harpoon cable, he made certain that the weapon was firmly embedded in the lion's flesh.
"Pull away," he said.
"We think you'd better come up, too," they said on the raft.
"Okay," Nils said. There was only one more child to earn an education for, and then he was going to quit. ”

“ Nils sat on the ready bench and let the other crewmen adjust the equipment he needed. The rope hooked into the back of his suit; the air hose was connected to the suit oxygenerator, which was strong enough to support a man in airlessness but could not stand the pressure of the Uranian atmosphere and thus needed assistance from the powerful pump on the raft; and the radio wire attached to his light helmet rig. ”

“ You were lucky we let you sign on, close as you were to the age limit. Who can say when you finally crossed the danger line? Maybe a month, maybe two months ago. You've been on borrowed time since then, whenever it was. ”