"Edmond Hamilton - Captain Future's Worlds of Tomorrow 02 - Pluto" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

It was seen that an Earthman colony would need elabo-
rate protection against the cold and storms of the icy
planet.
So, in 2011, a more ambitious colonizing attempt
was made. A large glassite dome was set up and air-
conditioned by atomic machinery, and inside this dome
was built the city appropriately named Tartarus. The
domed cities of Elysia and Newton were built nearby
soon after, and other Earthmen cities arose shortly on
the other side of the planet.
Cerberus, until then rarely visited, was designated
by the System Government as the site of an Interplane-
tary Prison, in 2012. Charon, was even less often visit-
ed, because of the nightmare ferocity of its animal life.
Styx, the third moon, had been ignored from the first
because it was plain to be seen it was completely water-
covered.
EARTH'S NEW COLONY
The Earthman colony on Pluto has flourished, but
growth has not been fast. The vast distance from the in-
ner planets has necessitated design of a wholly new
type of spaceship with great cruising-radius. Also, dis-
tance from the sun so weakens the ultraviolet and other
necessary solar radiation that Earthmen find it neces-
sary to resort to periodical exposure to artificial thera-
peutic vibrations to counteract this lack. Temperament
and character also, on the outer planets, suffers curious
alterations.
Chief exports from Pluto, beside the furs that are fa-
mous through the whole System, are such valuable met-
als as cadmium, vanadium, tungsten and others. There
are small radium mines north of Lethe Ocean but they
produce but little compared to the great uranium and ra-
dium industry of Jupiter. There is a certain demand
from planetary zoos for the bizarre Plutonian animals,
which must, of course, be kept in refrigerated cages.
It is probable that when more of Pluto's icy surface
is explored, new sources of valuable exports will be
found. One curious feature that must be mentioned in
connection with this distant planet is the strange mental
affliction which the System psychiatrists call "Plutoma-
nia." Earthmen and other people of the inner planets
who stay long on the icy world are liable to develop a
queer psychosis that is manifested as an hysterical crav-
ing for light.
This malady arises, of course, from the eternal dusk
of this world. Venusians, accustomed to more light than
Earthmen, are affected more quickly. Mercurians are so
strongly affected that few of that race have ever visited
the planet.