ascending to the Moon with the help of the antigravity pill she’d stolen from her husband. The three-thousand- year-old legend had been the symbol of the Chinese space program since their first manned flight, in the 1980s.
The red warning light winked out as the lock was pressurized, and the latch in the center of the door spun round. The hatch swung open. A man in Army fatigues emerged in an apish crouch that probably was his conception of how to move about in no-g conditions. He had a small round head covered with short blond stubble, and very wide shoulders. The leaf on his lapel said he was a major.
Grogan, still in his spacesuit but with his helmet off, was hovering helpfully just behind him. Behind Grogan Jameson could make out the shape of one of the bosun’s mates extracting a ruffled-looking noncom from a collapsed rescue ball. There was a lot of activity inside the lock. They’d probably squeezed a third of the bomb crew inside. The rest presumably were bobbing around outside in their inflated balls while the other bosun’s mate held on to the tether.
“Welcome aboard, Major,” Boyle said. Across the chamber, Captain Hsieh nodded his head just perceptibly; as protocol dictated, and echoed Boyle.
The major saluted smartly—too smartly—and got himself into trouble. Behind him, Grogan shot out a big meaty paw and grasped his upper arm to keep him in contact with the deck.
“Hollis,” the man said, flushing. “Major Dexter B. Hollis, in command of Special Nuclear Strike Group Lambda One, reporting.”
Before one of the Chinese could object, Boyle said, “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you for your sidearm, Major. No firearms allowed aboard.”
Hollis stared at the captain a moment. A knot of muscle worked at the hinge of his jaw. Finally he said, “I’m under independent orders, Captain. You know that.”
Boyle held out his hand. “And I’m in command of this ship, Major. Along with Captain Hsieh here. Your command comes under our authority in everything concerning the safety of the ship. There’s no use for a handgun here. Hand it over.”
Tu Jue-chen was watching expectantly, her monkey eyes bright. Hollis glanced at her and shrugged. He unbuckled the heavy gun belt and gave it to Boyle.
“Thank you, Major,” Boyle said. “I’ll give you a receipt for that. It’ll stay in my safe. You’ll get it back at the end of the voyage.”
The bomb crew began to file out of the lock, big unfriendly-looking men with hard-bitten faces, shuffling awkwardly in their Velcro socks. They all had specialist ratings, patches with an eagle clutching a missile in one claw sewn to their sleeves. All of them looked miserable from their fetal confinement in the three-foot rescue balls, and one of them had a uniform covered with vomit; the trip across from Eurostation must have been pure hell for him, but he was keeping his head up and his jaw tight.
“I can have one of our officers show this group down while we’re waiting for the rest of your men,” Boyle said to the major. “They’re welcome to use the crew facilities to clean up—we’ve got a few more amenities than in the prefab modules they’ve assigned to you—and we’ve got coffee and refreshments waiting for them in the lounge.”
“We’ll go directly to our own quarters, Captain,” Hollis said tightly. “Thanks anyway. I’ll wait here until they’re all inside. I’ll keep them together, and I’ll see that they stay out of the main part of the ship except on official business.”
“It’s going to be a long trip,” the captain said. Those prefab modules are cramped.”
“We’ll manage,” Hollis said. “And we’ll stay out of your way.”
The antechamber was filling up with the second group. A couple more of the men had been sick on the way over, and the aroma in the enclosed space was getting a little hard to take. Hollis watched through narrowed eyes as his men tried to shape up in a military manner. He’d turned his back pointedly after the initial introductions.
Grogan sidled up next to Jameson. “What d’you think of those apes?” he said in a low tone.
“I don’t like it,” Jameson said. “Twenty-four additional men cooped up with us for a year and a half. It changes the ratio of men to women to about two to one. There’s going to be trouble, you can count on it. I just hope none of those men goes prowling for Chinese women, that’s all.”
“You don’t have to worry, Commander,” Grogan said sardonically. “They brought along a girl with them.”
“A girl?” Jameson said incredulously. “One girl for the bunch of them? What the hell is the Army up to? That’s right out of the dark ages, like the sort of thing they were trying after the first Mars expedition!”
“You should see her, Commander,” Grogan said. “A real tough cookie. Wearing specialist’s stripes, too. Some specialty, huh?”
Jameson tried to suppress a grin. “Let’s hope she doesn’t get sick.”
“Commander, if she gets sick, they get sick too.”
The lock cycled again. Hollis waited long enough to make sure that his group was complete, then herded them in twos and threes toward the lift shaft, where a noncom stoically shepherded them to an assembly point at the rim. It took Jameson a moment to pick out the girl. She was as big and tough-looking as the men, dressed in the same shapeless fatigues, but her cheeks were shiny-smooth and she had a thick braid of blond hair hanging down her back. Then they were gone, Grogan and the bosun’s mates with them, leaving nothing but a smell of sweat and stale vomit behind.
The new astronomer came aboard later that day. His name was Ruiz, and he looked a little old for space, but he handled himself well in no-g. They hadn’t subjected him to the indignity of a rescue ball; he looked too brittle for that, and he was a VIP. He was ferried over from Eurostation in a small passenger gig with an assistant, a grave dark-eyed little girl named Maybury who somehow looked familiar.
She saw Jameson looking at her and said at once, “It was the Eurostation-Texas shuttle a couple of weeks ago, Commander. We were seatmates.”
“Of course. You were wearing a poncho, and you were on your way to Nevada.” He shook hands with the two of them. Ruiz had the knack, but the girl’s feet lost contact, and Jameson had to discreetly plant her again.
Boyle and Captain Hsieh were off somewhere for a meeting with the fusion engineers, making preparations for engine start-up. After Yeh Fei and Tu Juechen had stiffly completed their share of the formalities, and Kay Thorwald had excused herself and disappeared, Jameson volunteered to get Ruiz and Maybury settled.
“Just stay close to a wall and don’t move too abruptly and you’ll be all right,” he said. “There are cords strung along the corridors, and those socks they gave you will stick to the fuzzy strips along the floors. If you
“Or some friendly passerby will bounce himself off of us, eh?” Ruiz said.
Jameson smiled appreciatively. “Oh, you’ve spent some time in free fall, then? I know you both were stationed on the Moon, but…”
“I put in almost two years at the old L-5 orbital observatory when I was a young man,” Ruiz said. “They spun the living quarters, but I spent my working days in the cage. Big warehouse of a place. Even a small fraction of a g, of course, would have made the big mirror sag out of all usefulness. It was made by stretching a film of molten Merlon across a hundred-meter hoop in the first place, and it was less than a millimeter thick at the center.”
“How about you, Mizz Maybury?” Jameson said. “Have you spent much time in free fall?”
“No,” she responded. “That is, except in the Moon shuttle. But of course you spend most of your time belted in your seat, and they have the flight attendants taking care of you and everything.”
“You’re doing very well,” Jameson said charitably. “At any rate, you’ll only have to put up with it for a few more days. We’ll be putting on spin as soon as we’re sure the new modules are fastened securely. After that, we’ll have two thirds of a g all the way—except for a few hours during engine start-up, as a safety precaution.”
At that point they all had to crowd themselves against the corridor wall as one of Grogan’s angels came sailing toward them, halfway-between floor and ceiling, a bundle of plastic struts cradled in his hairy forearms.
“Sorry, Commander,” he said as he shot past; Jameson had to duck the end of a strut. They turned to watch the man. His line of flight was a chord that intersected the shallow upward curve of the corridor, and at the last possible moment, when his chin seemed about to scrape the floor, he gave an expert push of one foot, like the flick of a goldfish’s tail, and launched himself on a new chord toward the invisible ceiling beyond.
“I’ll never be able to do that,” Maybury said ruefully.
“He shouldn’t be doing it either,” Jameson said. “It’s against the safety rules.”
