The Lotus Eaters

that the orbit that kept the ghost fleet on the dark side of the moon had been chosen for the boneyard precisely so that the sails could be inspected without the worry of the sun's light pushing the ships out of orbit. The little light reflected from the Earth, at the current angle, was not expected to be a problem for the duration of the exercise.

The hull of the Monnet was lit now, in places, both from navigation lights and, emanating from the interior through portholes, light from recovered and repowered cabins. There was still no gravity inside, a situation that in some ways aided but more generally interfered with recovery efforts. Neither would there be any gravity, barring only the moon's insignificant tug, until the crew was certain enough of Monnet's structural integrity to begin to spin her up. And, should they discover that there were problems with the hull, that spin up would not take place until the ship was maneuvered to the only site in the solar system capable of dealing with such problems, the toroidal shipyard just sunward from the system's asteroid belt.

And if we've got to use the shipyard, Marguerite thought, we're just screwed. At least with Monnet. I picked this one because it seemed likely to be our best and easiest recovery. I don't have—Earth doesn't have—the skilled space workers to do a serious repair anymore. I'm hoping that these repairs will go some ways towards fixing that lack.

The sail continued to spread as the filling gas forced the sail's ring further and further outward. It was really quite magnificent in its way, as much so as wind filling the sails of wet navy ships had been in an earlier day. Whatever the Monnet's sail lacked in ruffle and snap, moreover, it more than made up for in size. It was simply huge, even staggeringly huge. Looked at from the side, it utterly dwarfed the ship it was designed to propel, even though that elongated, egg-shaped ship was approximately the size of an old style, wet navy super carrier.

United Earth Colonization Service (UECS) Ship Jean Monnet, AD 2524

You can't hear the crack of a flapping sail, thought Peace's chief engineer, Commander McFarland, detached to command the Monnet until he could train a replacement. You can't hear it but you can feel it.

That was true enough. As the sail's ring filled and it stretched out, it also stretched the thousands of filaments—the sheets—that bound it to the ship, sending a vibration even through that massive vessel, through the bearing that connected the bridge to that vessel, and through the captain's chair to which McFarland was strapped in the absence of gravity. Since, even when underway, the bridge of the Monnet contra-rotated against the spin of the main hull, there was never any gravity there anyway.

Others would go out later, in shuttles, to inspect the forward side of the sail. From where the engineer—no, the captain, now—stood, however, things looked—

'She's nearly as good as the day she was launched, skipper,' said one of bridge crew. 'Ninety-seven percent of the sheets show up as solid. We've enough in ship's stores to replace those which aren't.'

McFarland nodded, then keyed his intercom for his propulsion section. 'Your crew ready to get in their EVA suits and inspect the inside of the sail, Mr. Buthelezi?' he asked.

Came the answer, 'As ready as they're going to be, skipper. They're already suited and lined up at the mast locks.'

'Very good,' McFarland said. 'Do it.'

* * *

In the very beginning, centuries past, it had been determined that lightships would require a mast to support the sail and for the sail to rest against when furled. Moreover, since the ships' primary means of both propulsion and breaking would be the light of a sun, either there would have to be two sails, or the entire ship would have to rotate to set the sail for braking, which would require reaction mass, or the mast and sail would have to rotate around the ship, which would require structural mass, machinery and, in a word, complications. It had been a very close call at the time. Nonetheless, the consensus had finally settled upon a rotating mast as being no more difficult to build and, in operation, somewhat cheaper.

Rumors that the decision was driven more by the particulars of ownership of the consortium that would build the rotating machinery were, of course, ruthlessly suppressed.

It was up this hollow mast, devoid of gravity but for the trivial tug of Luna, far below, that Buthelezi and two dozen suited midshipmen pulled themselves, hand over hand, through hard vacuum. Behind them, behind the closed hatch of the air lock, another group of twenty-five was already preparing to take their places.

EVA work was both tiring and dangerous.

UEPF Spirit of Peace, Luna Starship Holding and Storage Area

At this distance even image intensification couldn't make the boys and girls inspecting and repairing Monnet's sail anything more than dots that occasionally sparked as they used their suits' backpack maneuver units to move across and above the inner surface of the sail.

Wallenstein found that she actually cared about these boys and girls. And why not? They're my people? And they're so damned eager to please they almost make me think the system has a chance. Elder gods, was I ever so innocent?

While Class One parents had not just pulled strings but formed circle and weighed anchors to keep their precious little darlings from being graduated early and dragged off, Class Twos had tended to see the early graduation as an opportunity. It was an absolute fact that, excepting only Richard, Earl of Care, not one Class One middie was scheduled to join Wallenstein's fleet and not one young Class Two or Three had objected to joining.

Marguerite listened, smiling, to the chatter over the radio as the midshipmen found little rips in the fabric of the sail and swooped down to seal the rips with strips of tape specially made for the purpose some long ago day. They didn't find many such rips. That there were rips at all was a result of orbiting astral debris that could even puncture the hull of ship. Indeed, that had been the major job in bringing the Monnet back on line,