“Where do you want them and when?”
“Have them gather at the Port Terminal building and arrange for shuttles to get them out to the Weasel; there’s enough of a traffic jam under the ship as it is. Be sure to tell them that a round trip should be about three weeks, and have them here within eight hours.”
Erica nodded and Wills cut the connection. CeCe was at the edge of the circle talking to someone on her pad. Helt was at the console and had switched some of the screens to a view along the top of the ship. There were two large floaters hanging next to the hull. One of them was rigidly connected to a heavy metal pipe that was covered with ice and a cloud of vapor as it transferred deuterium fuel to the cryogenic tanks inside the structural core. The second floater was filling the water tanks.
“We should have full tanks in a couple of hours and a full load of provisions in about six hours.” Helt turned to face Wills, “My office is notifying everyone that is tapped for this trip; they should have their gear aboard soon after provisioning is finished.”
“Good, I have a number of extra people on the way. Get some of your people organized to get them up to the crew decks. I gave them an eight hour window; after that, you can release the ship at any time. Your people will have ten days to train them.”
CeCe walked up to them, “I have a couple of dozen medical people on the way. Now, how about explaining this console?”
##
Hayes had Ames and Twisst lying on their acceleration pads/bunks in the tiny cubicles off the narrow passage. He stood on the ladder that ran up between them to the hygiene and food service compartments above them.
“I don’t know how much the two of you know about life on a scout ship, so I’ll run through the standard speech. Do either of you have a problem with free-fall?”
That question got a startled look from both of them.
“Okay, I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. Scout ships aren’t big enough to carry grav plates. The pads you’re lying on are just for acceleration situations and only provide negative effort against positive-g in excess of 1.2 g. While we are in isolator drive we will be in a zero-g condition, so keep that lap belt fastened if you don’t want to float away; it’s only during maneuvering with the AG ring that we will experience g-forces, and those can easily reach lethal levels. If you have any gear that cannot withstand heavy g-loading, I suggest you put it on the pad with you.”
Hayes reached up to a small cabinet in Ames’ cubicle, opened the door, and removed some items. He handed a small red pill to each one of them.
“One of these will do a good job of preventing zero-g nausea, and two of them are an excellent way to get some sleep. I think you know what these bags are for.”
Hayes watched as they both took their pill and washed it down with a squeeze from a water bottle.
“I’ll do the food prep on this trip so you won’t have to get in trouble there. The toilet facilities will require some demonstration that is best explained and demonstrated while actually in zero-g; as for now, get any sensitive gear onto your pad and get these side rails up and locked. Be sure to stay on the pad until I tell you different. We’ll be doing a normal stellar push-off so there will be some maneuvering for about thirty minutes.”
Hayes descended the ladder to the command deck just below the passenger cubicles. He stuck his head into the lower storage compartment and checked that the exterior hatch was sealed; he then lowered the hatch that sealed off that compartment.
The pilot’s acceleration pad/bunk/command chair sat next to the hull and the only transparent port in the whole boat; it gave him a good view across the spaceport and sight of two of the landing struts. He settled into the chair and tapped a couple of input pads. The four screens over his head came to life and the display for the mass resonator wobbled and steadied in the air above his midsection. He could make out the positions of Pebble--the least of the three moons of Archer--the Archer primary, and two of the other five planets even with the mass of Archer itself hazing up the bottom of the display and distorting the overall picture. He tapped the nav pad and called up the, much used, flight plan to Forest; a green line appeared in the air and started rippling, indicating a tentative, but unconfirmed, track. He knew it would firm up once he was clear of Archer’s mass effects.
A visual sweep of the screens showed everything where they should be, “Santana, say status.”
The reply from the AI came back in a husky, blonde bombshell voice, “Hello, Easton, you’re back early. Did you miss me? I missed you. Everything is just wonderful with me. Would you like to watch me take a shower?”
One of the screens changed to a view of an excessively well constructed woman dropping her robe as she stepped into a large shower stall. Hayes jumped out of his chair, lunged for the AI configuration input panel on the back of the chair support structure, and frantically stabbed the RECONFIGURE touch pad.
He heard Doctor Ames call down to him, “What was that, Hayes? It sounded like a woman’s voice.”
Hayes frantically cancelled
