ORE SHIP
OUTSIDE
Theo’s nose twitched at the sharp tang of his own perspiration that pervaded his space suit. He was floating at the end of a buckyball tether, watching the squat little maintenance robots place a new section of meteor bumper atop the ship’s outer skin.
“Your suit temperature has risen five degrees in the past ten minutes, Thee,” Angie’s voice sounded in his helmet earphones. She didn’t seem worried about it; just doing her job of monitoring his EVA from the command pod.
“Turning up the suit fans,” Theo obediently replied, jabbing a gloved finger on the proper key in the control pad on his left wrist. He heard the pitch of the suit’s cooling fans rise slightly. His father had often said the fans sounded like the whine of mosquitoes on a summer night; Theo had never heard mosquitoes, never experienced a summer night on Earth.
“Ten more minutes on the timeline,” Angie called.
He nodded inside his bubble helmet. “We’re gonna run a little long. They haven’t got the bumper fastened in place yet.”
“We have an extra thirty minutes built into the timeline.”
“Right.” Theo knew his suit held enough air for another hour and more. No sweat, he told himself, then grimaced at the phrase. He was sweating plenty inside the heavily insulated suit. Funny, he thought, this far from the Sun you’d think it’d be freezing out here. But even the wan distant Sun was powerful enough to drench him with perspiration. The suit didn’t let heat out, he knew. Maybe I ought to build a radiator into the backpack for long excursions like this.
He had ventured out the main airlock four hours ago to direct the robots in their task of removing this section of pitted old meteoroid bumper and replacing it with a new section, straight from the storage bay. The robots, about the size of a snare drum with four many-jointed dexterous arms, were programmed for simple, repetitive maintenance tasks. Something as complicated as removing the old bumper and replacing it with the new one required constant commands from a human being.
Theo imagined himself to be some kind of wizard out of an old fantasy vid, commanding a squad of trolls or gnomes. He wondered if he could build voice synthesizers into the robots and have them say, “Yes, master,” to him.
At last the job was done. The shiny new bumper was in place and the robots had used their cutting lasers to slice up the pitted old one into sections small enough to feed into the ship’s miniature smelter, to be melted down into new raw material.
Theo pictured himself leading an army of laser-armed robots against the type of murdering bastard who had attacked their ship. Slice ’em to bloody ribbons, he told himself.
“What did you say?” Angie asked.
“Huh? Nothing.”
“You mumbled something.”
“Nothing important. I’m coming in now.”
Victor lay in bed, wide awake, beside Cheena Madagascar, who was snoring softly. I ought to feel guilty, he thought, sleeping with this woman instead of my wife. But life takes strange twists. If I want to use this ship to search for Pauline and the kids I’ve got to keep the captain happy.
Despite himself, he grinned into the shadows of the darkened bedroom. You’ve got to admit, he said to himself, that if this is what it takes to keep her happy, well… it’s better than being poked in the eye with a sharp stick.
Cheena was an accomplished lover, he’d found. At first he’d been surprised at her demand, thinking that a woman who’d prefer to have her children through cloning and avoid being tied to a man in marriage would probably not be all that interested in sex games. But he’d been wrong. Captain Madagascar was passionate in bed, demanding. He’d done his best to satisfy her, and apparently his best was good enough to please her.
According to her calculations, they were nearly finished with the grisly task of picking up the dead bodies from the
Then what? Victor wanted this ship so he could go deeper into the Belt and find his family, drifting aboard what was left of
He clenched his jaw in the darkness. And I’ll tell George that my family are victims of the
But they won’t be dead, he told himself. They’re alive. Pauline is keeping them alive.
Then a new thought struck him. What if they agree? What if Cheena takes me out searching for
“Theo?”
He opened his eyes, surprised to realize that he’d fallen asleep on the sofa. His mother was bending over him.
“I guess I nodded off,” he said, feeling slightly sheepish.
“You’ve been working very hard,” said Pauline.
“We all have.”
She sat on the sofa beside him.
“Angie’s gone to bed?” he asked.
“Yes. She was tired too.”
He nodded and pulled himself up to a sitting position. “She was really good today, monitoring my EVA. She sat there all suited up for nearly five hours, ready to go outside if I got into trouble.”
Pauline smiled faintly. “Angela’s growing up.”
“I guess she is.”
“You are too.”
“Think so?”
“I know so. You’ve taken charge of the ship, Theo. Six months ago you were complaining that your father didn’t trust you—”
“He always did everything himself. He never gave me a chance to learn, to show him what I can do.”
“Yes, I know,” Pauline said gently. “I understand. But I trust you, Theo. I know that you’ve put us on the right course to get back to Ceres and you’ll keep this ship running until we get there.”
Theo felt a warm glow inside. But he didn’t know what to say, how he should respond to his mother’s praise.
“Now don’t you think you’d better get some sleep?” Pauline suggested. “Tomorrow’s another day.”
“You’re right.” He swung his long legs off the sofa and got to his feet.
“Good-night, Theo,” said Pauline.
“Good-night, Mom.”
She’s right, he thought as he padded to his own cubicle. Tomorrow’s another day. With fifteen hundred and
