“I’ve got to go pamper a shuttle right now,” Jenny said, an arm around me, “but when I come off my shift…”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll even give you preference over my guitar. I still have some practicing to do before tonight.”
“Well,” Jenny said, wrinkling her nose, “I suppose I will have to take what I can get.” She gave me a peck on the check and walked away.
“What next?” Zak said. “Now that Matt here has beaten off the hordes of panting women that follow him everywhere, what say we snag a milkshake and discuss the adventures of our brave heroes amid the terrible snows of Ganymede?”
“I’m afraid not,” Dad said. “Matt has to go home.”
“Oh,” Ishi and Zak said together.
“Well, next time,” Zak finished lamely.
“See you tonight,” I said. “Ishi, put our names in for time in the squash court. I’m going to beat you yet.”
Ishi smiled and waved good-bye. Dad and I made our way home through the tubes, talking about minor events that had happened in Monitoring while I was away. They were registering more and more of the unusual debris from outside Jupiter’s moon system. The chunks of rock usually spiraled in and entered Jupiter’s atmosphere near the poles.
“Could it be a meteor shower from the asteroid belt?” I said.
“That is one theory.” Dad said. He seemed distracted and didn’t add anything more.
Mom wasn’t there when we got home; Dad said she was in Hydroponics, working late. I unpacked, crammed my gear into the cubbyholes the Lab calls closets, and came back out to the living room. Dad was sitting at the dining table; his hands were clasped together.
“Sit down.”
I did.
“I talked to Commander Aarons about you yesterday. Captain Vandez mentioned you in his weekly report from Ganymede.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I must admit it surprised me. I did not think you would make such an error.”
“Huh?”
“I’m talking about the trouble you and Yuri had.”
“What trouble?”
Dad grimaced. “The air hose. Captain Vandez reported that you failed to attach it properly, did not notice the mistake, and almost killed both yourself and Yuri. And that you would not report the incident yourself—Yuri had to do it.”
“What!”
“It was a good thing Yuri managed to get to that way station. I realize the basic idea was yours, and Yuri reported that, which was a good thing. It made you look better in Captain Vandez’s eyes, so that he did not reprimand you in person. If Yuri had not gotten to that station in time, the Captain would have had to send a ship out to save you. Then it would have gone very badly for you. As things stand—”
“Dad!”
“What?”
“That’s a bunch of lies!”
“I am simply repeating what Commander—”
“I know, But it’s all wrong.
“That isn’t the way it was reported.”
“But that’s the way it
“Hummm. Wait a moment. Can you prove any of this?”
“Prove—? Well, no, I—”
“Yuri radioed in the report. You—according to Captain Vandez—never mentioned the subject afterward, when you were on the air. He thought you were simply too embarrassed to own up. Captain Vandez said he thought Yuri had been quite fair to you, considering, and he did not regard the matter as too serious.”
“Well,
“What really happened?”
I told him. He wondered whether Zak could give any testimony that would back me up. I decided not; I had never said anything over the air that would prove my version of events.
“I hate to say this.” Dad said, “but it appears Yuri has the edge on you. He reported the incident. You did not. Silence on your part is hard to explain.”
“I know. That’s what I get for cutting corners on the regulations.”
“You should have reported in sick in the first place.”
“And I should have blown the whistle on Yuri when he gummed things up. I thought the job was more important than a bunch of rules.”
“The rules are there to insure your safety. All of us are living in a hostile environment. It pays to be careful.”
“I know, I know.” I sighed and leaned on the dining table, my face in my hands.
“Son, don’t take it too hard. I do not believe Commander Aarons considers it to be of overriding importance. It will not weigh too heavily when the decision is made about your staying on at the Lab. I’ll speak to him about the incident, anyway, and give your side of the story. That should count for something.”
“Thanks. Dad.” I looked around. “That’s why Mom’s not here, isn’t it? So you could talk to me.”
He nodded. “And to give you some quiet for your guitar practice. The show is only a couple of hours from now.”
“Right.” I made a weak smile and got up. I went into my room and sat on the foldout bed, resting my guitar on my legs. I practiced series of chords, to limber up my fingers, and then ran through the pieces I planned to play.
Inside, I was still reeling from what Dad had told me. Sure, I was never a bosom buddy of Yuri’s, but this—!
After a while I put the thoughts aside. It didn’t do any good to brood, and there was no point in being depressed during the amateur hour. I could rail against my fate after I was through playing. So I threw my shoulders back, shook my head to clear it, and played carefully through each piece, looking for errors or places where I allowed my fingers to slur over a passage, losing precision and blurring a chord here and there. If a classical guitarist plays a piece often enough without sharp concentration, he gets sloppy. The guitarist can become blind to his own work; the audience doesn’t, though. Segovia I’m not, but anything I played was going to be the best I could do.
Dad stuck his head in. “Supper?”
I shook my head. Then something nibbling away in the back of my mind made me say, “Dad? Remember the talk we had before I went to Ganymede?”
“Yes.”
“You said—or implied—the head of BioTech Division had advance information about the Lab maybe shipping us kids back. BioTech—that’s Yuri’s father, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s Sagdaeff. He has good political connections Earthside. I don’t understand politicians—never learned to smile without meaning it—but I think Sagdaeff wants to parley the rearrangement, if it happens, into a promotion for himself. Maybe he’s fishing for Aarons’ job.”
“Interesting,” I said thoughtfully. “Do you think there’s really going to be a scaledown, Dad?”
“I gave up reading tea leaves long ago,” he said. “I shouldn’t have told you this gossip, either. Back to the guitar, son.” He gave me a slap on the back. I realized he was probably trying to distract me from thinking about Yuri. So I started plucking and strumming again, and pretty soon I was immersed in the music.
Dad came back an hour later, whistling, to remind me that it was time to dress. I put on the only formal clothes I have: a black suit with broad lapels, cut back severely in the style of five years ago. Mom had let out the seams as much as possible but the inevitable had caught up with me; the pants pinched, my stockings showed
