alive? Honestly?”
“Ummmm. Well, maybe.”
My mother curled one side of her mouth down, looking the way she sometimes does when she’s thinking out a decision. “Well,” she finally said, “in that case… I’m going to volunteer, too.”
“
“Mom,
She looked steadily at us. “When I made that little speech last night, did you think I was talking like some kind of housewife? I must admit I sounded that way to myself. I was just trying to oppose that Mrs. Schloffski. But I came out here for reasons of my own, remember—not just to follow your father, Matt.”
This was a facet of my mother I didn’t know very well. “What do you mean. Mom?”
“Things are tight back on Earth, Matt. They have been for decades. That’s why women haven’t been getting jobs. The best work goes to men first. That’s why there are women like Mrs. Schloffski. They hang on their men and get a lot of their identity out of what their husbands do. Mrs. Schloffski came out here to follow her family, not from any real interest in the Can. She’s never really had anything better to do than housekeeping-type jobs, either on Earth or here in the Can. That’s what makes her so, well, tedious.”
“
She smiled, her eyes distant. “I understand her fairly well, I think. That’s what society can do to a woman. But some of us are lucky enough to have some work we’re really interested in.
Dad murmured softly. “Even if I can’t?”
Her face crinkled. She was close to tears. “I don’t know, Paul. I don’t know.”
I sat there and felt uncomfortable. These were layers in my parents I didn’t know very well. The pressure and tension of these days was peeling them back, so I could see these inner parts for the first time. What my mother said applied to all the women in the Can, I supposed. Including Jenny. She hadn’t said much about it, but Jenny wasn’t the sort of female who would go back to a humdrum existence Earthside. Jenny had guts, just like my Mom. For Mom to even think of staying on while Dad shipped Earthside—well, that was a revelation. Sure, it wouldn’t be forever, but still…
I sat there, mulling things over. Gradually, from the expressions on my parent’s faces, I saw that it might be a good idea to leave them alone for a while. I jumped up and stammered out some reason to take off.
I went for a walk. Mom and Dad were trying to cover over their emotions some, but I could tell they were depressed. They liked life in the Can, despite the inconveniences—everybody did, except Mrs. Schloffski and other boneheads.
I passed by a work gang and looked for somebody I knew well enough to talk to. No luck. They were patching some resealant. I stopped for a moment and watched. Pressure imbalances and faults get a lot of attention. If you ever want to see people really move in the Can, holler “Vac alert!” I’d seen a kid do that once as a gag. He was on report for two years. I watched the women checking their work, and admired a slim calf or two. Everything was getting sort of jumbled up in my head these days—work and politics and sex (or the lack of it). I shook my head. Maybe all teenagers got as confused as I did, but I doubted it like hell.
I walked halfway around the hub and took an elevator inward to the Student Center. There was a big line of guys near the office. I prowled around and found Zak at the end of it.
“What’s up?”
“They’re taking names of men who want to stay behind.”
“That’s for me.” I got in line. “Quite a few ahead of us.”
“Guys have been waiting around all morning. I don’t figure it matters when you sign up, though. They’ll pick us by abilities.”
“Seems reasonable.”
“Okay for you, maybe. I’ll probably wash out the first time the bridge officer reads the list.”
“How come?”
“I ride herd on computers, and that’s
“Maybe you’re right. If you’ve got a small staff, you might as well fill it with triple-threat men if you can.”
“My reasoning exactly. I’m going through the motions anyway. Earthside will be bad, but I’ll be better off than some of you guys.”
“Why?”
“Remember that advertising slogan? ‘You never outgrow your need for computers.’ I can always get work somewhere, partake of the leisure of the theory class.”
“Uh. I guess there won’t be much to do for a shuttle pilot, now that space research is getting the axe.”
“Next!” It was Zak’s turn. He gave the standard information and was waved away. A bridge officer looked up at me with a sour expression.
“Matt Bohles,” I said. “Any idea bow many have signed up?”
“Too many. What’s your job?”
“Shuttle pilot. I know some electronics, too—”
“Who doesn’t?”
“—and I put in some time in Monitoring.”
“Your father is in charge of Monitoring, isn’t he?”
“Yes, but—”
The officer made a note. Maybe he figured Dad had just carried me on the rolls for a while. “How are you going to choose the men?” I said.
“We’ll start with the ones who don’t ask questions. Next!”
I wandered around with Zak. There were people everywhere; it felt like a festival day, only people were clumped together in knots, talking. We fooled around for a while and I mentioned my idea about hiding the skeleton crew instead of forcing the
The talk wasn’t getting anywhere—good grief, the
He wanted to talk politics, too. He’d though! of my idea, and found a hole in it big enough to drive a truck through: what if somebody like Mrs. Schloffski blabbed? That stumped me. We couldn’t very well gag her, and the skeleton crew wouldn’t tolerate leaving her behind. It looked like the only answer was a fight.
I swore off talking about politics; it made my head hurt.
“What I came down here for was some advice,” I said, changing the subject. “I went out yesterday and found a crummy old Faraday cup on Satellite Fourteen. Can’t we rig up something better?”
“Ummm.” Mr. Jablons said. “What about that design you and I roughed out last year?”
“Well—” I hesitated. “The ones we built worked okay here in the lab, but they haven’t been tried in space.”
“We gave them two thousand hours of baking, bursts of radiation, the works. They came through.”
“Right. They’ll sure be better than the ancient one I saw.”
“Which satellite?”
“Number Fourteen.”
“Oh. that’s it. Number Seventeen has the same type. I’ve been nagging people to change those Faraday cups for years. Both Fourteen and Seventeen are in near-polar orbits. That makes them harder to reach by shuttle, and thus far nobody’s wanted to take the time just to replace a part that’s working fine as it is.”
“Well, I’ll do it. Those old ones aren’t sensitive enough for the job. Let’s get the ones we designed out of storage.”
It was a couple of hours before I got the new Faraday cups all checked out and packaged for carrying on the shuttle. They are delicate instruments and can’t be thrown around like freight. It felt good to work with my hands and forget ISA, Yuri, the whole stinking mess.