"Thanks," Dekker said, hitching his belt to a hook on the wall. They were simply rechecking trajectories, comet by comet; with each one the computer digested the orbital elements, factored in the gravitational pulls that would affect its course, and then laid the golden line projecting its arrival at Mars. Dekker's attention wandered between what they were doing at the board—and his wish that he were doing it himself—and the interesting view of the back of Rima Consalvo's neck—and his competing wish to explore that more thoroughly. Dekker had heard once of some Earthie woman, a celebrity of some kind, who had claimed she had fallen in love with her husband on first sight, although all she had seen was the back of his neck. That seemed illogical to Dekker; but just at that moment it didn't seem entirely impossible.
Rima turned for a moment to look at him. "You should've been here an hour ago," she offered. "We lost our feed for five minutes. Nothing on the screens at all."
"Not even at the backup station," her partner confirmed. "Scared the shit out of us."
Dekker nodded, wondering if he should share Shiaopin Ye's suspicions with them. He contented himself with saying, "They seem to be having communications problems." Then he leaned forward, staring at the board. "Hey! Is that 67-JY?"
Rima turned to look at him. "Yes, it is. Why?"
"Because it needs a burn, doesn't it?" It looked bad to him. Its golden projection funnel spread out to Mars all right, but just barely within the error probability.
"It does need a burn," Dekker said.
"It's not critical. No," Rima said.
He squirmed around to look at her. "What do you mean, no? It's an easy burn, and, look, Rima, that trajectory brings it pretty close to Earth. I know that comet; it's little, and it's been giving trouble all along."
"I know it, too," Rima said flatly, and then Dekker remembered. Of course she knew it. She had already told him that she was the snake handler who had threaded it out in the Oort. And who was sensitive about it now.
"Oh," he said. "Right"
She thawed slightly. "It already had one burn on this shift; the other board did it. So it's really all right, Dekker. If the next shift thinks it needs a burn, they can do it." She glanced over at the clock. "They're probably waiting to get in already," she said. "Take a look outside, will you, Myra?"
The other woman nodded and pulled herself out into the corridor. A moment later she peered back in and shrugged, signaling that they weren't in sight, then pointed down the hall and pushed herself away in that direction.
Dekker assumed she was heading for a lavatory, but Rima chuckled. "She's being discreet, I bet," she said, "in case we want to be private for a minute. Dekker? Why are you questioning an operator's decision?"
He said, "Well, I guess it's just that there are more things going wrong here than I expected."
"Like the comm systems?"
"For one thing, yes," he agreed.
"And that comet for another?" she asked. "Don't you think I know how to run a board—not counting that Myra's right here with me, and there are two other controllers on the other board?"
"No, of course you do. Only—well, there are people who might like the idea of diverting a comet. You've heard the rumors, haven't you?"
She was looking at him steadily. "What rumors are those?"
He shrugged to indicate he wasn't, actually, serious. "For instance, the ones about the habitats. I've heard it said that the people who are putting the farm habitats up would like a comet of their own—"
"And you think it might be 67-JY?"
"Why not?"
She was laughing at him. "Didn't you learn anything? Look at those trajectory elements."
He said huffily, "All right, I know what you're saying. If I were going to park a comet where the habitats could mine it I wouldn't pick this one. It's got far too much velocity to park it in an orbit they could use. But why else is everybody letting it go with that kind of CEP?"
"Maybe," she said kindly, "we don't know everything yet, Dekker. We're still beginners in this business, aren't we?" And before he could admit the justice of her argument, she added, "Anyway, here come Myra and the next shift. So I'm through here; how about a cup of coffee?"
It wasn't just the back of Rima Consalvo's neck that was attractive. As he followed her along the red corridor, the two of them pulling themselves from wall hold to wall hold, he found himself also intrigued by those long and unfortunately slacks-clad legs that were waving almost in his face.
The "cup" of coffee wasn't a cup, of course; it was a bulb, and the rec room was more crowded than Dekker would have preferred. The only wall holds they could find to tie to were next to a conversation about what was going on. One of the old hands was saying, "We've lost intrastation addressing facilities, so everything comes in on a single band. It's slowing down communications a lot. They've got somebody listening in and manually redirecting the traffic on each major incoming circuit—Co-Mars One, the Martian orbiters, Earth. We're not getting anything at all from ships in transit or the Oort cloud, though, and even the solar optics are out."
"Well, we don't need any of that, do we?" somebody else said. "For a while, anyway? It's a pain in the ass, but we're still operational and Parker will get it cleared up."
Rima looked at Dekker, then leaned over to the group next to them. "What's going on?" she asked.
The man looked surprised. "You haven't used a screen in the last few minutes? It's the intrastation communications. They're down to just the voice link."
"You can't get news from Earth at all," another one said. "We were watching it on the screen here, and it just went out. Damnedest thing you ever saw."
"It must have happened while we were on our way here," Dekker said to Rima Consalvo. She nodded, looking thoughtful but unsurprised. She looked at her watch instead of replying. But as he turned back to join in the conversation with the other group, she spoke up.
"Dekker," she said, lowering her tone so that the others couldn't hear. "I don't really want any more coffee, and I don't feel like talking about the station's problems right now. It's a little early, but—well, my room's just around the next intersection. Why don't we go there?"
She caught him by surprise. "Go to your room?" he repeated, as though that notion had never crossed his mind.
She nodded. "Yes. Go to my room. If you want to, I mean."
Of that there was no question at all in Dekker's mind. What he wished was that he could do both—maybe talk to these people in the rec room, maybe even tell them about what Shiaopin Ye had said, at least find out more about what was going on and whether, really, it wasn't his duty to get in touch with Jared Clyne and find out if his services were needed . . . and, if possible, at the same time take up the invitation he had been hoping for for some time.
Since he couldn't do both, there was not, really, any doubt about which to choose.
It didn't take long to get there, even less long for them to get inside and for Rima to close the door behind her. Then she smiled at Dekker. "I'm afraid I don't have a drink to offer you," she apologized.
"I don't drink much," he said—automatically and, he thought, a little inanely.
"It's just that it's more private here," she said, looking at her wall clock. "We've got a little extra time," she added, and then smiled at him. "Dekker? What do you think? Would you like to kiss me?"
There was only one answer to that, too, and then only one way for things to go after that. Things went that way. Very satisfactorily, although the fact that Dekker had had no previous experience of making love in zero gravity made him awkward, and made Rima Consalvo giggle.
But they managed it, by judicious use of all available limbs for clamping and holding. When they were finished they hung in midair, sweaty, relaxed, and naked, floating free of the holdtights and holding each other at an odd angle by their linked hands.
It was, Dekker realized complacently, very like his dream. The only difference was that this time he knew who he was holding.
Then there was another difference. He felt Rima move in his arms, craning her neck to look at the clock. "Oh, hell," she said. "How time flies. Dekker, I think we might want to put our clothes back on."
It was not a remark he had expected. "Why?"
"Because," she said, wriggling free and pushing against him to reach the wall, "we have company coming in about five minutes. I don't mind her knowing what we've been doing—but still. You might find it a little embarrassing."
"Who's coming?" Dekker demanded, grabbing a wall hold and reaching out for his floating shorts. "Why is it embarrassing?"
Rima paused in the act of wriggling into her underwear, and answered both questions at once. "It's Ven Kupferfeld," she explained.
When Ven arrived she seemed worried, but not so worried that she didn't take in the scene at once. She gave Rima a searching look. "You just couldn't wait to try him out for yourself, could you?" she demanded.
Rima looked complacent. "We had the time, so I thought we might as well get relaxed." Then, more sharply, "What's the matter?"
Ven Kupferfeld shook her head. "We had some trouble," she said, and didn't expand on the theme. Didn't have the chance, if she had intended to anyway, because Dekker had worked through a chain of reasoning and didn't like where it led him.
"Christ," he said prayerfully, "you two planned all this, didn't you?"
Ven opened her mouth, but Rima Consalvo forestalled her. "Of course we did, Dekker. Ven and I wanted to talk to you about something important—but, believe me, the other part was for fun. I do like you, Dekker."
"Everybody likes you, Dekker," Ven said savagely. "You and your mother. That's why we wanted to talk to you, one more time."
"What about my mother?" he demanded, still off balance.
Ven said, "She's a symptom of what's wrong with you people. She's a big wheel on Mars, isn't she? But right now she's down on her knees to the Japs, begging for crumbs. What's the matter with you Martians, Dekker? Don't you care that your planet's being stolen away from you?"
He was having trouble keeping up with her quick changes. He looked at Rima, who smiled politely but was no help. He said, "Mars isn't being stolen. It's a business deal; you people put up the money we needed, so of course we owe you something—"
"Christ!" Ven sounded disgusted.
"Hey," Dekker said, nettled, "which side are you on? You're an Earthie yourself!"
"I'm an American, Dekker," she said dangerously, "and don't you forget it. We're getting screwed, too. The Japs and the Europeans—but mostly the damned Japs—they've been selling off their Oort bonds all along, and we poor American suckers were left holding the bag, and your mother—" She paused, shaking her head in contempt. "She's getting raped, and all she wants is a pillow under her head."
"Now, listen—" Dekker began.
"No, Dekker, you listen. It's not just that my family's pretty near ruined, it's my country. Do you know that if the farm habitats go through, we Americans are going to have to buy food from the Japs? My grandfather would turn over in his grave, but he'd know what to do."
"Oh, hell," Dekker said, angry at last, "your grandfather was a soldier. He killed people."
She looked suddenly distracted, but kept on. "Right, he killed. There are times when killing's necessary."
"Or fun," he said bitterly. "Like your lion."
"Why not? Haven't you ever killed anything?"
"Of course not. For one thing, there isn't anything on Mars to kill—well, the fish and the meat animals, but nobody does it for pleasure."
Rima Consalvo stirred. "Ven," she said warningly. "Knock off that killing talk. Nobody's going to get killed."
Ven seemed to collect herself. "No, of course not," she agreed. "Dekker, do you remember—"
She had to stop there, because the comm system rattled into life. There was no picture on the screen, but Simantony Parker's voice came through, sounding tense.
"All personnel," the chief of station's voice said. "This is Parker. We have received relayed warning of a solar flare. The information was delayed, and the particles will arrive in about forty-five minutes. Safe all equipment, and everyone go to the flare shelter now."
"Hell," Dekker said wonderingly. "Listen, I'd better report to Jared Clyne—"
"No, you shouldn't," Rima Consalvo contradicted him. "You just go to the shelter, like everyone else, only you've got plenty of time. All the same, Ven, speed it up, will you?"
Ven nodded, her face grim. "What I'm asking you, Dekker, is do you remember the virt I showed you? The Battle of Seven Pines?"
"How could I forget it?" he demanded bitterly.
"I'm not talking about the killing; I know that upset your silly Martian conscience. What I'm talking about is the strategy. Lee bluffed the Yankees. He made a threat, and they fell for it."
"And a lot of people got killed," Dekker reminded her.
"Fuck the people who got killed! That was only a detail! Nobody has to get killed in a situation like that; if you deploy your forces right, the other side gives up. No bloodshed. So suppose there was a chance like that for Mars. Suppose—no, damn it, don't interrupt me! Suppose somebody could show you how you could use the threat of force to make the Japs and everybody else stick to the terms of the original agreement. What would you say?"
Dekker looked at her as he might at a staggering drunk or raving madwoman, but he considered her question. "All it would take would be a threat?"
"Right."
"But backed up by the possibility of actually doing some killing?"
"Well, of course, Dekker. What would you do?"
He nodded. "What I would do," he said, "is call up Dr. Rosa McCune and have that person certified and sent down. Right away."
Ven looked at him for a moment in silent revulsion. Then, shaking her head, she turned to Rima Consalvo. "I told you this would be a waste of time," she said.
Rima, surprisingly, looked smug. "Not for Dekker and me," she said complacently. "Anyway, Dekker, I guess you'd better get on down to the shelter—"
"No," Ven said.
"Yes, Ven. I'm sorry about the way this looked to you, Dekker, but I'm not sorry about anything we did. I hope we can do it again sometime—and we'll talk about it later."
In a space station where nothing is more than a couple hundred meters from anything else, forty-five minutes is a lot of time. Evidently Ven Kupferfeld and Rima Consalvo thought so, because they stayed behind when Dekker left them. Dekker thought so himself. It crossed his mind that he had time even to jump into a splash chamber and rinse himself off before going to the shelter; they would be in close quarters there for some time, and he didn't particularly want to advertise what he and Rima had been doing.
On the other hand, he needed all that time, because he needed to think.
He wondered if he actually should talk to Dr. Rosa McCune—or, perhaps even better, to the station chief himself.
The more he thought, the more that seemed his most practical option. His mind made up, he pulled himself rapidly along toward the logical place to find them, or anyone: the flare shelter. The difficulty, he told himself as he hurried along, was that he didn't know exactly what he would say when he found them. There was no doubt in his mind that Ven and Rima had been acting peculiarly—no, ominously, he corrected himself. But in Dekker's view Earthies always acted fairly oddly—not that such Earthified Martians as Jay-John Belster were much better; and what did that prove?
The problem disappeared when he reached the shelter. Neither Parker nor the psychologist was there.
As a matter of fact, less than half the station's complement was inside the shelter. Obviously a flare warning was old stuff to the personnel of Co-Mars Two. Dekker had passed more than a dozen others on the way to the shelter, none of them seeming particularly panicky, or even greatly concerned. He looked around for someone else to talk to, and found no one. Shiaopin Ye wasn't there, nor Toro Tanabe. Neither was his boss, Jared Clyne. Neither was Annetta Bancroft, Jay-John Belster, or th
e head of the communications section, Toby Mory; in fact, the only familiar face in sight belonged to Dzhowen Wang, idly playing with an unresponding screen on the wall.
The trouble was that Dekker really had nothing to say to Dzhowen Wang, and the people he most wanted to talk to were still outside somewhere.
The solution to that problem was clear enough. Dekker turned around to leave the flare shelter to look for them. The count-keeper at the door didn't like that. "You're supposed to stay inside," he told Dekker, sounding angry.
"I forgot something," Dekker said, pushing past him.
"Well, find it and get back here!" the man shouted after him. "You've got fifteen minutes, no more!"
Dekker waved to show that he understood. It occurred to him that what he was doing was not entirely sensible. Surely everybody on the station would sooner or later arrive in the shelter—well, all but the handful who would stay on duty at the control boards in the flare shadow—certainly someone he needed to talk to would. And if he failed to get back to the shelter in time—
He had a quick vision of those heavy ionized particles from the Sun sleeting through the station. Through him. He almost winced as he contemplated the storm of flare particles striking his internal organs, his eyes, his brain—striking a million individual cells and doing harm to each one.
It was not a cheering thought. He pushed it out of his mind and began a systematic patrol of the corridors leading to the shelter. A few more individuals and small groups were leisurely pushing themselves toward the shelter, taking their own sweet time about responding to the alarm. They looked at him curiously as he passed, but none of those faces were the faces he was looking for. He peered into a rec room, with its magnetic game tables and virtual bodysuits; no one there. No one in the dimmed-down private rooms whose doors stood open, either. The number of people still moving toward the shelter was getting sparser, too; time was passing.
When he finally did see two people he knew, they were only Ven Kupferfeld and Jay-John Belster, talking in low voices at a junction of red and yellow corridors. They were not the ones he wanted to see. He had nothing to say—yet—to the woman who had interrupted his rendezvous with Rima Consalvo, and nothing for Jay-John Belster, ever. He turned around and kicked himself down the yellow corridor.
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