He bounced to a stop, feeling as if he had rolled down a hill inside a barrel. The thought came to him that if it had not been for his suit and the power servo units he would most likely have broken a leg with his botched landing. For that matter, he wasn't sure he hadn't broken a leg; his entire body felt numb.
He lay still for several seconds, collecting his thoughts.
" Bell? Hey, Bell, you alive in there?"
"Huh?"
He tried to roll over onto his back, feeling like a turtle. Hands grabbed him by the shoulder; looking up through his dirt-smeared helmet he saw Seay eyeing him and shaking his head.
"You idiot, here let me help you up."
Seay grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him upright.
"Darn, looks like he got sprayed by a spider," Matt commented.
Hands drifted past his faceplate, struggling with the lines, unwrapping him from his cocoon. He heard laughter, strange voices Brazilians speaking Portuguese. He caught a glimpse of a girl with a gorgeous darkly tanned face; a wisp of her perfume drifted into his suit.
"Poor boy, he's all right?" she asked.
The lilt of her voice made his heart melt, especially when he caught a better glimpse of her as the bundle of chute lines was finally pulled free from his helmet.
Someone unclasped his helmet and pulled it off. Seconds later he felt the backpack containing his retrorocket, reentry shield and chute slide off.
"All right, Bell, let's see if you can still walk."
Gingerly he stood up, flexing his legs. Seay was standing in front of him, shaking his head. The ground crew was standing behind him, shaking their heads as well and laughing.
"You all right, Bell?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"Nothing broken?"
Justin moved his arms and legs.
"No, the suit took it."
"Idiot, don't do that next time. OK?"
"Sure. Hey, did I make the target?"
Brian grinned and pointed down. Justin looked down and saw the center of the X directly under his feet.
"Two-point landings, Bell, are the only ones that count. Butts and heads don't."
Seay slapped him on the shoulder, grinning.
Matt came up to Justin and gave him a good-natured punch on the shoulder.
"Hey, buddy, outrageous ain't it?"
Matt pointed at the tower which soared heavenward on the far side of Rio, sixteen kilometers away.
"We got time to do it again?' Matt asked Brian.
Seay shook his head.
"We'll do a couple atmosphere jumps the old-fashioned way from a plane, then it's back up to school. You guys got a flight to catch tomorrow."
Justin didn't know whether to feel relieved or not at Seay's announcement. Staring at the tower, he found it all but impossible to believe that less than a half-hour ago he had been five hundred kilometers up, in the vacuum of space. His memory of the jump was now a jumbled blur of impressions highlighted by the cone of fire that had engulfed him as he bit atmosphere.
"Well, fire rider, welcome to the club," the young Brazilian girl proclaimed, and she extended her hand. He went to take it and then saw that she was holding a piece of burnt toast.
"Tradition," Seay declared. "First-time fire riders have to eat a piece of burnt toast if they make it down."
Justin grinned as he took the toast and bit into it. It was more charcoal than bread; there was chilling recognition that only a few millimeters of plastishielding were all that prevented him from finishing his ride as a shower of ash, drifting on the winds of the upper atmosphere.
But at the moment he didn't care, and when he and Matt finished the toast they were delighted by the reward of a kiss on the cheek from the girl.
She laughed at their foolish grins as she turned and sauntered away.
"Hey, being a fire-riding cadet has its rewards, don't it," Matt said. "I'm in love, buddy and we got the whole day down here for me to convince her that the feeling is mutual."
"Come on, you two, let's get out of these suits," Seay suggested, motioning towards the pickup truck that was coming out to ferry them and their equipment back to the hangar.
Brian started to walk away and then turned, looking back at Justin.
"By the way, Bell, I didn't know folks from Indiana had such a command of old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon."
Justin blushed, suddenly remembering what he had called Seay after the senior cadet pushed him off the gangplank.
"Remarkable," Matt chimed in, "have to remember that last one. What was it now? You son of a drunken no-good"
Justin tried to swing at Matt but did it a little tod hard so that the suit servos kicked in. He spun around and landed on his backside; Brian and Matt, laughing even harder, had to pull him back to his feet and lead him off the field.
Chapter V
"A beauty of a ship," Justin announced admiringly as he examined the sleek lines of the USMC's Somers. Since the Somers was one of the older Timoshinko — class cruisers, it displayed the classic swept-back lines of a ship designed for a multitude of tasksplanet — to-planet transfer and reentry, patrol, and high-speed pursuit. Given the ever-increasing specialization of ships in the inventory of the USMC, the Somers was a bit of a throwback to an earlier and more exciting period of space flight.
Gently hoisting his duffel so as not to disconnect his sticky-bottom boots from the airlock's deck, Justin walked down the length of the ship. He could see on closer examination that it had been through many long years of service. Its underside was scorched and blackened from hundreds of reentries, micro-meteor and debris nicks marred the forward edge of its swept-back wings, and the paint was peeling in places from the thousands of long hours of exposure to the searing heat and freezing cold of the vacuum of space.
Justin scanned the line of cadets queued up behind him. Some of the faces were familiar: Leonov was behind Matt, and farther back in the line was Madison Smith, who had been in his squad during scrub summer. Chatting with Madison was her roommate Marissa Livollen. He saw his roommate, Wendell Colson, bringing up the end of the line.
As he reached the entry door he turned as sharply as he could in zero gravity and snapped off a salute, first to the colors of the USMC emblazoned on the side of the entry hatch and then to the First Officer.
"Plebe Cadet Bell, Justin, 144-99-1848, reporting as ordered, sir. Permission to come aboard."
Justin recognized the acting first officer as Senior Cadet Frank Petronovich, a friend of Brian Seay's. The senior cadet returned the salute.
"Aft, cabin three. Stow your gear and report forward in fifteen minutes."
Justin saluted both the flag and Petronovich once more, shuffled aboard and headed aft. It was his first time aboard an actual light cruiser. Somehow the vids made it seem far more expansive and romantic than the reality that now confronted him. The corridor was barely wide enough for one person, let alone someone carrying a duffel. The floor, walls and ceiling were marred with scuffmarks and dents, and had a tired, worn out look to them. The bonding material that kept the universe together, duct tape, held several light panels in place.
He squeezed past an open airlock door and saw the narrow mess hall to his right, a low-ceilinged room with a single row of tables down the middle. An unusual smell he couldn't decide if it was disagreeable or not wafted out, and he caught a glimpse of a cook back in the galley, wearing a stained T-shirt that showed his hairy, beefy arms. The cook was shaking a container and whistling a tune that Justin recognized as a rather obscene ballad favored by Matt. He caught Justin's stare and winked, his grin revealing a row of stained yellow teeth.
Justin waved back before pushing on down the corridor.