“He’s showing off again,” Beverly said.
“That’s his favorite toy. It was Leroy’s idea,” Duke explained. “Oscar didn’t want to leave your suit when we brought you in, so I just shut it down and left it in there with him. Leroy saw him playing with the controls for the suit jets, looking around as if he expected it to fly. Just as an experiment, he cobbled up that little scooter out of parts from old maintenance bots and a retired suit, and sure enough. Oscar took to it right away! It scares me the way he flies so close to things, but Leroy says he’s a natural pilot—always knows his orientation and tracks the trajectory of everything around him. The only time he has problems is when he runs out of compressed air, but at least he doesn’t crash any more. Dr. French wants us to let him try out an astrogation simulator.”
Jeanette thought about it for a second. “He might like that; it’s an extension of what he’s been doing all his life at OceanLab. Gonna do it?”
“As soon as we can move one of the simulators into his zero-g tank and seal it against the humidity. The aquarium is paying for the whole thing.”
“I want to go see him—” Again, she started to get up but found Beverly’s hand firmly planted on her breastbone.
“Oh no you don’t, girl,” Beverly said. A nervous waver beneath her stem voice betrayed the depth of her concern. “You have months of recovery ahead of you, Jeanette. You’re atrophied, decalcified, dehydrated, full of toxins, and have granulomas from sea urchin spines wandering around your body. You’re not leaving the g-field until I say you’re ready! Since Oscar can’t come to see you either, the two of you will just have to settle for visiting on television for a while. You’re in for a long vacation, so just relax and enjoy it.”
There was no choice but to accept it; Beverly was right. For the first time in her life, she had to depend on others, trust their judgment in handling her business matters and trust them to take care of her. “All right,” she said, lying back against her pillows. Oscar waved a tentacle as he sped across her television screen. “This time I’ll be good.”
Duke was not at all shy about helping Jeanette with her suit this time. As soon as he had secured the last lace of her undersuit, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him heartily.
“It’s been a long time since you’ve done this for me,” she said.
His youthful grin was as disarming as ever. “Almost a year. I remember the last time. I almost lost you then!” He waited while she finished up the laces on his undersuit. She seemed to be having trouble making her fingers work. “You’re really excited about this trip, aren’t you?”
“More than I can say. It’s so good to be going out again. All the time I was in the hospital getting transfusions, and then the months of physical therapy, I’ve thought about nothing but getting out again in my own ship. But I’ll keep my promise. I won’t go out without you, as long as you want to go.”
Duke smiled and patted her. Snuggled in his arms, she wondered how she could ever have thought of him as a boy. “It’s a deal,” he said. “Let’s see how it goes on this trip. If it’s half as much fun as you make it sound, we’re partners!”
Beverly knocked and poked her head in the door. “Everybody decent? Oops. Sorry to interrupt.”
Duke nodded to her. “S’OK, c’mon in, Bev.”
She padded in, wearing an undersuit similar to those worn by the others. “Can somebody help me with these laces? I can’t figure out where they go.” While Duke was tightening the laces, she added, “I don’t know how you talked me into this, Jeanette. I’m a colony girl now, not a spacer.”
“I didn’t talk you into it, the Seattle Aquarium did, with a nice, fat research contract. You’ve got a better chance at figuring out zero-g deconditioning than any other doctor in Earth orbit.”
“Well, thanks for putting in a good word for me, anyway.”
“You didn’t need my help. You got just the calling card you needed when you cracked the code on those enzymes that let babies develop normally in weightlessness.”
“Couldn’t have done it without the mollusks you brought back from OceanLab. But I guess the Seattle folks did all right by you, too: new contract, new ship to go with it—pressurized, even! Next thing you know they’ll be putting up a statue of you at the Pacific Science Center!”
Duke interrupted. “All right, Bev, you’re laced in. If the mutual admiration society will kindly get into their shiny new suits, we can get up to South Cap in time for our launch window.”
While she was squeezing herself into her new custom-fitted space suit, Jeanette added a thought. “It’ll be nice when Rantoul gets a pressurized docking tunnel installed at South Cap. We won’t have to put on our suits just to get out to the ship.”
“Give ’em some time,” Duke said. “It took months to get the material for a permanent zero-g dock for your new ship. Leroy and I only finished it a few weeks ago.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to sound unappreciative, Duke. I’m anxious to see it,” Jeanette said. “Is our new pilot ready for the trip?”
“More than ready,” Duke said. “He aced ground school while you were still in the hospital, and even helped design the new control station for the ship. I’ve been watching him practice rendezvous procedures since the day the new dock was finished. He’s a natural, Jeanette. You won’t find a better zero-g pilot anywhere inside the asteroid belt.”
As she was strapping herself into her seat in the Flutterbye Two, Beverly remarked, “Y’know, Jeanette, it’s a shame you can’t launch from the catapult, but I think that’s what finally made me decide to take this job. I just can’t stand that sudden drop to zero-g. Can’t even take the shuttle to Chanute without tossing my cookies all the way.”
“It’s a small price to pay,” Jeanette said. “The F-Two doesn’t need the boost, and for the price of a few extra kilos of fuel we get the best pilot in the Galaxy!” She looked toward the forward control station. There was some condensation at the comers of a transparent partition around the control station, but she could clearly see the pilot within.
The pilot turned around from his console and beamed at them with his molten gold cat’s eyes. He spoke, tentacles flying over the keys of a model ninety-four Hawking voice encoder. “Why, thank you, Jeanette! Now, as soon as you lumpy humans are ready, we’ll launch Flutterbye Two on her maiden voyage. Destination: OceanLab!”