“Which would you rather,” the woman said when he complained. According to her badge she was a company paramedic, Tess Shawm. She was young and very attractive, but it was obvious that so far as she was concerned Rick was nothing more than a piece of meat. “Would you prefer to find out you have a problem now,” she went on, “with full medical facilities on site—or find out when you’re halfway to the Belt and it’s fifty million kilometers to the nearest doctor?”
It was no consolation, when Rick was at last released, to see Vido Valdez and hear him grumble, “The hell with this. They were pokin’ into holes I never knew I had.”
Vido stared at Rick’s gown and then at the close razor haircut that Rick had been so proud of two days ago, and added, “I knew you were weird, Luban, the second I saw you. You got more hair on your ass than you have on your head.”
Fighting words. But before Rick could do more than raise a fist Bretherton was standing between them.
“Fun and games later, you two. Go in there and get track suits on. Time for the treadmill and the EKG.”
Rick would like to have used that raised fist on Bretherton, but the doctor’s bare arms were as hairy and muscular as a gorilla’s. Vido Valdez was already moving away. After a moment Rick followed.
The treadmill was nothing but a sort of walking machine with an angle that could be adjusted to make you think you were going uphill. Rick waited while a bunch of electrodes were attached all over him, then the belt he was standing on began to move. He started walking. It was dead easy. He was no jock, but running the streets kept you in fair shape. He began to feel warm for the first time since he left the plane. Vido Valdez was two machines over, grunting and puffing but striding out steadily. Rick knew this test couldn’t be a big deal, because beyond Valdez he could see Alice Klein, strolling easily along on her long, skinny legs.
Then he started to feel something else. It was becoming hard to breathe, and his heart was pounding away in his chest faster than he ever remembered. He put his hand to his throat.
“What’s wrong?” The same man and woman attendants were with them, watching the walkers and the monitors. Tess Shawm came to stand by Rick’s side.
“Can’t breathe.” Rick hardly had wind to speak. “And I hurt—here.”
She nodded. “Where you from?”
“Simi Valley—California.”
“Near sea level, right.”
“Uh. Uh.”
“And now you are more than a mile high. Thinner air. What do you expect?” Shawm checked the monitors. “You’re all right. Heart’s fine. Just keep walking.”
Rick walked. The pain in his chest grew, and soon it was matched by an awful tired ache in his legs. Instead of slowing the treadmill, Tess Shawm was speeding it up and increasing the slope. Finally, when Rick knew he could not go for one more second, the machine slowed and stopped. He stood still, his hands gripping the metal bars on either side of him and his head down to his chest.
“You need to take regular exercise,” Shawm said. “I’m going to make a note of that. But you’ll do. You can get down now.”
Rick stumbled off the treadmill. He saw Valdez next to his machine, doubled over, hands to his right side. Unbelievably, Alice Klein was still on her treadmill and still striding along easily.
“Don’t get all shook up.” Tess Shawm saw Rick’s startled expression. “She has an advantage over you two. She went to school in the high part of the Black Hills. For the past two years she’s been living up near two thousand meters. Like prolonged altitude training. She can walk both of you into the ground.”
She already had. Vido Valdez and Rick went side by side to the showers in grim silence. Valdez didn’t tell Rick this time that he intended to win.
Chapter Four
There was a temptation to say, I’ve had it. You can take the tests and stuff ’em. I quit. But if you did that, what came next? Rick, puzzling over the words on his air ticket, saw that it had a return half. He could use it to fly back home any time.
And face his mother, and Mick, and admit failure yet again. And after that?
Things didn’t seem so bad after Rick had eaten a huge meal, slept around the clock, and woke to eat again. His legs still ached and more tests lay ahead, but he decided that, like Vido, he intended to win.
His decision was made easier when he realized what he should have known all along: he and Vido Valdez and Alice Klein were not the only three being tested. They were merely the most recent arrivals. There were fifty-two other recruits at the facility, all between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. All of them were present in the dining room when Rick appeared for his second meal, and they stared at him and at the other two new arrivals in an unfriendly way.
He found out why later that day, talking to Alice Klein who still apparently knew everything. A maximum of twenty recruits would go on to the next stage of off-Earth training. Every new arrival decreased the chances of the people already there. Vido Valdez had been quite right, the situation was competitive. Less than forty percent of the applicants would be winners.
The quality of the competition became apparent as the tests continued: manual dexterity, physical strength, speed of reflexes, hand-eye coordination, color and stereoscopic vision, ability to perform several activities in parallel. In each category there seemed to be an outstanding performer, someone who was rumored to score far ahead of everyone else. Rick was discouraged to find that he was best in nothing.
And something else became obvious. Rick and Vido Valdez might be in competition with all the other trainees, but Valdez saw the contest in more personal terms. To him, Rick was the enemy.
“I’m gonna beat you, Luban.” They were eating, and Valdez was sitting opposite Rick at one of the plastic-topped tables. He was still rubbing his left eye now and again. Rick suspected that it was a nervous habit, the eye red only because of constant irritation. If it was anything real, the Vanguard Mining doctors would have done something about it. They might be ruthless and heartless, but they were certainly competent.
“I’m gonna whip your skinny ass.” Valdez went on. “Remember this: anything you can do, I can do better.”
“Sure. Like you beat me real good on the balance bar.” Rick hadn’t been present when Valdez took that test, but he had heard about it from another trainee, a loudmouth boy named Chick Teazle. According to Teazle, Vido had fallen off once, lost his confidence, and fallen off four more times before he walked it successfully. Rick had aced it on the first run.
Valdez turned red and picked up his plate of food. He was raising it high, ready to throw it at Rick, when he realized that the room had gone quiet. People all around were watching and waiting. The rule had been made clear on first arrivaclass="underline" say what you like to each other while the tests were going on, but start a brawl and you were out. You’d be heading back where you came from on the next autobus.
Valdez sat down with a bump and glared both ways along the table. “Don’t get your hopes up, all you weenies. I’m stayin’, and I’m winning.” He stared at Rick. “I’ll get even with you, Luban, soon as I have a chance. That’s a promise. I’ll beat the shit out of you. And I got a long memory.”
“Your arms will have to be even longer—with you down on Earth and me up in space.”
But Vido would not be drawn again. He picked up his half-filled plate, but only to stand up and carry it across to the disposal area. “Have some more food, numb nuts,” he said to Rick as he left the table. “You want to be real well-fed for today’s test.”
That got a laugh, but Rick did not know why. He glanced down to his own empty plate. It was a favorite of his, spaghetti and meatballs, and he had eaten two big helpings. The tests of the day were not announced in advance, but did the others know something that Rick didn’t? Vido was a real pig, he went for multiple helpings and he never left anything uneaten on his plate. Except today.