“Thank you for that information and my sincere condolences on your losses. I’ll get back to you as quickly as possible. Over and out.”
Crow shook his head: “I don’t see how we can refuse.”
“A suicide mission?” Francisco suggested.
“I don’t believe it,” Fang-Castro said. “But we could insist on a scan before they board us.”
Crow said, “That would also define the relationship. We’re not just being friendly.”
Fang-Castro: “Unless somebody has a better suggestion, I would assign Sandy Darlington to go over, with his cameras, so we can see in real time what he’s seeing. He can take direction from Martinez and Greenberg, and if they kill him, we still get back, because he’s not critical to our operations. And you, Mr. Crow. Since you speak Mandarin, you might overhear something—”
“And if they kill me, you still get back,” Crow said, with a grin. “That works for me.”
Francisco nodded in agreement.
Fang-Castro reopened a channel to the Chinese captain.
The extensive and unrestricted videography was acceptable to Zhang. He was eager to proceed; he reminded Fang-Castro that unless she decided to order the Nixon’s engines shut down, their two ships would start to separate in less than half a day and rescue operations would become increasingly difficult, maybe even infeasible.
“I will order the engine thrust reduced, which will allow the radiators to continue operating,” she said. “They’re a little touchy, and we don’t want a cold restart. My first officer will speak to yours, about the details of the rendezvous.”
56.
Just past midnight, Nixon time, transports left the Chinese and American ships. Fang-Castro had decided that requiring Zhang to come on board first was perhaps insulting. And she didn’t see much risk in a simultaneous exchange.
Sandy said to Crow, who was driving the bus, “I hope she’s right. I got this funny feeling between my shoulder blades.”
“Could be shingles,” Crow said.
“Or possibly a sniper.”
“You take your stims?” Crow asked.
“Does a chicken have lips?”
Crow considered, then said, “I don’t know what that means. It could go either way.”
“Yeah, I took the stims. But fear alone would keep me awake.”
As the Nixon’s bus passed the Chinese runabout, Sandy waved at the space-suited figures strapped to the framework of their craft. It was similar in concept to the Nixon’s eggs, but meant to carry more than one person outside the Celestial Odyssey. Rather than working from inside, as with an egg, the Chinese craft would ferry several space-suited workers to any point on the ship, and then release them to work as individuals. One of the space-suited figures waved back. The larger one, he thought.
Crow nudged him. “When we get there, don’t say anything unless spoken to, and keep your replies as short as possible. I want you to be the silent guy with the camera. Don’t volunteer anything. Don’t ask any questions. That’s my job.”
“Got it. Sir. General. Field Marshal.”
The Nixon, with its near-kilometer-long radiators and three-hundred-meter main axle, was larger than the Odyssey, but it was like a box kite made of balsa wood and string, long thin columns and beams tied together with graphene guy wire. The Chinese ship was only two-thirds the size of the Nixon, but it looked like a tank.
As they approached the massive deep space transport, Sandy panned his cameras over the surface of the Chinese ship, and Crow muttered, “Holy cow. Look at that. Get that.”
“I’m getting it.”
They were stunned by the damage. There were fused and torn moorings where, presumably, there had been external hydrogen tanks. There were none of those now. The hull was scarred and gouged where pieces of the disintegrating tanks must have slammed into the ship. It was obvious that the Chinese crew had patched things together rapidly and, so far, functionally, but there was no attempt to clean it up. Rough welds, overlapping plates, mismatched joints.
Crow said, “You can have it fast or you can have it right.” The Chinese had been under time pressures that precluded “right.”
“Can’t believe they didn’t breach,” Sandy muttered.
Crow: “The Chinese know how to build a hull. If that had happened to us…”
They’d all be dead.
Sandy went to an open channel back to the Nixon: “Comm, are you seeing all this? Just checking.”
“We see it. Astonishing. Keep it coming, Sandy.”
They lingered for a few moments outside the Chinese ship, doing a complete vid scan of the exterior. When Sandy finished, Crow maneuvered the bus into the one operational shuttle bay on the Celestial Odyssey. It was a huge space, clearly designed to accommodate a surface-to-orbit vehicle. Now it contained nothing but a couple of runabouts and service pods. A second shuttle, they’d been told, was currently useless, trapped behind nonfunctioning doors on the other shuttle bay. The external vids might confirm that, once Martinez went over them. Sandy couldn’t tell, from one look: there was simply too much patchwork on the exterior of the ship.
As Crow maneuvered into the shuttle bay, Sandy stuck the small hand camera on a side-support, with the camera aimed toward the air lock. If a bunch of Chinese troopers came boiling out to seize the bus while he and Crow were inside, the Nixon would see it.
While they waited for the bay to pressurize, Crow and Sandy disconnected themselves from the bus and pushed off toward the floor. The shuttle bay was zero-gee environment, as was the entire ship.
“They gotta have some kind of serious exercise regimen, or they’re gonna drop dead when they get back to Earth,” Sandy said.
“They do,” Crow said, as though he actually knew. “And they got lots of meds.”
“That shit can kill you all by itself,” Sandy said.
The environmental all-clear had come through on their internal readers. As they stripped off their suits, the inner bay door opened and two people came in, led, Sandy noticed, by a young woman, about his age. A really, really cute young woman, small, slim, buff, who looked like she was made to ride a surfboard.
The two Chinese stopped a few meters from the two Americans. “Welcome to the Celestial Odyssey. I am Second Officer and Acting Commander Sun Yu Jie, and this”—she gestured to her left—“is our medical officer, Dr. Mo Mu.”
Her English was excellent, with only the faintest hint of an accent. “Please do not be offended, but Dr. Mo is going to perform a body scan on both of you, to ensure that you are not bringing any weapons or explosives on board. I am entirely comfortable with the arrangements Captain Zhang has made, but some of my crew is nervous.” She looked regretful. “They feel that we are at the disadvantage in this situation. This will relieve some of their anxiety and distrust, unjustified as it is.”
Sandy gave her his toothy grin. “No problem! I’m Sanders Darlington. Everyone calls me Sandy—”
Crow’s voice crackled in his earbud. “Zip it, Sandy.”
Sandy said to the woman, “…and this is Mr. Crow, my assistant.”
The woman smiled back and extended a hand to Crow: “Yes, Mr. David Crowell, the political officer. Ours, unfortunately, as you heard, was killed. She was loved by everyone. As, I’m sure, is Mr. Crow.”
“Absolutely,” Sandy said. “And by no one more than myself.”