But the president said, “This is for the country. She’ll do her duty.” He rubbed his chin. “And we’ll give her a civil-service promotion, too. You’re right-she’ll earn it.”
“That’s fair.” And Yeager thought Warren was right. Barbara would pitch in and help. Chances to learn about the Race like this didn’t grow on trees. Sam suddenly grinned. Jonathan would pitch in, too. He’d leap at the chance, where he’d run screaming from the idea of taking care of a human baby.
“You should have some fascinating times ahead of you-and busy ones, too,” Warren said. “In a way, I envy you. You’ll be doing something no one has ever done before, not in all the history of the world.”
“Yeah,” Sam said dreamily. But this time, when his gaze went back to the incubator, he turned practical again. “You’ll either need to fly that out to L.A. in a pressurized cabin or ship it by train. We don’t want to take any chances with those eggs.”
“No, indeed,” President Warren agreed. “And that has been taken care of. A military charter will get into Los Angeles an hour after your return flight. That should give you time enough to meet it and accompany the truck that will bring the incubator to your home.”
“Sounds good, sir,” Yeager said. “Sounds great, in fact. You’re a couple of steps ahead of me. Better that way than to find out you’re a couple of steps behind.”
“I don’t think anyone who serves the United States can care to an excessive degree about details-that is, there is no degree of care that could be too large,” the president said, with a precision of which Barbara would have approved.
“All right.” Sam didn’t want to leave the incubator even for a moment. He laughed at himself. After the eggs hatched, he’d be praying for free time. He remembered that from the days when Jonathan was a baby. He didn’t think two Lizards would be less demanding than one human had been.
After President Warren dismissed him, he left the new, not so white White House with so much spring in his step, he might have been walking six inches off the ground. A promotion, a new assignment that would keep him busy and fascinated the rest of his career if not the rest of his life… What more could a man want?
One thing looked pretty clear: once he got those eggs home, he wouldn’t have time to worry about the Lewis and Clark or much of anything else for quite a while. He paused and looked back toward the president’s residence. Could Warren have…? Sam shook his head and walked on down High Street, a happy man.
Glen Johnson had never gone to the moon. He’d never got out of close orbit around the Earth till he went up to have a look at the Lizard reconnaissance satellite and, not so coincidentally, the space station that had turned into the Lewis and Clark. Now, peering out one of the windows of the enormous, ungainly ship, he saw Earth and moon together in the blackness of space: matching crescents, one large, one small.
He couldn’t just float weightless by the window and gape to his heart’s content, as he might have done aboard Peregrine. Acceleration was ghostly; he couldn’t feel his effective weight of a bit over a pound and a half. But if he tried to hang in the air, he moved back toward the Lewis and Clark ’s distant motor-four inches the first second, eight the next, a whole foot the third, and so on. Up and down had meaning here, even if they didn’t have much. Papers needed to be clipped or held with rubber bands on any surface that wasn’t down in respect to the axis of acceleration… and on any surface that was, because air currents were plenty to send them fluttering off desktops under.01g.
The crew of the Lewis and Clark had already started inventing games suited to their unique environment. One involved spilling a stream of water at the top of a chamber, then hurrying down to the bottom to drink it when it finally got there. It took more skill than it looked; an error in judgment sent water droplets flying every which way, some in slow motion, others not.
One of those errors in judgment had sent water droplets flying into the Lewis and Clark ’s wiring. It had also sent a spate of orders flying from Brigadier General Healey. Their gist was that anybody who tried such a damnfool stunt again could see how he liked trying to breathe outside without a spacesuit. That hadn’t stopped the games, but it had made people more careful where and with whom they played them.
Somebody stuck his head into the compartment where Johnson was rubbernecking: Danny Perez, one of the radiomen who’d helped show the world a sardonic face while the space station stayed in orbit. “It’s pretty, all right,” he said now, “but I wouldn’t get real excited about it. It’s not like we’re going back.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s what everybody’s been saying since we left,” Johnson answered. “I’ll be damned if I signed up to go rock-hunting a couple of hundred million miles from home, though.”
“Sir, when you came looking around, you signed up,” Perez said, snotty and deferential at the same time. “Now you’re here for the duration, just like the rest of us who really did volunteer.”
“Thanks a lot,” Johnson said, which only made the radioman laugh. “Christ, I still don’t see why you guys had to keep this place as secret as you did.”
“Don’t look at me. I just work here.” Perez grinned, his teeth very white in his swarthy face. “You want to know that kind of stuff, the only one who can tell you is General Healey.”
“I don’t think I want to know that bad,” Johnson muttered, at which Perez laughed again and zoomed away.
But, less than an hour later, the intercom blared forth the news that Healey wanted to see Johnson. One thing the crews that built the Lewis and Clark had done: they’d put handholds everywhere. Johnson swung along corridors the way Tarzan dreamt of swinging through the trees. And if he missed one hold, he didn’t have to worry about falling into a river full of crocodiles. All he had to do was let momentum carry him along till he latched onto another.
And so, much sooner than he wanted, he found himself back in the office to which Alan Stahl had guided him. Brigadier General Charles Healey, belted into a chair, looked no friendlier now than he had then. Fixing Johnson with a cold, gray-eyed glare, he said, “How are we going to make you useful, Johnson?”
“Sir, you already know I’ve got a lot of time in space,” Johnson began.
“So does everyone else aboard the Lewis and Clark,” Healey said.
“Yes, sir, but I’ve got piloting experience,” Johnson answered. “Most people”-including you, you son of a bitch — “are just passengers.”
Healey’s scowl got even chillier. “You have piloting experience with rockets, not under continuous acceleration.”
“Sir, I have piloting experience with aircraft under continuous acceleration-everything from a Stearman trainer up to an F-83-and on Peregrine, too,” Johnson said. “One more kind of piloting won’t faze me, not after better than twenty years of flying.” He fiddled with the belt on his own chair, across the desk from Healey’s.
“Lieutenant Colonel, I only wish there were some way I could make you spend your whole tour aboard the Lewis and Clark breaking rocks,” Healey said. “As best I can see, you came aboard this ship with the deliberate intention of spying on it. You had already attempted to gather information you were not authorized to have, and your visit was most likely more of the same.”
He was right, of course. Johnson was damned if he’d admit as much, though. “Sir, I can’t help it if Peregrine ’s motor picked exactly the wrong minute to go on the blink.” He’d said the same thing so many times, he needed a distinct effort of will to recall that he’d made the motor go on the blink.