“Yes please.” She sat, poised and at ease, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Patrick poured another drink for himself and wondered how she could remain so calm.
“You're just out of Houston,” he said. “Hear anything more about Doc Kennelly?”
“Just what you probably know. The operation was successful and prognosis fine.”
“Quite a coincidence, wasn't it?”
“What was a coincidence?”
“His getting sick at this time. And whatever happened to his backup, Feinberg? Wasn't a Jew ethnic enough for Prometheus…”
“Patrick,” Flax broke in. “Why don't you just shut up and let Coretta get some rest, she must have had a long day.”
“No, let him talk, Flax. Let us get this out in the open. I have no idea of what happened to Dr. Feinberg. No one bothered to tell me. I was just started on a hush-hush space orientation program about seven weeks ago. Centrifuge, free fall in the plane, all the rest. Just two days ago I was told I was going on Prometheus. That's all I know.”
Patrick laughed without humor. “That's all we know too — Seven weeks! That bastard Bandin has been planning this all along. I wonder if Doc really had a hot appendix. They could have faked that too — “
“That's enough!” Flax said, heaving his bulk forward between them. “Get to your quarters, Patrick. You've had a lot to drink, go sleep it off.”
“No,” Coretta said. “Will you please move aside, Flax. This thing has been started and we're going to finish it. Right here and now.” She stood in front of Patrick, looking up at him, fists clenched and emotion showing for the first time. She was angry. “It's pretty obvious what you're thinking. That bastard Bandin, as you call him, has been playing politics. The Commies got a woman into the space program which gave him a shot in the political eye. Now if he could see them with another woman, then raise them with a black woman, he would be having a shot in the political arm instead. Was it possible! Could Kennelly get sick enough to drop out of the program? His backup could have been replaced earlier for other reasons, no problem there. If this were done — who could be pulled in quickly enough to take Kennelly's place? Why look, there's nice little Dr. Coretta Samuel way in the back of the NASA lab, not only proving that NASA is an equal opportunity employer, but she's really good at analyzing calcium samples. She should be. She's been doing it for five years. Why not give her a chance at a place on the Prometheus team? That's what you are thinking, isn't it — or something very much like that?”
She leaned close to Patrick in her anger, so close he could feel her breath warm on his face. He did not speak, but only nodded slowly in response. Coretta leaned back and sighed, then turned away.
“Well do you know something, Mr. Pilot — that's what I have been thinking too.” Then she wheeled about and stabbed her finger at him. “I think the way it was done stinks and the stink is of politics so strong I can smell Washington right from here. But you want to know something else — I don't care! However I got into Prometheus doesn't matter a damn. I'm here! Mr. Redditch knew I was lying about the place of the black man in America. Not to mention the black woman. But I'm not making race propaganda out of Prometheus. Others are doing that. All I've to do is go along for the ride. And I can do it. I can hack the job. I'm going into space and I'm going to do the work I've been trained to do then come back to the roars of the crowd. I've worked hard and come a long way to get where I am now. There was a great man in the history of this country, name of Martin Luther King. They killed him for what he was doing and his wife carried on his work. God knows how many thousands of little black girls were named after her — I'm just one. Now I'm going to take that name into space and do my job. It will be a woman who'll have done it and a black woman who does it and they'll never be able to take that away from us.”
She slammed her glass down so hard onto the table that it jumped and fell over and ice and bourbon spilled across the shining surface. Before anyone could say anything she had turned and was out of the door and gone.
“Reilly, this whole damn thing is a plumber's nightmare. Not made any easier by the fact that I can't read a word of it.”
“I will teach you, Duffy, ten bucks a lesson. Well worth it. In a little while you will speak Russian like a native and will also be earning, like me, an extra fifty a week for being bilingual.”
“Not me. I barely speak English. Now tell me, what are all these squiggles at this junction?”
“Standby bilateral fuel transfer pump tank 23 feed line 19 to feed line 104 tank 16B pressurization point switch normally off 734LU.”
“Thanks, I feel a lot better for knowing. “
The master schematic for the section was spread out on the deck; it measured two meters by two and was in six colors. Duffy muttered to himself as he checked the circuitry. He blinked once, lost his place on the diagram, then sat up to rub his back.
“So we check the circuits,” he said, pointing to the open panels and dangling electrical leads. “So great. We have continuity between the flight cabin controls and the computer and the relays and sub-unit motors and servos. But so what? We gotta take tovarich and his buddies on trust. All the Russki plumbing's sealed away and pressurized with nitrogen and we can't even get to look at it. “
“They checked and double checked. You've seen the records.”
“Yes — but how do we know?”
Reilly shrugged and picked his teeth with the positive probe from the digital voltmeter, watching the numbers flicker on the readout. “I guess we don't. Take it on faith, baby. Give them credit where credit's due — these big bastards really fly. Raw power and up and up they go. Multiple motors and fuel supplies so if one motor or pump kicks out the others keep on functioning. They really lift.”
“They really blow up too, or is that just a rumor?”
“One of them did, we're pretty sure of that. A satellite photo in 1968 showed one of the first of these big babies on the launching pad. Picture taken next day showed that it was gone — and so was the launch tower and all the buildings for a mile round. It must have blown right on the pad. But that was an early model.”
“So you say.”
“It's on the record. They've done all their launches for a couple of years now with these boosters, and all of them have worked and worked well. They've had their troubles with their shuttles and they dig in their toes and lift.”
''Time for a coffee break yet?''
“No. We do this one next.“
7
“And now our little holiday begins, hey?” Colonel Kuznekov said, smiling around at the five others. Behind his back the heavy door hissed shut and the bolts rattled into place.
“It's quarantine,” Ely Bron said, “I don't think we can look at it as a holiday.”
“But we can, Dr. Bron,” Kuznekov insisted. “Ninety-six hours of peace while the final countdown begins. Right now the technicians are, how do you say it, in a bloody sweat making sure everything goes right? While us — what do we have to do? We are locked in this magnificent block of flats where nasty bugs and bacteria cannot get at us. We're sealed in with cooks to make our food and maids to look after our clothes and bedding. We all have work to do, the pilots most of all, I see them studying those big books all the time. But we don't work as they do. So we've time to meet each other without politicians and publicity and newsmen and a thousand other things to distract. To talk with us they must use the phone and we can always be busy when it rings.”
The phone rang. They were all silent for a moment — then burst out laughing. “Who shall I say is busy?” Patrick asked, as he reached out to take up the phone.