Calder grinned. «All right then, the computer thinks highly of you, Chet. I suppose that’s still something of an honor.»
«More like a privilege. I’ve been watching that Photo Day chick all through her training. She’s ripe.»
«She’ll look even better up in orbit.»
«Once she takes off the pressure suit … et cetera.»
«Hey, y’know, nobody’s ever done it in orbit.»
«Yeah … free fall, zero gravity.»
Kinsman looked thoughtful. «Adds a new dimension to the problem, doesn’t it?»
«Three-dimensional.» Tenny took the cigar butt from his mouth and laughed.
Calder got up slowly from his chair and silenced the others. Looking down fondly on Kinsman, he said:
«My boy—back in 1915, in London, I became a charter member of the Mile High Club. At an altitude of exactly 5280 feet, while circling St. Paul’s, I successfully penetrated an Army nurse in an open cockpit … despite fogged goggles, cramped working quarters, and a severe case of windburn.
«Since then, there’s been damned little to look forward to. The skin-divers claimed a new frontier, but in fact they are retrogressing. Any silly-ass dolphin can do it in the water.
«But you’ve got something new going for you: weightlessness. Floating around in free fall, chasing tail in three dimensions. It beggars the imagination!
«Kinsman, I pass the torch to you. To the founder of the Zero Gee Club!»
As one man, the officers rose and solemnly toasted Captain Kinsman. As they sat down again, Major Tenny burst the balloon. «You guys haven’t given Murdock credit for much brains. You don’t think he’s gonna let Chet go up with that broad all alone, do you?»
Kinsman’s face fell, but the others lit up.
«It’ll be a three-man mission!»
«Two men and the chick.»
Tenny warned, «Now don’t start drooling. Murdock wants a chaperon, not an assistant rapist.»
It was Kinsman who got it first. Slouching back in his chair, chin sinking to his chest, he muttered, «Sonofabitch … he’s sending Jill along.»
A collective groan.
«Murdock made up his mind an hour ago,» Tenny said. «He was stuck with you, Chet, so he hit on the chaperon idea. He’s also giving you some real chores to do, to keep you busy. Like mating the power pod.»
«Jill Meyers,» said one of the captains disgustedly.
«She’s qualified, and she’s been taking the Photo Day girl through her training. I’ll bet she knows more about the mission than any of you guys do.»
«She would.»
«In fact,» Tenny added maliciously, «I think she’s the senior captain among you satellite-jockeys.»
Kinsman had only one comment: «Shit.»
The bone-rattling roar and vibration of liftoff suddenly died away. Sitting in his contour seat, scanning the banks of dials and gauges a few centimeters before his eyes, Kinsman could feel the pressure and tension slacken. Not back to normal. To zero. He was no longer plastered up against his seat, but touching it only lightly, almost floating in it, restrained only by his harness.
It was the fourth time he had felt weightlessness. It still made him smile inside the cumbersome helmet.
Without thinking about it, he touched a control stud on the chair’s armrest. A maneuvering jet fired briefly and the ponderous, lovely bulk of planet Earth slid into view through the port in front of Kinsman. It curved huge and serene, blue, mostly, but tightly wrapped in the purest, dazzling white of clouds, beautiful, peaceful, shining.
Kinsman could have watched it forever, but he heard sounds of motion in his earphones. The two women were sitting behind him, side by side. The spacecraft cabin made a submarine look roomy: the three seats were shoehorned in among racks of instruments and equipment.
Jill Meyers, who came to the astronaut program from the Aerospace Medical Division, was officially second pilot and biomedical officer. And chaperon, Kinsman knew. The photographer, Linda Symmes, was simply a passenger.
Kinsman’s earphones crackled with a disembodied link from Earth. «AF-9, this is ground control. We have you confirmed in orbit. Trajectory nominal. All systems go.»
«Check,» Kinsman said into his helmet mike.
The voice, already starting to fade, switched to ordinary conversational speech. «Looks like you’re right on the money, Chet. We’ll get the orbital parameters out of the computer and have ’em for you by the time you pass Ascension. You probably won’t need much maneuvering to make rendezvous with the lab.»
«Good. Everything here on the board looks green.»
«Okay. Ground control out.» Faintly. «And hey … good luck, Founding Father.»
Kinsman grinned at that. He slid his faceplate up, loosened his harness and turned in his seat. «Okay, ladies, you can take off your helmets if you want to.»
Jill Meyers snapped her faceplate open and started unlocking the helmet’s neck seal.
«I’ll go first,» she said, «and then I can help Linda with hers.»
«Sure you won’t need any help?» Kinsman offered.
Jill pulled her helmet off. «I’ve had more time in orbit than you. And shouldn’t you be paying attention to the instruments?»
So this is how it’s going to be, Kinsman thought.
Jill’s face was round and plain and bright as a new penny. Snub nose, wide mouth, short hair of undistinguished brown. Kinsman knew that under the pressure suit was a figure that could most charitably be described as ordinary.
Linda Symmes was entirely another matter. She had lifted her faceplate and was staring out at him with wide, blue eyes that combined feminine curiosity with a hint of helplessness. She was tall, nearly Kinsman’s own height, with thick honey-colored hair and a body that he had already memorized down to the last curve.
In her sweet, high voice she said, «I think I’m going to be sick.»
«Oh, for …»
Jill reached into the compartment between their two seats. «I’ll take care of this. You stick to the controls.» And she whipped a white plastic bag open and stuck it over Linda’s face.
Shuddering at the thought of what could happen in zero gravity, Kinsman turned back to the control panel. He pulled his faceplate shut and turned up the air blower in his suit, trying to cut off the obscene sound of Linda’s struggles.
«For Chrissake,» he yelled, «unplug her radio! You want me chucking all over, too?»
«AF-9, this is Ascension.»
Trying to blank his mind to what was going on behind him, Kinsman thumbed the switch on his communications panel. «Go ahead, Ascension.»
For the next hour Kinsman thanked the gods that he had plenty of work to do. He matched the orbit of their three-man spacecraft to that of the Air Force orbiting laboratory, which had been up for more than a year now, and intermittently occupied by two-or three-man crews.
The lab was a fat, cylindrical shape, silhouetted against the brilliant white of the cloud-decked Earth. As he pulled the spacecraft close, Kinsman could see the antennas and airlock and other odd pieces of gear that had accumulated on it. Looking more like a junkheap every trip. Riding behind it, unconnected in any way, was the massive cone of the new power pod.
Kinsman circled the lab once, using judicious squeezes of his maneuvering jets. He touched a command signal switch, and the lab’s rendezvous radar beacon came to life, announced by a light on his control panel.
«All systems green,» he said to ground control. «Everything looks okay.»
«Roger, Niner. You are cleared for docking.»