“I’m responsible for everything that goes out of here.” Klein said. “You don’t get new charges until you account for the old ones. If you want to fill out a lost or damaged report…”
Grogan made a choking sound. He spat out a rude word and stormed out. Klein’s eyes flickered over Jameson and Li. “Yes, Commander,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“Tongzhi Li, ching,” Jameson said to Li. “Can we have that shopping list?”
Li extracted a crumpled sheet of paper from a leg pocket and held it out to Klein. Klein didn’t take it.
“Just a minute,” Klein said. “I’ll get Tongzhi Chia in on this.”
“We’re kind of in a hurry,” Jameson said. “We’ve got to finish up outside before Communications closes down. Chia doesn’t mind, and it’s okay with Li and me—”
“It’s not okay with me, Commander,” Klein said. “Wait here.”
He came back with Chia Lan-ying. The Chinese stores exec was breathtakingly lovely, with a tiny flower face and great dark eyes. She moved with brisk efficiency. She was wearing a blue smock with the sleeves pushed up. Her little delicate fingers were grimy and ink-stained, and there was a smudge on her cheek. Jameson had always known her to be cheerful and cooperative, but today she seemed unhappy.
“Hau-a, Tongzhi Li,” she said severely, and then to Jameson: “Hello, Commander.”
“All right,” Klein said; “let’s start checking these things off. Do you have your book?”
“I can start getting those outside latch seals,” Jameson said. “I know where Bailey kept them.” He took a step past Klein and the girl.
“Just stay on your side of the counter, Commander,” Klein said in a flat tone. “Nobody except authorized personnel takes anything out of those bins.”
Jameson’s lips tightened, but he caught himself before saying anything. “All right,” he said. “But hurry it up, will you.”
Klein took his time. He fussed and nitpicked over everything. Jameson could see Chia Lan-ying developing more and more of a strained look; her response to Klein was a sort of tight courtesy. Jameson could understand it. It was no use trying to hurry Klein. If you got him off the track, it just had to be done over again. The pile of items on the counter grew as the harried clerks fetched them, one chit at a time. Finally Klein looked up.
“I guess that does it, Commander,” he said. “Will you verify the list?”
“I don’t have to. I’ve been keeping track as we went along. Just hand me that thing and Li and I will sign it.”
“We’ll have to check it all off. I’ll read off the items.”
Jameson restrained his impatience. They got through the list faster than he had expected. Klein actually smiled when they finished. Li, his face neutral, began to stuff things into a sack.
“Want to help me with this air tank, Lan-ying?” Jameson said. When Bailey had been stores exec, he’d often deferred to his Chinese co-worker, with her deft fingers.
“I’ll do that!” Klein said harshly.
The girl stepped back. Startled, Jameson couldn’t think of anything to say as he felt Klein fumbling at the valve connections behind his back.
“Don’t you know any better than to let a chi-com fool with your life-support equipment?” Klein whispered in his ear, loudly enough to embarrass Chia Lan-ying, who moved off and began to busy herself with a binder. “It’s against regs—and for a damn good reason. Any accidents where there’s the slightest chance the other side gets blamed—either side, Commander—and it could bollix up the whole mission. Think about it!”
Klein unlatched Jameson’s depleted tank, chalked it with an X, and added it to a pile of tanks in a canvas cart. He picked up a fresh tank from the pile of equipment on the counter and fastened it to Jameson’s harness.
“Careful when you screw in the T-valve on the switchover,” Jameson said mildly. “It’s a little tricky on this suit.”
“I’ve done this before,” Klein said irritably. “There you go, all set.”
“Did you check the safety on the pressure-relief valve?” Jameson asked.
“It’s all right, I said!” Klein snapped. He flipped all the latches shut, then moved away.
“Let’s go, Li,” Jameson said. They picked up their sacks and left.
Li waited until they were in the tubeway. “Not a very likable man, this Klein.”
Jameson’s accumulated irritation broke through and aimed itself at Li. A little bit of shamefaced loyalty to his own side was mixed in with it. “He doesn’t have to be likable,” he said shortly. “Just so long as he does his job.”
They walked to the nearest lift shaft in silence. They had to wait about five minutes. The wraparound door revolved to open, and Grogan and an assistant staggered out, hugging bulky scooter reaction tanks. Grogan grimaced at Jameson as he stepped past him. “Don’t empty your pissbottle while you’re out there, Commander,” he said. “That Klein joker’ll make you go back and count all the crystals.”
Jameson laughed and stepped inside. Li crowded in with him. The door slid shut with a hiss, and the circular platform began to rise. The lift shaft ran through one of the three equidistant spokes that connected the ship’s main ring to the hub and the thousand-foot spear that ran through it. It was three hundred feet to the hub—too far to walk and impossible to leap when the ship was under spin. Jameson felt his weight dropping fast as they ascended. The Coriolis force pushed at him, jamming him against the mesh wall of the cage. Then the cage stopped, the invisible fist released him, and he was so close to weightlessness that it made no difference.
Four of Grogan’s men were in the spinlock antechamber, playing a dispirited game of cards on a magnetic board that kept getting away from them. They were in skivvies and stickyslippers, their spacesuits bobbing from hooks on the wall behind them. They didn’t bother to look up as Jameson and Li unfastened the hatch to the spinlock and dove inside.
Jameson and Li helped each other with their helmets and gloves, then vacced the lock. The spinlock was an unpleasant place to be in for any length of time; though your weight was negligible this close to the center of the ship, the gradient between head and feet was quite noticeable. It made people feel odd, disoriented, a little nauseated. Through the little safety window Jameson could see the metal skin of the ship’s central shaft reeling past at two revolutions per minute. The wheel’s hub slid around that axle on frictionless bearings—the perfect ball bearings that had been cast under weightless conditions in one of the space factories swarming around Eurostation. Of course, total frictionlessness was impossible to achieve, but this came close enough; the minute amount of spin that was imparted to the thousand-foot axis of the ship was easily corrected once or twice a day by a modest computer-regulated flywheel.
Li released the brake. The anti-spin jets fired automatically, as soon as the computer verified that neither of the other two spinlocks had open outer doors. The unpleasant feeling disappeared as body fluids redistributed themselves. Jameson’s sinuses cleared. Through the little window he could see the motion of the inner hull slow down and stop. The spinlock fastened itself to the long shaft of the inner hull. Now the 600-foot wheel of the spin section was sliding around the spinlock’s outer ring of frictionless bearings in their Teflon track.
The two spacesuited figures pulled themselves aft along the webbing and cordage that restrained cargo. No-g wasn’t good for much of anything except stowage and the super-growth section of the hydroponics system. The boron fusion/fission engine was all the way aft, off limits behind thick bulkheads. Jameson could see the dull red glow of the warning lights in the murky distance—though this airless tunnel ought to be deterrent enough.