He turned toward her once more. “You’ll have to run Helvetia. You can stay on Ceres while I take the ship out.”
Pancho studied them. There was something going on between them, some hidden agenda someplace, that she couldn’t fathom.
“Lars,” said Amanda, in a very soft voice, “are you certain that this is what you want to do?”
“It’s what I must do, darling.” His voice sounded implacable.
Pancho invited them both to dinner at the Earthview Restaurant, off the hotel’s lobby.
“Strictly a social evening,” she told them. “No talk about Humphries or Ceres or any kind of business at all. Okay?”
They agreed, halfheartedly.
So naturally they talked about business through the entire meal. Pancho’s business.
The standing joke about the Earthview was that it was the finest restaurant within four hundred thousand kilometers. Which was perfectly true: the two other eateries in Selene, up in the Grand Plaza, were mere bistros. Two levels beneath the lunar surface, the Earthview featured sweeping windowalls that displayed holographic views from the Moon’s surface. It was almost like looking through real windows at the gaunt, cracked floor of the giant crater Alphonsus and its worn, slumped ringwall mountains. But the Earth was always in that dark sky, hanging like a splendid glowing jewel of sparkling blue and glowing white, ever changing yet always present.
The Earthview prided itself on having a human staff, no robots in sight. Pancho always felt that a truly top-rate restaurant should use tablecloths, but the Earthview used glittering placemats made of lunar honeycomb metal, thin and supple as silk.
None of them had changed clothes for dinner. Fuchs was still wearing his gray suit, Amanda her turquoise knee-length dress. Pancho, who favored coveralls and softboots, had started the day in a business outfit of chocolate-brown slacks, pale yellow sweater, and light tan suede vest. Amanda had loaned her a light auburn Irish lace stole to “dress up your outfit.”
Once their handsome young waiter had brought their drinks and taken their dinner order, an awkward silence fell over their table. They had agreed not to talk business. What other topic of conversation was there?
Pancho sipped at her margarita and watched the waiter’s retreating back. Nice buns, she thought. Wonder if he’s married?
“So what have you been doing lately, Pancho?” Amanda finally said, more to break the silence than any other reason.
“Me? I’m followin’ up on something Dan Randolph talked about years ago: scoopin’ fusion fuels from Jupiter.”
Fuchs’s ears perked up. “Fusion fuels?”
“Yeah. You know, helium-three, tritium, other isotopes. Jupiter’s atmosphere is full of ’em.”
“That’s a steep gravity well,” said Amanda.
“Tell me about it,” Pancho said. “You know I’ve been approached by some nuts who want to go skimmin’ Jupiter’s atmosphere as a stunt? They even brought a network producer with ’em.”
“Insanity,” Fuchs muttered.
“Yeah, sure.” Pancho pronounced the word shore. “But then there’s a gaggle of scientists who wanta set up a research station in orbit around Jupiter. Study the moons and all.”
“But the radiation,” Amanda said.
“Tight orbit, underneath the Jovian Van Allen belts. Might be doable.”
“Astro would fund this?”
“Hell no!” Pancho blurted. “Universities gotta come up with the funding. We’ll build the sucker.”
“And use it as a platform for mining Jupiter’s atmosphere,” Amanda added.
Pancho smiled at her. Sometimes I forget how smart she is, Pancho thought. I let her sweet face and nice boobs fool me.
Then she looked at Fuchs. He sat with his drink untouched before him, his eyes staring off into some private universe. Whatever he’s thinking about, Pancho realized, he’s a zillion kilometers from here.
WALTZING MATILDA
Once they got back inside the ship, it took George and Nodon hours to patch the holes punched through the hull by the attacker’s laser and check out all the systems. They were both dead tired by the time they were able to take off their spacesuits and clump wearily, fearfully to the bridge.
George took the command chair, Nodon slipped into the chair at his right.
“You run a diagnostic on the power generator,” said George. “I’ll check the nav computer and see where th’ fook we’re headin’.” They worked in silence for another twenty minutes. At last Nodon said, “I can repair the generator. He knocked out one set of electrodes. We have spares.”
George nodded. “Okay, then. If you can get the generator back on line we won’t hafta worry about electrical power for the life support systems.”
Nodding, Nodon said, “That is good news.”
“Right. Now here’s the bad news. We’re up shit’s creek without a paddle.”
Nodon said nothing. He held his bony face impassive, but George saw that even his shaved pate was sheened with perspiration. It sure isn’t the temperature in here, George told himself. In fact, the bridge felt decidedly chilly.
With a heavy sigh, George said, “He knocked enough holes in the propellant tanks to send us jettin’ deeper into the Belt.”
“And the main engine is beyond repair.”
“Prob’ly.”
“Then we will die.”
“Looks that way, mate. Unless we can get some help.”
“The comm system is down. He must have lasered the antennas.”
George nodded. “So that’s what the soddin’ bastard was doing.”
“He was very thorough.”
Sitting there, staring at the control panel with half its telltale lights glowering red, George tried to think.
“We’re okay on life support,” he mused aloud.
“Once the generator is running again,” Nodon corrected. “Otherwise the batteries will run out in…” He glanced at the displays “…eleven hours.”
“Better fix the generator, then. That’s our first priority.”
Nodon started to get up from his seat. He hesitated, asked, “And our second priority?”
“Figurin’ out if we can nudge ourselves into a trajectory that’ll bring us close to Ceres before we starve to death.”
CHAPTER 20
Amanda would have preferred to stay in Selene for just a few days more, but Fuchs insisted that they start back for Ceres as soon as possible. He learned from Pancho that an Astro ship was due to depart for Ceres the next day, carrying a load of equipment that Helvetia had ordered before the warehouse fire. “We’ll go back on that ship,” Fuchs told his wife. “But it’s a freighter. It won’t have passenger accommodations,” Amanda protested.
“We’ll go back on that ship,” he repeated. Wondering why her husband was so insistent on returning as quickly as possible, Amanda reluctantly packed her travel bag while Fuchs called Pancho to beg a ride.
The next morning they rode the automated little tractor through the tunnel that led out to Armstrong Spaceport and climbed aboard the spindly-legged shuttlecraft that would lift them to the Harper. The ship was in lunar orbit, but rotating at a one-sixth g spin. Fuchs felt grateful that he would not have to endure weightlessness for more than the few minutes of the shuttlecraft’s flight.
“Newest ship in the solar system,” said her captain as he welcomed them aboard. He was young, trim, good-looking, and stared openly at Amanda’s ample figure. Fuchs, standing beside her, grasped his wife’s arm possessively.
“I’m afraid, though, that she’s not built for passenger service,” the captain said as he led them down the habitat module’s central passageway. “All I can offer you is this cabin.”