"Yes, dear. By the way, I'm cutting your calorie ration again."
"Mutiny! What would John Sterling do?"
"Daddy's getting fat! Daddy's getting fat!" Lowell chanted. "And strangle your child. Anybody want to come out with me while I set units?"
"I will, Daddy!"
"Meade, you're just trying to get out of helping with dinner."
"I can spare her, dear."
"Spare the child and spoil the fodder. Come with your fodder, baby."
"Not very funny, Daddy."
"And I'm not getting paid for it, either." Captain Stone went aft, whistling. The twins as well as Meade went out with him; they made quick work of setting jato units, the young people locking them in place and the Captain seeing to the wiring personally. They set a belt of them around the waist of the ship and matched pairs on the bow and quarter. Wired for triggering to the piloting radar, set at minimum range, they would give the ship a sharp nudge in the unlikely event that any object came toward them on a collision course at a relative speed high enough to be dangerous.
Coming through the Asteroid Belt to their present location deep in it, they had simply taken their chances. Although one is inclined to think of the Belt as thick with sky junk, the statistical truth is that there is so enormously more space than rock that the chance of being hit is negligible. Inside a node the situation was somewhat different, the concentration of mass being several hundred times as great as in the ordinary reaches of the Belt. But most of the miners took no precautions even there, preferring to bet that this unending game of Russian roulette would always work out in their favor rather than go to the expense and trouble of setting up a meteor guard. This used up a few miners, but not often; the accident rate in Hallelujah node was about the same as that of Mexico City.
They went inside and found dinner ready. "Call for you, Captain." announced Hazel.
"Already?"
"City Hall. Told 'em you were out but would call back. Nine point six centimeters."
"Come eat your dinner, dear, while it's hot"
"You all go ahead. I won't be long."
Nor was he. Dr. Stone looked inquiringly at him as he joined them. "The Mayor," he told her and the others. "Welcome to Rock City and all that sort of thing. Advised me that the Citizen's Committee has set a speed limit of a hundred miles an hour for ships, five hundred miles an hour for scooters, anywhere within a thousand miles of City Hall."
Hazel bristled. "I suppose you told him what they could do with their speed limits?"
"I did not I apologized sweetly for having unwittingly offended on my approach and said that I would be over to pay my respects tomorrow or the next day."
"I thought Mars would have some elbow room," Hazel grumbled. "It turned out to be nothing but scissorbills and pantywaists and tax collectors. So we come on out to the wide open spaces and what do we find? Traffic cops! And my only son without the spunk to talk back to them. I think I'll go to Saturn."
" I hear that Titan Base is awfully chilly," her son answered without rancor. "Why not Jupiter? Pol, flip the salt over this way, please."
"Jupiter? The position isn't favorable. Besides I hear that, Ganymede has more regulations than a girls' school."
"Mother, you are the only juvenile delinquent old enough for a geriatrics clinic whom I have ever known. You know perfectly well that an artificial colony has to have regulations."
"An excuse for miniature Napoleons! This whole system has taken to wearing corsets."
"What's a corset?" inquired Lowell.
"Uh... a predecessor to the spacesuit, sort of."
Lowell still looked puzzled; his mother said, "Never mind, dear. When we get back, Mother will show you one, in the museum."
Captain Stone proposed that they all turn in right after supper; they had all run short on sleep during the maneuvering approach. "I keep seeing spots before my eyes," he said, rubbing them, "from staring into the tank. I think I'll sleep the clock around."
Hazel started to answer when an alarm shrilled; he passed instantly from sleepy to alert. "Object on collision course! Grab something, everybody." He clutched at a stanchion with one hand, gathered inLowell with the other.
But no shove from a firing jato followed. "Green," Hazel announced quietly. "Whatever it is, it isn't moving fast enough to hurt us. Chances favor a near miss, anyway."
Captain Stone took a deep breath, "I hope you're right, but I've been on the short end of too many long shots to place much faith in statistics. I've been jumpy ever since we entered the Belt"
Meade went aft with dirty dishes. She returned in a hurry, round eyed. "Daddy - somebody's at the door."
"What? Meade, you're imagining things."
"No, I'm not I heard him. Listen."
"Quiet, everyone." In the silence they could hear the steady hiss of an air injector; the lock was cycling. Roger Stone lunged toward the airlock; he was stopped by a sharp warning from his mother. "Son! Hold it a second"
"What?"
"Keep back from that door." She had her gun out and at the ready.
"Huh? Don't be silly. And put that thing away; it isn't charged anyhow."
"He won't know that. Whoever is coming in that lock."
Dr. Stone said quietly, "Mother Hazel, what are you nervous about?"
"Can't you see? We've got a ship here with food in it. And oxy. And a certain amount of single-H. This isn't Luna City; there are men out here who would be tempted."
Dr. Stone did not answer but turned to her husband. He hesitated only momentarily, then snapped, "Go forward, dear. Take Lowell. Meade, you go along and lock the access hatch. Leave the ship's phones open. If you hear anything wrong, radio City Hall and tell them we are being hijacked. Move!" He was already ducking into his stateroom, came out with his own gun.
By the time the hatch to the control room had clanged shut the airlock finished cycling. The four remaining waited, surrounding the airlock inner door. "Shall we jump him, Dad?" Castor whispered.
"No just stay out of my line of ifre."
Slowly the door swung open. A spacesuited figure crouched in the frame, its features indistinct in its helmet. It looked around, saw the guns trained on it, and spread both its hands open in front of it. "What's the matter?" a muffled voice said plaintively. "I haven't done anything."
Captain Stone could see that the man, besides being empty-handed, carried no gun at his belt. He put his own away. "Sorry. Let me give you a hand with that helmet"
The helmet revealed a middle-aged, sandy-haired man with mild eyes. "What was the matter?" he repeated.
"Nothing. Nothing at all. We didn't know who was boarding us and we were a bit nervous. My name's Stone, by the way. I'm master."
"Glad to know you, Captain Stone. I'm Shorty Devine."
"I'm glad to know you, Mr. Devine. Welcome aboard."
"Just Shorty." He looked around. "Uh, excuse me for bursting in on you and scaring you but I heard you had a doctor aboard. A real doctor, I mean - not one of those science johnnies."
"We have."
"Gee, that's wonderful! The town hasn't had a real doctor since old Doc Schultz died. And I need one, bad."
"Sorry! Pol, get your mother."
"I heard, dear," the speaker horn answered. "Coming." The hatch opened and Dr. Stone came in. "I'm the doctor, Mr. Devine. Dear, I'll use this room, I think. If you will all go somewhere else, please?"
The visitor said hastily, "Oh, they needn't"
"I prefer to make examinations without an audience," she said firmly.