“She comes with us,” he replied. “We modified a rescue bubble into a sort of nursery, which she used until we pressurized and—”
“Let me,” McCarthy groaned, “see if I understand this. She’s allowed to float around wild in a habitat under construction among the motile spiders, laser welders, nanoplaners, and so on? And she’s still alive?”
“We have a net around her,” Dolph snapped. “It works fine.”
McCarthy shook her head. “Did it ever occur to you dear young people to ask for some help?”
“As you pointed out,” Dolph answered, trying to keep his voice even and conversational, “we are normally several light-minutes from any other habitation. And there’s no more money.”
McCarthy frowned and pushed herself up from the table. “I can see that. You’ve been cutting back rations. I have an extra fifty-kilo CMF standard—I’ll send a telop down with it.”
Sasha shook her head, “We can’t—”
“Did I ask? You can’t feed the baby that way if you don’t feed yourself.”
Sasha’s face turned red and her smile got very tight.
How, Dolph wondered, had this old biddy known Tina was still nursing? And what business was it of hers? His indignation began to rise, but he thought better of it. Fifty kilos of vacuum-dried food would keep them going for two or three months, if they stretched it. He was in no position to object. “Thank you, Inspector McCarthy,” he finally choked out.
“Hmmpf. We will start inspecting this supposedly childproof habitat construction site at oh eight hundred tomorrow morning. I can find my way back to my ship.”
In an embarrassed silence, she put her helmet back on and cycled out of the lock.
Sasha’s face fell as soon as the door hissed shut, and she began to sob. Dolph put his arms around his wife and child.
“Oh, oh!” Tina squeaked, realizing something was wrong.
The inspection was a disaster. By the end of the day, there were some thirty-three items which had to be fixed before provisional approval, and another seventy-two that needed to be corrected by final approval. It seemed to Dolph that McCarthy’s sole purpose was to prevent them from occupying their asteroid and when it seemed that no amount of appeasing her would slow the accumulation of items on the list, he’d allowed himself, in desperation, to argue. At this rate, they would have to vacate before they even got to her gift rations. Maybe that’s why she could be so generous—she was going to get it back anyway.
Finally, Dolph blew his gasket. The vestibule air seals had been the final crack in the air hose, so to speak, and Dolph s feelings had gushed out as they shut the inner door and stood in the bright, clean, sweet-smelling entryway to the home that Dolph was beginning to realize would never really be his.
“Ms. McCarthy,” he wailed, “those seals are in spec! Ail the vestibule is supposed to do is to guide the last wisps of air from the air lock to the ion pumps so you can open the door sooner. It’s never supposed to hold any real pressure. It’s not a backup system!”
“A seal is a seal. You never know when you might need it.”
“Damn it! I’m going by the book and the book says IPA certified pipe is safe to use outside as is!”
“The book, young man, says inspectors are to use their judgment,” she said in as frosty and imperious a tone as he’d yet heard her use, “and my judgment right now is that you have an attitude problem; not toward me—while I can see that, too, it’s irrelevant. But you aren’t attacking your problem. You’re just filling squares on the list—-not thinking, not being proactive. This isn’t a chore you kids have to do—it’s your lives, and you don’t seem to realize it!
“Specifically, here and now, I don’t consider your vestibule seal installation adequate and I don’t consider your piping installation adequate.”
“But by the book they are! And I’m going to damn well appeal this, and your fix-log on the door motors. I got the certified equipment, certified materials, installed them with certified procedures, and you redline it! I don’t know what your game is, whether Shan Toy’s parents are paying you, or some people that want this rock without taking the trouble to settle on it, or some politicos that don’t like people running around outside the grip of some power structure they can control—but it’s not fair!”
“Neither,” she said, so softly that he had to concentrate to hear it, “is death.”
“Is that a threat? Because if it is, I’ll fight back, and if you don’t think so just ask—”
“I know who and what to ask, Dolph Wigner. I think we’re done for today.”
It was over, Dolph thought. Maybe he could get enough for the rock to get Sasha and Tina back to the Moon. Her parents would take her in, and Tina. But he would have to stay out here… doing what? It took a minute for McCarthy’s words to sink in.
“For today?”
“We’ve inspected the air lock and the interior utilities of half of your habitat. If you will stipulate the same fix-logs on the other half, we should be able to work on the structure tomorrow.”
“Why? You’ve already ruined us and redlined us back to the Moon; why continue?”
“Wigner,” Inspector McCarthy said, coldly and evenly. “You have the right to try to correct the redlines on the spot. It just so happens that I’ve brought some materials along with me.”
“Available for a price, no doubt.”
Inspector Eileen McCarthy looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Then she reached for her space helmet, put it on without further word, and left.
“Hopper,” Dolph rasped, his voice halfway between raging and sobbing, “send a message to legal assistance at, at…”
“Pallas would be closest,” the computer answered.
“Fine. Send a transcript of the last ten minutes of conversation, and ask for help in declaring these fix-log items invalid.”
Maybe there would be some fairness, somewhere. He had to try everything, he realized. He couldn’t bear to lose Sasha, not for one lousy stupid mistake. Or two, or three, he corrected, bitter at himself. They wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for his mistakes, he knew. It wasn’t all Inspector McCarthy’s fault. But, dammit, they needed a break, not another problem.
His answer came at dinner, a very quiet dinner, that night in the wardroom of the Hopper.
“Put it on the wall here,” Dolph said.
“The caller suggests a private conference.”
He looked at Sasha, who simply reached over and touched his arm. “Use Tina’s room. I’ll put some music on in here.”
He nodded and got up. They’d made Tina’s room by putting a flat wall across the wardroom one meter from the wall. In the space between the straight inner wall and the curved outer wall was a half-meter wide child’s bunk, a compact wash stand, and a video screen.
“You forgot to say ‘excuse me,’ Daddy,” Tina chirped. She’d started chattering at twenty months and hadn’t stopped. He was afraid to get her IQ tested.
Dolph rolled his eyes and managed a pained smile for his daughter. “Excuse me, Daddy.”
Tina looked confused for a moment, then giggled and said. “No, you’re Daddy. You’re excused, but you have to come back for dessert!”
“Sure, Tina.” He ran his hand over her hair.
He covered the distance to the compartment door in one low-gravity stride, as one of Sasha’s bouncy moonjazz compositions started with her characteristic three dissonant chords which resolved into walking scales under a high riff. A century ago, he thought, her talent would have been a ticket to independence. Not any more. Her stuff was good—but with thirty billion people on Earth and another three scattered among the other worlds, and almost all of them with all the leisure time they could want, there was a Solar System full of good stuff out there.