“Good!” Gaeta called. “Good work.”
But she couldn’t see the grippers; the right arm was down by the suit’s flank. Without asking, she began to slowly raise the right arm so that she could see the tools at its end.
“Hey!” Gaeta shouted. “Whattaya think you’re doing?”
“It’s okay,” Wunderly answered. “I’m just moving the arm a little bit.” She stopped the motion and made the grippers clamp together. “I want to see what I’m doing.”
Gaeta’s voice was like the rumble of distant thunder. “Don’t you do anything unless I tell you to. I’m in charge of this test. You follow my orders or else this whole deal is off!”
Wunderly’s first instinct was to tell him to jazz off. But she held on to her temper and replied meekly, “Okay. Right.”
Standing at the tables with the roll-up computers, staring at the ton and a half of machinery that could easily crush flesh and snap bones, Gaeta suddenly realized how his own controller must have felt whenever he played a little prank with the suit. Jezoo, Gaeta said to himself, I’m starting to sound just like Fritz.
Holly left them working on the suit and went to her own office to write a five-minute speech that she was slated to deliver for the evening news broadcast. It took her the rest of the morning merely to get a first draft down, and several hours of the afternoon to polish it to the point where she was halfway satisfied with it.
No wonder Malcolm dropped all his regular duties when he was running for the office, she realized. This politics stuff takes all your time.
She tried to do her day’s work in the few hours remaining, skipping dinner to finish the tasks accumulated on her schedule. At the appointed hour she walked to the building where the habitat’s broadcast studio was housed. Berkowitz was at the studio door, smiling his usual amiable smile.
“Right on time,” he said, ushering Holly into the studio proper. It was nothing more than a small, well-lit room, empty except for a small desk and chair. No one else was there, only the two of them. Each of the studio’s four walls was a floor-to-ceiling smart screen that could show an almost infinite variety of backgrounds. Holly saw that the two minicams, balanced on their spindly unipods, were aimed at a wall that showed a three-dimensional image of a bookcase.
“Kind stuffy background,” Holly said, feeling disappointed.
“Oh, that was for Eberly’s speech earlier today,” Berkowitz replied. “I was going to ask you what kind of backdrop you’d like.”
“Not a bookcase,” said Holly.
“Maybe a view of Saturn?” Berkowitz suggested. “Although that might pull the viewers’ attention away from you.”
Holly thought a moment. “How about a view of the habitat, maybe up by the endcap where it’s kind of like a park.”
Berkowitz immediately nodded. “Good thinking. Very good thinking.” He pulled a handheld out of his tunic pocket and fiddled with it until a view of the endcap’s greenery filled the wall behind the desk.
“Do you want to run through your speech before we turn on the cameras?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” Holly said uncertainly.
“Do you know it well enough to deliver it without reading it?”
“I guess.”
“All right. If you can give me a copy of the speech I’ll have it displayed on the wall opposite the desk. Nice big type. That way you can glance at it whenever you’re uncertain of the next line.”
“Great.”
“But try to look at the camera or at me while you’re speaking. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And don’t worry if you flub a line. Just repeat it. I’ll edit out the goofs.”
“Great.”
Holly sat at the desk, wondering if anybody in the habitat would bother to watch her when the speech was aired. Berkowitz lined up the two cameras almost side by side, then stood between them. Holly could see the first two lines of her speech on the wall above his head.
“Ready?” he asked.
She heard herself ask, “Can we get rid of the desk? I think I’d rather be on my feet.”
Berkowitz looked slightly surprised, but he nodded and pushed the desk off to one side of the set, out of camera range. Holly started to help him, but then saw that the desk moved easily on well-oiled wheels.
“Okay now, stand right there. Try not to move around too much,” Berkowitz told her. “Ready?”
She licked her lips. “Ready.”
The five minutes seemed to fly by faster than light. Before Holly realized it she was saying, “Thanks for your attention and good night.”
“Great!” Berkowitz said. “Did it in one take. You’re a natural, Holly.”
Holly found that she was drenched with perspiration and feeling totally worn out. Her logs felt wobbly.
“Come on,” Berkowitz said. “I’ll bet you haven’t had any dinner yet, have you?”
“Not yet.”
“I’m buying,” he said grandly. Then, with a wink, added, “Actually it’s on the comm department’s budget.”
By the time she got home, Holly felt exhausted, emotionally drained. Is this what running for office is all about? she wondered. You put every gram of adrenaline you’ve got into a dinky five-minute speech? How’m I going to get through making speeches to big crowds? Or debating against Malcolm?
Her phone screen was blinking. One call. From Raoul.
Suddenly Holly’s exhaustion disappeared. She had the phone return Raoul’s call as she scurried to her most comfortable armchair.
Once his long, sad-eyed face appeared on the screen, though, Holly took a deep breath and said merely, “You called, Raoul?”
He looked somewhere between apprehensive and resentful. “Yeah. I watched your speech. You did fine.”
“Oh, it was easy,” Holly said, trying to keep her voice light. “Berkowitz is a dream to work with.”
Tavalera seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but he merely nodded. Silence stretched between them. Holly thought, Well, you called me, didn’t you? Don’t you have anything to say?
Finally, trying to get a conversation started, Holly asked, “How’d Nadia’s session with the suit go?”
“Not bad. Manny let her clump around the workshop a few steps. Looked like Frankenstein’s monster, she was so stiff.”
“The suit’s stiff,” Holly corrected, “not Nadia.”
Tavalera came close to breaking into a grin. “She was pretty scared in there, with Manny yelling at her every half second.”
“He’s testing her,” Holly said. “He’s got to make sure she can survive in the suit.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Again a silence.
“So how are you?” Holly asked. “What do you think about this operation?”
He hesitated, then blurted, “Is it true you got your sister to fly Nadia out to the rings?”
“Pancho and Jake Wanamaker, yes,” Holly said. “They’re both experienced astronauts, although they’ll need some time in a simulator to catch up—”
“You did it so I wouldn’t hafta go?”
Now Holly hesitated. Finally she nodded slowly and admitted, “Yes, that’s right.”
“Why? How come?”
Because I love you, you dimdumb! Holly wanted to shout. Instead she said, “You didn’t want to fly the mission. It’s dangerous, I know that. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
His face went darker than usual. “Now they all think I’m yellow. They think I’m afraid to fly to the rings.”
“Well, isn’t that true?” Holly snapped. And immediately regretted the words.
His eyes flashed. But he replied merely, “Yeah, guess so.”
And he cut the connection.
16 February 2096: The solar mirrors