Exile-and Glory (37 page)

"Ye gods, that must be a valuable cargo," Kevin said. He looked quickly at Ellen when she didn't answer. She was watching them with a look of satisfaction. "Do you know what's in them?" Kevin asked.

"No, do you?"

"I thought you were watching as if you did. No, I haven't a clue."

"As you said, it must be valuable." She continued to stare until all the capsules were launched, and the guards and tanks rolled away. Then she looked at her watch. "Maybe we ought to be getting down—"

"Yes. Hate to miss the ship. Where are you headed?"

"
Wayfarer
." An appopriate enough name, Kevin thought: "Das Wanderer."

Kevin had thought she would be going up to one of the orbital factories. "All the way to Ceres? Alone?"

"Yes, why not?"

Kevin shrugged. "No reason."

"Except that you don't approve of women going to the Belt," she said. "That's man's work. I suppose you want restrictive laws for space, too. 'One job per family' out in the Belt as well as here on Earth." There was anger in her voice. "Well, you had that in the United States, still do really, but you won't get it in space, and I'm going whether you approve or not." She turned and stalked down the stairwell.

"Hey," Kevin called. "Hey, I didn't mean anything. I'm sorry—"

She didn't turn. To hell with her, Kevin thought. He slowed down, wondering what to do next.

"Kev! Hey, buddy," someone called.

Kevin turned. It was Wiley Ralston. "Wiley! Hey, are you going up this round?" Wiley had left Los Angeles two weeks before to find a job in deep space. Kevin wasn't that surprised to see him.

"Sure, I'm in the afternoon wave. Ride up with me?"

"Can't," Kevin said. "I'm going right now—hey, where are you going?"

"Got some things to arrange," Wiley said.

"You going in
Wayfarer?"

"Right—you too?" Wiley was hurrying away, and his manner indicated that he didn't want to be followed. "You're going up right now? Not in the first capsule, though—"

"Sure, get it over with," Kevin said. He had to shout now; Wiley was moving away fast.

"Not the first," Wiley said. "Get on the last one—"

"Why?"

"Can't stop to talk, old chum. I've really got to scoot. See you aboard
Wayfarer
." He vanished into a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, leaving Kevin standing in the middle of the empty corridor.

Damn, Kevin thought. He walked slowly to the capsule loading area. If I wait, he thought, I'll be scared out of my wits before it happens. He knew the laser launching system was safe, but that didn't stop the butterflies in his stomach.

May as well get it over with, he thought. He collected his helmet from the technicians.

There was one couple, and Ellen MacMillan, in the loading area.

"Who's first?" the technician asked.

"We are," the couple said.

"Right. Let's see you get into your hats and seal up." When they had their helmets dogged down the technician attached a pressure gauge to the man, looked worried, and said, "Go back and get a recheck on this."

"Something wrong?"

"Probably not, but I like to be careful. Okay, you're down-checked. Next." He jerked a thumb at Kevin, then at Ellen MacMillan. "You two. Get your heads on and let's hook up air bottles. Come on, we haven't got all day. Orbits don't wait."

When they had donned helmets and air tanks the technician checked his gauges again. "Looks good," he said, and sent them through a door. Kevin hurried along, trying not to think of the ride ahead. No worse than a roller coaster, he kept telling himself.

The launching pods were waiting. They seemed much larger than the ones he'd seen being launched, but even so the capsule was too small. It looked like a bell-shaped steel coffin. Ellen was already inside, strapping herself into a nylon-webbing couch. Kevin got in and lay on the other couch.

"Hear me all right?" a voice asked.

"Yes." They both answered at once, speaking a little too loudly, a little too confidently. Kevin turned toward Ellen to see that she was looking at him. They grinned faintly at each other.

"Fine. Now you wait a while," the tech's voice said. "Then you go. There's nothing tricky about any of this. You're hooked into the capsule air supply. When you make orbit you wait until a crewman comes and opens the can. Then—and not before—you pull that big lever above you. It disconnects you from the capsule system and you'll be on your own air tanks. You got two hours of air in the capsule and another hour in your tanks. Okay, I'm closin' you in.
Bon voyage.
"

The capsule door closed. They watched the inside wheel turn as it was dogged shut. It already seemed close and cramped in the pod. Like a big steel coffin built for two, Kevin thought. He pushed the thought aside.

"We're moving," Ellen said.

There wasn't much sense of motion, but she was right. The capsule was moving along the track. Kevin tried to visualize its progress as it went inexorably toward the launch area. "Wonder how the kids will make out?"

"Better than us, I expect. At least we don't have to do anything—"

"I wish we did," Kevin said. "Better than just waiting for them."

"Sure—"

The warning tones sounded, then gravity seized them.

They were pressed hard into the seat webbing.

Three gravities isn't all that bad; a little like being on a water bed with another mattress on top of you and two people piled onto that. It was possible to breathe, but not to talk. The acceleration went on and on.

I'm really going, Kevin thought. I've left Earth, and I won't be back for a long time.

Eventually the weight diminished, then was gone entirely. There was a sensation of falling, endless falling.

"I wonder if we made it," Ellen said. Her voice was artificially calm.

"Well, this is free fall—"

"Which we would feel whether or not we have enough velocity to make orbit," Ellen said. "And we won't know for about half an hour."

"By then the crew people will be here." I hope, Kevin thought.

There was nothing to do. There ought to be some kind of instrument to tell them they were in orbit. Kevin thought about that. How could you design one? No air, of course; couldn't measure velocity by air speed. An accelerometer hooked into the capsule; add up all the accelerations and you'd have velocity. A micro-computer to decide whether that was the proper velocity for the job. Sure, it could be done. Why hadn't they done it? Another expense for an already expensive business.

"I'd think someone would have spoken to us by now," Ellen said. She moved her arm up so that she could see her watch. "Only five minutes. Seems longer."

"Sure does. Uh—by the way, my name is Kevin."

"I know. I saw it on your paper. In the chamber. You read mine, too. We were pretty silly, weren't we?"

"Yeah. What outfit are you with?"

"None. I'm paying my own way," she said.

Good Lord. She had to be fabulously wealthy. He looked at her suit and other gear. First class, but no frills.

"How come you're taking the hard way up instead of the shuttle?"

"I couldn't afford a shuttle ticket."

That didn't make sense. "But you can afford a ticket to Ceres. Why are you going there?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," she said. Then she giggled. "I'm not too bad at engineering, Kevin, even if you don't approve of women in your business—"

"I never said—"

"And I didn't like the offers I got from the orbital factories. Or the Luna companies either. So I took what I could scrape up and bought a ticket. There wasn't much to spare."

"Out to make your fortune pioneering," Kevin said.

"That's right. There'll be good jobs for me. For anyone who can do the work. I see you don't approve."

"Sure I approve. It just seems like a long way to go—"

"You're going," she pointed out. "Why can't I?"

Kevin didn't answer. It just didn't seem right. And you're a male chauvinist pig, he told himself. You hate to see a pretty girl working at something besides being a pretty girl.

Only that's not true. Dammit it's going to be rough out there, and—And, he thought, I've got about three million years of evolution that says women and children shouldn't get into tough situations. The world is no longer a place where we live in caves and go hunt tigers, and our instincts are all fouled up, but we've got them.

Of course it was pretty rough for unmarried women in the United States anyway. The feminist movement had gotten legal equality for women—for a while. But then came the Equity scandals, and the Great Recession, and rising unemployment. Women's rights weren't as thoroughly abandoned as were those with disabilities, but there were fundamental changes.

The unions put on the pressure, and Congress came up with the "One Job Per Family" law. The courts threw it out, but Congress passed it again, and its status was still undecided. And women weren't welcome in most unions whatever the courts said, not with so many men out of work.

And maybe, Kevin thought, maybe the whole idea is wrong, but there are plenty of women—married women—who approve the job restrictions and reserved occupations. For two thousand years "women's liberation" had meant that women with children didn't have to work outside the home. For a few years toward the end of the Twentieth Century that trend had been reversed, but now the pendulum was swinging back as everyone realized that raising children was a full-time—and difficult—job.

"It seemed a long time from when they launched the cargo to when they sent us up," Kevin said. "How can both batches get to the same satellite?"

"They can't. The cargo went directly to
Wayfarer
. We go to the orbital station," Ellen said. She frowned. "I make it twenty minutes since we were launched. Doesn't that seem like an excessively long time? We ought to have heard from someone."

"It does seem a while. Let's try calling out." He reached up to the radio panel above. There was a small card of instruction attached on its face. The first said, "FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY" in five languages. "Is this an emergency?"

Ellen looked thoughtful. "I don't know—I'd hate to cause trouble, but I am getting a bit worried."

"Me too. To hell with them." He switched on the radio. Then he cursed. "There's no pilot light," he said. "Burned out—or does the set work?" There was only one way to find out. There was a jack on the face of the panel, and he plugged his mike into it. "Hey out there—anybody listening? This is Capsule—uh—nine-eight-four, hopefully in orbit. Anyone? Over."

"There isn't even static," Ellen said. "The receiver's not working. I doubt if the transmitter is working either."

Kevin looked at her with curiosity. She didn't seem scared. Or surprised, either. "What do we do?"

"You can try the transmitter again."

"Sure. Mayday. Mayday. This is Capsule nine-eight-four, Mayday, mayday. Over." Again he heard nothing. How long would it take for one of the crewmen to get to them, if the transmitter worked but the receiver didn't? "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Capsule nine-eight-four. Our receiver is not working. We cannot hear your reply. Please come help us. Mayday."

Ellen began unfastening her seat straps. Kevin watched with a frown. They'd been told not to do that. Of course they'd also been told someone would come get them. He felt a knot of fear in his stomach. Trapped in an orbiting steel coffin. The sensation of falling was overwhelming now. In a moment he'd panic if he couldn't do something constructive. But what? "MAYDAY. MAYDAY. SOMEBODY COME HELP US!"

"I don't think that's going to do much good," Ellen said. She inspected the emergency set. "I don't see anything obviously wrong. Should we take the cover off and look?"

Kevin doubted that would be any use. Integrated circuit chips all look alike; how could you tell if something was wrong with one of them? He began unfastening his own straps. When they were loose, he floated away from the acceleration couch. It was a strange sensation. He'd seen people in free fall on TV often enough, and had looked forward to experiencing it, to being able to swim in the air, but now all he wanted was to get back to having weight again.

"We have suit radios," Ellen said. "Is yours powered?"

"Yes. Fresh batteries, and it was checked out yesterday—Hey! If we get outside this thing, we might be able to raise somebody with it."

"We'll have to disconnect from the capsule air supply before we can open the hatch," Ellen said. "If the hatch will open at all—"

"Why shouldn't it?"

She shrugged. The motion set her twisting slightly, and she caromed into him in the confined space. They both grabbed handholds.

"We have to do something," Kevin said. "Let's open the hatch." He reached for the big emergency disconnect handle.

"Wait. Fasten your safety line to something."

"Oh. Right." He clipped the line to one of the couch pipe-frames. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be. Go ahead."

He turned the red handle. It didn't turn; he did. Kevin cursed and got his feet planted against the couch, braced, and turned the handle again. It moved, slowly at first, then swung over. The ship's air hoses popped loose from their connections on their backpacks. They were now living on their air tanks.

"There's still pressure in here," Ellen said.

"Damn." She was right. The emergency disconnect was supposed to vent all the air from the capsule. The capsule hatch wouldn't open until the air was gone. There'd be no point in pulling on it; at seven pounds a square inch, hundreds of tons of air pressure held that hatch closed.

They couldn't open the hatch, and they had less than an hour of air.

"I never thought they'd do it this way," Ellen said.

"Huh? Who'd do what this way?" Kevin asked.

"Nothing. We've got to bleed the pressure out of this capsule. Try to find the relief valve." She began searching her side of the capsule.

"This looks like it," Kevin said. There was a valve with a large handle. Remembering what happened the last time he'd tried to turn something in free fall, he braced himself before he twisted the handle.