Saturn (16 page)

Like a lobster crawling across the sea bottom, Tavalera inched weightlessly hand over hand along the rigid Buckyfiber cable connecting
Graham
to the fuel pod. Once he reached the tank, he clambered slowly from one handhold to another across the huge metal sphere. As soon as he reached the balky connector, he snapped a tether to the nearest clamp built into the tank's curving surface. It frightened him to work in empty space without a safety line, but the suit tethers were too short to span the distance between
Graham's
airlock and the jammed connector on the fuel tank. Once safely connected, he leaned forward as far as he could in the spacesuit, trying to play his helmet light on the connector that refused to unlock.

Every time he had to do an EVA he expected to feel cold, numbed by the frigid vacuum of deep space. And every time he was surprised that he got so hot inside the suit. Five minutes out here and I'm boiling like a guy in a soup pot, he grumbled to himself. He blinked perspiration out of his eyes and cursed himself for forgetting to wear a sweat-band.

"Well?" The skipper's voice sounded nastier than usual in his helmet earphones.

"I'm trying to see what the hangup is," Tavalera said. "Gimme a couple minutes."

"Put the camera on it, let me take a look."

I'd like to shove the camera up your skinny ass, Tavalera growled silently. He dutifully unhooked the minicam from his equipment belt and clicked it into its slot on the left shoulder of his suit. Its light added to the light of his helmet lamp.

Shaking his head, Tavalera said, "I can't see why it won't unlock. Everything looks normal to me."

The skipper muttered something too low for him to make out. Then she said, "Check the receiver."

Tavalera instead checked his tether. He had no intention of drifting off the fuel tank and wafting off into interplanetary space. Sure, there were plenty of people from the habitat outside, but how could he be certain they'd be able to grab him? Or even try to?

"Well?" Even testier than before.

"I'm workin' on it," he grumbled.

The receiver checked out: Its battery was almost fully charged and it was receiving the command signal from the ship.

"Must be a mechanical problem," Tavalera said.

"Try the override."

"That won't do any good if the problem's mechanical."

"Try the override," the skipper repeated.

Huffing impatiently, wondering how much radiation he was absorbing by the second, Tavalera punched out the override commands on the receiver's miniature keypad, not an easy thing to accomplish in a spacesuit's gloves.

"No joy," he reported.

"I can see that," said the skipper. "It must be mechanical."

"Right." That's what I told you, fartbrain, he added silently.

"If we don't get it loose in fourteen minutes we're going to miss the rendezvous. The habitat will be too far away from us."

And then we can go home, Tavalera thought. Let somebody else fly the frigging fuel tank out to those dipshits. Who the hell told them to go out to Saturn in the first place?

"You'll have to disconnect it manually," the skipper said.

"Great."

"Get to it!"

There was no way to open the metal latch with his hands, he saw. It was made of heavy asteroidal aluminum, thick and sturdy, designed to stay closed until it received the proper electronic command. If it opened easily it could release the tank prematurely, or even cause a collision.

"Cut it off," said the skipper. "Use the laser."

Tavalera looked up at the
Graham,
hanging a hundred meters or so away from the spherical tank. To him, it looked more like a thousand kilometers. Through the transparent bubble of the crew module he could see the skipper sitting in her command chair, although he couldn't make out the features of her face. Just as well, he thought. She makes a hatchet look lovable.

"Come on," the skipper urged, "the clock's ticking."

He pulled the hand laser from his equipment belt, wondering if it was powerful enough to saw through the aluminum latch. Probably drain my suit batteries and I'll asphyxiate out here. A lot she cares.

"Move it!"

"I'm movin' it," he yelled back, clicking the safety off the laser and holding its stubby snout a bare centimeter from the obstinate latch.

Grimacing, he pressed the firing stud. Harsh bright sparks leaped from the stubborn latch.

Gaeta stood in the airlock, looking out at the universe, resisting the urge to go sailing out there.

"All systems in the green," Fritz told him. "Four more minutes until termination of the test."

Four minutes, Gaeta thought. I bet I could swoop all the way around the habitat in four minutes.

As he looked out, though, he saw two huge spherical tanks swing into view, and several spacesuited figures clambering on them. The fuel tanks, he realized. Better not get snarled up with those guys. Men at work. And women.

Jupiter came into view as the habitat rotated, a distant fat sphere streaked with faint colors, flattened at the poles like a beach ball that some kid was sitting on. And then another sphere, farther away than the others. Or maybe just smaller.

Another fuel tank? Gaeta remembered somebody saying there were three of them. A small spacecraft hovered near the tank. Probably the ferry ship, he thought. Then he saw sparks flashing from the tank. What the hell are they doing to it?

"Three minutes," came Fritz's flat voice. He sounded bored.

Gaeta grinned. I've got enough juice in the propulsion tank to jet all the way around this sewer pipe, he told himself. Fritz wouldn't be bored then!

"What are you laughing about?"

Gaeta realized he must have chuckled and Fritz picked it up. "Laughing? Who, me?"

Fritz replied, "No, the Man in the Moon. What were you laughing about?"

"Nothing," Gaeta said, still thinking what fun it would be to take off and do a spin around the habitat.

"Well?" the skipper demanded, testier than ever.

Tavalera clicked off the laser and peered at the latch. The beam had cut halfway through it.

"Gimme another couple minutes," he said.

"Get with it, then. Our window closes in less than ten minutes."

Nodding inside his fishbowl helmet, Tavalera turned on the laser again. Sparks flashed blindingly.

"What's the holdup?" demanded a new voice in his earphones.

Probably the boss of the habitat crew waiting for the third fuel tank, Tavalera realized.

"We have a malfunction on the tank's release mechanism," the skipper answered. "We're on it. We'll have it on its way to you in a matter of minutes." Her tone was a half-million times sweeter than when she spoke to Tavalera, he thought.

"The attachment point is rotating out of position," came the other voice, male, deep, irritated. "And my crew is running out of time. We weren't scheduled to be out here this long."

"I'll adjust the capture angle," the skipper said, a little tenser. "It should be no problem."

"Time's burning."

"Yes, yes, just be a little patient. We're working it."

We, Tavalera grumbled silently.

"Tavalera," the skipper yelled at him loudly enough to make him wince. "Get it done!"

"It's almost there," he said, angling his shoulder so she could see that the latch was nearly burned through.

Then the laser winked out.

"What's happening?" she bellowed.

"Dunno," Tavalera muttered, shaking the stupid little gun. "Capacitor needs to recycle, I think."

"Bend it back!"

"Huh?"

"The latch, you stupid slug! It's almost sawn through. Bend it back with your hands!
Now!"

Without thinking, Tavalera let the laser float off on its tether and grabbed the metal latch with both gloved hands. It wouldn't budge.

"Break it off!" the skipper screamed at him. "Get it!"

Desperate, Tavalera grabbed the laser with one hand while he still gripped the latch with the other. Maybe the capacitor's got one more squirt, he thought, pulling the trigger.

It all happened so suddenly that he had no chance to stop it. The laser fired a set of picosecond pulses and the latch came loose in Tavalera's hand, throwing him badly off balance. He went sprawling and dropped the laser, which went spinning out to the end of its tether, then snapped back toward Tavalera and fired off another set of pulses that hit the leg of his suit.

He screamed in sudden pain as the fuel tank jerked loose of its connection with
Graham
and began drifting out into space.

"It's heading away from us!" the habitat's crew chief roared.

"I can't stop it," the skipper yelled back.

Tavalera didn't care. The pain searing through his leg was enough to make him giddy, almost delirious. He knew he was going to die, the only question in his mind was whether it would be from loss of blood or from asphyxiation as the air leaked out of his suit.

With nothing else to do but stand in the airlock and wait for Fritz to tell him the test was finished, Gaeta tapped at the keypad on the wrist of his suit to listen in on the chatter from the crew that was attaching the fuel pods to the habitat. Something was obviously wrong with the third tank, it was still out by the ferry ship and somebody was using a welding laser on it. More likely the laser was cutting, not welding, Gaeta thought.

"...stupid piece of crap," he heard a woman's sharp-edged voice, "how the hell did you puncture your suit?"

"I need help!" came another voice, scared. "I'm bleeding."

Bleeding? Gaeta wondered. Punctured suit?

Then a third voice, male, angry and aggravated, "The tank's off course! We can't reach it!"

"There's nothing I can do," the woman whined. "He knocked it out of line."

"Help me." The bleeder's voice.

"We can't fucking reach you!" the angry male bellowed. "You're going off in the wrong direction and you're already too far for us to get to you."

"I'm dying..."

"It's your own stupid fault," the woman screeched.

Switching back to his intercom frequency, Gaeta said into his helmet microphone, "Turn on all the cameras, Fritz."

"What? What do you mean?"

"Turn on all the cameras, dammit!" Gaeta snapped, launching himself out of the airlock. To himself he added silently, This looks like a job for Superman.

The suit's propulsion jets ignited smoothly and Gaeta felt himself hurtling toward the errant fuel pod in the utter silence of empty space. But his earphones were far from silent.

"Come back!" Fritz yelled. "You can't-"

Gaeta simply turned off the intercom frequency and tapped into the others' frantic chatter.

"... not a damned frigging thing we can do," the crew chief was yammering.

"He'll die out there!" the woman pleaded.

Nothing from the guy who was hurt.

"Hang on," Gaeta said into his mike. "I'll get him."

"Who the hell is that?"

"Manuel Gaeta," he told them. "I'm on my way to the injured man. Can you see me?"

"Yes!" said the crew chief and the woman simultaneously.

The fuel pod was getting bigger. Jesoo, Gaeta realized, it's huge! Despite everything, he laughed.
Huevos tremendos.

"What's his name?" Gaeta asked as he rocketed toward the fuel tank.

"What?"

"Who said that?"

"His name, the guy who's hurt. What's his name?"

"Tavalera," the woman replied. "Raoul Tavalera."

A chicano, Gaeta thought. He called, "Hey Raoul,
habla español?"

No answer.

"Raoul!" Gaeta shouted. "Raoul Tavalera! You there? You okay?"

"I'm... here." His voice sounded very weak. "Not for long, though."

"Hang in there, man," Gaeta said. The fuel tank was blotting out most of his vision now, a tremendous curving world of metal rushing up to meet him. "Your suit's prob'ly sealed itself, maybe cut off the bleeding, too."

Nothing.

"Where you hurt, man?" Gaeta asked as he slowed his approach and got ready to touch down on the massive sphere.

"Leg...."

"Ah, that's not so bad. You'll be okay."

"Hey, Gay-etta or whatever your name is," the crew chief inter
r
upted. "I'm bringing my gang in to replenish their air and break out a couple more flitters so we can capture that tank."

"What about Tavalera?" the woman snapped.

Gaeta was drifting around the tank's curving surface now, looking for the injured man. "I see him!" he shouted. "I'll take care of him."

Tavalera was floating a few meters off the surface of the tank, held by his tether. Gaeta could see that his left leg was dotted by three little burn holes. The hard-shell suit appeared otherwise undamaged; the emergency cuff must have sealed off the leg the way it was designed to do.

Gaeta unhooked Tavalera's tether and clicked it to his own armored suit. Then he started back for the habitat's airlock with the injured astronaut in his arms.

"You awake, man?" he asked Tavalera, rapping on his fishbowl helmet.

Tavalera opened his eyes. Groggily, he asked, "Who the hell are you?"

Gaeta grinned. "Your guardian angel, man. I'm your frickin' guardian angel."

Holly watched the whole thing on Fritz's portable display monitor. Standing with the other technicians, she saw Gaeta sail back into the airlock, carrying the limp astronaut in the powerful arms of his armored suit.

He saved him, Holly thought, her heart racing. He's saved that man's life.

While the technicians cycled the airlock Holly rushed to the wall phone by the inner hatch and called for emergency medical services. Surprise showed clearly on the medic's face, even in the palm-sized screen of the wall phone, but he promised to have a team at the airlock in less than five minutes.

The inner hatch sighed open and Gaeta clumped through, still holding the injured, spacesuited man.

"Did you get it all down?" Gaeta asked, his voice booming through the suit's amplifier. "Cameras all on?"

"Yes, yes," said Fritz, sounding annoyed. "You will be on all the news nets, never fear."

Three medics in white coveralls came pounding down the corridor to the airlock, trailed by a powered gurney and a crash wagon. They quickly got the injured man's helmet off, slapped an oxygen mask over his face, pulled the suit torso off him and jabbed a hypo into his arm. Then they whisked him off toward the infirmary in the village.

Holly turned back to Gaeta, still in his massive suit.

"You saved his life," she said, looking up at him. She could barely make out his face through the heavily tinted visor.

"He generated good publicity," said Fritz, a little sharply.

Holly countered, "He risked his own life to save a man in danger."

With an almost exasperated sigh, Fritz said, "He risked his life, yes. He also risked the suit, which is worth several hundred millions." Glancing up at Gaeta he added, "We can always find another daredevil; replacing the suit would not be so easy. Or cheap."

Gaeta laughed; it sounded like thunder echoing off the corridor's metal walls. "C'mon, Fritz, let's get back to the shop so I can get out of this tin can."

Holly walked beside Gaeta, still clutching her container of chili in one hand. It was ice cold now, she knew. Gaeta plodded down the corridor like a ponderous robot in a bad vid, with Fritz on his other side. The technicians trailed along behind.

At last they reached the workshop and the technicians unsealed the hatch at the suit's rear. Gaeta crawled out, stood up, and stretched his arms over his head languidly. Holly heard vertebrae pop.

"Damn, that feels good," he said, smiling.

She stepped closer to him and saw that his clothes were drenched with perspiration. He smelled like old sweat socks.

Gaeta caught her hesitant expression. "Guess I oughtta shower, huh?"

Fritz was still unhappy with him. "An extravehicular excursion was not planned. You shouldn't have done it. What if the propulsion unit had failed? It hasn't been properly tested for flight activity."

Gaeta grinned at him. "Fritz, everything worked fine. Don't be such a gloomy
fregado.
Besides, I couldn't leave the guy out there, he might have died."

"Still, you had no right to
—
"

"Can it, Fritz. It's over and no damage was done to the precious suit." To Holly he said, "Wait there just a couple mins, kid. I gotta get outta these clothes and hit the shower."

He ambled to the lavatory off at the workshop's rear, whistling tunelessly. Holly watched the techs clambering over the suit, checking all its systems and shutting them down, one by one.

Gaeta came back, his hair glistening and slicked back, wearing a fresh set of coveralls.

"Now, where do we eat?" he asked. "I'm starving."

Fritz glanced at his wristwatch. "The restaurants are all closed by now. We'll have to eat in our quarters."

Holly held up her plastic container. "I've got some chili, but it's got to be reheated."

"Chili! Great!" said Gaeta.

Glancing at Fritz and the other techs, Holly said, "There isn't enough for all of us."

Gaeta took her by the arm and started for the lab's door. "There's enough for us two, right? These other clowns can get their own suppers."

Holly let him lead her out into the corridor without a glance back at the others. But in her mind she was saying, Malcolm'll have to notice this!

Charles Nicholas was a chubby, chinless little man who had learned to wear clothes so that he somehow managed to look dapper even in a plain sports shirt and comfortable slacks. As the senior man on duty at the Communications office that evening, he had watched Gaeta's heroics in fascination.

His assistant, Elinor, happened to be his wife. She was slightly taller than he, much slimmer, and wore clothes even better than he did. They always tried to have their working shifts together. They spent every waking moment together and, of course, slept in the same bed. Yet while Charles was openly admiring of Gaeta's feat in rescuing the injured astronaut, Elinor was somewhat dubious.

"They might have staged the whole thing," she said to her husband in her squeaky, strangely sexy voice.

Charles was rerunning the vid. "Staged it? How could they stage it? It was an accident. That kid could've died."

"They could have set it up weeks in advance. For the publicity."

"Nobody was watching except us and the EVA crew."

"But they got it all on a chip, didn't they? They'll want to beam it to the nets, back Earthside."

Charles shook his head. "They'll have to get permission for that. They'll have to ask Vyborg, he's in charge of news releases."

"He'll okay it," said Elinor. "All they have to do is ask him. He
likes
publicity."

"Professor Wilmot doesn't."

"So they won't ask Wilmot. They'll ask Vyborg and he'll okay it without bucking it upstairs."

"You think so?"

"Bet you five credits," Elinor replied.

Charles said nothing, thinking that Elinor was probably right. She usually was. Sure enough, a call came through from somebody named Von Helmholtz, who identified himself as Gaeta's chief technician, asking permission to beam their vid of the rescue to the news nets on Earth and Selene. Charles routed the request to Vyborg's private line. In less than ten minutes Vyborg called back, gladly granting permission.

"You owe me five," Elinor said, grinning evily at Charles.

"I never bet," he said.

"Makes no difference," she said loftily. "It's a moral victory for me."

He tried to change the subject. "Have you made up your mind about what we should call our village?"

"Something better than Village C," she said.

"I think we should name it after some great figure from literature. Cervantes, maybe. Or Shakespeare."

"You know they both died the same year?"

"No."

"Yes; 1616. You can look it up."

"I don't believe it."

"Bet five?"

"That I
will
bet on," Charles said, sticking out his hand.

They shook on it, Elinor thinking, We're married more than ten years and he still doesn't realize that I only bet on sure things. She smiled kindly at her husband. It's one of things that I love about him.

Holly and Gaeta were walking slowly along the gently climbing path that led toward her apartment building. It was well past midnight; the habitat was in its nighttime mode. The solar windows were closed and everything was dark except for the small lights set atop slim poles along the edges of the path, and the windows of some of the living quarters up ahead.

"Look up at the stars," Gaeta said, stopping in the middle of the path.

"They're not stars," said Holly, "they're lights from the land up there."

"Those over there look like the petals of a flower to me," he said, pointing overhead. "I think I'll call it the Flower constellation."

She giggled. "They're just lights, Manny. See, those meandering ones over there?" She pointed too. "Those are the bike paths between the food factory and Village C. And the village itself
—
"

"Looks like a giant squid, doesn't it? See, there's the body and there's the tentacles stretching out."

She was standing so close to him in the darkness that she could feel the heat of his body.

"And what's that one?" she asked, pointing up at the neat rows of lights marking one of the orchards.

"Let's see now," he muttered. "How about the Tic-Tac-Toe constellation?"