It was only a matter of minutes, but minutes were long enough for all of them to realize how final the parting was. Even with no additional burn, their ship was now free of World forever; it would enter an orbit by itself now if no hand ever touched a control. They were not wholly weightless. There was a small but definite negative thrust, each of them pressing against the restraining straps, as the slight deceleration caused by friction with the air slowed the exterior of the ship while its contents wished to keep going. "Our neck hurts!" complained Su Wonmu. "I hurt very much," agreed Potter Alicia, "and I wish it would stop." But they did not speak aloud. All of Manyface was hurting, and the committee's decision was that it was best to lie as still as possible, hoping to feel better soon.
Feng Miranda was feeling very badly indeed, for a less urgent (but far more humiliating) reason. She had wet her pants. She muttered angrily to herself (but all the others heard, too), "Baby! Fool! What is the matter with you, Miranda, peeing your panties like a silly child when the cause demands heroism and strength!"
And Tsoong Delilah, forcing herself to hyperventilate to pump oxygen back into her starved blood, heard the American girl's bitter self-reproaches over the harsh rasping of her own breathing passages. Her first thought was contempt for Feng. Her second thought was also contempt, but this time it was directed at herself. "Baby?" "Fool?" Those were apt words also for a Renmin police inspector who wasted time gloating over the humiliation of a rival in love. A rival. In love\ And love, at that, for a foolish, selfish, unripe boy! And all this when duty had never called more urgently! Delilah grimly reached out to the navigation board. Her fingers were shaking, she observed with chagrin, but they also unerringly touched the proper studs. The course solution flashed on the screen before her. It had a validity score in the high nineties; the error bar was tiny; there was no indication of malfunction. "Stand by," Delilah called to the others in the cabin and pressed the Execute stud.
The spacecraft's control fins reached out to the muggy air of World and spun the vessel to its boost attitude. The main boosters fired a twelve-second burst. The navigation board confirmed the correctness of the new delta-V; the maneuver was complete. The spacecraft was ballistic.
Now it was just waiting.
"You can unstrap," Delilah advised her crew. She saw with sardonic pleasure that the first one out of the straps was Feng Miranda, awkward and uncomfortable as she gingerly stretched her legs in the tight suit. "Don't worry, Feng," Delilah called maliciously, "it's only fifty-eight hours until we land on Earth!" And was gratified by the glare she got from the girl.
Swiftly she checked the rest of her charges. Manyface seemed quite relaxed, eyes still closed. The Yankee Jupiter was methodically releasing himself in the next couch, warily watching all the others from the corners of his eyes. Castor—ah, Castor! His face glowed like the sun. There was some of the mother in the rending complexity of feeling Delilah had for Castor, and the mother feeling was warmly rewarded by the joy in his eyes. "Delilah?" he begged. "May I take the controls for a while? Please?"
Indulgently she said, "But there's nothing to do now, Castor. We have two hours of coasting before we make course corrections to rendezvous with the spaceway." But, of course, it was not the actual piloting that Castor wanted. What he wanted was the illusion of power. He wanted to form a picture of himself—captain of a great spacecraft on an urgent and perilous mission—that he could take out and look at, in his mind's eye, for the rest of his life. "Well, why not?" Delilah said. "First call in to Mission Control for a report, though."
"Of course!" cried Castor, complying eagerly. The surface control responded at once; they had been waiting for the call. Big Polly herself spoke to the ship:
"Your course and speed are fine," she said. "Congratulations on a successful launch." The funny thing, thought Castor, was that she didn't particularly look congratulatory. She looked as though she were harboring some secret resentment, her plump jaw set, her words controlled. Sour grapes because she wasn't along, maybe, Castor decided, and said considerately,
"We're the ones who should be congratulating you, Polly. Please extend my thanks to the entire launch-loop crew, and of course to all the others who are taking part in this historic occasion."
"Sure," said the Governor shortly, and leaned down to the erk Jutch, raising himself on his hind legs to chitter in her ear. "Oh, all right," she said, straightening. "I guess you'd like a situation report?"
"Certainly we would," called Delilah from her own position, frowning at the screen.
"Well," said Big Polly, leaning again to listen to the erk, "Jutch says you've got nine hours and about twenty minutes before you get in range of the spaceway} then transition; then you'll come out two days from low-Earth orbit."
"We've already calculated that," called Delilah.
"Well, that's a confirmation," said the Governor. "Then, let's see, then the first assault wave will follow you through the spaceway ten hours later. Those are long-range attack heavies—"
"We know," snapped Delilah. "We've been all over this plan a hundred times." The frown on her face had deepened. She glanced questioningly at Castor, then addressed the screen again. "We can watch the fleet assemble on our own screens, you know. Do you have anything we don't know to tell us?"
"Ah, yes," said the Governor. "There's a transmission from the Earthside scout ship. It seems the Chinese are launching ships again. Wait a minute—" She nodded to the erk, and her image disappeared from the screen, replaced by visuals of space. Some space or other—no, Delilah saw, definitely Earth space, because there was the continent of Africa on the planet in the distance. The Governor's voice said: "We've calculated rendezvous times, and they won't get anywhere near the scout for at least fifty hours. However, just in case they have some new weapons we're redirecting the scout away from the Earth. Also, of course, there are the drones, which may confuse them again—"
"Drones won't fool Han Chinese twice," Delilah sneered, studying the screen. Yes. There were three blips on it, crawling up out of low-Earth orbit. She cast back in her mind: what ships did the Chinese have ready for launch? Not much. Nothing big enough to carry significant armament, at least nothing more dangerous than Tchai Howard had had. She said reluctantly, "I agree they don't represent much of a threat, but keep on displaying them for us."
"All right," said the Governor wearily. "Is, ah, is everything all right on board? How's Jupiter?"
"He's fine," said Castor, surprised. "We're going to quit talking for a while now, all right?"
"All right," said the Governor, and the voice stopped.
Delilah twisted in her cocoon to look at the others. "She sounds funny," she said. "What do you suppose is wrong with her?" But Castor could not tell her, and neither could Manyface; and of course neither Jupe nor Miranda would.
Jupiter would not tell Delilah anything, no, but what he was telling himself was glorious. The fate of America rested on him! He returned Delilah's look boldly, trying to keep expression off his face; but he could not keep his fingers from patting the bag of stun weapons that lay beside him. In the launch they had stabbed into him most cruelly. He could feel the bruises still—welcome bruises, badges of heroism! He turned to smile at Miranda, who winked back conspiratorially. Perhaps, he thought, he should give her one of the weapons? There had been talk about arming her, too, but she was clearly not in the confidence of the others. One wild card was all that could safely be slipped into the deck. She turned to check on Manyface, still silent beside her, and Jupiter gazed placidly at Delilah and Castor, now handing themselves over the tricky stretch between his couch and hers. As they were in coasting mode there was no gravity to hinder, but also no firm support to orient to. Jupiter chuckled to himself as he saw Castor lose his hold on a strap and begin to flail wildly, Delilah grabbing for him—