"I don't know how such a simple thing could be missed:' And Aarens was contemptuous.
"Then just how did you miss such a simple thing, Aarens?" asked Ray Scott, leaning back in his chair, an absolutely blank expression on his face.
Aarens frowned, knowing he was being ragged.
"You do leave yourself wide open, Dick," Pete said, shaking his head.
He leaned his hands on the table opposite Ray and explained. "The Eosi ship left all its com arrays stuck into the Bubble. They haven't moved in months. I doubt they can, even if I don't know why the material holds them in place. But it does. If Zainal or one of the NASA guys can do an EVA, we can probably make connections on this side of the Bubble and get to use the Eosi equipment to intercept messages and check on who's visiting us.
We've got the spare parts we'd need, thanks to Zainal. We can actually put a com sat up there on our side of the Bubble:'
"You see," Aarens said, his lip lifted in a sort of supercilious superiority.
"Simple thing and you missed it."
"We all missed it," Pete Snyder said, patiently but with an irritable glance at Aarens. "I'm not all that sure we'd get much filtered through the Bubble, but certainly it's worth a try."
"It is;' Zainal said. Then he grinned. "I like it. Using their arrays to do our looking and listening."
"Save us a lot of fuel, too, as we wouldn't have to go make a check before departure," Beverly said, chuckling. "Which we will be doing a lot of soon enough:'
"Do I ever get a chance to come along?" Aarens said, his jaw still stuck out in belligerence.
Ray regarded him. "Only if you can lose about five inches, Dick;' he said in a deceptively genial tone. "You're taller than either Zainal and Kami-ton, and they say they're tall for Catteni."
"You've let Bert Put go, and he's nearly my height," Aarens went on, angry and frustrated.
"He's a pilot, who stays on board and seated so no one checks his height," Ray said. "But if you want to go back to Earth-so long as you.,remain on board the ship-it could be arranged. We'll talk about it again.
After… we've got eyes and ears upstairs."
"Something for something, just like we were back on Earth," Aarens muttered.
"Oh, come off it, Dick," Pete Snyder said, putting a hand on the tall mechanic's back and gently urging him out of the hangar.
"That's a great idea, Aarens;' Beverly said and, taking their cue from the ex-air force general, others murmured appropriate phrases. "Sometimes it just takes the right eyes to see what can so easily be missed."
"It may not work;' Aarens said as he slowly let himself be eased out of hangar. "I mean, we may not be able to get through the Bubble from this side:'
"The idea remains a smart one even if it doesn't prove feasible;' Ray said and then the door closed behind the two men. Ray cleared his throat.
"It certainly would be a help," John Beverly said.
"He's a damned good mechanic-a genius at some things;' Ray Scott said.
"But he's not a team player," was Bull Fetterman's assessment.
"Exactly;' and Ray sat forward at the table, shuffling notes. "I wouldn't trust him not to jump ship at the first chance. Where were we?"
"I think we just settled the Maasai for the time being," Yuri Palit said and settled back in his chair.
"I suggest we see how fast Aarens can fix a connection to the array," Zainal said. "I will help. And so will Kamiton:'
"When we have that, the rest of what we were going to discuss tonight will be easy enough. So let's see if Aarens' idea works. I think this'll be all for tonight," Ray said and, placing his hands on the table, pushed himself to his feet. "Thank you, gentlemen, for your reports and attention:'
A kOT OF JURY-RIGGING WAS NEEDED on the Bubble side of the Eosi array, with both Zainal and Kamit6n working in space suits. One of the NASA communications personnel uneasy at doing an EVA finally solved the problem of the connections. They pulled and tugged at the material of the Bubble until it was as thin as they could make it. Then they rammed into those frail holes the connecting linkages. Dick Aarens had wheedled himself on board with the communications crew and made such obnoxious comments about how ineffective, stupid, fumble-fingered everyone else was that Zainal shoved him into the spare space suit Aarens had to crouch to fit and complained that the helmet was wearing grooves in his skull--and closed the air lock behind them. There were those who wished that Zainal had not securely attached the safety line.
Aarens had known that he didn't like heights. He'd screamed enough when they had to haul him up to the command post to see what he could make of the control panels. He'd been so damned keen to say he'd been in space in an EVA suit that he didn't realize that his height phobia would also include vast, black open spaces where, in every direction, there was nothing.
The other space walker had to push the rigid man back into the air lock.
"Take him inside. He's useless."
But that incident happened early on. The completed connections were initially attached to the Baby's com array to see if they could actually use the Eosi equipment through the thinned skin of the Bubble. They could.
And great cheering and congratulations resounded between Botany and Baby. The next step might take longer since a com sat had to be built but Kamiton sampled the messages that were audible through the link and smiled with great satisfaction at what he learned.
"We can proceed with our plan," he told Zainal in Catteni. Then, in thickly accented English, he added to the rest of the group on board who did not know much Catteni, "Is good. Works. Hear good."
"I told you it would work;' Dick Aarens said, clinging to the door frame, and still very pale from his disastrous EVA. "So how soon can you get this crate back down to Retreat?"
"Soon;' Zainal said and turned back to Kamiton, speaking in rapid Catteni. "We will leave on the KDL as soon as we return. I want to get back to Catten as fast as possible."
"Understood."
WHEN chris's NAME APPEARED on the list for KDL and a return to Catten, she did some counting on her fingers. Well, if they didn't have any delays, she'd be back in time for Zane's first Botanical year birthday. Zainal did not anticipate any delays with the plan he had filed with Ray Scott. He had been amused by the request from the ex-admiral but, with the other ships also departing in opposite directions, he filled in the data.
"Did I do it right?" he asked Kris, shoving the paper toward her across the table in their main room.
"You'd better have," Kris said with mock threat, "or you're no advertisement for my teaching."
He printed in bold letters, using both capitals and lower case as required.
But he spelled properly and, even if he used short sentences, they were correctly phrased.
"You get an A."
"Just an A?" he said, pretending to be disappointed.
"Oh, that's the best you can do;'
"Oh?" and he leaned across the table and neatly lifted her out of her chair and high enough so that, when she bent her knees, she cleared the surface.
"! must lesson you, too, to see if you can achieve the A:'
Zane was long since asleep, so they could indulge in the intimacies that would be impossible for the duration of the trip.
"! hope to bring out my sons," Zainal said, when they lay side by side, mutually satisfied. "You must not treat them-at first-as you would a Human child;'
"How old are they?"
"They are nine and seven."
"Same mother?"
"No. Good Catteni blood in each."
"They will have a lot to learn, won't they?" And, while in one sense Kris felt able to accept the challenge, she hoped she would be able to meet it. Another aspect of it was that Zainal would trust her with his own children.
How badly would they have been treated because Zainal had failed to accept the family's obligation to present himself as Eosi "chosen"?