“Don’t worry about it, Ginger,” Skunk said. “We’ll never live to see it, anyway.”
“Come on, Skunk!” Happy cried. “Why so dour?”
“Because it’ll take decades, and ring techs don’t live that long.”
“We’re tested all the time,” Isabet said absently. “We’re fine.”
“Tested!” Skunk said bitterly. “You realize the norms for us are twice what they are for the rest of the crew?”
“Are they?” Ginger said, pulling back from the window as if it were the source of the poisonous rays.
“Skunk’s exaggerating,” Happy said.
Isabet turned her head to her friends. “No, Skunk’s right. They say, though, that when we’re Earthside our readings return to normal levels.”
“Do you believe them?” Ginger said, her voice rising.
Isabet shrugged. “I guess.”
“Believe if you want to,” Skunk said. “But don’t have babies.”
“None of us are having babies.” Isabet turned back to the window to watch Starhold grow. It was both massive and graceful, with a halo of light that faded the stars. She had studied the diagrams of its construction, pored over the blueprints of its hydroponic level and command deck with its crown of communication and power arrays. She had seen the cubbies and the gallery level in the video, and the men and women smiling into the camera. They looked friendly and smart. Starhold, to Isabet, looked like a home, the home she had never had. She thought she would willingly take a blast of G-rays if she could go in and see it for herself.
Isabet pushed off the inner surface of the maintenance tube, keeping her feet and hands free to maintain her momentum. She shot out into Engineering so that her feet bounced on the floor, grabbing the gravity borrowed from the habitat. Laughing, she straightened with a little hop. It felt good to have weight, even though it was only half gravity. She turned, bouncing on her toes, and found Tie Dye standing with a scowling woman Isabet hadn’t met before.
Isabet unclipped her remote and held it out to Tie Dye. She grinned up at the woman. “Hiya. Looking for me?”
The woman wore the insignia of a supply officer on her utility suit. She folded her arms, as if to discourage familiarity. Like the rest of the crew, she looked as if she had never lacked for nutrition in her life. She was tall, her skin smooth, her hair thick and shining. Isabet resisted the urge to touch her own ragged mop. She cut it herself, keeping it short to hide how coarse and dry it was.
Tie Dye said, “That’s Isabet, but she’s too small.”
“They’re all small, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, but she’s the smallest.”
“Let’s find the rest of them, then.” The woman turned toward the hatch that led to the ring techs’ quarters, Tie Dye behind her.
Isabet said, “Wait! At least tell me what it’s for.”
Tie Dye snapped, “Mind your own business, Itty Bit.”
At that, the supply officer stopped. She glanced briefly in Isabet’s direction, then directed her scowl at Tie Dye. “I thought you said her name was Isabet.”
He shrugged. “Yeah. Itty Bit’s a nickname.”
“Which I loathe,” Isabet murmured.
The woman’s eyelids flickered in acknowledgment. Her scowl deepened. “You want to watch yourself, Dykens. You’re a topnotch engineer, but you’re getting a reputation.”
Isabet chewed on the inside of her cheek, trying not to laugh as Tie Dye’s half-bald scalp reddened. When the officer turned back to her, she stood very straight, trying to look as tall as she could. “What’s up?” she asked brightly.
The officer measured Isabet with her eyes. “You are a bit small,” she said. “But we need to replace one of our warehousemen. He wrenched his back.”
“What’s the job?”
“Moving supplies into Starhold. There’s a lot of them, and some of them are heavy.”
“They’re on dollies, though, aren’t they? I can manage.”
Tie Dye opened his mouth, but Isabet hastened to speak again before he could make some pronouncement on her abilities. “I’m strong, ma’am,” she said, ignoring the roll of Tie Dye’s eyes at her sudden courtesy.
The officer’s hard gaze swept over Isabet. “You want to do this?” she said. “It’s going to be hard. It’s a year’s worth of supplies.”
Isabet nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I do want to. Nice to do something that’s not squeezing through the maintenance tube.”
The faintest twitch of the officer’s lips greeted this confession, disappearing almost before it registered. Tie Dye grunted, and started to say something, but the officer put up one admonishing finger, and he subsided. “Report to the supply deck in half an hour, Tech,” she said. “Thanks for volunteering.” And as Tie Dye heaved an exasperated sigh, the officer said in a dry tone, “You get to volunteer, too, Dykens. It’s a big job.”
It was a big job, as the officer had warned, and it was made harder by the pull of electrogravity. Isabet gritted her teeth as she pushed and pulled, maneuvering a dolly full of cartons over the rubbery rim of the lock and into the loading bay of the habitat. The lock was sealed with a ring that looked a lot like the maintenance tube she spent so much time in. It was smaller, of course, and a whole lot shorter. It arched up—electrogravity meant there was an up-and-around the lock that connected North America’s hold with Starhold’s loading bay. Isabet gazed curiously at it as she passed beneath. The seal had to be perfect, of course, or they’d all be spaced in no time, but it still seemed a clumsy way to connect the two vessels. She recognized the backup systems set into the walls of the sealing ring, and wondered how they checked them. She couldn’t imagine anyone from Starhold was small enough to fit into the ring.
The loading bay bristled with robotic arms and cranes. They could have installed power boosters on the damn dollies, she thought. Maybe Starhold wasn’t all that different from the North America after all. Why bother with power boosters when they had cheap labor like hers? Not that she minded. And at least Tie Dye was grunting and sweating as hard as she was.
She rolled her dolly toward one of the inner doors. It opened at her approach.
“Hi!” A pleasant-faced, broad-shouldered man stood in the doorway. He wore civvies, a bright orange shirt and a pair of striped pants, and his gray hair was caught back in a ponytail. He cocked his head at her, and gave her a welcoming smile. “I’m the stores manager,” he said. “I’ll give you a hand.”
“You’re not in uniform,” she blurted.
He laughed. “No, we’re not military. Here, let me take that.” He stepped around her, and took the handles of the dolly in hands that didn’t look used to this sort of work. “You’re not doing this alone, I hope!” he said. He pushed the dolly a few feet. “This is heavy!”
Before she could answer, Tie Dye came into the bay behind her, pushing another dolly loaded with sealed barrels and bales secured with nylon cord. He worked the dolly over the rim and brought it to rest near the door. “Got somebody to unload this stuff?” he asked the gray-haired man.
“I’ll do it myself. I’m Link.” The man put out his hand. Tie Dye grasped it, and then Link offered his hand to Isabet, too. Startled, she took it. His hand was as soft as it looked, and she was a little embarrassed about her hard small one with its bitten nails. She watched Link in wonder and envy. His casual attitude, his colorful clothes, all made the habitat seem more magical than ever.
“If we can get this off the dollies, the different departments will come for their own stuff,” Link said.
“Sure,” Isabet said at the same time Tie Dye delivered a “guess so.” She gave the stores manager a helpless look.
He winked at her, and stepped up to unbuckle a restraining strap. Tie Dye said, “Itty Bit, go back and make another trip. There’s another dolly loaded up.” She turned toward the lock again. “And get a move on,” he said, unnecessarily. Over her shoulder, she cast him a look of loathing. Link, too, gave him a look, but she couldn’t read it. She shrugged, and turned her energies to the next load.