“You did it, too. I had no idea where to start. You brought me the key information.”
“But I’d never have figured out how to use it without you. You provided the brain power, not me. My question is, what now?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Do we keep this to ourselves?”
Rick hadn’t thought about that, but it didn’t take long to reach a decision. “Of course we do! Barney French said we could cooperate, but she didn’t say we had to. I don’t know about you, but I need all the extra credits I can get. There’s no reason to share what we’ve done with everybody else.”
“With anybody else?”
“With anybody else.”
“Good.” Alice motioned for Rick to stand up, and quietly folded his chair into its niche in the wall. “It’s a deal, then. Our big secret, just the two of us. I like that.” She studied his face, alive with excitement at the work they had just done together. “And I like you, Rick. I watched you dance the other night, and I wished that you were dancing with me.”
“I didn’t realize that.”
“No reason you should. I didn’t have the sense to come over and ask you, did I? That won’t happen again.”
The months since he left school had been filled with surprises, but there had been nothing as surprising or exciting as Alice. To think that he had known her since the first bus trip from Albuquerque airport, and not really known her at all. He had never suspected that her face could flush so vividly, and those wide, grey eyes could look at him with such excitement.
A soft chime over the ship’s central communication system brought him out of his reverie. It meant that first mess was beginning, and if he wanted to eat at second sitting he had just twenty minutes to get up, dress, and make his way to the little food service area. When he had first seen it, he had never imagined that it might be the only place to eat on the whole ship. But it was. The apprentices ate there in relays.
He dressed slowly and folded away his bunk, then paused for another look at the time/distance tables that he and Alice had generated to solve the problem of travel to CM-26. After dinner he would go over their work again, but he was not worried. What they had done had the right feeling to it, the feeling that you couldn’t describe but also couldn’t mistake. Once you hit on the right method, a problem suddenly became ridiculously easy. It seemed like a general truth: what you knew was easy; what you didn’t know was hard.
Rick wandered slowly along the narrow corridor to the mess area. He had never felt so good in his whole life. He arrived just as the first sitting apprentices were getting ready to leave and dumping their plates and cups in the hopper to be vacuum cleaned. Alice was at the table nearest to Rick. He walked over to her.
She stood up, turned toward him—and hurried past him as though he did not exist. Before he could think of what to say she was out of the room. He took two steps after her, then paused. Deedee Mao was entering, blocking the way, walking right up to Rick and smiling at him.
“The first person here again. You got a tapeworm, or just hollow legs?” She frowned at him. “What’s wrong, Rick? Are you feeling all right?”
“Yeah—I guess.” Rick slumped down bewildered at one of the tables. What was going on with Alice? Why had she cut him cold like that, after what had happened between them? “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Well, let’s see what tonight’s mystery is. I’m getting fed up with squid pie.” Deedee sat down right opposite Rick. The people assigned to different sittings changed all the time, but they all went through the same ritual. You were served an anonymous lump of something for the main course, and you guessed what it might be. The winner was the one who came up with the most imaginative—usually rude—suggestion.
Tonight, though, Rick didn’t feel in the least like playing the game. He didn’t even want to talk, although it was obvious that Deedee was in a chatty mood. He did his best to reply normally but she started to look at him strangely across the table, her smiles changing to frowns. It was a huge relief when somebody else bustled in, sat down next to Rick and said, “All right if I join the two of you?”
The kid was someone Rick had never seen before, although up to this point he had thought he knew every apprentice on board the Vantage. Somebody must have been added at the last moment. The skinny newcomer had a tousled mop of curly light brown hair and a fresh, ruddy complexion, as though he had just come in from a brisk walk in the open air. He grinned at Rick and Deedee, stared down at the plates that were appearing from the server, and said “Deviled dingo dong again, I see.”
Rick just stared. It was Deedee who stuck out her hand across the table and said, “Hi. We’ve never met before. I’m Deedee Mao.”
“Tom Garcia.” The kid smiled at her and turned expectantly to Rick.
“Rick Luban.” Rick held out his hand in turn, and then, with no idea what to say next, added, “How are you doing with your assignment?”
It sounded inane, and felt even more so when Garcia put his head to one side, pursed his lips, and said, “Dunno. I guess if we get to GM-26 in one piece I’m doing all right.”
“Huh?” Deedee’s face reflected Rick’s own confusion.
“Maybe I should have been more informative during the introductions.” Tom Garcia waved his arm around him. “You see, it’s my job to fly this thing.”
“You mean the ship?” asked Deedee. “You’re the Vantage’s pilot?”
“I’m afraid so. I hope it’s not too big a disappointment for you. Actually, I’m one of two. The other is Marlene Kotite, and she’s holding the fort right now while I’m here feeding my face.”
“But you look younger than I do!”
“So they tell me.” Garcia shrugged. “I’m sorry, but what can I do? Wait twenty years, I suppose, and it will take care of itself.”
“But the seniority system—” Deedee began, then stopped herself. “I guess everything out in the Belt is so new, there aren’t any really senior people.”
“That’s partly true. More to the point, it’s not like the transportation system back on Earth, set in stone. Out here, people who are best at the jobs get them.” Garcia shook his head. “I’m sorry, that sounds like I’m boasting. I didn’t mean to.”
“You have every right to boast. You’re in charge of this whole ship!” Deedee’s attention was no longer on Rick, and he didn’t mind that at all. “Would you mind if I asked you some questions,” she went on. “About the ship, I mean.”
“Ask away. Only two conditions. First, you’ve got to give me time to eat. Second, I won’t tell you anything that might give you an advantage over the other apprentices on the travel time question that Barney French set all of you.”
“No problem. That’s completely impossible anyway. Everybody agrees, no one will get an answer.” Fortunately all Deedee’s attention was on Tom Garcia, otherwise Rick’s face might have given him away.
“If the Diabelli Omnivores can fuse any element lighter than neon,” she went on, “Why do you use a deuterium/helium-3 mixture? Turkey Gossage told us those are rare materials, hard to obtain in large quantities.”
“Quite true. Two reasons. First, all the fusion products except for neutrinos are charged particles, so the Omnivores can direct them all in the same direction by using electromagnetic fields. That gives a very efficient drive. If I need to, I can accelerate the Vantage at a couple of gees. It we fused carbon or oxygen, we’d be down to a fifth of a gee or less. Second, fusing heavier elements requires much higher temperatures, up in the billion degree range. That means more wear and tear on the engines, and much more frequent maintenance. For a working ship, the fraction of time in service is one of the most important variables.”