“You’re hired,” I said.
“Just promise me you’ll hired?”
“Hired. Hey, Fat! You got a Betamax in the joint somewhere?”
So we went into the back room where Fat Humphrey Pappadopolous lives, and I fed the Stardance tape into his personal television, and the four of us watched it together while Maria ran the restaurant, and when it was over it was half an hour before any of us could speak.
II
So of course there was nothing to do then but go up to Skyfac.
Raoul insisted on paying for his own passage, which startled and pleased me. “How can I ask you to buy a pig in a poke?” he asked reasonably. “For all you know I may be one of those permanently spacesick people.”
“I anticipate having at least some gravity in the living units, Raoul. And do you have any idea what an elevator costs a civilian?”
“I can afford it,” he said simply. “You know that. And I’m no good to you if I have to stay in the house all day. I go on your payroll the day we know I can do the job.”
“That’s silly,” I objected. “I plan to take carloads of student dancers up, with no more warranty than you’ve got, and they sure as hell won’t be paying for their tickets. Why should I discriminate against you for not being poor?”
He shook his head doggedly, his eyeglasses tattooing the sides of his nose. “Because I want it that way. Charity is for those that need it. I’ve taken a lot of it and I bless the people who gave it to me when I needed it, but I don’t need it any more.”
“All right,” I agreed. “But after you’ve proved out, I’m going to rebate you, like it or not.”
“Fair enough,” he said, and we booked our passage.
Commercial transportation to orbit is handled by Space Industries Corp., a Skyfac subsidiary, and I have to congratulate them on one of the finest natural puns I’ve ever seen. When we located the proper gate at the spaceport, after hours of indiginity at Customs and Medical, I was feeling salty. I still hadn’t fully readapted after the time I’d spent in free fall with Shara, and the most I could pry out of the corporation medicos was three weeks—my “pull” with the top brass meant nothing to the Flight Surgeon in charge. I was busy fretting that it wasn’t enough time and tightening my guts in anticipation of takeoff when I rounded the last corner and confronted the sign that told me I was in the right place.
It said:
S.I.C. TRANSIT
(gloria mundi)
I laughed so hard that Norrey and Raoul had to help me aboard and strap me in, and I was still chuckling when acceleration hit us.
Sure enough, Raoul got spacesick as soon as the drive cut off—but he’d been sensible enough to skip breakfast, and he responded rapidly to the injection. That banty little guy had plenty of sand: by the time we were docked at Ring One he was trying out riffs on his Soundmaster. White as a piece of paper and completely oblivious, eyes glued to the outboard video, fingers glued to the Sound-master’s keyboard, ears glued to its earplugs. If elevator-belly ever troubled him again, he kept it to himself.
Norrey had no trouble at all. Neither did I. Our appointment with the brass had been set for an hour hence, just in case, so we stashed Raoul in the room assigned to him and spent the time in the Lounge, watching the stars wheel by on the big video wall. It was not crowded; the tourist trade had fallen off sharply when the aliens came, and never recovered. The New Frontier was less attractive with New Indians lurking in it somewhere.
My attempts to play seasoned old spacehound to Norrey’s breathless tourist were laughably unsuccessful. No one ever gets jaded to space, and I took deep satisfaction in being the one who introduced Norrey to it. But if I couldn’t pull off nonchalance, at least I could be pragmatic.
“Oh, Charlie! How soon can we go outside?”
“Probably not today, hon.”
“Why not?”
“Too much to do first. We’ve got to insult Tokugawa, talk to Harry Stein, talk to Tom McGillicuddy, and when all that’s done you’re going to take your first class in EVA 101—indoors.”
“Charlie, you’ve taught me all that stuff already.”
“Sure. I’m an old spacehound, with all of six months experience. You dope, you’ve never even touched a real p-suit.”
“Oh, welfare checks! I’ve memorized every word you’ve told me. I’m not scared.”
“There in a nutshell is why I refuse to go EVA with you.”
She made a face and ordered coffee from the arm of her chair.
“Norrey. Listen to me. You are not talking about putting on a raincoat and going to stand next to Niagara Falls. About six inches beyond that wall there is the most hostile environment presently available to a human. The technology which makes it possible for you to live there at all is not as old as you are. I’m not going to let you within ten meters of an airlock until I’m convinced that you’re scared silly.”
She refused to meet my eyes. “Dammit, Charlie, I’m not a child and I’m not an idiot.”
“Then stop acting like both.” She jumped at the volume and looked at me. “Or is there any other kind of person who believes you can acquire a new set of reflexes by being told about them?”
It might have escalated into a full-scale quarrel, but the waiter picked that moment to arrive with Norrey’s coffee. The Lounge staff like to show off for the tourists; it increases the tip. Our waiter decided to come to our table the same way George Reeves used to leap tall buildings, and we were a good fifteen meters from the kitchen. Unfortunately, after he had left the deck, committing himself, a gaunt tourist decided to change seats without looking, and plotted herself an intersecting course. The waiter never flinched. He extended his left arm sideways, deploying the drogue (which looks just like the webbing that runs from Spiderman’s elbow to his ribs); tacked around her; brought his hand to his chest to collapse the drogue; transferred the coffee to that hand; extended the other arm and came back on course; all in much less time than it has taken you to read about it. The tourist squawked and tumbled as he went by, landing on her rump and bouncing and skidding a goodly distance thereon; the waiter grounded expertly beside Norrey, gravely handed her a cup containing every drop of coffee he had started out with, and took off again to see to the tourist.
“The coffee’s fresh,” I said as Norrey goggled. “The waiter just grounded.”
It’s one of the oldest gags on Skyfac, and it always works. Norrey whooped and nearly spilled hot coffee on her hand—only the low gee gave her time to recover. That cut her laughter short; she stared at the coffee cup, and then at the waiter, who was courteously pointing out one of the half dozen LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP signs to the outraged tourist.
“Charlie?”
“Yeah.”
“How many classes will I need before I’m ready?”
I smiled and took her hand. “Not as many as I thought.”
The meeting with Tokugawa, the new chairman of the board, was low comedy. He received us personally in what had been Carrington’s office, and the overall effect was of a country bishop on the Pope’s throne. Or perhaps “tuna impersonating a piranha” is closer to the image I want. In the vicious power struggle which followed Carrington’s death, he had been the only candidate ineffectual enough to satisfy everyone. Tom McGillicuddy was with him, to my delight, the cast already gone from his ankle. He was growing a beard.
“Hi, Tom. How’s the foot?”
His smile was warm and familiar. “Hello, Charlie. It’s good to see you again. The foot’s okay—bones knit faster in low gee.”