The Precipice (28 page)

And better yet, he thought, once I'm in charge I'll make certain that Amanda stays here on the ground. With me.

“
S
he looks better now, doesn't she?” Dan asked as their jumper coasted toward the fusion-powered spacecraft.

Pancho nodded her agreement. The ship was still utilitarian, not sleek, but now the starkness of the bare engine system by
itself was dwarfed by six huge, gleaming spherical propellant tanks. Big white letters stenciled along the cylindrical crew
module identified the craft as STARPOWER 1; the logos of Astro Corporation, Humphries Space Systems and Selene adorned one
of the propellant tanks.

The jumper was little more than an ordinary lunar transfer buggy with an extra set of tankage and a bigger rocket engine for
ascents from the Moon's surface into lunar orbit and descents back to the ground again. Dan and Pancho wore tan Astro coveralls
as they rode in the bulbous glassteel crew module, standing with their booted feet anchored in floor loops because seats were
not needed for this brief, low-g flight. An instrument podium rose at the front of the module,
its controis standing unused, since the vessel was being handled by the flight controllers back at Armstrong. Still, Dan felt
good that Pancho was a qualified pilot. You never know, he thought.

As they approached the fusion-powered vessel, Pancho whistled at the size of the propellant tanks.

“That's a lot of fuel.”

“Tell me about it,” Dan said ruefully. “Fve had to default on two helium-three contracts with Earthside power utilities to
fill those double-damned tanks.”

“Default?”

Nodding, Dan said grimly, ‘Two steps closer to bankruptcy.”

Pancho decided to change the subject slightly. “So what've you decided to do about the long-duration test?” Pancho asked.

Dan shook his head. “I've spent the past four days pulling every wire I know.”

“And?”

“Nothing so far. Zip. Nobody's going to lift a finger to go against the IAA.”

“So you'll have to do the test flight?”

Running a finger across his chin, Dan said reluctantly, “Looks that way.”

“Then why are we takin' this ride?”

The shadow of a smile crossed Dan's face. He was thinking of the time, many years earlier, when he had briefly become a privateer,
a pirate, hijacking uncrewed spacecraft for their cargoes of ore. It had started as a desperation ploy, the only way a frustrated
Dan Randolph could force open the space markets that had been closed by monopolists. He had won his war against monopoly and
opened the solar system to free competition among individuals, corporations and governments. But at a price. His smile faded
as he remembered the people who had died fighting that brief, unheralded war. He himself had come to within a whisker of being
killed.

“So?” Pancho prodded, “Is this a joyride or what?”

Putting his thoughts of the past behind him, Dan replied, “I want to see the crew module for myself. And we're going to meet
the planetary geologist that Zack Freiberg's picked out for us.”

“The asteroid specialist?”

“Yep. He's aboard the ship now. Came up to Selene yesterday and went straight to the ship. He slept aboard last night.”

Pancho huffed. “Eager beaver. College kid, I bet.”

“He's got a mint-new degree from Zurich Polytech.”

The flight controllers brought the jumper to a smooth rendezvous with
Starpower 1.
While Dan and Pancho stood watching, the little transfer buggy linked its airlock adapter section to the hatch of the bigger
vessel. They floated through the womb-like adapter to the fusion ship's airlock hatch.

The airlock opened into the midsection of the crew module. To their left, Dan saw the accordion-fold doors of a half-dozen
privacy compartments lining the passageway. Further up were the galley, a wardroom with a table and six small but plush-looking
chairs, and—past an open hatch—the bridge. To their right was the lavatory and a closed hatch that led to the equipment and
storage bays.

Dan headed left, toward the galley and the bridge.

“Chairs?” Pancho asked, looking puzzled, as they pushed weightlessly past the wardroom, floating a few centimeters above the
deck's carpeting.

“You'll be accelerating or decelerating most of the way,” Dan pointed out. “You won't be spending much time in zero-g.”

She nodded, looking disappointed with herself. “I knew that; it just didn't latch.”

Dan understood how she felt. He'd seen the layout of the crew module hundreds of times, viewed three-d mockups and even walked
through virtual reality simulations. But being in the real thing was different. He could smell the newness of the metal and
fabric; he could reach his hand up and
run his fingers along the plastic panels of the overhead. The bridge looked small, but shining and already humming with electrical
power.

“Where's our college boy?” Pancho asked, looking around.

“That would be me, I suppose,” said a reedy voice from behind them.

Hirning, Dan saw a husky-looking young man gripping the edges of the open hatch with both hands. He was a shade shorter than
Dan, but broad in the shoulders, with a thick barrel chest The build of a wrestler. His face was broad, too: a heavy jaw with
wide, thin lips and small, deepset eyes. His hair was cropped so close to his skull that Dan couldn't be sure of its true
color. He wore a small glittering stone in his left earlobe, diamond or zircon or glass, Dan could not tell.

“I heard you enter. I was in the sensor bay, checking on the equipment,” he said in a flat midwestern American accent, pronounced
so precisely that he had to have learned it in a foreign school.

“Oh,” said Pancho.

“I am Lars Fuchs,” he said, extending his hand to Dan. “You must be Mr. Randolph.”

“Pleased to meet you, Dr. Fuchs.” Fuchs's hand engulfed his own. The young man's grip was strong, firm. “This is Pancho Lane,”
Dan went on. “She'll be our pilot on the flight”

Fuchs dipped his chin slightly. “Ms. Lane. And, sir, I am not Dr. Fuchs. Not yet.”

“That's okay. Zack Freiberg recommends you highly.”

“I am very grateful to Doctor Professor Freiberg. He has been very helpful to me.”

“And my name is Dan. If you call me Mr. Randolph it'll make me feel like an old man.”

“Oh, I wouldn't want to offend you, sir!” Fuchs said, genuinely alarmed.

“Just call me Dan.”

“Yes, sir, of course. And you must call me Lars.” Turning to Pancho, he added, “Both of you.”

“That's a deal, Lars,” said Pancho, sticking out her hand.

Fuchs took it gingerly, as if not quite sure what to do. “Pancho is a woman's name in America?”

She laughed. “It's
this
woman's name, Lars old buddy.”

Smiling uneasily, Fuchs said, “Pancho,” as if testing out the name.

“You handle weightlessness very well,” Dan said. “From what Zack told me, this is your first time off-Earth.”

Fuchs said. “Thank you, sir… Dan. I came up last night so I could adapt myself to microgravity before you arrived here.”

Pancho smiled sympathetically. “Spent the night makin' love to the toilet, huh?”

Looking flustered, Fuchs said, “I did retch a few times, yes.”

“Ever'body does, Lars,” she said. “Nothin' to be ashamed of.”

“I am not ashamed,” he said, his chin rising a notch.

Dan moved between them. “Have you picked out which cabin you want for yourself? Since you were first aboard you get first
pick.”

“Hey,” Pancho griped, “I've been aboard this buggy before, you know. So has Amanda.”

“The privacy compartments are all exactly alike,” Fuchs said. “It doesn't matter which one I get.”

“I'll take the last one on the left,” Dan said, peering down the passageway that ran the length of the module. “It's closest
to the lav.”

“You?” Pancho looked surprised. “Since when are you comin' on the mission?”

“Since about four days ago,” Dan said. “That's when I made up my mind… about a lot of things.”

“
S
o here's my plan,” Dan said, with a grin.

He and Pancho were hunched over one of the postage-stamp-sized tables in the farthest corner of the Pelican bar, away from
the buzzing conversations and bursts of laughter from the crowd standing at the bar itself. Their heads were almost touching,
leaning together like a pair of conspirators.

Which they were. Inwardly, Dan marveled at how good he felt. Free. Happy, almost. The double-damned bureaucrats have tried
to tie me up in knots. Humphries is behind it all, playing along with the IAA and those New Morality bigots. Those uptight
psalm-singers don't want us to reach the asteroids. They like the Earth just the way it is: miserable, hungry, desperate for
the kind of order and control that the New Morality offers. This greenhouse warming is a blessing for them, the wrath of God
smiting the unbelievers. Anything we do to try to help alleviate it, they see as a threat to their power.

Vaguely, Dan recalled from his childhood history lessons something about a group called the Nazis, back in the twentieth century.
They came to power because there was an economic depression and people needed jobs and food. If he remembered his history
lessons correctly.

So the New Morality has its tentacles into the IAA now, Dan thought. And the GEC too, I'll bet. And Humphries is playing them
all like a symphony orchestra, using them to stymie me long enough so he can grab Astro from me.

Well, it's not going to be that easy, partner.

“What's so funny?” Pancho asked, looking puzzled.

“Funny?”

“You say, ‘Here's my plan,' and then you start grinnin' like a cat in a canary's cage.”

Dan took a sip of his brandy and dry, then said, “Pancho, I've always said that when the going gets tough, the tough get going—to
where the going's easier.”

“I've heard that one before.”

“So I'm going with you.”

“You?”

“Yep.”

“To the Belt.”

“You need a flight engineer. I know the ship's systems as well as anybody.”

“Lordy-lord,” Pancho muttered.

“I'm still a qualified astronaut. I'm going with you.”

“But not until we do the uncrewed test flight,” she said, reaching for her beer.

Leaning across the table even closer to her, Dan said in a hoarse whisper, “Screw the test flight. We're going to the Belt.
You, Amanda, Fuchs and me.”

Pancho nearly choked on her mouthful of beer. She sputtered, coughed, then finally asked, “What're you drinkin', boss?'

Happy as a pirate on the open sea, Dan said, “We'll let ‘em think we're doing exactly what they've told us to do, except
that the four of us will happen to be aboard the bird when she breaks orbit.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that We'll calculate a new flight plan once we're underway. Instead of accelerating at one-sixth
g,
as we've planned, we'll goose her up to one-third
g
and cut the flight time by more than half.”

Pancho looked unconvinced. “You better bring an as-trogator aboard.”

“Nope.” Pointing a finger at her, Dan said, “You're it, kid. You and Amanda. I'm not bringing anybody into this that we don't
absolutely need.”

“I'm not so sure about this,” Pancho said warily.

“Don't go chicken on me, kid,” Dan said. “You two have been studying this point-and-shoot technique for a lot of weeks. If
you can't do it, I've been wasting money on you.”

“I can do it,” Pancho said immediately.

“Okay, then.”

“I'd just feel better if you had a real expert on board.”

“No experts. Nobody else except the four of us. I don't want anybody tipped off about this. And that includes Humphries.”

Pancho waved a hand nonchalantly. “He hasn't said a word to me since we moved Sis.”

“I don't think he knows were we stashed her,” Dan said, reaching for his drink.

“He knows about ever'thing.”

“Not this flight,” Dan said firmly.
“Nobody
is going to know about this. Understand me? Don't even tell Amanda or Fuchs. This is just between you and me, kid.”

“And the flight controllers,” Pancho muttered.

“What?”

“How're you goin' to get the flight controllers to go along with this? You can't just waltz aboard the
Starpower
and light her up without them knowin' it Hell's bells, Dan, you won't even be able to hop up to the ship if they don't let
you have a jumper and give you clearance for takeoff.”

Sipping at his brandy-laced ginger beer, Dan admitted, “That's a problem I haven't worked out yet.”

“It's a toughie.”

“Yep, it is,” Dan said, unable to suppress a grin.

Pancho shook her head disapprovingly. “You're
enjoying
this.”

“Why not?” Dan replied. “The world's going to hell in a handbasket, the New Morality is taking over the government, Humphries
is trying to screw me out of my own company—what could be more fun than hijacking my own spacecraft and riding it out to the
Belt?”

“That's weird,” Pancho murmured.

Dan saw that his glass was empty. He pressed the button set into the table's edge to summon one of the squat little robots
trundling through the crowd.

“Don't worry about the flight controllers,” he said casually. “We'll figure out a way around them.”

“We?”

“You and me.”

“Hey, boss, I'm a pilot, not a woman of intrigue.”

“You made a pretty good spy.”