There was very little privacy in the changing room. Only a screen separated men from women. The only facilities were a long bench and table on either side of the screen.
Kevin collected his pressure suit from the Hansen Company inspector who'd checked it out. "Nice gear," the technician said as he handed it over. "David Clark makes the best, in my book."
One more datum to file away, Kevin thought. Daedalus Corporation didn't stint on equipment. They'd given him the best. He had his suit, and helmet, with radios; a programmable pocket computer, the latest model he knew of, complete with a plug-in memory-reference unit that contained, along with much other data, just about every formula and table in the big Chemical Rubber Handbook; a lightweight Fiberglas suitcase, really more like a pressure-tight portable footlocker. It was all first class and it made him feel that he was important to the company.
The pressure suit went on like a diver's wet suit, and looked like one only not so thick. It fit very closely; he had to use talcum powder to get into it. Gloves dogged onto the ends of the sleeves, and a seal set firmly around his neck. He slipped into the boots, hung the small equipment bag over his shoulder, and reported back to the technicians. They pulled and pinched, looking for loose spots. They didn't find any in Kevin's, but the next to come up was the girl he'd seen before, and after a moment they handed her a lump of what looked like clay. "Shove that under your breasts," the technician said. "Yeah, right there. Don't leave any gaps."
"But—" She was obviously embarrassed.
"Lady, you're going into vacuum," the man explained. "Your innards will be pressured to about seven pounds by the air in your helmet. Outside is nothing. Your skin won't hold that. The suit will, but you've got to be flat against the suit, otherwise you'll swell up to fill any empty spaces. It won't do a lot of good for your figure."
"Oh. Thank you," she said. She turned away and used the clay as she'd been told.
The technician looked at Kevin and shook his head. "Don't get many small-town chicks here. Okay, sport, on with your helmet. See it's dogged right. Don't like to lose passengers in the test chamber."
The helmet fit snugly onto the neck seal. The technician checked the locking mechanism and seemed satisfied. "Okay, you and blondie there, into the next room and through the airlock." He raised his voice. "Sending in the first two, Charlie."
"Right. Come on, come on, we got a full schedule today."
Kevin and the girl went through the door and were motioned to another, this one steel with a large locking wheel. Through that was a large chamber. There was a man in a pressure suit inside it. He motioned to hoses on the bulkhead. "Connect up to those."
They did, and the man checked the fittings. "Okay," he said. "We'll pump out this chamber. As we do, there'll come pressure into your helmets through those hoses. When the outside pressure's gone, you're going to be uncomfortable for a while. Any gas in your system will expand until you'll feel like a balloon. Don't be too damned polite to get rid of it, or you'll be sorry. If you feel really uncomfortable, or your ears hurt real bad, or you can't breathe, hit one of those panic buttons next to you there. Otherwise, don't do anything at all. Understood?"
"Yes," the girl said. Kevin nodded.
"Right." Charlie turned to his control panel and pressed buttons. The outside door had already been closed and sealed while he was talking.
Kevin felt the pressure drop. His ears clogged for a moment and he swallowed frantically until they popped and were clear. The pressure continued to fall and he felt his insides swelling as Charlie had said they would.
"OKAY." Charlie's voice was loud in his headset. "I've got your pressures here. Everything looks right to me. Any problems?"
"No," the girl's voice said.
"Good. Now comes the hard part. The worst thing that can happen to you is to run low on oxygen. You won't know it's happening. So, I'm gonna cut down on your oxygen supply to let you get used to what anoxia feels like. While I'm doing it I want you to write your name on that pad there in front of you. Every time I say 'write,' you write your name until I say to stop. Okay?"
"Yes," the girl's voice said in his headset.
"Sure," Kevin said.
"You, mister, I asked if it was understood," Charlie said.
"Oh." Kevin turned on his microphone. "Sorry. Understood."
"Okay. Here we go. Write."
It was no problem. He wrote carefully, then glanced over at the girl. "Ellen MacMillan." Her handwriting was neat and precise, unlike his own heavy scrawl.
"Write," Charlie said, and they did it again.
It seemed a silly game. Kevin felt an urgent impulse to laugh. Why? part of his mind wondered. But it didn't matter; of course he wanted to laugh, this was silly—
"Write."
His hand didn't work properly, but it was all right, he was tired of this silly game. He glanced over at Ellen's paper. Her neat hand had written "Coca-cola."
"Scotch and soda," Kevin wrote.
"Write."
"Will you have dinner with me?" he tried to write, but it didn't come out that way. He couldn't read it. Oh, well. Ellen looked at him and giggled. He responded, and they laughed together. "Hey, you're beautiful," Kevin shouted.
She laughed harder. Why was she laughing? Kevin wondered. It was true enough. Well, maybe not beautiful. But she was nice, a really pretty girl, blonde curls cut off short but still long enough to curl. He stared at her pressure suit, trying to see where her breasts left off and the clay began. She saw what he was doing and patted the spot, giggling again.
"Write your names. It is very important that you write your names. If you do not write your names legibly you will not be permitted to go up today," Charlie said. His voice was very stern, and that was funny too.
Only, part of his mind said, it wasn't funny. He tried very hard, but all he could produce was a scrawl. Ought to be good enough, though, he thought. They can read that—
His head began to clear suddenly, and he looked at the paper in front of him. It was awful. He wanted to cry—
He felt the chamber pressure rising. It became very warm in the capsule.
"Okay," Charlie said. "When I give the signal, disconnect from the hoses and go out the far door. Take those papers with you, and don't forget what you've learned. Anoxia sneaks up on you. You think you're doing all right, even when you're acting like a stupid drunk. If you remember that, you can function longer. Not a lot longer, but a little longer anyway."
The next stop was another supply counter, where he picked up his reflective coveralls and tool belt. When he put them on over his pressure suit, and slung the tool belt around his waist, Kevin felt like a spacer. He knew better. There was a lot to learn, and he wouldn't even begin learning it until he was aboard Wayfarer; but the tool kit and professional equipment was at least a start. He asked directions to the observation balcony and was shown a stairway.
The balcony was empty. It gave a view of the wide valley on the other side of the terminal building from the airfield. The upper parts of the valley sides were covered with the tall cardones cactus plants, giants twenty feet tall and more, looking like cartoons of the desert cactus. There were even vultures perched in the cactus. Below, on the valley floor, were the lasers.
At first it looked like a field of mirrors. Over a hundred lasers were scattered across the brown Baja desert sand. Each sent its output into a mirror. The mirrors were all arranged so that they reflected onto one very large mirror nearly a kilometer beyond the balcony.
A rail track ran onto a platform above the final mirror. Squat capsules, like enormously swollen artillery shells, sat on cars on the track, a long line of them waiting for launch. As he watched, one of the capsules was wheeled along the track until it stopped over the launching mirror.
The field became a blaze of blue-green light as the lasers went on. Somewhere nearby, Kevin knew, were two large nuclear power plants. They poured their entire output into the lasers below him, enough electricity to power a city, all turned into laser light. The mirrors pivoted slightly so that all their energy went to the one large mirror at the end of the field.
The capsule rose, suddenly and silently, as if pushed into the sky by a rapidly growing giant blue-green beanstalk. It vanished in seconds, but the laser beam continued to follow it, moving from vertical to an angle toward the east. Finally all the lasers went out together.
"My God," Kevin said aloud. "I'm going up like that?"
He heard a laugh behind him and turned quickly to see the girl who'd been in the altitude chamber with him. She smiled as he looked at her. "Yes, we are," she said. "Scared?"
"Damn betcha."
"Me too. I wish I'd taken the shuttle."
Another capsule was in position, and rose silently from the platform, vanishing into the clear blue sky, followed by the silent beam of intense light. If he listened carefully Kevin thought he could hear the hum of the beam. It was pulsed at something like two hundred times a second.
The laser system worked like a ram jet. Under each capsule was a bell-shaped chamber, open at the bottom. The laser energy entered the chamber and heated the air inside. The air rushed out, pushing the capsule upward. Then the beam was turned off just long enough for more air to get into the chamber, to be heated by the next pulse of the beam.
"I'm still not sure I believe it works," Kevin said. "It looks like black magic."
"Green magic," Ellen said.
There was a long pause in the launching sequence, then a trainload of capsules came out. Each capsule was accompanied by an armed guard. Four Mexican Army tanks rolled alongside the train.
"Ye gods, that must be a valuable cargo," Kevin said. He looked quickly at Ellen when she didn't answer. She was watching them with a look of satisfaction. "Do you know what's in them?" Kevin asked.
"No, do you?"
"I thought you were watching as if you did. No, I haven't a clue."
"As you said, it must be valuable." She continued to stare until all the capsules were launched, and the guards and tanks rolled away. Then she looked at her watch. "Maybe we ought to be getting down—"
"Yes. Hate to miss the ship. Where are you headed?"
"Wayfarer." An appopriate enough name, Kevin thought: "Das Wanderer."
Kevin had thought she would be going up to one of the orbital factories. "All the way to Ceres? Alone?"
"Yes, why not?"
Kevin shrugged. "No reason."
"Except that you don't approve of women going to the Belt," she said. "That's man's work. I suppose you want restrictive laws for space, too. 'One job per family' out in the Belt as well as here on Earth." There was anger in her voice. "Well, you had that in the United States, still do really, but you won't get it in space, and I'm going whether you approve or not." She turned and stalked down the stairwell.
"Hey," Kevin called. "Hey, I didn't mean anything. I'm sorry—"
She didn't turn. To hell with her, Kevin thought. He slowed down, wondering what to do next.
"Kev! Hey, buddy," someone called.
Kevin turned. It was Wiley Ralston. "Wiley! Hey, are you going up this round?" Wiley had left Los Angeles two weeks before to find a job in deep space. Kevin wasn't that surprised to see him.
"Sure, I'm in the afternoon wave. Ride up with me?"
"Can't," Kevin said. "I'm going right now—hey, where are you going?"
"Got some things to arrange," Wiley said.
"You going in Wayfarer?"
"Right—you too?" Wiley was hurrying away, and his manner indicated that he didn't want to be followed. "You're going up right now? Not in the first capsule, though—"
"Sure, get it over with," Kevin said. He had to shout now; Wiley was moving away fast.
"Not the first," Wiley said. "Get on the last one—"
"Why?"
"Can't stop to talk, old chum. I've really got to scoot. See you aboard Wayfarer." He vanished into a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, leaving Kevin standing in the middle of the empty corridor.
Damn, Kevin thought. He walked slowly to the capsule loading area. If I wait, he thought, I'll be scared out of my wits before it happens. He knew the laser launching system was safe, but that didn't stop the butterflies in his stomach.
May as well get it over with, he thought. He collected his helmet from the technicians.
There was one couple, and Ellen MacMillan, in the loading area.
"Who's first?" the technician asked.
"We are," the couple said.
"Right. Let's see you get into your hats and seal up." When they had their helmets dogged down the technician attached a pressure gauge to the man, looked worried, and said, "Go back and get a recheck on this."
"Something wrong?"
"Probably not, but I like to be careful. Okay, you're down-checked. Next." He jerked a thumb at Kevin, then at Ellen MacMillan. "You two. Get your heads on and let's hook up air bottles. Come on, we haven't got all day. Orbits don't wait."
When they had donned helmets and air tanks the technician checked his gauges again. "Looks good," he said, and sent them through a door. Kevin hurried along, trying not to think of the ride ahead. No worse than a roller coaster, he kept telling himself.
The launching pods were waiting. They seemed much larger than the ones he'd seen being launched, but even so the capsule was too small. It looked like a bell-shaped steel coffin. Ellen was already inside, strapping herself into a nylon-webbing couch. Kevin got in and lay on the other couch.
"Hear me all right?" a voice asked.
"Yes." They both answered at once, speaking a little too loudly, a little too confidently. Kevin turned toward Ellen to see that she was looking at him. They grinned faintly at each other.
"Fine. Now you wait a while," the tech's voice said. "Then you go. There's nothing tricky about any of this. You're hooked into the capsule air supply. When you make orbit you wait until a crewman comes and opens the can. Then—and not before—you pull that big lever above you. It disconnects you from the capsule system and you'll be on your own air tanks. You got two hours of air in the capsule and another hour in your tanks. Okay, I'm closin' you in. Bon voyage."
The capsule door closed. They watched the inside wheel turn as it was dogged shut. It already seemed close and cramped in the pod. Like a big steel coffin built for two, Kevin thought. He pushed the thought aside.
"We're moving," Ellen said.
There wasn't much sense of motion, but she was right. The capsule was moving along the track. Kevin tried to visualize its progress as it went inexorably toward the launch area. "Wonder how the kids will make out?"
"Better than us, I expect. At least we don't have to do anything—"
"I wish we did," Kevin said. "Better than just waiting for them."
"Sure—"
The warning tones sounded, then gravity seized them.
They were pressed hard into the seat webbing.
Three gravities isn't all that bad; a little like being on a water bed with another mattress on top of you and two people piled onto that. It was possible to breathe, but not to talk. The acceleration went on and on.
I'm really going, Kevin thought. I've left Earth, and I won't be back for a long time.
Eventually the weight diminished, then was gone entirely. There was a sensation of falling, endless falling.
"I wonder if we made it," Ellen said. Her voice was artificially calm.
"Well, this is free fall—"
"Which we would feel whether or not we have enough velocity to make orbit," Ellen said. "And we won't know for about half an hour."
"By then the crew people will be here." I hope, Kevin thought.
There was nothing to do. There ought to be some kind of instrument to tell them they were in orbit. Kevin thought about that. How could you design one? No air, of course; couldn't measure velocity by air speed. An accelerometer hooked into the capsule; add up all the accelerations and you'd have velocity. A micro-computer to decide whether that was the proper velocity for the job. Sure, it could be done. Why hadn't they done it? Another expense for an already expensive business.
"I'd think someone would have spoken to us by now," Ellen said. She moved her arm up so that she could see her watch. "Only five minutes. Seems longer."
"Sure does. Uh—by the way, my name is Kevin."
"I know. I saw it on your paper. In the chamber. You read mine, too. We were pretty silly, weren't we?"
"Yeah. What outfit are you with?"
"None. I'm paying my own way," she said.
Good Lord. She had to be fabulously wealthy. He looked at her suit and other gear. First class, but no frills.
"How come you're taking the hard way up instead of the shuttle?"
"I couldn't afford a shuttle ticket."
That didn't make sense. "But you can afford a ticket to Ceres. Why are you going there?"
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," she said. Then she giggled. "I'm not too bad at engineering, Kevin, even if you don't approve of women in your business—"
"I never said—"
"And I didn't like the offers I got from the orbital factories. Or the Luna companies either. So I took what I could scrape up and bought a ticket. There wasn't much to spare."
"Out to make your fortune pioneering," Kevin said.
"That's right. There'll be good jobs for me. For anyone who can do the work. I see you don't approve."
"Sure I approve. It just seems like a long way to go—"
"You're going," she pointed out. "Why can't I?"
Kevin didn't answer. It just didn't seem right. And you're a male chauvinist pig, he told himself. You hate to see a pretty girl working at something besides being a pretty girl.
Only that's not true. Dammit it's going to be rough out there, and—And, he thought, I've got about three million years of evolution that says women and children shouldn't get into tough situations. The world is no longer a place where we live in caves and go hunt tigers, and our instincts are all fouled up, but we've got them.
Of course it was pretty rough for unmarried women in the United States anyway. The feminist movement had gotten legal equality for women—for a while. But then came the Equity scandals, and the Great Recession, and rising unemployment. Women's rights weren't as thoroughly abandoned as were those with disabilities, but there were fundamental changes.
The unions put on the pressure, and Congress came up with the "One Job Per Family" law. The courts threw it out, but Congress passed it again, and its status was still undecided. And women weren't welcome in most unions whatever the courts said, not with so many men out of work.
And maybe, Kevin thought, maybe the whole idea is wrong, but there are plenty of women—married women—who approve the job restrictions and reserved occupations. For two thousand years "women's liberation" had meant that women with children didn't have to work outside the home. For a few years toward the end of the Twentieth Century that trend had been reversed, but now the pendulum was swinging back as everyone realized that raising children was a full-time—and difficult—job.
"It seemed a long time from when they launched the cargo to when they sent us up," Kevin said. "How can both batches get to the same satellite?"
"They can't. The cargo went directly to Wayfarer. We go to the orbital station," Ellen said. She frowned. "I make it twenty minutes since we were launched. Doesn't that seem like an excessively long time? We ought to have heard from someone."
"It does seem a while. Let's try calling out." He reached up to the radio panel above. There was a small card of instruction attached on its face. The first said, "FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY" in five languages. "Is this an emergency?"
Ellen looked thoughtful. "I don't know—I'd hate to cause trouble, but I am getting a bit worried."
"Me too. To hell with them." He switched on the radio. Then he cursed. "There's no pilot light," he said. "Burned out—or does the set work?" There was only one way to find out. There was a jack on the face of the panel, and he plugged his mike into it. "Hey out there—anybody listening? This is Capsule—uh—nine-eight-four, hopefully in orbit. Anyone? Over."
"There isn't even static," Ellen said. "The receiver's not working. I doubt if the transmitter is working either."
Kevin looked at her with curiosity. She didn't seem scared. Or surprised, either. "What do we do?"
"You can try the transmitter again."
"Sure. Mayday. Mayday. This is Capsule nine-eight-four, Mayday, mayday. Over." Again he heard nothing. How long would it take for one of the crewmen to get to them, if the transmitter worked but the receiver didn't? "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Capsule nine-eight-four. Our receiver is not working. We cannot hear your reply. Please come help us. Mayday."
Ellen began unfastening her seat straps. Kevin watched with a frown. They'd been told not to do that. Of course they'd also been told someone would come get them. He felt a knot of fear in his stomach. Trapped in an orbiting steel coffin. The sensation of falling was overwhelming now. In a moment he'd panic if he couldn't do something constructive. But what? "MAYDAY. MAYDAY. SOMEBODY COME HELP US!"
"I don't think that's going to do much good," Ellen said. She inspected the emergency set. "I don't see anything obviously wrong. Should we take the cover off and look?"
Kevin doubted that would be any use. Integrated circuit chips all look alike; how could you tell if something was wrong with one of them? He began unfastening his own straps. When they were loose, he floated away from the acceleration couch. It was a strange sensation. He'd seen people in free fall on TV often enough, and had looked forward to experiencing it, to being able to swim in the air, but now all he wanted was to get back to having weight again.
"We have suit radios," Ellen said. "Is yours powered?"
"Yes. Fresh batteries, and it was checked out yesterday—Hey! If we get outside this thing, we might be able to raise somebody with it."
"We'll have to disconnect from the capsule air supply before we can open the hatch," Ellen said. "If the hatch will open at all—"
"Why shouldn't it?"
She shrugged. The motion set her twisting slightly, and she caromed into him in the confined space. They both grabbed handholds.
"We have to do something," Kevin said. "Let's open the hatch." He reached for the big emergency disconnect handle.
"Wait. Fasten your safety line to something."
"Oh. Right." He clipped the line to one of the couch pipe-frames. "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be. Go ahead."
He turned the red handle. It didn't turn; he did. Kevin cursed and got his feet planted against the couch, braced, and turned the handle again. It moved, slowly at first, then swung over. The ship's air hoses popped loose from their connections on their backpacks. They were now living on their air tanks.
"There's still pressure in here," Ellen said.
"Damn." She was right. The emergency disconnect was supposed to vent all the air from the capsule. The capsule hatch wouldn't open until the air was gone. There'd be no point in pulling on it; at seven pounds a square inch, hundreds of tons of air pressure held that hatch closed.
They couldn't open the hatch, and they had less than an hour of air.