Dan stared at the snake. Its beady eyes stared back at him.
He started to shake his head. “I don’t want that thing on this ship.”
“Elly won’t be a problem,” Pancho insisted. “I’ll keep her in a nice, cool spot. She’ll sleep most of the time.” Then, with a smirk, she added, “And digest.”
“But if something should happen…”
Pancho’s face went deadly serious. She seemed to Dan to be struggling with herself.
He suggested, “Maybe we could freeze the snake for the duration of the flight. Thaw her out when we get back to Selene.”
“She’s not poisonous,” Pancho blurted.
“What?”
“I don’t like to admit it, but Elly’s not really poisonous. I just tell people that to keep ’em respectful. You think Selene’s safety board would let a poisonous critter into the city?”
“But you said…”
Looking almost apologetic, Pancho said, “Aw, you can’t believe ever’thing I say, boss. A gal’s got to protect herself, doesn’t she?”
“But what about that guy she bit?”
“Elly was gengineered. They modified her toxin so she produces a tranquillizer, not a lethal poison.”
Dan gave her a hard look. Can I believe anything she says? he wondered.
“The science guys wanted to use Elly to trank animals in the wild that they wanted to study. It never worked.”
“And you got the snake for a pet.”
“A bodyguard,” Pancho corrected.
“What about the antiserum?”
She laughed. “Saline solution. Just a placebo. The guy would’ve woke up whether they used it or not.”
Dan broke into a chuckle, too. “Pancho, you’re something of a con artist.”
“I suppose,” she admitted easily.
Amanda’s voice came through on the intercom. “I’ve got an incoming call from La Guaira.”
“I’ll take it here,” Dan said.
It took several frenzied hours, but Dan’s PR director finally set up an interactive news conference with reporters from virtually every major media network on Earth, plus Selene’s own news director, Edith Elgin, who happened to be Mrs. Douglas Stavenger when she wasn’t on the air.
Dan sat back in the little plastic chair in Starpower’s wardroom and smiled into the camera of the phone console set into the bulkhead. His PR director acted as moderator, choosing which reporter was allowed to ask a question, and a backup. Dan found that the time lag from the ship to Earth worked in his favor; it gave him time to think before the next question arrived.
It’s always smart to think before you talk, he told himself. Engage brain before putting mouth in gear.
THE INTERVIEW
Cable News: Why did you hijack your own ship?
Dan Randolph: How can you call it a hijacking if it’s my own ship? And it’s only partially mine, by the way. Starpower 1 is owned by Starpower, Ltd., which in turn is owned by three organizations: Humphries Space Systems, Astro Manufacturing, and the people of Selene. Far as I know, neither Humphries nor Selene is complaining, so I don’t see this as a hijacking.
Cable News: But the International Astronautical Authority says you have no right to be aboard Starpower 1.
Dan Randolph: Bureaucratic [DELETED]. There’s no reason why a human crew can’t ride in this vessel. The IAA is just trying to strangle us in red tape.
BBC: Why do you think the IAA refused to give permission for a human crew to fly in your vessel?
Dan Randolph: I’ll be double-dipped in hot chocolate fudge if I know. Ask them.
BBC: Surely you have some opinion on the matter.
Dan Randolph: Paper shufflers tend to be conservative souls. There’s always a risk in allowing somebody to do something new, and bureaucrats hate risk-taking. Much safer for them to say no, you need more testing or another round of approvals. Buck the responsibility upstairs and don’t stick your own neck out. If the IAA had been running America’s expansion westward back in the nineteenth century, they’d still be trying to decide whether to build Chicago or St. Louis.
Nippon News Agency: What do you hope to achieve by this flight?
Dan Randolph: Ah, a substantive question for a change. We intend to stake out a claim to one or more asteroids. Our goal is to open up the vast resources of the Asteroid Belt for the human race.