“Dan, that’s chemically pure horse shit.” In Weisenberg’s mouth the vulgarism had shock value. “The captain does not do such things. He has no right.”
“True, true,” Rueda put in. “You are too important to our survival.”
Brodersen flushed. “Oh, come on!”
“No, you come off – off that nonsense,” Weisenberg snapped. “Aye, aye, if something happened to you we’d elect a new chief and carry on. But we’d not carry on as well, would we, now? You’re no superman, Dan. You do have a talent for coordinating people’s efforts, though. Besides, you tote around a lot of knowledge about your responsibilities, the kind of knowledge that never gets written down.”
A murmur of assent answered him. He thrust his Rameses face in the direction of it.
“We’ve got to be cold-bloodedly rational about this,” he said, rapid-fire. “Those who go must be competent to go, and at the same time be those whose loss wouldn’t cripple us. Besides Dan, we have three who can pilot the boat, and we need two. Stef, Carlos, Frieda, right? Which two?” His hand chopped off their yeas. “Shut up. Think straight. Carlos could readily replace Stef as mate. But you could too, Frieda, with a bit of strain, and you’re the Side 117
Anderson, Poul – Avatar, The only gunner we’ve got. That’s a real specialty. I’m not saying we’ll run into a fight out here. Most likely we won’t, unless against nature; but that might require placing a ray or an explosive exactly where it’s needed. True? True.
“Very well, Stef and Carlos pilot. They can squabble between them who gets top billing.”
His glance darted back and forth. “Who’ll be the third? Certainly not either of our holothetes. Nor Martti or me- shut up, I told you, Martti! I’m the CE and he’s my assistant and backup. Without proper maintenance, and repair at need, this ship is dead. Who’s left? Su and Caitlin. Su has much better technical training. But gravity on that planet is about two and a half times Earth normal. You’re not strong, Su.” His lips creased momentarily upward.
“Tough, I’d say, tougher than you have the reputation of being; but not very strong in the muscles and not too fast in the reflexes either. Caitlin-”
“Wait a flinkin’ minute!” Brodersen roared.
“No!” Leino yelled.
“Do you mean that?” Caitlin cried. She released her handhold, kicked off, arrowed to Weisenberg, and cast her arms about him. The impact knocked him loose and they drifted away together, gyrating, while she gave him kiss after kiss and outrage boiled around them.
XXVIII
Guided by her holothetes, Chinook dropped easily down to a synchronous orbit which kept her above the region her boat would seek out. That put her below the radiation belts. Indeed, the field warded off most of the particle flux that she encountered in free space.
Conveyor and cranes swung Williwaw clear and the daughter vessel blasted free.
“O-o-oh,” Caitlin breathed, a sound like a prayer. She had watched approach on the viewscreens and been awed, but now she was out in flesh and bone before a terrible splendor.
Optical systems in the control cabin opened on one entire hemisphere and elsewhere on large sections of heaven. The planet filled almost half. When she looked its way, there was nothing else to see; amber and gold, the inward-flooding light bore every star out of vision. To the right, unutterably distant, red bands along the rim of the world deepened into purple and thence into the cosmic blackness. The sun stood yonder, a tiny coal. To left was the nearer edge of night, a dark which lived with faint sheens, remote flashes, and orange streaks that were high clouds catching dawn-glow. Between stretched the daylit face, bright zones, richer-hued bands, in a thousand shifting shades, they themselves ever changeable, streaming, undulating, forming whirlpools, tides, rivers, an endless dance, majestic and joyous.
The boat murmured and throbbed. Recondensing jet vapor made a ruddy fog-bank aft, small to see-it dissipated as fast as it formed-but soon veiling Chinook’s globe from sight. Weight held the farers steady in their seats. Though less than a gee, acceleration was considerable, in order to get them down shortly after local sunrise. Rueda’s exchange of information with the ship was a dry obbligato, unreal-sounding.