The men who work the spacedocks are a breed apart. Strong, tough and hardworking,
they nevertheless are quick and agile. They have to be-working in a spacesuit is
awkward at best, hazardous at worst. They are usually a close-knit group, out of a
sense for survival; working in a vacuum makes you very dependent on your comrades.
Even the most trivial accidents can be fatal in an airless environment.
When Jules d’Alembert-working now under the name Georges duChamps-arrived on
Vesa, one of the first places he applied for a job was the Vesa Spaceport. His
references-all faked, of course-were impeccable, and impressed the personnel manager.
Two days later, Georges duChamps received a call at the cheap hotel room where he
was staying, telling him to report for work at 1730 the next day.
There were the usual preliminary forms to be filled out, and Jules was measured for a
spacesuit. Fortunately, another DesPlainian had worked here several years before, and
there was already a suit in stock that would accommodate the slight but important
peculiarities of the DesPlainian body form. Once those tedious necessities were taken
care of, the personnel secretary led Jules down a corridor to the office of his new boss.
The gang foreman was a hulking bear of a man named Laz Fizcono. He stood over two
meters tall and massed a hundred and ten kilos, with a body that had never shirked a
day of work in its life. His leonine mane of red hair topped a round, full face with bushy
red eyebrows and a mangy beard. His eyes glittered with life as he looked Jules over
appraisingly.
“Well, what have we here?” his voice boomed out as the personnel secretary brought
Jules into his office. “A dwarf?” He extended a meaty hand in the direction of his new
helper.
Jules calmly stood his ground as the bigger man approached. He correctly read the insult
as a good-natured challenge to determine his personality. As foreman, Fizcono wanted
to find out quickly just what sort of man this new fellow was, whether he had a quick
temper, whether he would blow under pressure. A good boss knew the capabilities of all
the people under him.
So instead of reacting to the epithet, Jules just smiled. “DesPlaines is a planet of big,
blustery mountains,” he said evenly. “We mine them anyhow. It’ll take more than a giant
to make me feel small.
He took the foreman’s proffered hand firmly in his own. Fizcono squeezed it with all the
massive strength his bearlike paw could muster. Jules accepted it without a wince and,
when the foreman had finished with his best shot, Jules began squeezing back. Fizcono’s
eyebrows lifted in surprise as the smaller man’s strength was more than a match for his
own. Jules just continued to stare up at the man a full thirty centimeters above him and
smiled nonchalantly.
Then Fizcono did something unexpected-he laughed, a giant bellow that shook the walls
of the tiny office. “By Fross, I like you, little man,” he said. “You don’t give in a millimeter,
do you? Yes, he’ll do nicely,” he added to the personnel secretary, who left Jules’ forms
on the desk, smiled and returned to her own office.
Jules found himself liking Fizcono as well. The big man had an unforced affability that
would make him a good and loyal companion. He would be a stern boss, but there was
not a malicious bone in his body.
“Come on,” said the foreman, leading Jules out of the office. “It’s almost time for the shift
to begin, and you’ll want to meet the rest of your mates.
They moved down a maze of corridors, which Fizcono assured Jules he’d learn in a day
or two, and eventually arrived at the suit-up room. There were ten men there already,
and within the next few minutes twelve more arrived. Without exception the men were
taller than Jules, and he took some good-natured ribbing from all of them when Fizcono
introduced him as “my trained midget.” But Fizcono’s respect for him was also apparent,
and the men took their cue from that. If the boss respected him, he must be good.
In general the men seemed to be from planets all over the Galaxy-a fact which was not
too surprising, since Vesa was such a cosmopolitan center. It was a magnet drawing
people from all over. But Jules very quickly noticed that one group of seven men kept
very much to themselves. Their complexions were swarthy, their eyes darker and more
brooding. There was a suspicion lurking in them against their coworkers, perhaps a
smoldering resentment. The emotion was hard for Jules to read, but it was obvious that
something was there.
One of the other men, a clean-shaven fellow named Rask, noticed Jules eyeing the
separatist group. “Haven’t you ever seen Chandies before?” he asked.
“What are Chandies?” Jules didn’t like the man’s smug, superior tones. They gave
evidence that all was not smooth within this work crew.
A third man joined them. It was obvious from his breezy familiarity that he was a crony of
Rask’s. Jules searched his memory and recalled that the man’s name was Brownsend.
“Chandakhari,” explained the newcomer. “They’re from that hick planet we’re circling.
Farmers, peasants. They stick together because they’re afraid of real men.
The group of Chandakhari, having already suited up except for their helmets, walked past
without a word, even though Brownsend’s voice had been loud enough to carry to them.
Jules was not sure bow he should respond to this bigotry, but he was saved from having
to by Fizcono, who came over as soon as he heard what was going on. “That’s enough
from you, both of you,” the foreman said, glaring at Rask and Brownsend. “You’ll work
together or you won’t work for me, it’s that simple. I’ve told you that before. I hope,” he
added to Jules, “you won’t pick up any bad habits from these two. They’re good
workers, but opinionated.
“I’m quite capable of forming my own opinions, sir,” Jules replied. “I don’t have to borrow
anyone else’s.” Fizcono gave an ursine grunt of satisfaction and moved on.
Despite the fact that Jules was in peak physical condition, he found the work that first
day out on the sunfried surface of Vesa grueling. He was quite familiar with the loading
and unloading of ships; after all, the Circus was constantly on the move, visiting a new
world on the average of once every three weeks. When the circus gear was being
packed or unpacked, everyone was expected to lend a hand-even the star aerialists.
But Jules was still on the mend from a serious blaster burn that had carved a large chunk
out of his left calf. Grafts and regeneratives had restored the area so that only the
closest of looks would show that there ever had been a wound there. But strength and
agility were other matters. Jules had spent months conditioning the muscles, using all the
knowledge of physical therapy at his disposal to bring them back to their original abilities.
For the most part he had been successful, but occasionally under severe stress-there
were slight twinges.
The work was made easier by the fact that Vesa’s surface gravity was only twenty-five
percent of Earth normal-less than ten percent of what he was accustomed to on his
home world. His movements in the bulky spacesuit were a poetry of fluid motion; he
could have been born in a spacesuit for all the natural agility he displayed. There were a
few times when he felt his bad leg about to give out unexpectedly under him, but Jules
was able to shift his weight to the other leg in time so that nothing happened. Fizcono, he
noticed, was watching his performance extra carefully, but if the foreman spotted any of
these slight lapses he did not choose to mention them.
The real trouble started almost the instant the shift was over. Rask and Brownsend had
spent most of the day hovering near Jules, despite his growing distaste for the two men.
Every time one of the Chandakhari slipped up or made the slightest error, they would dig
each other or Jules in the ribs and cast significant glances through their helmets, as if to
say, “See how inept those Chandies really are?.
As soon as they were back in the changing room and had removed their helmets, Rask
and Brownsend continued their jibes. Fizcono cast them a warning glance as he left to
work on his reports, but they refused to acknowledge it. “Those Chandies sure are lucky
Fizcono protects them,” Rask sniped. “They wouldn’t be able to find jobs anywhere else.
“Except maybe as stokers in the recycling plant,” Brownsend agreed. “There they’d be
reaching their natural level. But you can’t expect really skilled work from a bunch of
farmers and peasants.
Jules was watching the group of Chandakhari carefully. They were tense and doing their