But I would as lief miss Armageddon. I left a good party and went to bed at twenty-two hundred in order to soak up several hours of sleep before rise and shine. I got up at two o’clock and ducked into my bathroom, latching the door behind meÄif I don’t latch it, Shizuko comes straight in behind me; I learned that my first day in the ship. She was up and dressed when I woke up.
Latched the door behind me and promptly threw up.
This surprised me. I am not immune to motion sickness but I had not been bothered this trip. Riding the Beanstalk plays hob with my stomach and it goes on for endless hours. But in the Forward I had noticed one surge when we warped into hyperspace, then just before dinner last night when we broke into normal space I had felt a simi
lar tremor, but the bridge had warned us to expect it.
Did the (artificial) gravity feel steady now? I couldn’t be sure. I was quite dizzy but that might be an aftereffect of vomitingÄfor I had certainly thrown up as thoroughly as if I had been riding that goddam Beanstalk.
I rinsed my mouth, brushed my teeth without dentifrice, rinsed my mouth again, and said to myself, “Friday, that’s your breakfast; you are not going to let an unexpected case of Beanstalk tummy keep you from seeing Outpost. Besides, you’ve gained two kilos and it is time to cut down on the calories.”
Having given my stomach that fight talk and then turned it over to mind-control discipline, I went out, let Tilly-Shizuko help me into a heavy jump suit, then headed for the starboard landing-boat airlock, with Shizuko paddling along behind, carrying heavy coats for each of us. At first I had been inclined to be chummy with Shizuko, but after deducing, then confirming, her true role, I tended to resent her. Petty of me, no doubt. But a spy is not entitled to the friendly consideration that a servant always rates. I was not rude to her; I simply ignored her much of the time. This morning I did not feel sociable at best.
Mr. Woo, purser’s assistant in charge of ground excursions, was at the airlock with a clipboard. “Miss Friday, your name isn’t on my list.”
“I certainly signed up. Either add it to your list or call the Captain.”
“I can’t do that.”
“So? Then I am going on a sit-down strike right in the middle of your airlock. I don’t like this, Mr. Woo. If you are trying to suggest that I should not be here because of some clerical error in your office, I shall like it still less.”
“Mmm, I suppose it is a clerical error. There’s not much time, so why don’t you go in, let them show you to a seat, and I’ll straighten it out after I get these other people checked off.”
He did not object to Shizuko’s following me. We went forward along a long passagewayÄeven the landing boats of the Forward are enormousÄfollowing arrows that said “This Way to Bridge” and arrived in a fairly large room, something like the interior of an omnibus APV: dual controls up front, seats for passengers behind, a big
windshieldÄand for the first time since we left Earth I was seeing “sunlight.”
The light of Outpost’s sun, it was, lighting a white, very white, curve of planet ahead, with black sky beyond. The sun-star was itself not in sight. Shizuko and I found seats and fastened seatbelts, the five-way sort used in SBs. Knowing that we were going by antigrav I was going to let it go simply with fastening the lap belt. But my little shadow twittered over me and fastened everything.
After a while Mr. Woo came looking, finally spotted me. He leaned across the man between me and the aisle and said, “Miss Friday, I’m sorry but you still aren’t on the list.”
::Inde~P What did the Captain say?”
I couldn t reach him.
“That’s your answer then. I stay.”
“I’m sorry. No.”
“Really? Which end are you going to carry? And who is going to help you carry me? For you will have to drag me kicking and screaming and, I assure you, I do kick and scream.”