Shannon looked mildly disappointed but accepted the situation philosophically. Before he could comment further, a whitejacketed steward approached the table and began collecting the empty coffee cups and dusting away the specks of ash and bread crumbs. As they sat back in their chairs to make room, Shannon looked up at the steward.
“Good morning, Henry,” he said casually. “Is the world treating you well today?”
“Oh, mustn’t grumble, sir. rye worked for worse firms than UNSA in my time,” Henry replied cheerfully. Hunt was intrigued to note his East London accent. “A change always does you good; that’s what I always say.”
“What did you do before, Henry?” Hunt inquired.
“Cabin steward for an airline.”
Henry moved away to begin clearing the adjacent table. Shannon caught the eyes of the two scientists and inclined his head in the direction of the steward.
“Amazing man, Henry,” he commented, his tone lowered slightly. “Did you get to meet him at all on the way out from Earth?” The other two shook their heads. “Jupiter Five’s reigning chess champion.”
“Good Lord,” Hunt said, following his gaze with a new interest. “Really?”
“Learned to play when he was six,” Shannon told them. “He’s got a gift for it. He could probably make a lot of money out of it if he chose to take the game seriously, but he says he prefers keeping it as a hobby. The first navigation officer studies up day and night just to take the title away from Henry. Between us though, I think he’s going to need an awful lot of luck to do it, and that’s supposed to be the one game that luck doesn’t come in to. Right?”
“Precisely,” Danchekker affirmed. “Extraordinary.”
The mission director glanced at the clock on the dining-room wall, then spread his arms along the edge of the table in a gesture of finality.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you both at last. Thank you for a most interesting conversation. We must make a point of keeping in touch regularly from now on. I have to attend an appointment shortly, but I haven’t forgotten that I promised to show you the ship’s command center. So, if you’re ready, we’ll go there now. I’ll introduce you to Captain Hayter who’s to show you around. Then, I’m afraid, you’ll have to excuse me.”
Fifteen minutes later, after riding a capsule through one of the ship’s communications tubes to reach another section of the vessel, they were standing surrounded on three sides by a bewildering array of consoles, control stations and monitor panels on the
bridge; below them stretched the brilliantly lit panorama of Jupiter Five’s command center. The clusters of operator stations, banks of gleaming equipment cubicles and tiers of instrument panels were the nerve center from which ultimately all the activities of the mission and all the functions of the ship were controlled. The permanent laser link that handled the communications traffic to Earth; the data channels to the various surface installations and the dispersed fleet of UNSA ships nosing around the Jovian system; the navigation, propulsion and ifightcontrol systems; the heating, cooling, lighting, life-support systems and ancillary computers and machinery, and a thousand and one other processes-all were supervised and coordinated from this stupendous concentration of skills and technology.
Captain Ronald Hayter stood behind the two scientists and waited as they took in the scene below the bridge. The mission was organized and its command hierarchy structured in such a way that operations were performed under the ultimate direction of the Civilian Branch of the Space Arm; supreme authority lay with Shannon. Many functions essential to UNSA operations, such as crewing spaceships and conducting activities safely and effectively in unfamiliar alien environments, called for standards of training and discipline that could only be met by a military-style command structure and organization. The Uniformed Branch of the Space Arm had been formed in response to these needs; also, not entirely fortuitously, it went a long way toward satisfying peacefully the longing for adventure of a significant proportion of the younger generation, to whom the idea of large-scale, regular armed forces belonged to a past that was best forgotten. Hayter was in command of all uniformed ranks present aboard 15 and reported directly to Shannon.