Stomach was supposed to be empty. But I filled helmet with sourest, nastiest fluid you would ever go a long way to avoid. Then we turned completely over and I got it in hair and eyes and some in nose. This is thing earthworms call “seasickness” and is one of many horrors they take for granted.
Won’t go into long period during which we were towed into port. Let it stand that, in addition to seasickness, my air bottles were playing out. They were rated for twelve hours, plenty for a fifty-hour orbit most of which I was unconscious and none involving heavy exercise, but not quite enough with some hours of towing added. By time barge finally held still I was almost too dopy to care about trying to break out.
Except for one fact– We were picked up, I think, and tumbled a bit, then brought to rest with me upside down. This is a no-good position at best under one gravity; simply impossible when supposed to a) unstrap self, b) get out of suit-shaped cavity, c) get loose a sledgehammer fastened with butterfly nuts to bulkhead. d) smash same against breakaways guarding escape hatch, e) batter way out, and f) finally, drag an old man in a p-suit out after you.
Didn’t finish step a); passed out head downwards.
Lucky this was emergency-last-resort routine. Stu LaJoie had been notified before we left; news services had been warned shortly before we landed. I woke up with people leaning over me, passed out again, woke up second time in hospital bed, flat on back with heavy feeling in chest–was heavy and weak all over–but not ill, just tired, bruised, hungry, thirsty, languid. Was a transparent plastic tent over bed which accounted for fact I was having no trouble breathing.
At once was closed in on from both sides, a tiny Hindu nurse with big eyes on one side, Stuart LaJoie on other. He grinned at me, “Hi, cobber! How do you feel?”
“Uh . . . I’m right. But oh bloody! What a way to travel!”
“Prof says it’s the only way. What a tough old boy he is.”
“Hold it. Prof said? Prof is dead.”
“Not at all. Not in good shape–we’ve got him in a pneumatic bed with a round-the-clock watch and more instruments wired into him than you would believe. But he’s alive and will be able to do his job. But, truly, he didn’t mind the trip; he never knew about it, so he says. Went to sleep in one hospital, woke up in another. I thought he was wrong when he refused to let me wangle it to send a ship but he was not–the publicity has been tremendous!”
I said slowly, “You say Prof ‘refused’ to let you send a ship?”
“I should say ‘Chairman Selene’ refused. Didn’t you see the dispatches, Mannie?”
“No.” Too late to fight over it. “But last few days have been busy.”
“A dinkum word! Here, too–don’t recall when last I dossed.”
“You sound like a Loonie.”
“I am a Loonie, Mannie, don’t ever doubt it. But the sister is looking daggers at me.” Stu picked her up, turned her around. I decided he wasn’t all Loonie yet. But nurse didn’t resent. “Go play somewhere else, dear, and I’ll give your patient back to you–still warm–in a few minutes.” He shut a door on her and came back to bed. “But Adam was right; this way was not only wonderful publicity but safer.”
“Publicity, I suppose. But ‘safer’? Let’s not talk about!”
“Safer, my old. You weren’t shot at. Yet they had two hours in which they knew right where you were, a big fat target. They couldn’t make up their minds what to do; they haven’t formed a policy yet. They didn’t even dare not bring you down on schedule; the news was full of it, I had stories slanted and waiting. Now they don’t dare touch you, you’re popular heroes. Whereas if I had waited to charter a ship and fetch you . . . Well, I don’t know. We probably would have been ordered into parking orbit; then you two–and myself, perhaps– would have been taken off under arrest. No skipper is going to risk missiles no matter how much he’s paid. The proof of the pudding, cobber. But let me brief you. You’re both citizens of The People’s Directorate of Chad, best I could do on short notice. Also, Chad has recognized Luna. I had to buy one prime minister, two generals, some tribal chiefs and a minister of finance–cheap for such a hurry-up job. I haven’t been able to get you diplomatic immunity but I hope to, before you leave hospital. At present they haven’t even dared arrest you; they can’t figure out what you’ve done. They have guards outside but simply for your ‘protection’–and a good thing, or you would have reporters nine deep shoving microphones into your face.”