“Better use the foot loops,” Dan said to Fuchs. “We’ll be in zero-g for a few minutes.”
Fuchs nodded. He looked tense, expectant, his thin lips tightly closed.
They can stop us at any time, Dan told himself. But as each second ticked by, he felt better and better.
“Five seconds and counting,” Pancho told them. She hadn’t bothered to turn on the speaker built into the console.
Just as Dan reached out to clasp one of the handgrips along the curving inner surface of the bubble, the jumper leaped off the ground with a single short, sharp bang of its ascent rocket. Dan’s knees flexed, but Fuchs nearly buckled. Dan grabbed his arm to steady him.
“I… I’m sorry,” Fuchs apologized. “I didn’t expect it.”
“It’s okay,” said Dan, impressed by the hard muscle he felt. “This is only your second launch, isn’t it?”
Fuchs looked pale. “My second from the Moon’s surface. I also rode the shuttle from the Zurich aerospace port.”
Dan saw that zero-g was making Fuchs queasy. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked. Nothing worse than having the guy next to you upchucking all the way to rendezvous.
With a weak smile, Fuchs pointed to his well-muscled biceps. “I took the precaution of wearing a medicinal patch.”
“Good,” Dan said.
“And also these.” He pulled a thick wad of retch bags from the thigh pocket of his coveralls.
“Smart man,” Dan said, hoping that Fuchs wouldn’t have to use them.
Under control from the ground, the jumper made rendezvous with Starpower 1 and docked with the fusion ship’s main airlock hatch. Dan felt the slightest of thumps as the jumper’s adapter section locked onto the ship’s hatch.
“Confirm docking,” Pancho said into her pin-mike. “You guys did a good job. I didn’t have to touch the controls once.”
Whatever the controller said back to her made Pancho laugh. “Yeah, I know; that’s why you drag down the big bucks. Okay, we’re goin’ aboard now.”
Turning to Dan, Pancho said, “I’ll set her up for automatic separation and return to Selene.”
“Right,” said Dan, lifting free of his foot restraints and floating to the hatch. As far as the controllers back at Armstrong spaceport were concerned, the four of them were to be aboard Starpower 1 only for a final checkout before the ship was launched out of orbit. They were expected to return to Selene on the jumper.
“They’re gonna be kinda surprised when this li’l buggy lands and nobody’s in it,” Pancho said with a mischievous grin.
Dan went through the jumper’s hatch and into the coffin-sized adapter section. He tapped out the entry code to open the fusion ship’s airlock hatch.
“Okay,” he said, once the hatch had swung open. “Let’s get aboard the Beltline express.”
“You first, boss,” said Pancho. “You’re the owner.”
He grunted. “One-third owner. I imagine at least one of the other two is going to be mighty slammed once he figures out what we’re doing,”
“But he must have figured that out already,” Amanda said.
“Right,” Pancho agreed. “Why else would he send those goons after Mandy?”
Dan felt his brow furrow. “Then why isn’t he raising a howl? Why isn’t he trying to stop us?”
Fuchs looked back and forth from Amanda to Pancho to Dan, clearly baffled by their conversation.
“Well, let’s get aboard before he does start hollerin’,” Poncho said, making a shooing motion toward Dan with both her hands.
Feeling suddenly uneasy, Dan sailed through the hatch and entered Starpower 1. He hovered at the airlock’s inner hatch as Pancho came through and pushed off straight toward the bridge. Amanda started through the hatch, but stumbled slightly. Fuchs grasped her by the shoulders, steadying her.
“Thank you, Lars,” Amanda said.
Dan thought the kid’s face turned red for a moment. He let her go and Amanda sailed through both hatches without needing to use her hands or feet. Fuchs, still a newcomer to zero-g, gripped the edges
of the hatch with both his meaty hands and cannonballed through. He thumped painfully against the far bulkhead. Dan said nothing, suppressing his laughter at the young man’s attempted display of athletic prowess.
But as he sealed the hatches Dan’s mood darkened. I warned Amanda about coming on to a guy. He realized that she was wearing ordinary coveralls, but still — I’ll have to play chaperon between her and Fuchs, Dan told himself.