Tapping on the communications keyboard on his left wrist, Fuchs heard her talking with Ripley, the engineer in charge of the construction project.
“… what you really need is a new set of welding lasers,” she was saying, “instead of those clunkers you’re workin’ with.”
Rather than trying to walk in the low-gravity shuffle that was necessary on Ceres, Fuchs took the jetpack control box into his gloved hand and barely squeezed it, feather-light. As usual, he overdid the thrust and sailed over the heads of Pancho and the engineer, nearly ramming into the shuttlecraft. His boots kicked up a cloud of dark dust as he touched down on the surface.
“Lord, Lars, when’re you gonna learn how to fly one of those rigs?” Pancho teased.
Inside his helmet Fuchs grinned with embarrassment. “I’m out of practice,” he admitted, sliding his feet across the surface toward them, raising still more dust. The ground felt gritty, pebbly, even through his thick-soled boots.
“You were never in practice, buddy.”
He changed the subject by asking the engineer, “So, Mr. Rip-Icy, will your crew be able to assemble the latest additions on schedule?”
“Believe it or not,” Ripley replied archly, “they will.”
Niles Ripley was an American of Nigerian heritage, an engineer with degrees from Lehigh and Penn, an amateur jazz trumpet player who had acquired the nickname “Ripper” from his headlong improvisations. The sobriquet sometimes caused problems for the mild-mannered engineer, especially in bars with belligerent drunks. The Ripper generally smiled and talked his way out of confrontations. He had no intention of letting some musclebound oaf damage his horn-playing lip.
“Your schedule will be met,” Ripley went on. Then he added, “Despite its lack of flexibility.”
Fuchs jabbed back, “Then your crew will earn its bonus, despite their complaints about the schedule.”
Pancho interrupted their banter. “I’ve been tellin’ ol’ Ripper here that you’d get this job done a lot faster with a better set of welding lasers.”
“We can’t afford them,” Fuchs said. “We are on very tight budget restraints.”
“Astro could lease you the lasers. Real easy terms.”
Fuchs made an audible sigh. “I wish you had thought of that two years ago, when we started this operation.”
“Two years ago the best lasers we had were big and inefficient. Our lab boys just came up with these new babies: small enough to haul around on a minitractor. Very fuel efficient. They’ve even got a handheld version. Lower power, of course, but good enough for some jobs.”
“We’re doing well enough with what we have, Pancho.”
“Well, okay. Don’t say I didn’t make you the offer.” He heard the resigned, slightly disappointed tone in her voice.
Pointing a gloved hand toward the habitat, which was nearly at the far horizon, Fuchs said, “We’ve done quite well so far, don’t you think?”
For a long moment she said nothing as the three of them watched the habitat glide down the sky. It looked like an unfinished pinwheel, several spacecraft joined end to end and connected by long buckyball tethers to a similar collection of united spacecraft, the entire assembly slowly rotating as it moved toward the horizon.
“Tell you the truth, Lars old buddy,” said Pancho, “it kinda reminds me of a used-car lot back in Lubbock.”
“Used-car lot?” Fuchs sputtered.
“Or maybe a flyin’ junkyard.”
“Junkyard?”
Then he heard Ripley laughing. “Don’t let her kid you, Lars. She was pretty impressed, going through the units we’ve assembled.”
Pancho said, “Well, yeah, the insides are pretty good. But it surely ain’t a thing of beauty from the outside.”
“It will be,” Fuchs muttered. “You wait and see.”
Ripley changed the subject. “Tell me more about these handheld lasers. How powerful are they?”
“It’ll cut through a sheet of steel three centimeters thick,” Pancho said.
“How long does it take?” asked Ripley.
“Couple nanoseconds. It’s pulsed. Doesn’t melt the steel, it shock-blasts it.”
They chatted on while the habitat sank out of sight and the distant, pale Sun climbed higher in the dark, star-choked sky. Fuchs noticed the zodiacal light, like two long arms outstretched from the Sun’s middle. Reflections from dust motes, he knew: microscopic asteroids floating out there, leftovers from the creation of the planets.