College costs money. The only firm that would consider a grounded astronaut had been Trikon International. It meant going back into space. Not as a pilot, but still Tighe accepted the offer without an instant’s hesitation. When he phoned Cindy with the good news she went coldly silent. By the time he got back home she informed him that she had started procedures for a divorce. It hit him like a sniper’s bullet.
But he was reasonable about it. He had to face the fact that he and Cindy had become a pair of virtual strangers. He had to struggle hard to salvage what was left of his career. Cindy wanted to move to Dallas, where she could start her new life and her own career. He was willing to let her sell their house, willing to pay all Bill’s college expenses. There was no reason for them to fight, to snarl at each other, to drag themselves through an expensive and emotionally ruinous court battle. No reason at all. Except custody of their son.
“Commander Tighe?”
Dan’s insides lurched with surprise. He snapped his attention to the here and now.
The two new crewmen hovered between the command center and the utilities section. Lance Muncie clenched a handhold with his massive fist and unconsciously bit his lower lip. His skin was several shades of green lighter than it had been when he blew breakfast down the length of the connecting tunnel. Tighe knew that Lorraine had fitted Muncie with a motion-sickness pad. This was in direct contravention of Trikon’s policy that its people endure a few days of space sickness rather than become dependent on medication. But Trikon preferred a lot of things that just weren’t practical in space, and Lorraine was judicious in her use of medication.
Freddy Aviles rocked gently from his center of gravity, which in his case was located near the solar plexus. His massive arm and chest muscles twitched as if only a supreme effort of self-denial prevented him from launching into a spin.
Tighe had selected them from a number of resumes Trikon had sent him. It was a damn fool way of manning a space station, but Trikon was the boss and constantly assured him that all candidates were top-notch space-worker material. Tighe doubted that anyone, especially Trikon’s personnel department, could predict how a person would react in orbit, but he had to play the hand he was dealt. That same personnel section was on the verge of taking what was left of his career away from him.
His newest two recruits were very personal choices. Freddy Aviles had been born in the South Bronx and enlisted in the Navy after high school. As an electronics specialist he rose to the rank of petty officer, second class, on an Aegis destroyer before losing both legs when a missile broke loose from its mounting and crushed them while the ship rode out a typhoon. After discharge, he went to college for computer science and was working as a Pentagon analyst when he suddenly applied to Trikon for employment. Tighe had always believed that a legless person was well suited for life in micro-gee. The problem was that no space agency ever had recruited one. He was glad that Trikon had the vision, or the balls, to try.
There was nothing special to recommend Lance Muncie, other than that he was a fellow midwesterner. But one fact of personal importance had caught Tighe’s eye: Muncie was a recent graduate of the University of Kansas.
Tighe acknowledged the two crewmen’s salutes with a casual wave of his hand. He presented each of them with a set of thick laminated cards bound together by a plastic spiral.
“These outline your basic responsibilities. I’m sure you already know every word,” he said. “Now for the unofficial stuff.”
Lance Muncie’s expression hardened into a frown. Freddy Aviles grinned as if expecting the punch line of an inside joke. His gold canine twinkled.
“There’s been trouble among the scientists. I’m not going to bullshit you. It’s getting worse. The official line is that they’re working together on a project with environmental ramifications. The truth is that each one would slit the throats of the others in order to be the first to develop whatever it is they’re trying to develop. I don’t concern myself with the specifics, and neither should you. Our job is to see that the station remains in one piece and doesn’t fall out of the sky.