Lancer was taking a long loop through the Ross 128 system, coming around to rendezvous with the gas giant and its interesting moon. He preferred to pass the time away from the clatter of the Operating Net.
He bent back to plucking tomatoes free of their vines. To his mind the prime virtue of artificial biospheres was the lack of weeds, for otherwise it’d be a sore job to—
“I could hear the grunting from a hundred meters away,” Ted Landon said.
Nigel straightened as quickly as he could without wincing, and smiled. “Like to work up a sweat.”
“The fellas missed you on the net this morning.”
“Figured you could do without my mumbling.”
“Latest scans on that moon came in.”
“Really?”
“Standard gas giant satellite. Funny purple coloring, some ice tectonics making ridges. Heavily cratered, too.”
“Like Ganymede.” He did not mention that he’d tapped into the map subroutines and gotten the drift direct, some hours before the net did.
“Yeah, looks that way. You were right about the asteroid orbiting it, though.”
Nigel kept harvesting tomatoes. Ted squatted and pulled a few ripe ones. “Big durosteel hull on one side of it,” he said casually.
“A Watcher, then.”
“Looks like it. Kind of gives the fork to Walmsley’s Rule.”
“Ummm. A Watcher, yet not a prayer that this moon was ever a life site?”
“Going to lower your stock on the net. First clear case we get to check your rule, it fails.”
“Glad I wasn’t on the net, then.”
“Yeah.”
“Rather like being at a posh reception and finding you’ve caught your cock in your zip.”
Ted laughed.
“It’s a case worth studying, though, eh?”
Ted straightened and studied a tomato reflectively. “That’s not what I came about.” He looked soberly at Nigel.
“Oh?” Nigel stood up, too, glad that they had at last gotten through the opening moves.
“Carlos tells me you’re taking this thing of his pretty hard.”
“Perhaps for Americans it’s easier. Priests of high tech, no matter where it leads, and all that.”
“Think you’re overdoing it, maybe?”
“Possibly.” It was always best to leave some area of uncertainty, for later compromise once the man had made his point.
“You’re not the first ever faced this, y’know.”
“True.”
“Think I’d like to see you try some of the therapy environments. We got some fresh ones on tightbeam from Earthside, just last year.”
“Well,” Nigel said brightly, “that seems quite possible.”
“Not just possible,” Ted said quietly, putting weight on each word. “You know I don’t like to do more than make suggestions, but the numerical sociometric people say this kind of thing can get out of hand.”
“I scarcely think—”
“I’ve cleared a spot for you.” Ted smiled broadly. “Can’t have our number one citizen waiting, huh?”
Nigel made himself smile, too. “Quite so.”
Ted clapped him on the back. “C’mon, have a drink.”
“I should finish up—”
“Forget it. You’ve already put in your hour.”
Nigel smiled wryly. So Ted kept track of that, too. “Quite so.”
Nigel allowed himself to be sealed into the sum-sense pod. He had tried to argue them out of the medical sensors and transducers, but the attendants cited his age as cause for taking precautions. Therapy sessions were confidential, he knew, so after thinking it over he decided the medical data would do him no harm. They merely wanted to ensure that he did not suffer over-stimulation.
