"He's a damned fine man."
"Maybe. I hear you're just as good a pilot. Colt's got a reputation, well . . ."
Kinsman could feel his back stiffening. "Sir," he said, "if I were in a tight situation there's no one I'd rather have beside me than Frank Colt. Present company included."
Jakes grinned at him. "Snotty little shavetail, eh? Yeah, that's what I heard. Well, you and Colt are two of a kind, all right. Full of piss and vinegar. I guess that's good, in a way. This isn't a game for marshmallows."
They finished their dinners quickly and stowed the dirty trays in the galley's cleaning unit, which Kinsman knew from 43 his inspection earlier that day was operating properly—after he had tightened a slightly leaky pipe fitting. Jakes swam back up to the flight deck, "officer country," and Kinsman was about to join Jill and Art Douglas in an argument about the Air Force's medical insurance plan for astronauts.
But Major Pierce and Captain Howard eased down the ladder and suddenly the mid-deck compartment was tense again.
"Mission control just sent us a change in schedule," Pierce said. "Meyers and Smith, you've got fifteen minutes before prelaunch inspection of Payload Number Two. Get rid of those trays and start suiting up for EVA. Captain Howard will brief you, starting now."
Howard was a dour, shriveled little man. Kinsman had never seen a crew cut manage to look messy before, but somehow Howard's did. He was gray-haired, old for a captain. Hell, he's old for a major or light colonel. Kinsman thought. But he must know his stuff.
Under Howard's direction, the O'Hara-Douglas team had operated the manipulator arm that had swung the mission's first payload—a small, laser-reflecting navigational satellite—out of the cargo bay and into orbit. And Captain Howard himself had gone EVA twice in the two days of the flight, once to check on a defunct observation satellite that had been orbited years earlier, and once to inspect a newly orbited Russian satellite.
Now Mutt and Jeff are going to go outside again while Frank and I sit around twiddling our thumbs, Kinsman grumbled to himself. They've already been EVA once!
Howard took them up to the flight deck for their briefing, space suits and all. Pierce followed right behind them. Suddenly the mid-deck compartment was empty except for Douglas and Kinsman.
"Where the hell did Colt and Mary get to?" Art asked.
Kinsman peered through the thick glass of the airlock window but they were not inside.
"Maybe they took a walk outside," he said.
Douglas looked annoyed. "I'll bet that sonofabitch has her out in the payload bay."
"If he does, about the only thing they can do out there is hold hands, with gloves on, at that." 44
"Yeah? And what happens when Pierce or Howard look out and see them out there? Unauthorized EVA? They go down the tubes, and we go down with them!"
Kinsman looked at the suit rack. Two space suits missing, all right. He pushed himself over to the airlock hatch.
"What're you doing?" Douglas demanded.
"Maybe they're just outside the airlock, down against the bulkhead where they can't be seen from the flight deck windows."
Douglas's round face was wrinkled with angered worry as Kinsman ducked inside the cold metal womb of the circular airlock. There was a window to the outside, just above the heavy hatch that opened onto the vacuum of space.
Kinsman tapped against the metal wall of the airlock with his Academy ring. Three quick taps, three slower ones, and then three fast ones again. SOS. He did it twice. No response. Feeling a little frantic, he went to the other side and tried again.
A thumping sound. Like a gloved fist knocking against the outer wall.
Kinsman pushed back into the mid-deck compartment and swung the inner airlock hatch shut. Douglas glided over and peered into the window. A pump whined.
"Christ," muttered Douglas, "I hope nobody's watching the indicators on the controls upstairs."
