"We're using channel four for suit-to-suit chatter. Ship's frequency is three; don't use it unless you have to talk to the flight deck."

"Yessir," said Kinsman.

"Okay. Let's get to work." 51

Kinsman glanced out at the stars again, then followed Howard and Colt to the padded mound of insulation covering the final satellite in the payload bay. It was a large fat drum, taller than a man and so wide that Kinsman knew he and Colt could not girdle it with their outstretched arms.

"The checkout panels in the flight deck indicate a malfunction in the battery that powers the antenna foldout," Howard's voice grumbled in his earphones.

Under the Captain's direction they peeled the protective covering from the satellite. It was an aluminum cylinder with dead black panels of solar cells circling its middle and four dish-shaped antennas folded across its top.

"Kinsman, you come up here with me to manually unfold the antennas," Howard ordered. "Colt, check out the bat- tery."

Floating up to the top of the satellite with the Captain beside him, Kinsman asked, "What kind of a satellite is this? Looks like communications, but it's going into a polar orbit, isn't it?"

"Seventy-degree inclination," Howard replied curtly. "You know that as well as I do. Or you should."

Kinsman did know. He also knew that the orbit was highly elliptical, so that the satellite hung over the Eurasian land mass for a much longer period of time than it sped past the other side of the globe.

"Start with that one." Howard pointed a gloved hand toward the largest antenna, in the center of the drumhead. "Unlatch the safety retainer first."

Hanging head down over the satellite. Kinsman read the instruction printed on its surface by the light of his helmet lamp, then unlatched and unfolded the antenna arm. His fingers felt clumsy inside the heavy gloves, but the task was simple enough. He remembered von Clausewitz's dictum from his Academy classes:

"Everything is very simple in war, but even the simplest thing is difficult."

That was as good a description of working in zero gravity as any, Kinsman thought as he slowly, deliberately unfolded the antenna arm and carefully opened its fragile, parasollike parabolic dish. No sound, except his own labored breathing and the faint, high-pitched whir of his suit's tiny air- 52 circulating fan. This is hard work, he realized. They had told him it would be, back in the classrooms, but he had not truly believed it until now.

The first man to walk in space, Alexsei Leonov, told his fellow cosmonauts, "Think ten times before moving a finger, and twenty times before moving a hand."

We can do better than that. Kinsman told himself. Still, everything takes longer in zero gee than you'd expect.

"Now the waveguide." Howard's laconic voice startled Kinsman. He had floated slightly away from the satellite. The tether clipped to his waist was almost taut.

He returned to his work, voicing his curiosity into his helmet microphone. "No camera windows or sensor ports on this bird. At least, none that I can see."

"Keep your mind on your work," Howard said.

"But what's it for?" Kinsman blurted.

With an exasperated sigh that sounded like a windstorm in Kinsman's earphones, Howard answered, "Space Com- mand didn't take the time to tell me, kid. So I don't know. Except that it's Top Secret and none of our damned busi- ness."

"Ohh ... a ferret."

"What?"

"A ferret," said Kinsman. "We learned about them back at the Academy. Gathers electronic intelligence from Soviet satellites. This bird's going into a high-inclination orbit, right?"

He could sense Howard nodding sourly inside his helmet.