Mary O'Hara and Art Douglas were next. Then Colt got cautiously to his feet, and finally Kinsman. It was like standing in the ocean up to your neck, with the waves trying to pull you this way and that.
"Well, at least you didn't toss any cookies," Pierce sniffed as the six trainees bobbed uneasily in their places.
"Very well then," the Major went on. "We're go for a three-day mission. By the time we touch down at Vandenberg 39 again you will each know every square centimeter of this orbiter more intimately than your mother's"—he hesitated and smiled a fraction—"face. And each of you will get the opportunity to go EVA with Captain Howard, the payload specialist, and perform an actual mission task. In the mean- time, stay out of the crew's way and don't get into mischief."
"Sir, will we get a chance to fly the bird?" asked Douglas. He was a shade smaller than Kinsman, prematurely balding, moonfaced, but sharp-eyed and very bright: the group's lawyer.
Pierce closed his eyes momentarily, as if seeking strength from some inner source. "No, Lieutenant, you will not touch the controls. You know the mission profile as well as I, or at least you should. We are not going to risk this very expensive piece of aerospace hardware on your very first flight into orbit."
"I know the plan, sir," Douglas replied agreeably, "but I thought maybe the commander would let us sneak in a little maneuver, maybe. Strictly within the mission profile."
"Majors Podolski and Jakes are the commander and pilot, respectively, on this mission. They will handle all the maneuvering. If you are a good little lieutenant, Mr. Douglas, perhaps Major Podolski might allow you to come up on the flight deck and watch him for a few moments."
"Oh, peachy keen!" retorted Lieutenant Douglas.
It was like living in a submarine. Outside, Kinsman knew, was the limitless expanse of emptiness: planets, moons, comets, stars, galaxies stretching out through space to infini- ty. But inside the Air Force shuttle orbiter, serial number AFASO-002, six young trainees and four middle-aged officers clambered over one another, stuck elbows in one another's food trays, and got in one another's way. Kinsman began to realize that a barrel of monkeys is not much fun for the monkeys.
"If it weren't for zero gee," Kinsman told Colt, "I'd be ready to murder somebody."
"I got my own little list," Coit said.
They were in the lower deck, wedged between canisters of lithium hydroxide and green tanks of oxygen. The metal bulkhead felt cold to the touch, and Kinsman realized that the 40 vacuum of space was on the other side of the floor plates that he hovered a few centimeters above.
"Pierce really meant it when he said we were gonna lay our hands on every stringer and weld in this bucket," Colt grumbled. He was hovering above Kinsman in the hatch, head down, his feet floating above the floor of the mid-deck section.
The rest of the trainees were out in the cargo bay, with the officers, practicing EVAs in their space suits. Colt and Kinsman had been assigned to inspecting the air and water recycling equipment of the life support systems. They had already inspected the zero-gravity toilet, with its foot re- straints and seat belt, and the washstand and shower stall. Now they were tracing the plumbing of the water pipes and the scrubbers that filtered impurities out of the air they breathed.
Kinsman consulted the checklist taped to his wrist in the light of the hand lamp that hung weightlessly by his ear. "Okay, that's the lithium hydroxide tank and it's all in one piece."
"Check," said Colt, making a mark on the clipsheet he carried.
"I still don't get it," Kinsman complained as they worked. "Why are we getting all the shit jobs? Jill and Smitty and the others are out there having fun and we're stuck inspecting the toilet."
He could not see Colt's face from where he was wedged in, but the expression came through loud and clear. "We're the special ones, man. You and I got the highest grades, so they're gonna take us down a peg. Keep our heads from getting big."
"You think that's it?"
Colt growled, "Sure. My being black's got nothing to do with it. Neither does your picking me for a partner. Nothing at all."
