"Diane—let's make love."
"Instead of war?" She smiled faintly as she pushed the door shut.
Kinsman slid his arm around her shoulders as they headed toward the bedroom.
Jiil Meyers took up the first couple of hours of the new day, running Kinsman through an extensive physical, clucking and frowning and shaking her head as the readouts came from the medical sensors and integrating computer.
"You think this heart murmur of yours is just a dodge to fool the brass Earthside," she scolded. "Well, take a look at this EKG." She handed him a ribbon of plastic tape across her bare little desk.
Kinsman examined the jagged line. "Bad?"
"It's got the shakes. Have you been feeling any chest pains? Sharp twinges along your left arm or side?"
With the innate distrust of medics that all fliers feel, Kinsman answered merely, "Some discomfort when I was down in the high-gee section of the space station, that's ail."
"That's all." She glowered at him, spoke a prescription for pills into the computer input mike, and then waved him out of her office cubicle. He got as far as the door, a single step.
"You're not immortal," Jill said sharply. "We're all depending on you, Chet. You'll be no good to any of us dead. Slow down."
"Sure." He made himself grin at her. "The worst is over. It's all going to be downhill from here on in,"
It was not until he was halfway down the corridor that led into the water factory that he realized how many different connotations "downhill" could have-
Ernie Waterman was embarrassed to see him. The dour-faced engineer actually blushed when Kinsman arrived at the rock crushers, where an explosion had wrecked two of the six conveyor belts that carried pulverized rock from the giant machines to the electric arcs. 49 T
"I ... I figured as long as I'm here . . ." Waterman stammered over the clamor of technicians yelling to each other and the spark and hiss of welding lasers. The four working crushers pounded out a basso accompaniment to the higher-pitched noises. "Well ... I figured I might as well help out. It's better than sitting around doing nothing, ain't it?"
"That's fine, Ernie," said Kinsman over the din of the construction crew. "I appreciate your help."
"How soon do I have to leave?"
"Leave?"
An air compressor screamed to life and Waterman raised his shrill voice even louder and leaned on his canes toward Kinsman's ear. Their hard hats actually clicked. "When are you going to be shipping me back Earthside?"
"Nobody's going Earthside!" Kinsman yelled back, "And nothing from Earthside is coming up here—not until we get some of the politics straightened out. And whether you leave Selene or not is your decision, Ernie. I can't send you back to a wheelchair. If you can stomach what we're doing here—or even better, come over to our way of thinking —you're welcome to stay as long as you like."
Waterman's mouth moved but Kinsman could not hear what he said.
