"Colt! Kinsman! Do you read me? This is Major Jakes!"
Colt leaned forward and touched his visor against Kins- man's. His muffled voice came through: "Let 'em eat shit for a coupla minutes, huh?"
Kinsman nodded, then realized that Colt could not see through the tinted visor. He made a thumbs-up gesture.
The orbiter pulled into view and seemed to hover about a hundred meters away from the tanks. The flight-deck radio switch was open, and the two lieutenants heard:
"Pierce, goddammit, if those two kids are lost I'll put you up for a murder charge."
"You were in on it, too, Harry!"
Howard's rasping voice cut in. "I'm suited up. Going out the airlock."
"Should we get one of the trainees to help search for them?" Pierce's reedy nasality.
"You've got two of them missing now," Jakes snarled. 65
"Isn't that enough? How about you getting your ass outside to help?"
"Me? But I'm . . ."
"That would be a good idea," said a new voice, with such authority that Kinsman knew it had to be the mission commander. Major Podolski. Among the three majors he was the longest in Air Force service, and therefore was as senior as God.
"Eh, yessir," Pierce answered quickly.
"And you, too, Jakes. You were all in on this, and it hasn't turned out to be very funny."
Colt and Kinsman, hanging on to one of the struts that connected the empty tanks, could barely suppress their laughter as they watched the orbiter's payload bay doors swing slowly open and three space-suited figures emerge like reluctant schoolboys from the airlock.
"Maybe we oughtta play dead," Colt said, touching his helmet against Kinsman's again so that he did not need to use the radio.
"No. Enough is too much. Let's go out and greet our rescue party."
They worked their way clear of the tanks and drifted out into the open.
"There they are!" The voice sounded so jubilant in Kinsman's earphones that he could not tell who said it.
"Are you all right?"
