In her sweet, high voice she said, "I think I'm going to be sick."
"Oh, for . . ."
Jill reached into the compartment between their two seats. "I'll take care of this," she said to Kinsman as she whipped a white plastic bag open and stuck it over Linda's face.
Shuddering at the realization of what could happen in zero gravity. Kinsman turned back to the control panel. He snapped his visor shut and turned up the air blower in his suit, trying to cut off the obscene sounds of Linda's wretching.
"For Chrissake," he yelled to Jill, "turn off your mikes, 75 will you! You want me upchucking all over the place too?"
"AF-9, this is Woomera."
Trying to blank his mind to what was going on behind him. Kinsman thumbed the switch on his communications panel. "Go ahead, Woomera."
For the next hour Kinsman thanked the gods that he had plenty of work to do. He matched the orbit of the Manta with that of the Air Force orbiting station, which had been up for nearly a year, occupied intermittently by two- or three- astronaut teams.
Kinsman had thought that the Air Force would make use of the emptied propellant tanks from shuttle flights that were left in orbit to be clustered together in the "tank farm" where he and Colt had been initiated to orbital tomfoolery a couple of years earlier. But the tanks remained unused, and the Air Force sent aloft a completely separate little spacecraft that they were developing into a permanent station in orbit.
It was a fat cylinder, silhouetted against the brilliant white of the cloud-decked Earth. As he pulled the Manta close enough for a visual inspection, Kinsman could see the antennas and airlock and other odd pieces of gear that had accumulated on the station. Looks more like an orbital junk heap every trip, he thought. Riding behind it, unconnected in any way, was the squat cone of the new power pod.
Kinsman circled the unoccupied station once, using judicious squeezes of the maneuvering thrusters. He touched a command signal switch and the station's radar beacon came to life, announced by a blinking green light on his control panel.
"All systems green," he said to ground control. "Every- thing looks okay."
"Roger, Niner. You are cleared for docking."
This was more complicated. Be helpful if Jill could read off...
"Distance, eighty-eight meters," .Till's voice pronounced clearly in his earphones. "Rate of approach . . ."
Kinsman instinctively turned his head, but the helmet cut off any possible sight of her. "Hey, how's your patient?"
"Empty. I gave her a sedative. She's out."
"Okay," said Kinsman. "Let's get ourselves docked."
He inched the spacecraft into the docking collar on one 76 end of the station, locked on and saw the panel lights confirm that the docking was secure.
"Better get Sleeping Beauty zippered up," he told Jill.
