"Don't I know?" demanded Sally. "Go get washed and come back for
breakfast. The Chief and Haney and Mike are already awake. And because
of the four of you, they've been able to advance the Platform's take-off
time--to just two days off! It leaked out, and now it's official. And
you made it possible!"
This was a slight exaggeration, but it was pardonable because of Sally's
partiality for Joe. He went groggily into the special shower arrangement
in the Platform. In orbit, there would be no gravity, so a tub bath was
unthinkable. The shower cabinet was a cubbyhole with handgrips on all
four sides and straps into which one could slip his feet. When Joe
turned handles, needle sprays sprang at him from all sides, and
simultaneously a ventilator fan began to run. When in space that fan
could draw out what would otherwise become an inchoate mixture of air
and quite weightless water-drops. In space a man might drown in his own
shower bath without the fan. The apparatus for collecting the water
again was complex, but Joe didn't think about that at the moment. He
considered ruefully that however convenient this system might be out in
the Platform's orbit, it left something to be desired on Earth.
But there were clean clothes waiting when he came out. He dressed and
felt brand new and utterly peaceful and rested, and it seemed to him
very much like the way he had often felt on a new spring morning. It was
very, very good!
Then he smelled coffee and became ravenous.
There were the others in the Platform's kitchen, sitting in the chairs
that had straps on them so the crew needn't float about because of
weightlessness. There was an argument in progress. The Chief grinned at
Joe. Mike the midget looked absorbed. Haney was thinking something out,
rather painfully. Sally was busy at the Platform's very special stove.
She had ham and eggs and pancakes ready for Joe to eat.
"Gentlemen," she said, "you are about to eat the first meal ever cooked
in a space ship--and like it!"
She served them and sat companionably down with them all. But her eyes
were very warm when she looked at Joe.
"Leavin' aside what we were arguin' about," said the Chief blissfully,
"Sally here--mind if I call you Sally, ma'am?--she says the slide-rule
guys have given our job the works and they say it's a better job than
they designed. Take a bow, Joe."
Sally said firmly: "When the technical journals are through talking
about the job you did, you'll all four be famous for precision-machining
technique and improvements on standard practices."
"Which," said the Chief sarcastically, "is gonna make us feel fine when
we're back to welding and stuff!"
"No more welding," Sally told him. "Not on this job. The Platform's
closed in. They've started to take down the scaffolding."