Silence. Manning the hopper is definitely second best. Then light
suddenly bursts on me and I lift my hand and hack B on the ankle.
"I volunteer," I say.
B gives me a most dubious glance and then lifts her hand, too.
Cray on the other side of the table is slowly opening his mouth when
there is an outburst of waving on the far side of B.
"Me too, colonel! I volunteer!"
Mr. Yardo proceeds to explain that his special job is over and done,
he can be more easily spared than anybody, he may be too old to take
charge of _Gilgamesh_ but will back himself as a hopper pilot against
anybody.
The colonel cuts this short by accepting all three. He then unfolds
his paper again.
"Piloting _Gilgamesh_," he says. "I'm not asking for volunteers now.
You'll go to your cabins in four hours' time and those who want to
will volunteer, secretly. To a computer hookup, Computer will select
on a random basis and notify the one chosen. Give him his final
instructions, too. No one need know who it was till it's all over. He
can tell anyone he likes, of course."
[Illustration]
A very slight note of triumph creeps into the next remark. "One point.
Only men need volunteer."
Instant outcry from Kirsty and Dilly: B turns to me with a look of
awe.
"Nothing to do with prejudice," says the colonel testily. "Just facts.
The crew of _Gilgamesh_ were all men. Can't risk one solitary woman
being found on board. Besides--spacesuits, personal background
sets--all designed for men."
Kirsty and Dilly turn on me looks designed to shrivel and B whispers
"Lizzie how wonderful you are."
* * * * *
The session dissolves. We three get an intensive session course of
instruction on our duties and are ordered off to sleep. After
breakfast next morning I run into Cray who says, Before I continue
about what is evidently pressing business would I care to kick him,
hard?
Not right now I reply, what for anyway?
"Miss Lee," says Cray, dragging it out longer than ever, "although I
have long realized that your brain functions in a way much superior to
logic I had not sense enough yesterday to follow my own instinct and
do what you do as soon as you did it; therefore that dessicated meat
handler got in first."
I say: "So you weren't picked for pilot? It was only one chance in
ten."
"Oh," says Cray, "did you really think so?" He gives me a long look
and goes away.
I suppose he noticed that when the colonel came out with his remarks
about No women in Gilgamesh I was as surprised as any.
Presently the three of us are issued with protective clothing; we just
might have to venture out on the planet's surface and therefore we get
white one-piece suits to protect against Cold, heat, moisture,
dessication, radioactivity, and mosquitoes, and they are quite
becoming, really.
[Illustration]
B and I drag out dressing for thirty minutes; then we just sit while
Time crawls asymptotically towards the hour.
Then the speaker calls us to go.
We are out of the cabin before it says two words and racing for the
hold; so that we are just in time to see a figure out of an Historical
movie--padded, jointed, tin bowl for head and blank reflecting glass
where the face should be--stepping through the air lock.
The colonel and Mr. Yardo are there already. The colonel packs us into
the hopper and personally closes the door, and for once I know what
he is thinking; he is wishing he were not the only pilot in this ship
who could possibly rely on bringing the ship off and on Mass-Time at
one particular defined spot of Space.
Then he leaves us; half an hour to go.
The light in the hold begins to alter. Instead of being softly
diffused it separates into sharp-edged beams, reflecting and
crisscrossing but leaving cones of shadow between. The air is being
pumped into store.
Fifteen minutes.
The hull vibrates and a hatch slides open in the floor so that the
black of Space looks through; it closes again.
Mr. Yardo lifts the hopper gently off its mounts and lets it back
again.
Testing; five minutes to go.
I am hypnotized by my chronometer; the hands are crawling through
glue; I am still staring at it when, at the exact second, we go off
Mass-Time.
No weight. I hook my heels under the seat and persuade my esophagus
back into place. A new period of waiting has begun. Every so often
comes the impression we are falling head-first; the colonel using
ship's drive to decelerate the whole system. Then more free fall.
The hopper drifts very slowly out into the hold and hovers over the
hatch, and the lights go. There is only the glow from the visiscreen
and the instrument board.
One minute thirty seconds to go.
The hatch slides open again. I take a deep breath.
I am still holding it when the colonel's voice comes over the speaker:
"Calling _Gilgamesh_. Calling the hopper. Good-by and Good luck.
You're on your own."
The ship is gone.
Yet another stretch of time has been marked off for us. Thirty-seven
minutes, the least time allowable if we are not to get overheated by
friction with the air. Mr. Yardo is a good pilot; he is concentrating
wholly on the visiscreen and the thermometer. B and I are free to look
around.