"Expedition," said Steve, extending his hand: "Steve Stedman's my name."
The hand that gripped his was hard and calloused. "I'm Kevin McGann,
boy. Sort of a liaison man between the crew and the expedition, only
they call me the Exec to make everything official. Better take some
advice--don't look for T. J. now. T. J.'s busy doing last minute
things, and T. J. hates to be disturbed. Why don't you wait till after
_Brennschluss_, when we're out in space?"
"It can't wait. I've got to see that Moore knows I'm aboard and under
what conditions, because I don't want to be thrown off this ship at the
space-station. If Moore doesn't like the conditions, Mr. Carmical can
be called. But after we blast off it'll be too late."
Kevin McGann shrugged. "It's only advice I gave you, boy. You'll find
T. J. down on the third level looking over the cargo holds. Good luck."
And McGann took a pipe from his pocket, tamping it full, lighting it
and staring with frank, speculative curiosity at Steve. "Stedman, eh?"
he mused. "The name's familiar."
"You think about it," said Steve, and made his way toward the third
level. Perhaps some of them aboard the _Gordak_ had known Charlie, and
McGann, being the Exec, must have been around a long time.
The third was the lowest level of the _Gordak_, or that part of
the ship nearest the tubes with the exception of the fission-room
itself. Here on the third level were the cages which, in the months
that followed, would hold the big game brought within the _Gordak_.
But the word cage, Steve realized, can be misleading. A rectangular
enclosure, its wall composed of evenly spaced bars--that's a cage.
But the bubble-cages of the _Gordak_ were something else again;
precisely as the name implied, they were huge bubbles of plastic,
complete with remote-controlled airlocks. You could pump in any kind of
atmosphere, from Jupiter's lethal methane-ammonia mixture to the thin,
oxygen-starved air of Mars, and under any desired pressure, too.
And now on the third level a battery of experts was busy checking the
bubble-cages for defects, since a leak _after_ some noxious gas had
been pumped into one of the bubbles could mean death for everyone
aboard the _Gordak_. Steve stood there nervously for what seemed a long
while. He let his gaze rove up and down the third level, but he only
saw the coverall-clad technicians checking the bubble-cages. Kevin
McGann had said he could find Moore here, but unless Moore zipped on
a pair of coveralls himself and joined in the work--which certainly
seemed unlikely--then Moore wasn't around.
* * * * *
Someone tapped Steve's shoulder. Startled, he whirled around. A woman
stood there, just behind him, staring at him insolently. She was tall,
as tall as Steve himself, with her close-cropped blond hair peeking out
around the edges of a black cap. She wore what looked to Steve like a
glossy black Martian sand-cape which she let fall straight down behind
her so that it almost brushed the floor. Under it, she wore a brief
pair of shorts, also black, and a halter. She was muscular in that
lithe, feminine way which had grown so popular in the twenty-second
century--the century which had finally seen women come abreast of men
in all sporting activities and surpass them in some which required
special grace and lithe-limbed skill.
"I hope you found whatever you're looking for," she said. She spoke
with a complete lack of warmth which startled Steve for the second time
in a few moments.
She was a beautiful woman, he realized, but she looked so completely
incongruous among the coveralled men that Steve found himself whistling
softly. "I never expected to find a girl here," he admitted. "Not on
this expedition."
"What's the matter, are you old fashioned? This is the twenty-second
century, the enlightened century, remember? There's nothing a girl
can't do if she sets her mind to it. A recent survey shows that
forty-percent of the homemakers in the U.S.N.A. are men, sixty percent
women. Okay, it's only logical that some of the remaining forty percent
of females have some tough jobs, too."
"I read the books of the feminist movement," Steve assured her. "But
it's going to take a lot to convince me of that. Me and a lot of other
people, I suspect."
"Is that so, Mr. Smart-guy? Are you a member of the expedition?"
"Yes."
"Well, anytime you want to hustle down to the gym with me and go a few
rounds, let me know."
"Are you serious?"
"Of course I'm serious."
"Well," Steve said, deciding to change the subject and feeling utterly
ridiculous about the whole conversation, "let's forget it. I was
looking for T. J. Moore."