They stood on opposite sides of the hole, the panel flat between them,
their arms out over it, gloved hands pressing it slowly down. The fixer
reep rolled gently in toward them, and Wiley said, "Let me know when
you're ready, Glenn."
"Just a minute now."
The panel was a little too far over on Ricks' side. Together, they
adjusted it, and lowered it to match the hole. They stood crouched
opposite one another, holding the panel in place, while the fixer reep
edged into position, and the welding arm reached out to the bottom left
corner. "Turn your face away, Ricks," warned Blair.
"Right."
* * * * *
It took ten minutes to weld the new piece into place. In the meantime,
the gripper reep returned from dumping the scrap section, and Blair
sent Ricks up to the grid to help Dan moor his ship. Ricks and Dan
came back carrying two tool kits and, when the welding job was
finished, Blair and Ricks stood aside as Dan power-sanded the new weld
and did a quick spray-painting that removed the signs of the patch.
Straightening, he said, "There you go. Good as new."
"Fine," said Blair. "Let's see how the cargo made out."
The three men returned to the grid, where they moored Wiley's ship
across from Dan's, and then the four of them went on back inside the
Station.
Mendel was waiting for them inside the lock, brow furrowed with worry.
He glanced back and forth from Blair to Ricks, then said to Blair, "How
did it go?"
"Fine."
"Just peachy," said Ricks. "I get my merit badge, don't I, Cargomaster?"
Blair shook his head at Mendel, and went on toward the elevator without
answering Ricks.
He headed immediately for Section Five. Three crewmen were already at
the bulkhead, which was still sealed shut. Blair looked at the pressure
gauge, and saw that the dial was above the halfway mark and noticeably
climbing. He talked with the crewmen a few minutes, discussing the
strike and its repairing, and then at last the bulkhead door slid back
into its recess, and they went on in. The crewmen went to work on the
permanent repair of the inner hull, and Blair checked his cargo. A few
of the food cartons had exploded when the section had gone to vacuum,
but he gave them hardly a glance. He found the seven aluminum crates
for QB. All had split open, releasing interior air, but their contents
looked to be still in good condition. Blair grinned to himself with
relief.
QB was the maintenance base. As such, it had a permanent crew of
eighty-four men. These men were on thirty-minute call at all times,
and were fulfilling a two-year contract with General Transits. They
spent every moment of those two years inside the QB satellite. Most of
the time, they had little work to do, but the size of the crew was the
statistical minimum required for any foreseeable accident to any part
of the General Transits lifeline between the Earth and the Moon. When
there was any sort of breakdown, such as this meteor strike on Station
One, they went to work. The rest of the time, they were completely on
their own. Their world, for two years, was a small metal ring nearly a
quarter million miles from home. They couldn't leave it, and they had
little to do inside it.
That was why the contents of the seven aluminum crates was so
important. Four cartons of motion picture film and three cartons of
microfilmed books. Six months of entertainment, of distraction. The
only way the men of QB could keep from going stir-crazy in their two
years of self-imposed imprisonment, the only way to last through the
inactive days and weeks between the infrequent calls for their skills
and labor.
With no books, no motion pictures, no cheerful distractions for their
minds, the men of QB would falter. Irritations would mount, squabbles
would turn to hatreds, aggravations to bloody vendettas. Efficiency
would collapse, morale disappear. Statistically, there would be within
the first sixty days five suicides and eight murders.
Entertainment. Tinsel. But, to the men of QB, as vital as food.
Glenn Blair patted the aluminum crates, and grinned with relief.
* * * * *
Now that it was over, Harvey Ricks was terrified. Before he'd gone out,
he'd been too full of the challenge he'd hurled at Blair; while he'd
been outside, he'd been too busy. Now it was over, and he had time to
realize the extent of the risks he'd taken, and he was terrified.
He spent the next four hours in his cubicle, staring at the wall,
vowing great resolutions of reform. From now on, he would mind his own
business, accept his limitations.
Then, after four hours, the barbell arrived from Station Three, and the
transfer of cargo and passengers was made. There were five men coming
back to Earth, there was stack after stack of cargo. The huge hold of
the barbell was emptied, and then the shipment for the Moon--and the
cargo for QB--was loaded aboard, and the three passengers for the Moon
left Station One, carrying their one-suitcase-each to the new cubicle,
where they would live another fifteen days of their lives. Ricks
looked around at the new room, and already the retroactive terror was
receding, already he was thinking of his exploit in self-congratulatory
terms. He'd done well. He'd showed the Cargomaster that Harvey Ricks
was a good man to have at your side, a man who can do the job right the
first time.
After a while, Blair knocked at the cubicle door and entered, smiling
hesitantly, saying, "I didn't get a chance to thank you, Ricks. You did
a good job out there."
Ricks smiled, the old self-confident challenging smile. "Why, any time,
Cargomaster."