Pressure Man

by Zach Hughes

  Dom spent a lot of time with Neil Walters, who would test and pilot the Kennedy. Although he was older, Neil was a perpetual boy of twenty-five in appearance. He stood six-four and was topped by a mop of blond, curly hair. He had deep, laughing blue eyes and a classical angularity of face which went with his daring and his reputation. He liked talking about flying only slightly less than he liked flying. He set out to learn the Kennedy from the smallest component upward. He was good company, for the Kennedy had become Dom’s main reason for living.

  When she flew, Neil would be in command. He had a sharp mind, and Dom never had to explain even the most complicated technical details. In fact, Neil posed questions which put Dom back into the lab, Doris with him at the keyboard of a computer, to check and recheck. Neil’s questions were basic and penetrating. They caused Dom to check all the important calculations and the thinking which went into the revolutionary concept of the folding hull. Dom discovered nothing serious wrong, but he did make slight changes here and there.

  Neil’s main criticism of the plan was that it would be impossible to test Kennedy’s hull under pressure.

  “Either it works when we get down into Jupe or it doesn’t,” Dom said.

  “Well, it only has to work once,” Neil said, with a wide grin.

  “We’ll be reading the stress on the hull as we go down, reading it carefully and following it all the way,” Dom said. “We can always turn back if something begins to give.”

  Neil laughed. “One good thing about this one. If something goes whango I might have time to spit right in the designer’s face before I check out.”

  Neil was stimulating, but not even talking with Neil could fill all the hours. There was not a lot to do on the moon. Drink was expensive, because there were no distilleries on the moon and booze was a luxury item not included in rations. Dom spent a lot of time in the observatories, He played some bridge. He explored a bit, but once you’ve seen one acre of the moon’s surface there is a sameness. One crater is like every other crater, just a bit bigger or smaller. He also did a lot of reading. But still the days dragged and the weeks were endless and the months were eons. The ship grew, and that was the main pleasure, just going out there to see what work had been done in the past twenty-four hours.

  It was interesting when the monowelders began to join the mush-bonded collapsing seams to the plates. It went just as predicted, with no problems.

  Doris had her work. She kept busy, finding time for dinner with Dom only occasionally. When they were alone Dom was careful to stick to business and keep the conversation away from personal things. After that bull market of weeping on the day she received Larry’s medal, she could talk about him without pain. It was no longer necessary to remember not to mention Larry, because she often did. As if Larry were merely off somewhere on one of his jaunts, she’d say, “I wonder what Larry would think about that?” He lived in her memory, but he did not become an obsession. Dom suspected that her grief was not totally spent, but it was not a festering sore. She could laugh at a joke, be sentimental about a love song, muse over her memories, all without giving the outward appearance of a perpetually grieving widow.

  J.J. made regular trips to encourage, investigate, cheer, and urge on. He was on the moon the day air was pumped into the hull and for the first time workers could operate inside the Kennedy without life-support gear. Work on the fittings and finishings began to go faster. J.J. sat in the pilot’s seat and examined the instrumentation spreading before him.

  “I’ll have to take a refresher course,” he said.

  “For what?” Dom asked.

  “To be able to fly this mother.”

  “You?”

  “I’m copilot,” J.J. said.

  Dom considered the advantages and the disadvantages of that. “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have,” he said.

  “Bless you, my son,” J.J. said airily. “It will be understood, of course, that I am senior only in rank. In ship operations I’ll be second in command to Neil and you, and only you will have the final say about safety.”

  “Bless you,” Dom said.

  J.J. looked ahead, out the front port. “Flash,” he said, “it’s all going to be in your hands there on Jupe. We’re shooting the works, all of us, on this trip, but there’s no need for us to die needlessly. If it works, you’ll get credit for it. If it fails, no one will ever be able to tell you I told you so. But remember, if we lose, if it doesn’t work, the whole silly damned human race is the prime loser.”

  Dom had no comment to make on that.

  Chapter Seven

  Dom was having dinner with Doris the night J.J. called from DOSEWEX to order him to report to DOSEAST to testify in the matter of Larry Gomulka’s death.

  It had been a nice evening. For once, Doris had no pressing problems involving the Kennedy. The shipboard computers were being installed and the components which were already in place were working beautifully. She was relaxed. She was ten pounds lighter than she’d been when she walked into the lab at DOSEWEX with travel dust still on her clothing. She was slim and elegant in her uniform. The lines around her eyes, which had appeared after Larry’s death, were fading. She looked younger.

  The evening came about by accident. Dom happened to be walking past the lab when Doris decided to call it a day. Dom offered to buy her a drink and she accepted. They sat in the canteen and listened to music which was more for background than for listening, both of them comfortable without talking. When they did speak it was shop talk.

  Dom suggested that they call Art and have a threesome for dinner. Doris agreed, and went to make the call.

  “He’s tied up,” she said. “Have to be just the two of us.”

  “I’m hungry enough to eat Art’s dinner, too,” Dom said. “Where? Here? The food’s not bad.”

  “I’d like to be able to hear myself chew, or think, or talk, or whatever,” Doris said.

  “That rules out the cafeteria as well,” Dom said.

  “I’ll make the supreme sacrifice,” Doris said. “I have just two steaks left from the last ration. Real steaks.”

  “Greater love hath no woman,” Dom said, rolling his eyes.

  “I believe in buttering up my boss,” she said.

  “I’ll pay you back, swear.” He held aloft a Boy Scout sign.

  “Put it in writing.”

  “You question the honor of an officer and a gentleman?”

  “I learned to question the honor of officers, male officers, when I discovered that the chief engineer on my first ship had altered the combination to the palm lock on my cabin door,” she said.

  Dom grabbed a napkin and wrote: “I owe Doris Gomulka one real steak.” He gave her the napkin.

  “You didn’t sign,” she said.

  He jerked the napkin back and scrawled his signature. “You are a person with very little trust.”

  “Not where steaks are concerned.”

  Doris’ quarters were on the frontside. Earth was almost full, low on the horizon. The richness of her, blue and white, made her a jewel in the sky.

  “My God,” Doris said, halting as they entered to see the great living globe hanging there in the window.

  “It’s always new, seeing it like that.”

  “So beautiful,” she said. “You know, I’d like for all of them to be able to see that, to see how small and goddamned vulnerable she is, hanging out there. Maybe they’d think a little more clearly. Show them a closeup view of Mars, or Mercury, worlds totally inhospitable to man, and then show them that. How can anyone fight over anything so beautiful?”

  “Actually, I guess, in a way, we’re the new nobility, so few of us have seen that.”

  “Thank God you can’t see what we’ve done to her from up here,” Doris said. “Strip mines and underground nuclear tests and radioactivity in the air and sewage in the oceans. And she still manages to support all of us, after a fashion.”

  “And only now and then strikes back with an earthquake or a droug
ht,” Dom said, grinning.

  “OK, cynic, you make the salad.”

  The salad greens were grown hydroponically on the moon and were plentiful. The steaks were great treasures and were strictly rationed.

  Doris put on a couple of antique music tapes, the sound turned low. They talked small talk, working side by side in the kitchen, having a pre-dinner drink. The steaks were cooked very, very carefully.

  Doris ate with an eagerness which was fun to watch. She ate like a hungry man, no talk, no nonsense. Finished, she wiped her lips on her napkin and breathed a deep sigh of contentment. The few dishes were handled quickly, the washer turned on, recycled water doing the job. Doris poured brandy.

  Earth was thirty degrees high, and to see all of her they sat side by side, facing the viewport, silent, the music soft and nostalgic. Dom had never felt better. The ship was coming along. The steak had been delicious. The brandy was one of the better synthetics. Doris leaned back, the long line of her throat a delicate curve. Her hair fell into sort of a frame for her face. She was wearing the short uniform. Her long legs were tanned by hours in the exercise room. She swung her crossed leg in time with the music.

  There was something about the music which was very familiar, and they both noticed it at once. She had been humming quietly, now and then voicing a phrase, and he was aware of her as a woman. He had to clear his throat and look away.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that one,” she said, as the song ended. It had been their song. They’d danced to it many times during the Academy days.

  He stood. He had to move or he’d do something which they’d both regret. He stood beside the port, and Doris came to him. As she passed the player she turned the volume up slightly. Another old, familiar song was playing. He sensed her nearness, felt her brush against him.

  “We danced a lot to that one, too,” she said musingly.

  He looked down at her. Was it possible that she felt the same thing he felt? She was humming again, swaying her body to the music, looking up and out to peaceful-looking old Earth up there in the sky.

  The music changed to upbeat. “Hey. I can’t stand that,” she said putting down her glass. She took Dom’s glass and put it down and lifted her arms. He took her hand and began to dance. He got the feel of it after a few steps and they reminded each other of the old steps, laughing as it came back. Fads in music and dancing changed so fast that Dom couldn’t always remember which type of dance went with which, but Doris was an authority.

  The music went soft and slow. Dom felt the warning bells go off as she came into his arms, put her cheek to his, and began to dance, close, dreamy. She was a perfect fit, almost as tall as he, a size to cuddle in his arms. He had to remind himself that women looked on dancing as something almost impersonal. To Dom, slow dancing was hugging set to music. Women seemed to attach less sexual significance to dancing, but to Dom body to body while swaying with the music was just as thrilling as body to body under any other circumstance. Ah, she was good in his arms, and he didn’t turn loose as one song ended and another began. He turned his head slightly and kissed the smooth, soft curve of her neck. She sighed.

  It seemed to happen naturally. Lips to lips, they stopped dancing and the kiss went on for eternity and there was promise in her response. He had wanted that kiss for so long, dreaming of it for all of the long years since he said goodbye to her and went off on his first trip to Mars.

  “Stay down,” Larry yelled, bending quickly to trigger the detonator.

  Dom broke the kiss, pushing her away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Earth got in my eyes.”

  “I know,” she whispered, leaning toward him. “I wanted you to kiss me.”

  His heart leaped. He moved toward her. She put her hands on his chest. He looked into her eyes in question.

  “I’m not saying no,” she said. She looked away, biting the corner of her lower lip in thought. “I want to be sure to say this right. First, it’s been a long, long time since you kissed me like that, and I liked it very much.”

  “I hated it.” He grinned.

  “But I think you were feeling the same thing I can’t help feeling when you pushed me away,” she said.

  “I was thinking about Larry,” he admitted.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He turned to face the port and watched a surface crawler moving across his field of vision. He was still thinking about Larry. He tried to view the situation from Larry’s viewpoint, thinking of him as being out there, somewhere, able to look back and see what was happening. Problem: a young widow. Solution: a man, but not just any man, a man who would love her and cherish her. He turned to look down at Doris’ profile.

  “Would you think I was being silly as hell if I said I think Larry would approve?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “He knew about you. If he was ever jealous of my, uh, having given myself to you first, he never said so.”

  “I’d like to know what you think,” he said.

  “I’ve been intimate with two men in my life,” Doris said. “And I loved you with a big love once, damn you.”

  “I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you,” he said.

  “But you loved space more.”

  “Guilty, I suppose. I’m older now. We’re together.”

  “There’s that to think about,” she said. “We’ve got a job ahead of us. We’re going to be in crowded quarters for months with others.”

  “There is that,” he said.

  “The lady is not saying no,” she said.

  “Just wait a while,” he said. “We could get married.”

  “We could.”

  “But you’re not so sure?” he asked.

  She sighed. “I feel like a silly and indecisive teenager.”

  “Can you love me, again?”

  “Oh, I’ve always loved you, too. As a young girl loves in the deepness of first love, as a sister loves, as a friend loves.”

  “That wasn’t a friend or a sister kissing me a few minutes ago,” Dom said.

  She laughed. “Dom, if you want to make love to me you’ll find a most willing participant.” She looked him straight in the eyes. “Do you want to?”

  “Yes.” He shrugged. “All right, dammit, you must have infused me with your middle-class morality and your sense of responsibility. You are infuriatingly right and I hate you, you smart-assed female.”

  “There will be time,” she said. “When we get back from Jupiter.”

  “Years and years,” he said, kissing her lightly and pushing her away as she went molten in his arms.

  Within twenty-four hours he was on a shuttle. He carried with him sworn depositions from Art and Doris, who could not be spared from the Kennedy project. Neil was supervising in-place static tests of electrical systems and the power plant. He resented being pulled away, leaving the team working, but he went down, roaring into the muggy atmosphere, noting double security at the Cape. He flew a carefully guarded jet to Washington.

  The hearing was held deep inside the main DOSE installation outside the city. Dom made his statement and answered questions. Nothing new came out of the piles of paper which were the result of the hearing. However, Dom was reminded of the ability of the Firsters to penetrate the most secure installations.

  Since all of the inside team of terrorists had been killed, there were unanswered questions. No one could suggest how the explosives were smuggled into DOSEWEX. It was possible that the traitor space marines could have done it, or one or more of the technicians who were Firsters.

  J.J. expressed the doubt. “We are reluctant to admit that there might be high-level traitors among us. You and I, Dom, are more or less sensible men. We can think that it took someone with more clout than techs or marines to place so many Firsters on your lab team.”

  “It was your office which cleared each one of them,” Dom said. They were having a meal in a secure hotel while Dom waited for a flight back to the Cape.

  “My office,” J.J. said,
“consists of more than just a room. It involves a couple of hundred people. They’ve all been investigated backward and forward, and I wouldn’t bet my life on the loyalty of more than a handful of them. Some minor clerk somewhere could influence a screening with a deft shuffling of papers. Someone in higher authority could bring pressure on people elsewhere to get a particular man into DOSEWEX. Personally, I don’t think the raid on the computer could have been planned without someone of at least administrative rank pulling strings, and that opens such a vast array of possibilities that I don’t dare start an investigation. One thing for damned sure, we’re going to have to be one hundred percent sure of every person aboard the Kennedy.”

  “I should hope,” Dom said.

  “We’re sure of so few,” J.J. said.

  “Me, you, Art, Doris, Neil,” Dom said.

  “Are we sure of all of them?”

  “If we’re not, we’re in so much trouble we might as well give up,” Dom said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the crew list, J.J. In addition to the basic five, it calls for a cook, a powerplant engineer, a survival-systems specialist, and a medical tech. I think we can weed the list down. We can take turns with the cooking. We can risk going without a medical tech. We’ve all been around enough to have learned basic medicine, first aid, treatment of minor ailments. If something major comes up a medical tech might save a life, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. That would leave us needing only two people in addition to our hard core of five, an engineer and a survival-systems specialist.”

  “I’ve been thinking along the same lines,” J.J. said. “Any suggestions for the two we need?”

  “Paul Jensen and Ellen Overman,” Dom said.

  “You’ve worked with both of them, I think.”

  “I’ve been on two tours with Paul. He’s a damned fine engineer and he hates radicals of all sorts. The last time I was in touch with him he was going to ground on Mars to supervise the installation of a new generator. He said he was doing it because he got so goddam mad each time he came back home and saw what the world was coming to.”