Zach Hughes - Pressure Man

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.

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 drought,” 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.