might void their contract. Or possibly Reese had decided to change gender and was already having changeover pains, for shrinking a penis by drug-induced apoptosis was no mean ordeal. Why would they do that now? Then Seth saw that JC might find it harder to order a woman into danger than a man. A sneaky cop-out, but only to be expected of Reese Platte.
As Seth was refilling his coffee cup, JC said, “How does it look to you now, Prospector? Think you can handle that 1.6 gee gravity?”
“Yes, sir. For a short stay. But the weather bothers me.”
“Weather?”
“Storms. Dense atmosphere, high insolation gradient, fast rotation.”
JC asked what the length of the day was, and Control became pedantic, as it did when human language was exposed as imprecise. The length of the day varied with latitude, for at the poles it was the same as a year, 250.3 terrestrial days. The sidereal period was 19.4 standard hours, so roughly 315 rotations per planetary year.
“Fast!” Maria said. “And high insolation because it’s closer to its primary than Earth is to Sol. Is why it has all those cyclonic storms.”
Reese barked, “Oh, damn! Control, what sort of surface winds do you calculate?”
—Preliminary measurements suggest velocities in excess of 200 kilometers per hour are commonplace, roughly equivalent to Category Four hurricanes. Higher winds are certainly possible.
“Ha! You can’t put the shuttle down in that, can you, Muscles?”
“I can put it down, sir. Keeping it down will be the problem.”
Reese pouted. At some time a surgeon had put a few tucks around their mouth. It looked fine when they were female, but their male lip curled in a perpetual sneer.
“By the way, the pH on the Number Seven hydroponic tank is low. I want you to clean it out this morning and bring up some lime for it.”
“Sorry,” Seth said untruthfully. “Can’t.”
The others were listening, and five pairs of eyes widened in surprise at hearing the worm turn.
He explained to Jordan. “Today I must make a complete inspection of the shuttle, ma’am. As soon as we have the planet’s parameters nailed down, I’ll have to start putting in hours in trainer mode, simulating flight in Cacafuego’s gravity and atmosphere.” He also needed hours of exercise in it, learning to walk, move, and hit targets with his stun gun.
JC leered.
Jordan bristled. The captain almost never showed anger, even when male. “On whose authority? I have not instructed you to prepare for downside activity.”
“No, ma’am. But GenRegs say I must do so as soon as the target is sighted.”
They also said that if, or when, that shuttle launched, Seth Broderick would hold the rank of master and be in effect commander of the expedition.
* * *
Gravity in the ship came from its spin. By stopping the elevator at the right place between the axis and the outer rim, Seth could simulate any gravity from free fall to almost three gees. The shuttle port was up at the hub, the shuttle itself protruding from the disk of the ship like an axle. Not bothering with the elevator, he ran up the ladder. By the time he reached the top, he was in microgravity.
The shuttle was a delta-winged cylinder about the size of a city bus and it felt like home to him, his personal domain, where no one else ever trespassed. Access was by a shaft known as the Gut, which led upward from a door at the tail end. Currently the Gut was parallel to the ship’s axis, so he floated along it with ease, going past the biologist’s cabin, the Biosafety Level 4 laboratory, and the master’s tiny cabin, to arrive at the nose, a nook known as the cab.
As he settled into the chair, Control activated the view screens for him. The ship spread out below him like a city plaza. Around the rim like pickets stood the ferrets, the light-speed scout probes, originally twenty-four, now only nineteen. Five had failed to return. Hanna suspected three or four of the remainder might be too badly
As Seth was refilling his coffee cup, JC said, “How does it look to you now, Prospector? Think you can handle that 1.6 gee gravity?”
“Yes, sir. For a short stay. But the weather bothers me.”
“Weather?”
“Storms. Dense atmosphere, high insolation gradient, fast rotation.”
JC asked what the length of the day was, and Control became pedantic, as it did when human language was exposed as imprecise. The length of the day varied with latitude, for at the poles it was the same as a year, 250.3 terrestrial days. The sidereal period was 19.4 standard hours, so roughly 315 rotations per planetary year.
“Fast!” Maria said. “And high insolation because it’s closer to its primary than Earth is to Sol. Is why it has all those cyclonic storms.”
Reese barked, “Oh, damn! Control, what sort of surface winds do you calculate?”
—Preliminary measurements suggest velocities in excess of 200 kilometers per hour are commonplace, roughly equivalent to Category Four hurricanes. Higher winds are certainly possible.
“Ha! You can’t put the shuttle down in that, can you, Muscles?”
“I can put it down, sir. Keeping it down will be the problem.”
Reese pouted. At some time a surgeon had put a few tucks around their mouth. It looked fine when they were female, but their male lip curled in a perpetual sneer.
“By the way, the pH on the Number Seven hydroponic tank is low. I want you to clean it out this morning and bring up some lime for it.”
“Sorry,” Seth said untruthfully. “Can’t.”
The others were listening, and five pairs of eyes widened in surprise at hearing the worm turn.
He explained to Jordan. “Today I must make a complete inspection of the shuttle, ma’am. As soon as we have the planet’s parameters nailed down, I’ll have to start putting in hours in trainer mode, simulating flight in Cacafuego’s gravity and atmosphere.” He also needed hours of exercise in it, learning to walk, move, and hit targets with his stun gun.
JC leered.
Jordan bristled. The captain almost never showed anger, even when male. “On whose authority? I have not instructed you to prepare for downside activity.”
“No, ma’am. But GenRegs say I must do so as soon as the target is sighted.”
They also said that if, or when, that shuttle launched, Seth Broderick would hold the rank of master and be in effect commander of the expedition.
* * *
Gravity in the ship came from its spin. By stopping the elevator at the right place between the axis and the outer rim, Seth could simulate any gravity from free fall to almost three gees. The shuttle port was up at the hub, the shuttle itself protruding from the disk of the ship like an axle. Not bothering with the elevator, he ran up the ladder. By the time he reached the top, he was in microgravity.
The shuttle was a delta-winged cylinder about the size of a city bus and it felt like home to him, his personal domain, where no one else ever trespassed. Access was by a shaft known as the Gut, which led upward from a door at the tail end. Currently the Gut was parallel to the ship’s axis, so he floated along it with ease, going past the biologist’s cabin, the Biosafety Level 4 laboratory, and the master’s tiny cabin, to arrive at the nose, a nook known as the cab.
As he settled into the chair, Control activated the view screens for him. The ship spread out below him like a city plaza. Around the rim like pickets stood the ferrets, the light-speed scout probes, originally twenty-four, now only nineteen. Five had failed to return. Hanna suspected three or four of the remainder might be too badly
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