Stefan handed his phone to Mona, who punched in the relevant ten-digit code twice, the second time to verify.
“Okay,” said security grudgingly. “You’re in. Port seventy-five. Follow the landing lights, and don’t leave your port.”
“Roger that, Satellite. You have a nice day now.”
The order to follow the landing lights was unnecessary, since the computer locked onto the red beacons’ frequency and directed the HALO to port seventy-five. The beacon lights were arranged in concentric circles that acted like a target, pulling them closer to a steel walkway that extended from the dish, one of several hundred that were attached in this quarter. The Krom logo was painted on the walkway. The ship docked with a grating thud, and two dish jockeys rushed to secure forward and aft cables.
“We’re in,” said Stefan, unhooking Ditto. “Get the cables ready while I put on my suit.” He grabbed a suitcase from the overhead locker and disappeared into the latrine.
Ditto unwound a snaky conduit from the loading bay. Inside were two cables: a power cable and a modem lead. The ancient ships was not equipped with wireless capability for this volume of information. “As far as Myishi knows, we’re just charging the batteries and replacing the Krom video chip, but while he’s out there, the bossman slips in the modem lead and we hijack the Satellite for a sneaky search.”
“How long will that take?”
“Not long, Cosmo. About a minute should do it. Any longer, and Myishi will realize what we’re doing. There’s also the fact that the real Krom team is due here soon.”
Stefan emerged from the latrine. He was not wearing the suit.
“It’s off,” he said. “We’ll have to find another way.”
Mona swiveled her chair to face him. “What? Another way? Why?”
Stefan held out the suit. The name
Floyd
was scrawled on the nametag in red paint. “This suit. It’s too small.”
“No,” said Mona. “Spacesuits are
one size fits all
. The arms and legs are concertina design.”
Stefan sighed. “Generally, yes. But this suit is last-century. Tailored for an individual. A short individual. It’s not going to work. Cast off, before we’re found out.”
Mona popped the clips on her G-Vest. “I’ll go then, Stefan.”
“Even if I liked the idea, it’s not practical. You’re the pilot, Mona. If the computer goes down, which it very well could in this flying junkyard, then it’s up to you to get us home, or within a hundred miles of it.”
Mona chewed her lip. Stefan was right. “Ditto. You’ve been around computers. You go.”
The Bartoli baby folded his arms across his chest. The body language was clear for everybody to see. But just in case there was some uncertainty, he said, “In your dreams, Vasquez. A case full of growth hormones couldn’t tempt me into that suit. In any case, like Stefan said, the suit isn’t adjustable. You put me in that thing, and I’ll look like a baby playing dress up.”
Cosmo’s throat dried up suddenly. No one would ask him to go. He was the rookie. It was up to him to volunteer. “I’ll do it,” he blurted.
Stefan pointed a stiff finger at him. “No,”’ he said. “Shut up, Cosmo. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Cosmo’s brain agreed. He had no idea what he was saying, but he was part of the team, and this job needed to be done. “I’ll go. The suit will fit me. I just have to plug in a few wires, right?”
Mona was not as ecstatic as he thought she would be. “I don’t know, Cosmo. It could get dangerous. Maybe we
should
forget it.”
Ditto floated to head height. “Listen to Vasquez, kid. It’s not the job I’d worry about, it’s the drifting off into space for all eternity.”
Cosmo pointed out the windscreen. The walkway was barely twenty feet long. “I can see the port from here. I’ll be tied on all the way. What could go wrong?”
Ditto slapped his own forehead. “You had to say it, didn’t you? You’re jinxed now, for sure.”
“I know how important this is,” argued Cosmo. “If we go back to Satellite City without the scan, then how long will it be before we get another chance? I don’t see what the problem is. This is far less dangerous than running around rooftops, and you had no problem with that.”
“I know, Cosmo,” said Stefan. “But I’ve learned a lot in the past week. I’ve come to my senses.”
Cosmo held out his hands for the suit. “Five minutes and we have a map of every Parasite nest in the city.”
Stefan gave it to him. “Five minutes, Cosmo. Then we’re pulling you in.”
Cosmo had the world at his feet. Looking down through the walkway’s wire mesh, he could see Earth more than fifty miles below. From up here it seemed damaged. Through gaps in the multicolored smog banks, Cosmo could clearly make out the Los Angeles brush fires that had been worldwide news for over a month now.
The Satellite dish loomed overhead like a frozen tidal wave, poised to crash down on him and all the shuttles docked at the various ports. There were at least forty other ships anchored along this level alone. Dozens of dish jockeys were doing exactly what he was doing now, linking their HALO computer with the Satellite.
There was no intercom in Floyd’s helmet, so the only thing Cosmo could hear was his own breathing amplified by the bubble helmet. At least, the visor had been coated with an antifog spray, so his vision remained clear, apart from several scratches and pockmarks.
Cosmo began to talk to himself, for some company. “Okay, Cosmo. Nothing to it. Collect the conduit and plug it in to the port. Attach the piggyback, wait for sixty seconds, then reel the conduit back in. Easy.”
Floyd’s boots were not magnetic, so Cosmo had to drag himself along the ship’s hull inch by inch. Space seemed to suck him gently, willing him to let go. But even if he did, there was a bungee cord securing him to the HALO. “Nothing can go wrong. Get to work.”
Stefan and Mona were at the porthole, watching him anxiously. Cosmo gave them the thumbs-up, then bent low to retrieve the conduit from the air-locked tube through which Ditto was feeding it. He dragged the ribbed white tubing out, attaching it to a Velcro strip on his chest. His movements were slow and awkward in the low gravity.
Cosmo headed for the port, struggling to control his limbs, while all around dish jockeys bounced and pirouetted across the face of the dish.
The safety rail seemed tiny as he held it from inside his bulky padded gloves, and he checked constantly to make sure that he actually had a grip on it. Inch by inch he hauled himself along the walkway, his boots floating behind him, the bungee umbilical undulating like a slow-motion jump rope.
At last, Cosmo reached the Satellite dish. His first job was to attach Lincoln’s pirate plate. He slipped the Lockheed panel from a flapped pocket and clamped it directly onto another one. The panels were so thin that from a distance it would be almost impossible to spot. Only ten more feet to the uplink ports. Handrails crisscrossed the dish’s surface, and Cosmo pulled himself upward, trailing both cables behind him. Five feet now, almost within reach.
The modem and power sockets had a flip-up safety cover. All Cosmo had to do was open it up, and plug in both cables. Simple, except that he couldn’t reach. With the dish’s curve, the safety cover was farther away than the solar panels, and Floyd’s bungee cable was a couple of feet too short. Cosmo stretched the cable to the limit of its elasticity, but it was still too short. It seemed incredible to come this far, only to be foiled by the last few feet.
He turned slowly toward the shuttle. Inside, Mona was beckoning him back. “What can I do?” he asked himself, his voice bouncing around the helmet. “There’s no other way.”
Except to untie the bungee cord. Just for a second
.
The idea popped into his head from nowhere. Untie the cord? Madness?
Just for a second. Clip it to the rails and plug in. Two steps and you’re there
.
Maybe, but one false move and you’re lost in space.
Two steps
.
“Idiot,” said Cosmo to himself, unclipping the cord.
He saw Stefan from the corner of his eye. Basic lipreading told him the Supernaturalist heartily agreed with Cosmo’s opinion of himself. Mona was slapping her palms against the plasti-glass screen. She wasn’t too impressed with him either.
Cosmo used one hand to clip his bungee cord onto the handrail, being extremely careful not to let go with the other. It wasn’t as if he were going to make a habit of this. A one-time-only deal. Providing he didn’t allow his concentration to lapse, he should be fine.
A mere two steps later he was at the uplink port. Cosmo threaded his arm through the handrail, locking his elbow. Two rhinos tugging at his boots couldn’t force him to let go now. He ripped the conduit from the patch on his suit and screwed it into the port. Inside the conduit a power lead and modem cable locked into place. A light flashed green on a panel beside the portal. Contact. Now all he had to do was count to sixty.
Stefan was hunched over the laptop that he had wired into the onboard computer.
“Is it running?” asked Mona, hands and face pressed against the glass.
Stefan raised a finger.
Wait!
“I can’t believe he actually untied himself.
Estúpido
. I hope he doesn’t think this will impress me, because it won’t. Is it running?”
Stefan clapped his hands. “It’s running. Now all we need are sixty seconds.”
Whereas Mona was pretending to be unimpressed, Ditto actually was. “There goes another Spotter. We’re going to have to take out an advertisement on TV. Wanted: crazy kid with a death wish. Robotix plates supplied.”
“Think positive,” snapped Mona. “All he has to do is hold on for sixty seconds.”
Ditto chuckled. “Sixty seconds. The way his luck’s been going lately, it may as well be a lifetime. I wouldn’t be surprised if a meteor picked this exact moment to strike the dish.”
Which of course, wasn’t what happened at all.
Cosmo was counting.
“. . . Fifty-eight elephant, fifty-nine elephant, sixty . . . elephant.”
An extra elephant, just in case. Time to head back to the bungee cord. He was unscrewing the conduit when a tiny tremor shuddered through the entire Satellite.
Cosmo glanced upward. Overhead, a residential unit seemed a little askew. Inside, people were tumbling past the windows. Another tremor. This time much larger. Around him, dish jockeys were dislodged and floated out to the end of their tethers. The residential unit was definitely not right.
Two of its corners had come completely away from the main structure. A third tremor, a monster compared to the other two. The residential cube came away completely, and so did Cosmo.
With a surprised shout that only he could hear, the teenager’s fingers were wrenched from the handrail, and he floated off into space.
All around him, emergency lights began to flash on the helmets of every dish jockey, alerting them to the danger. The residential unit drifted farther from the main structure, driven by the gas venting from its torn life-support tubes. Cosmo could only watch and try not to panic. Panic would mean deeper breathing, and his oxygen readout was already edging toward the red.
The rescue was fantastic. Dozens of dish jockeys hurled themselves into the void, latching on to the unit before it was out of range. They wrapped their limbs around any protuberances, clinging on like human anchors. Several more jumped repeatedly on one end of the unit, spinning it around, so the gas jets propeled it back to the Satellite. It was stupendous. These people were space cowboys. Cosmo wanted to applaud. Then he remembered his own plight.
Something collided with his chest. Cosmo’s first thought was fleeting and ridiculous.
Alien!
But no, it was a dish jockey. The man’s face was red, and he shouted spittle onto the inside of his visor.
Cosmo pointed to his ears, shaking his head.
The jockey took a sonic sucker from his belt, sticking the little speaker onto Cosmo’s helmet. Contact was immediate.
“. . . the hell are you doing, boy? Untying yourself like that! Are you soft in the head?”
“Eh . . . sorry.”
“Haven’t you read the company mail? The Satellite is unstable. We’ve been having more and more of these breakaways lately. Lucky for you I saw you. What company are you with?”
Cosmo racked his brain. “Eh . . . Krom. I’m with Krom.”
The jockey rolled his eyes. “Krom. Typical. I bet you haven’t had more than a couple of hours space time. Employ amateurs, save money, that’s the Krom way. You can’t be much more than a boy. How old are you?”
“Twenty-two,” mumbled Cosmo hopefully. “I drink a lot of water. It keeps me young looking.”
“Twenty-two,” repeated the jockey, casually reeling them back to the dish. “I must be getting old.”
The jockey completed a space roll, depositing them back on the platform. He clipped Cosmo back onto his bungee.
“I’m going to have to write this up,” he said, stripping a pad from a computer on his wrist. “What’s your name?”
Just in time, Cosmo remembered the name on his suit. “Eh . . . Floyd. Floyd Faustino.”
“Well, Floyd,” said the jockey, typing on the computer’s keyboard. “This is going to mean a fine for Krom, and probably for you.”
He printed off a card, stuffing it in Cosmo’s spacesuit pocket.
“You have fourteen days to pay that fine, or else your dish-jockey license will be revoked.”
“Yes, sir,” said Cosmo humbly. “I’m sorry, sir.”
The jockey was unimpressed. “Never mind the
sorry sir
, just pay the fine.”
And with that, the jockey propeled himself across the dish to help secure the residential unit. Cosmo dragged himself shakily to the shuttle.
Mona was waiting inside the airlock. “Moron,” she said, punching him on the shoulder.
“I know,” said Cosmo miserably, his legs wobbling inside the suit. “Can we please go back to Earth? Please?”
Stefan was reading the results of the scan. “I don’t know, Cosmo. When you hear the results of this scan, you might want to stay up here.”
Cosmo took off his helmet. “What is it? he said, laughing. “It’s not as if the Parasite nest is under Clarissa Frayne?”
No one else laughed. Not so much as a smile.