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the captain’s decision to land two hundred selected people by scout ship. As he let his eyes swing
swiftly
over the array of instruments, he was thinking that Rodrick had the looks of a man who had been
spooked. Rodrick, Miller felt, put up a good front, but at times during the trip out, the captain, in
Miller’s opinion, had been on the verge of losing his judgment in tight situations.
Rodrick allowed a few seconds to pass. Jackie Garvey crossed her long legs and looked up at him. She
felt that she knew the captain better than most; one aspect of their mission was the understood but
unstated order that women of childbearing age were to breed children. It had seemed logical, in the
beginning, that she was the perfect choice for the ship’s bachelor commander. He winked at her, but
her answering smile was questioning. Things had seemed so promising early on, and then something
had gone wrong. They had been very good together, and then nothing.
The bridge, although not spacious, was never crowded. The ship had been built to fly herself. The
bridge crew consisted of Emi Zuki, computer programmer; Ito Zuki, her husband and astronavigator;
Jackie Garvey, ship’s communicator, and the first officer, Rocky Miller, on standby. His wife, Dr.
Amanda
Miller, was usually on the bridge during interesting maneuvers, but she and the bulk of her Life
Sciences staff, including the medical unit, were now on the surface.
There was one other figure on the bridge, a tall, slim, handsome individual in United States Navy
white, his chest resplendent with ribbons, his back stiff, a cap adorned with admiral’s gold pulled
rakishly low over his piercing, unblinking eyes.
Rodrick swiveled his command seat. “Admiral?” he asked. “Sir!” the admiral snapped.
It was difficult to remember, sometimes, that the admiral was one of Dr. Grace Monroe’s “boys,” that
those dark, piercing eyes were not really alive, that the impressive figure was built of synthetics, that
the brain behind those eyes was Dr. Monroe’s greatest achievement. An electrical lead seemed to
emerge from the admiral’s rear pocket. It was attached to Emi Zuki’s main computer terminal.
“How do you read?” Rodrick asked.
“All systems at optimum efficiency, sir,” the admiral said.
The admiral had been proven invaluable. His lightning-fast brain, more than a computer, could be
synergically meshed with the ship’s computers. Rodrick had come to depend on the admiral as one
more check on the ship s computer system.
“Put me on all-ships circuit, Lieutenant Garvey,” Rodrick said, and when Jackie had pushed the proper
buttons, he took a deep breath. “This is the captain. In three minutes we will fire retro-rockets
preparatory to landing. Please position yourselves in your gravity couches at this time.”
During the stressful times, two things belied Max Rosen’s attempt to be cool and casual—his face and
his Space Service uniform. During preparation for the landing, Max’s uniform had given up the light
and now looked as if it had been slept in for days. Max’s ability to perform a negative miracle on the
uniform was only one of his qualities that Dr. Grace Monroe found fascinating, especially since
millions of dollars had been spent in research to develop a fabric that would withstand long wear in
cramped quarters. In
less than one hour, starting with a fresh uniform, Max could prove that all those millions had been
wasted.
