—Jess fine,— Jeffers sent.

—I thought I heard some trouble…—

She cut free of the cable and vectored their way, adroitly turning to shift her center of mass and avoid picking up any spin from the jet thrust. She’s good, Carl thought. Damn good. Lani’s light delicacy belied a firmly muscled physique. But why come to check on a minor malf?

“Nothing much to it,” he answered.

—Well, I was finished, just on my way inside.— She landed with catlike agility ten meters away, kicking up only a small cloud of dust. —Want to take a break?—

—Can’t,— Jeffers said. —We got to check out the tube, see it gets unsprung right.—

Lani looked at Carl. —That’s routine. It shouldn’t take two.—

Carl said, “Cruz is riding our ass on safety.”

She studied him through their dust-marred helmets. —Sure? you’re due to go off shift.—

—Hey, I’m not working alone, li’l lady,— Jeffers said good-naturedly but firmly.

She shrugged. —Okay. Just wanted a little R and R. I’m running a fraction ahead of schedule.—

—See you tonight, then.— Jeffers eyed her appreciatively but she seemed not to notice.

—Right,— she said to Carl. —Tonight.—

She lifted off gracefully and headed for the main shaft.

—Wouldn’t mind that at all,— Jeffers said dreamily on a closed comm channel. Carl ignored him.

—We’ll have to be thinkin’ about pairin’ off pretty soon now.—

“You’ll be an icicle in a month.”

—Man has to plan ahead.—

“Think you can get her to share a shift with you?” Carl answered.

—Might. Gonna be cold and lonely, later on.—

Carl laughed. “Your idea of foreplay is six beers and a game of pool. She’s not your type.”

—Necessity makes funny bedfellows, isn’t that what Shakespeare said?—

“Stick to grunt work, it’s your strong suit.” He gave Jeffers a friendly shove toward the shaft entrance.

—Can’t blame a man for tryin’.—

“Come on, your tongue is hanging out.”

They flew their mechs ahead of them, down through the hollow center of the orange cylinder, popping free restrainer clips as they went. The fiberthread tube unflexed, articulating in sheets along the original axis. Every two minutes it extruded from itself a hundred-meter segment, automatically pressure-sealed the ends, and began pushing out another—each barely narrower than the one before. To Carl, it resembled a gaudy tube-worm that continuously regenerated itself, burrowing into an apple.

Side tunnels took more care. The mechs cut holes for the intersections, fuse-sealed them, and deployed the smaller tube extruders. Carl and Jeffers had to maneuver them into place, yoke and unyoke, check joints and seals, and be sure nothing snagged on an outcropping of rock or jagged ice. In the tunnels chunks of icy cometary agglomerate rubbed off—the mechs were sometimes clumsy—and floated freely through the dark spaces, striking multicolored halos around the spot torches the men carried. It was steady, meticulous, tiring work, even in near-zero gravity.

Their meal break was in a tunnel segment recently filled with air. They cracked their helmets and moored on a wall, enjoying the freedom even though the cold, tangy-flavored air cut sharply in their nostrils.

“Think you’ll ever get used to it?” Jeffers asked, munching methodically on a self-warming ration bar. “Living in here?”

Carl shrugged. “Sure. The exercise wheel and electrical stimulation will take care of the low G, the docs say.”

“Trust ’em for eighty years?” Jeffers’s lean face seemed fitted for a skeptical expression; his mouth drooped down toward a pointed chin, eyes narrowed and quizzical. “Anyway, what I meant was the ice all around you. Feel how cold it is? And that’s with all this insulation and our suit heaters goin’ full bore.”

“It’ll warm up. That’s a meter’s insulation we just laid around this, remember.”

“Gonna be a looong winter.” Jeffers grinned. He would soon be swimming blissfully in the slots, and clearly relished the thought. Jeffers had been awake on the flight out. It had been boring, and now the work was hard and dangerous. He was ready for others to take over. The first watch.

Still, Carl couldn’t understand the man’s attitude.

“There’s some risk in the slots, y’know. System malf, or—”

“I know, I know. My biochem might screw up in some way the experts missed out on. Or maybe you guys on watch throw a wrong switch, cut off my power, and the safeguards fail. Or an asteroid hits us all. He grinned again. “Still. it’s a one-way trip across more’n a couple decades.”

Carl frowned. “So?”

“I’d just as soon sleep through the dull part, accumulatin’ Earthside pay.” Jeffers’s thin face twisted into a sardonic grin. “Comet farmin’ in the outer system—that’ll be fun. But I can skip the kiss-ass politics.”

“What do you mean?”

“C’mon, you’re a Percell too. You know how this whole expedition’s been set up.”

“Uh …how?”

“The Orthos! They’re running everything.” Jeffers ticked off the names on his fingers. “Cruz, then Oakes, Matsudo, d’Amaria, Ould-Harrad. Quiverian. Every section head is an Ortho.”

“So?”

“They think we’re freaks!”

“Oh, come on.”

“They do! Look at the way the Orthos are treating our people Earthside. Think these here are any different?”

“They aren’t like that mob that burned down the center in Chile last week, if that’s what you mean. Sure, I read about that stuff, and the other places. That’s one reason I work in space, same as you.”

“Space’s no different.”

“Sure it is. These Ortho—these people know they’re really the same as us.”

Jeffers said triumphantly, “But they aren’t.”

Carl smiled humorlessly. “Now who’s being prejudiced?”

“Hell, you know we’re not the same as them.” Jeffers leaned forward, speaking earnestly. “Our bodies are better, that’s for sure. And we’re smarter, too. The tests show that.”

“Hell they do.”

“Can’t argue with statistics!”

Carl grunted with irritation. “Look, we were boy wonders back when we were growing up—before people started turning against us. All Percells were. Remember the scholarships? The special attention?”

“We earned that. We were smart.”

Carl shook his head. “We turned out smart—because of the VIP treatment.”

“Naw. I’ve always been quicker than your typical Ortho, even if I don’t bother to talk real well.”

“And you are. But you’re no better than people like Captain Cruz or Dr. Oakes.” Carl got to his feet too rapidly and his velcro grips tore free of the fiberthread. He shot across the tunnel and banged his head against the ceiling.

“Damn!”

Jeffers snickered but said nothing. Carl rubbed his head as he drifted back, but refused to let his irritation show any further. Jeffers was like too many Percells—wrapped up in their own sense of persecution, picking at every imagined slight like a festering sore. Arguing with them just encouraged it.

“Open your eyes:” his friend persisted. “Who’ve they got in the dangerous jobs like ours? Percells!”

“Because a lot of us are trained for zero G. We had the scholarships to get into it.”

“Then why not put a Percell in charge of all Manual Operations?”

“Well…we’re not old enough yet. No Percell is as experienced as Cruz or Ould-Harrad or—”

“Come on! Look at who’s doing the outgassing experiments. And developing long term sleep slotting. All Orthos.”

“So?”

“That’s where the real money’ll be! Learn how to steer comets with their own boiloff, show you can sleep and work in decade shifts—and you can sell your talent anywhere in the system.”

Carl couldn’t help laughing. Jeffers sure did take the long view. “Come on, that’s—”

“And what about Chem Section? If we turn up anything half as valuable as Enkon here, you know who’ll make out. And they’re all Orthos, too, except Peters.”