And what do I think? Virginia realized that she had bristled at Ould-Harrad’s assumption that Linbarger had to be accommodated. She had studied the charts the mutineers had broadcast. Edmund had just enough fuel to arc outward in something called a Byrnes maneuver: loop through a close gravitational swing by Jupiter, reach Earth in a high-velocity pass, and attempt an aerobraking rendezvous. But the window for that trick was closing fast, with only a few days remaining.

Is Ould-Harrad play-acting?Could he be planning to duck across to the Edmund at the last minute, go back with them?

“I do not know…” Ould-Harrad began meditatively.

“Think it through,” Saul cut in. “I see one major problem.”

Carl frowned. “That equipment is vital. There’ll be plenty of volunteers.”

“That I do not doubt. But a sleep slot is narrow and shallow. You could not get in with a spacesuit on.”

“So what? I…” Carl’s voice trailed off.

“Yes. The obvious defense for them is to vent the sleep slots in space, to be sure no one is inside.”

Carl bit his lip, thinking. Virginia was acutely conscious of seconds trickling away. She liked Carl’s plan, not least because it would give them something to bargain with. If Linbarger took off, the expedition would have to construct their own biosphere without many vital portions. It was one thing to grow a few seeds under lamps and quite another to start up an entire interconnected ecosystem from scratch. Like starting off juggling with eight balls. Of all the ways there are to die out here, I had not considered simple starvation.

Irritated, Carl spat out a curt, “I hadn’t thought of that.”

A long, agitated silence. Moments falling into an abyss.

Virginia had a technique for dealing with problems under time pressure. When she was first doing detailed simulations Earthside, she had evolved programs so vast that they had to be booked days or weeks ahead of time on huge mainframes. If your program went awry, you could stop it in midcourse. Then there were a few minutes when the system would do housekeeping calculations for distant users. You could hold on to your reserved time, still run your simulation if you figured out the difficulty and managed to fix it in that brief interval.

Under pressure like that, it was easy to clutch up. So she had developed a way of letting her mind back off the problem, float, allowing intuition to poke through the tight anxiety. Focus outside the moment, let the surface mind relax…

Idly she noticed that on the walls the storm had built to a sullen, roiling rage. Wind blew streamers of foam from the steep waves, and huge raindrops pelted the slender grasses on the inshore dunes, crushing them. The dog had vanished, the crabs milled aimlessly beneath the hammering, incessant drops. The heavy air churned, looking too thick to even breathe—

“Wait,” she said. “I’ve thought of something.”

Slots, he realized, were a lot like coffins. That’s what had always bothered him about them.

He had a small flashlight with him, thank God. He could see the grainy sheen three inches from his face, feel the soft padding around him. The trapped tightness, the constriction, the cold… In the dark it would have been worse. Much worse. He didn’t mind the empty yawning black of open space, free and infinite. This cramped coffin was different.

Carl had felt the gentle tug of acceleration a minute ago and now counted seconds, ticking off the estimated time it would take the five mechs to maneuver across to the Edmund.

There. A gentle nudge forward, pushing him against the grey covering plate. His nose brushed it and a faint torque spun him clockwise.

That would be the deceleration, then a docking turn. Going into the aft hold, almost certainly.

A dull clank. Fitting onto the auto conveyor, probably. The mechs would decouple then …

Five ringing spangs. Good.

Now… if Virginia’s idea was right…

Scraping, close by. A mech grappler caught—clunk—on the hatch’s manual release handle. He could see the inner knob rotate. He braced himself, took a deep breath …

The hatch poked free and whoosh—the air inside the slot rushed out, fluttering the straps over his shoulders and his blue coverall.

He sucked in air through his face mask. Virginia’s risky solution—a small sir bottle, no suit.

His ears popped, despite the pressure caps he wore over them. Goggles protected his eyes to stop the fluid from sputtering away, freezing his eyelids shut. The straps were so tight they bit into his flesh painfully. That was all he had between him and hard vacuum.

The slot hatch had stopped at its first secure point, five centimeters clear. Beyond he glimpsed the stark white glare of full sunlight on the rim of the aft port. His sleep slot was pinned to the conveyor, as he had guessed. He saw a few stars, and a shadow moving on the distant smooth curve of the Edmund’s hull. That would be a mech moving on to pop the next slot, to check for gifts bearing Greeks.

He had gambled that Linbarger would think that was enough precaution. If he was wrong…

And Linbarger was already hypersuspicious, after they had detected and blocked Virginia’s attempt to take over command of the Edmund’s mechs. Ould-Harrad had insisted on trying that so-called easy solution first, and it had failed quickly. Now for the hard way…

Linbarger would want the mechs well clear of the Edmund before anyone ventured into the hold to secure the slots. That gave Carl two, maybe three minutes.

Carl lifted the cover and floated out, curling into a ball as he went. He wore a coverall, gloves, and boots, nothing more.

How long since the air had vacced? He glanced at his thumbnail. Twenty seconds.

Saul had figured three minutes of exposure before he would begin to feel the effects. Then his internal pressure imbalance would get serious, he would become woozy, and anybody coming into the bay could handle him like he was a drugged housecat.

Not that Linbarger and his crowd would waste any time on him. Probably they’d just push him out the lock and wish him bon voyage, like they’d done to poor Kearns. Have a pleasant walk home…

He uncurled, looked around.

The hold bay was empty. They were probably watching the mechs separate and back off.

He repelled off the lock rim and got oriented. The lock’s manual-override seal was a big red handle, deliberately conspicuous, at ten o’clock and across the bay. His ears popped again. His senses were ringing alarms, but he suppressed them all and launched himself across to the red seal-and-flood lever.

Halfway there, somebody tackled him.

The suited figure slammed him backward into the bay, grappling for his air hose. Carl twisted away, jerked free.

Of course. Obvious. Linbarger had put somebody outside, to inspect the mechs as they came in, be sure nobody clung to an underside. From that position the man could see into the hold, too.

Idiot! Carl chided himself for not predicting this.

Ninety seconds left.

They separated, both drifting down the long axis of the hold. It would be ten seconds before either touched a wall. The spacesuited man fumbled for his jets and changed vectors, deftly moving between Carl and the red seal-and-flood.

Carl had no doubt that the fellow could stop him from reaching the lever for a minute or so. The Ortho had jets, air, and all the time in the world.

Dame, it’s cold, too. Carl twisted, looking for something, anything.

There. A set of tools. He glided by the berth rack stretched—and snatched up an autowrench. Carefully he aimed at the figure ten meters away and threw.

It missed by a good meter. Carl could see the man’s face split into a sardonic grin, the lips moving, describing it all with obvious delight for the Edmund’s bridge.