“Nearer to four.” I paused in my run-through of firing sequence checks. “We left information about that with you before we came here — didn’t you look at it?”

“I looked at the size of the ship, and the column for the living quarters was hundreds of meters long. Why can’t we use all of it?”

I sighed. She had the authority to commandeer the Hoatzin but had never bothered to learn the first thing about how it operated.

“The living-capsule moves up and down that column,” I said. “Farther from or closer to the mass disk, depending on the ship’s acceleration. We can put the supplies outside the capsule area, but if we want to live in a one-gee environment we’re stuck with this part — it’s not bad, plenty of space for four people.”

“But what about my staff?” She gestured at the five people who had followed her into the Hoatzin. I realized for the first time that they might be more than merely carriers of luggage.

“Sorry.” I tried to sound it. “This ship is rated for a four-person crew, maximum.”

“Change it.” She gave me the full force of her imperial manner. I suddenly understood why Will Bayes chose not to argue with her.

I stared back at her without blinking.

“I can’t. I didn’t make that rule — check with the USF back at Lunar Base if you like, but they’ll confirm what I’m telling you.”

She took her lower lip between her teeth, turned her head to survey the cabin, and finally nodded. “I believe you. Damnation. But if there is a four-man limit we still have a problem. I need Bayes and I want my own pilot. And I need McAndrew. You’ll have to stay behind.”

She didn’t look at me this time. I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to do it, but if we were going to bang heads we might as well get it over with. Now was as good a time as any.

“I suggest that you discuss this with McAndrew,” I said. “Better talk to your pilot, too, while you’re at it. I think you’ll find that Mac will refuse to go along without me — just as I wouldn’t go without him. This is not a conventional vessel. Ask your own pilot how many hours of experience he has with the McAndrew Drive. Mac and I have essential experience and skills for the successful performance of this mission. Take your pick. Both, or neither.”

My voice sounded trembly. Instead of replying she turned to head for the steps to the lower level of the living-capsule.

“Prepare us for departure,” she said over her shoulder as she went. Her voice was so calm that I was shocked by my own tension. “I will talk to Bayes. He must assume additional duties on this project.” She turned again when just her head and shoulders were visible. “Did you ever consider taking a job down on Earth? You have abilities that are wasted out here in the middle of nowhere.”

I swivelled my chair to face the console screen and wondered what sort of victory I had won — if any. Anna Lisa Griss was wise in the ways of political infighting, while I was a raw novice. But I was damned if I’d give up my place on this trip without a struggle. The ship was easy to handle, but I’d never admit that to Anna Griss.

Will Bayes came in to stand beside me while I was still having trouble getting my attention back to the status reports.

“Now you’ve done it,” he said. “What did you say to her? I’ve never seen her in such a weird mood. I can’t read her at all. She just told Mauchly and the rest of her staff to get back to Headquarters — no explanation. And I’ve been given double duty for the duration.”

I ran the trajectory parameters out onto the screen, jabbing viciously at the buttons. Then I gave him a quick sideways glance. “I had to make a choice. Which would you rather have: Anna Lisa Griss in a peculiar mood, or a ship run by people who don’t know the McAndrew Drive from a laser-sail?”

He grunted and stared gloomily at the screen. “That’s not an easy decision. You’ve never seen Anna when she’s really annoyed. I have. Let me tell you, it’s not something I want to go through again.” He leaned forward. “Hey, Jeanie. Surely that’s not the plot of our flight out you’ve got on the display there.”

“It certainly is.” I rotated axes so that all coordinates were in ecliptic spherical polars and stored the result. “Don’t you like it?”

“But it looks so simple.” He moved his finger along the screen. “I mean, it’s just a straight line. Not a real trajectory at all. What about the Sun’s gravitational field? And you’re not making any allowance for the movement of Manna while we’re flying out there.”

“I know.” I loaded the flight profile to main memory and as I did so the knot in my stomach seemed to loosen. “That’s why I’ll be piloting this ship, Will, rather than one of your buddies. We’ll be accelerating away from the Sun at a hundred gee, agreed? Did you know that the Sun’s acceleration on us here near Mars orbit is only one three hundred thousandth of that? It has tiny effects on our motion.”

“But what about Manna’s movement in its orbit while we’re on the way there? You’ve ignored that as well.”

“For two reasons. First, Manna is so far out that it’s not moving very fast in its orbit — only half a kilometer a second. More important, we don’t know how far Lanhoff’s team went in processing Manna. Is the body in its original orbit, or did they start it moving in toward the Sun?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Nor have I. The only thing we can do is fly out there and find out.”

I looked at the clock. Time to get moving. “Better say your goodbyes,” I went on. “There’ll be plenty of chances for us to talk to each other in the next couple of weeks. Probably too many. Two hours from now we’ll be on our way. Then we’ll be deaf to outside signals until we’re out in the Halo and turn off the drive.”

“Is that so?” He looked intrigued. “But what about orders that come—”

“Bayes.” Anna Griss was calling softly from below.

Will was gone before I could swivel my chair.

I don’t envy the life of the Downsiders, ten billion of them crawling over each other looking for a little breathing space. But there are certain experiences available on Earth and nowhere else in the Solar System.

For instance, I’m told that, during the great circular storms that sweep from the Earth tropics to the northern latitudes, there is an area at the very center — the “eye of the hurricane” as the Downsiders call it — where the wind drops to perfect stillness and the sky overhead turns to deep blue. That’s something I’d like to see, just once.

The eye of the hurricane. That was the area of the living-capsule surrounding McAndrew during the Hoatzin’s flight out to rendezvous with Manna.

With me, Anna Griss was in constant battle.

“What are you talking about, no messages?” she said. “I have to be in daily contact with Headquarters.”

“Then I’ll have to switch off the drive,” I explained. “We can’t get signals through the plasma shell.”

“But that will slow us down! I told Headquarters that we’d only be away for one month — and it’s a two-week trip each way even if we keep the drive on all the time.”

We were standing by the robochef and I was programming the next meal. It took a few seconds for her last statement to penetrate.

“You told Headquarters what? That we’ll only be away for a month?”

“That’s right. Three days should be long enough to find out what’s happening to Star Harvester. You said that yourself, and McAndrew agreed.”

I turned to face her, noticing again the care she took to make her appearance as well-groomed and attractive as possible.

“Three days should be long enough, sure it should. But you’ll be away for a lot more than a month. The trip is two weeks each way in shipboard time. It’s twenty-five days each way in Earth-time. There’s no possible way you can get back home in a month.”