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transfer required acceleration which was not necessarily thrust. Our ships were not built for rotating
around each other on tethers. Where would one attach them? Impossible.
I did what I have done since a child to clear my mind. I prayed. Lord deliver me. Some call it a retreat to
a fantasy world, a land of childhood faith in tooth fairies and Easter bunnies. If so, why is it still so strong
in me, as other illusions have dropped away? That I do not know. But I do know the absence from here
and now settles my mind.
An image came to my mind almost unbidden. I remembered watching the ships being hoisted up to their
stations on top of the heavy lift vehicle. There were hard points in the noses where one could attach
cables. Tethers. Just a little rotation would do for the fuel transfer, and, I thought, the system might be
strong enough to give my crew some artificial gravity on the way back. I rolled out of the sack and
headed for the terminals on the other side of the dome.
I found Ingrid still working, under red night-vision lighting, packing samples for the morning s departure at
a flimsy looking bench opposite their tent. She wore shorts and a thin, dusty t-shirt. Not really
understanding what was happening to me, I explained my idea with a breathlessness that had little to do
with the mental effort.
Not so difficult. She smiled. We have spare tethers and hosing which we no longer need here.
The smile did it. She was lean, smooth, intense, glowing with health. She put a hand lightly on my arm.
Are you all right? You have been under much strain, I think.
God help me, I just put my arms around her, my head on her shoulder and moaned. If I had done that at
NASA, I would have been reported. But she made no objection. After a minute, she gave a slight low
laugh. returned my hug, and rocked me back and forth like a child. Urgency overcame me. My hands
found their way down her back and beneath the elastic of her shorts.
Are you trying to seduce me? She asked, in a voice that neither invited or condemned, but seemed
more in the tone of curiosity.
My men were wrapped in emergency blankets sleeping on the other side of the dome. Per was asleep in
the tent. She could have yelled and destroyed me, humiliating me even beyond anything that had
happened so far, I was that far out of line and I could not help myself, not even for a moment.
But instead of acting offended, she stroked me gently, I do not mind. she murmured. Per is sometimes
too polite. She knelt to the floor and I followed. Her kisses were light and motherly at first, then more
and more passionate. And so we two responsible adults made love, then and there, as if we were teen
agers in the back seat of a car.
All through it, she smiled at me as if I were a child she was indulging with a minor treat. And when it was
over, I turned my head so that she would not see my tears. But she pressed my head to herself and held
me again as a mother would a child.
This is nothing wrong, she murmured as my sobs turned into deep breaths. We both needed it, so do
not hate yourself for it. But now we must work on getting people back to Earth, yes?
Six sleepless hours of calls to Mission Control later, our engineers had conceded that the remaining
crews could have some gravity on the way back with theLeonov and theChang-Diaz tethered nose
to nose. Fortunately, the U.N. ships were launched as fuel tanks with their interiors fitted afterwards
they could be rearranged for spin gravity from inside and that would give their crews something to do.
The thermal control people griped, the communications people griped, the propulsion people smiled.
And the numbers worked out, just. We would have to put everyone on theLeonov before the final Earth
orbit capture burn, and discard theChang-Diaz , but my ship would have served its purpose as lifeboat
and fuel tank by that time.
But theAmundsen andFram were designed to go directly to Earth, on a faster trajectory. The easiest
thing to do was to not try for a rendezvous, but rather for those of us on the surface to stay with the
Norwegians. I relinquished my diminished command to Boris Yakov onLeonov and watched the ticklish
tether and departure operations from the surface. This was my penance for my pride.
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