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"After that the acceleration should continue properly without much attention. So how about you and me taking first watch, while the others ease off a little...?" Frank Nelsen crept carefully back into his own rotating ring, still half afraid that an armored knee or elbow might go right through the thin, yielding stellene.
"Dumb question. You, Eileen naturally." Most Bunches have a small, hard, ponytailed member, dungareed like the rest. Still kidding around, Ramos dropped an arm across Eileen Sands' shoulders, and got her sharp elbow jabbed with vigor into his stomach. She glanced back in a feminine way at Frank Nelsen, a tall, lean guy of nineteen, butch-haircutted and snub featured.
Nelsen had a vagrant thought about how money now had to stand on its own commercial value, rather than rely on the ancient witchcraft of a gold standard. Then he almost suspected that Lester was being devious and clever. But he knew the guy too well. "Cripes, Les!" he burst out almost angrily. "How about your services, just now, as an archeological consultant?
"But you know the Belt. That makes a big difference... All right you're going..." Nance Codiss didn't have that experience. Her lab background wasn't enough. So she was stuck, on Mars. Nelsen had been pestering her to marry him. Now, in a corner of the crowded lounge, he tried again. She shook her head. "You'd still have to leave me, Frank," she told him.
Strips of magnesium were laid like bridging planks across chunks of lava, and in the dust all around were countless curious scrabbled marks. Rodan stood carefully on a magnesium strip, and looked back at Nelsen and Lester, his brows crinkling as if he was suspicious that he had already told them too much.
"Who's he kidding us or himself, or neither...?" Soon Eileen began to show symptoms: Sighs. A restlessness. Sudden angry pouts that would change as quickly to the secret smiles of reverie, while she hummed a soft tune to herself, and rose on her toes, dancing a few steps. Speculative looks at Nelsen, or the other guys around her. Maybe she envied men.
But of course it was himself that was rotating boots over head. There was a bad smell of old sweat, and worse. His hip felt numb from the needle puncture. In all except the most vital areas, those slim missiles would not usually cause death, or even serious injury; but soon the wound would ache naggingly. First, Frank Nelsen hardly knew where he was.
"Frank this is Two-and-Two...! Why don't you ever call or answer...?" Two-and-Two's usually plaintive voice had a special quality, as if he was maybe in trouble. This time, Frank got a directional fix, adjusted his antenna, and called, "Hey, Two-and-Two...! Hey, Pal it's me Frank Nelsen...!" Venus was in the sky, not too close to the sun.
Frank at the diggings, indulged in some muttering, himself. "Are you all right, Frank?" Lester asked mildly. "Not altogether!" Frank Nelsen snapped dryly. "How about you?" "Oh, I believe I'm okay at last," Lester replied with startling brightness. "I was afraid I wouldn't be. I guess I had an inferiority complex, and there was also something to live up to.
So they retreat to keep their secrets. But Dr. Pacetti, our head of Medical Research, says that we can never know that they won't find a way to attack us directly. That's what the waiting napalm line is for. I don't think he is exaggerating." "Why do you say that?" Nelsen asked. He was encouraging her, of course. But he wasn't being patronizing. Frost tingled in his nerves.
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