Lucifer's Hammer

It struck Joh

Pieter’s eyes tracked back and forth between the two Americans. “Our newspapers tell us that in America the blacks serve the whites, the whites rule the blacks. Yet you seem to work together very well. So, bluntly: Are you equal?”

Rick snorted. “Hell no. He outranks me.”

“But otherwise?” Pieter suggested.

Rick’s face would have looked serious enough, except to another American. “General Baker, can I be your equal?”

“Eh? Oh, sure, Rick, you can be my equal. Why didn’t you say something before?”

“Well, you know, it’s a delicate subject.”

Pieter Jakov’s expression wasn’t cryptic at all. Before he could explode, Joh

“Please yourself.”

“How does Leonilla pee in free fall?”

“Hm. I… see.”

“See what?” Leonilla came wriggling back through the double hatch.

“A minor discussion,” Joh

Leonilla clung to a handhold and studied the three men. John Baker was tapping numbers into a programmable hand computer, Pieter Jakov gri

Delanty seemed to have trouble with his breathing. Baker said quickly, “Oh, this pocket computer isn’t NASA issue. It’s mine.”

“Ah. Are they expensive?”

“Couple of hundred bucks,” Baker said. “Um, that’s a lot in rubles, not so much in terms of what people make. Maybe a week’s pay for the average guy. Less for somebody who’d actually have a use for it.”

“If I had the money, how long would it take to get one?” Leonilla asked.

“About five minutes,” Baker said. “Down there, in a store. Up here it might be a while.”

She giggled. “I meant down there. They have… those… in stores, to buy?”

“If you’ve got the money. Or good credit. Or even not-so good credit,” Baker said. “Why? You want one? Hell, we’ll find a way to get you one. You too, Pieter?”

“Could that be arranged?”

“Sure. No problem,” Baker said. “I’ll call the PR man at Texas Instruments. They’ll give you a pair of them for the publicity. Help ’em sell more. Or would you rather have a Hewlett-Packard? Those use a different kind of notation, but they’re fast—”

“That is what is confusing,” Pieter said. “Two companies, two different rivals making such fine equipment. Wasteful.”

“Maybe wasteful,” Rick Delanty said, “but I can take you into any damn electronics store in the country and buy one.”

“No politics,” Joh

“This ain’t politics.”

There was an awkward silence. Pieter Jakov drifted over to the UV camera with its digital readouts. He ran a hand lovingly over it. “So precise. So intricately machined, and the complex electronics. It is a real pleasure to work with your American machinery.” He gestured around Hammerlab, at the containers of growing crystal, at the cameras and radars and recorders. “It is amazing how much we have learned on this short mission, thanks to your excellent equipment. As much, I think, as on any of our previous Soyuz flights.”

“As much?” Leonilla Malik’s voice was sarcastic. “More.” Her voice held a bitterness that snapped three heads around in surprise. “Our kosmonauts go along for the ride. As passengers, to prove that we can send men into space and sometimes bring them down alive. For this mission we had nothing to contribute but food and water and oxygen — and one launch to your two.”

“Somebody had to bring the lunch,” Rick Delanty said. “Pretty good, too.”

“Yes, but it is all we brought. Once we had a space program—”

Jakov interrupted in rapid-fire Russian. He spoke too rapidly for Joh

She answered with a short, sharp syllable and then continued. “The basis of Marxism is objectivity, is it not? It is time to be objective. We had a space program once. Sergei Korolev was as great a genius as anyone who ever lived! He could have made our space arm the greatest instrument for knowledge in the world, but those madmen in the Kremlin wanted spectaculars! Khrushchev ordered circuses to shame the Americans, and instead of developing our capabilities we gave the world stunts! The first to have three men in orbit — by taking out all the scientific instruments and jamming a third man, a very small man, into a capsule built for two, for one orbit! Circuses! We might have been the first to the Moon, but now we have yet to go there.”

“Comrade Malik!”

She shrugged. “Is any of this news? No. I thought not. So we had our spectaculars, and we used up our opportunities to gain headlines, and today the best pilot in the Soviet Union ca

“Hey, didn’t mean to get you upset,” Joh

Jakov made a final remark in Russian and turned away in disgust. Rick Delanty shook his head in sympathy. What had got into her?

They were quiet and formally polite until she went into the Soyuz. Baker and Delanty exchanged looks. They didn’t need to say more. Joh

“Yes?”

“You’re not going to get her in trouble, are you? I mean, there’s no need to report everything that gets said up here.”

“Of course not,” Jakov agreed. He shrugged. “We are all men of the world. We know that every twenty-eight days women become irrational. What married man does not know?”

“Yeah, that must be it,” Joh

“And of course the State has been her parent,” Jakov said. “Her father and mother died when she was young. It is not surprising that she would like to see our country more advanced than it is.”

’’Sure.’’ Sure, Rick Delanty thought. Bullshit. If she had problems with her period she’d have told the Russian groundcontrol people and somebody else would have been sent up. Wouldn’t she? I’d have told them about space sickness if I’d known I was going to get it. I’m sure I would have…

Whatever her problem, it would be wise to treat Leonilla Malik diffidently during the next day or so. Hell. And Hamner-Brown was so close!

Barry Price laid down the telephone and looked up with excitement. Dolores had just come in with coffee. “Guess what happens next Tuesday!” he shouted in glee.

“A comet hits the Earth.”

“Huh? NO, no, this is serious. We go on line! I’ve got all the permissions, the last court suit was dismissed — San Joaquin Nuclear Plant becomes a fully operational facility.”

She didn’t look as happy as he’d thought she would. “I suppose there’ll be some kind of ceremony?” she asked.

“No, we keep a low profile — why?”

“Because I won’t be here. Not unless you absolutely need me.”

He frowned. “I always absolutely need you—”

“Better get used to it,” she said. She patted her stomach. There was no sign of a bulge, but he knew. “Anyway, I’m going to see Dr. Stone in Los Angeles. Thought I’d stay over and visit Mother, and come back Tuesday night.”

“Sure. Dee?”

“Yes?”

“You want to keep this baby, don’t you?”

“Yes. I’m going to.”

“Then marry me.”

“No, thanks. We’ve both tried that before.”

“Not with each other,” he said. He tried to sound convincing, but secretly was relieved. And yet… “Is it fair to the kid? Not having a father…”

She giggled. “Not being parthenogenetic, I’m relatively certain he has one. And I’ve a good idea who he is.”