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Afra.”
    “Not for long, I think,” he replied, pure relief at surviving these initial moments jolting the uncharacteristic retort from mind to mouth.
    She laughed again, idly swinging the chair from side to side. “Shall we keep score?”
    “How much can I lose before you fire me out of here?” He didn’t believe it was himself answering a Prime like this.
    “Well, I just don’t know, Afra. The problem hasn’t come up before,” she said, winking. “The others have been such blockheads, they couldn’t have capped a phrase if I’d handed them the hat! And,” she waggled a finger at him, “if you hold your own against Reidinger when he vets you, you’ll do yourself a favor there, too. Enough of this! I’ll show you your quarters.” She slid gracefully to her feet and beckoned him to follow. “We’re off for the next six hours, you know, so there’s time for you to settle in before the Station’s operational again. Then we’ll just see how good Goswina’s little brother Afra is!”

CHAPTER
TWO

    C ALLISTO personnel had better quarters than Afra expected for a moon installation. He was frequently told that Callisto had been state-of-the-art when it was constructed eight years ago. Every new safeguard device since then was immediately incorporated into Callisto’s dome. FT&T was not risking its Callisto Prime, and her station crew benefited.
    Married personnel had quarters with their own garden and recreations area under their secondary dome. Single staff had two-room apartments plus a large dining and recreational lounge. A well-fitted gymnasium center used by everyone occupied another secondary dome, reached by a short tunnel, though the locks on both ends were standing open. The Tower facility, small capsule cradles plus the generators, fuel tanks, and main water storage, was mainly underground with access in a third small dome: the passenger and naval vessel size cradles under a fourth with airlocks and auxiliary tunnels to the main facilities. The Rowan’s private residence with its small copse and garden, off to one side of the main complex, was under a fifth,while the main dome offered primary shielding to all. Emergency upright shelters were strategically situated in case of a major strike penetrating the first and second domes, and each living unit automatically sealed and had emergency oxygen supplies for twenty-four hours: the maximum time estimated for help to arrive from other stations in the system.
    Afra found his apartment more than adequate, even to an imitation fire on a hearth in the lounge room, flanked by two conformable chairs and a rather battered low table. To one side of the mantel was a complicated orological device that displayed Earth time and Callisto’s time in terms of revolutions about its primary, and a second orery depicting Callisto’s orbit around immense Jupiter as well as the erratic orbits of the other moons. If he read it correctly, he had another five hours and fifteen minutes before he should report back to the Tower.
    Although there were cupboards, shelving for tape, vids, gamescreens, and far more closets than he needed for his one pitiful carisak, there was plenty of space for other furniture, suggesting he could make his own choices of additional pieces.
    The ubiquitous communications desk was exceedingly well appointed with a patently brand-new console and auxiliaries. When he turned it on, an introductory message filled the screen, inviting him to initiate personal codes and install any programs. He was informed that he had a monthly limit of free calls to his home system, that he could order necessities from Earth on the weekly supply drones at no cost or immediately at a special rate for FT&T employees. Facetiously keying a query on his credit balance, he gasped in surprise at the amount of draw he was permitted for an out-of-system transfer, the allowance provided for redecorating and furnishing his quarters, and how to obtain downside authorization