pressure to go down,
though. You can wait for ice cream, can’t you.”
“Okay. I like ice cream.”
“Are you okay, Inspector?” Dolph asked when they all had
their helmets on.
“All sealed. And in much better shape than your habitat, I’m
afraid.”
They hadn’t had time to prep the inside for decompression. Bottles
were bursting, wet towels boiling, partition panels blistered here and there.
∞±∞
Three hours later, Tina was fed, changed, and asleep in her
compartment. The haggard adults faced each other across the boardroom table.
Inspector McCarthy raised a bushy gray eyebrow and sighed. “I
estimate it’s going to take you six months to repair the damage. Exposing the
interior to vacuum won’t have done any good. Most of your water pipes went. You’ve
got paint flecks, ice, and other floating debris everywhere including all the
places that should be kept free of it. So I’d guess another six months of work
before it’s ready to inspect again.”
“A year to get ready for another provisional?” Dolph tried
to adjust to the shock.
But for the maybe the second or third time since he’d met
her, Inspector McCarthy smiled. “Not a provisional, a final. I’m going to pass
you on provisional and move those items left on the fix-now log to the
fix-later.” She shot Dolph a look. “Except for one—a simple remove and dispose
item.”
“We get the asteroid?” Sasha exclaimed, wonder in her voice.
“Provisionally. And I have another proposition.”
Dolph tensed. Too good to be true usually was. “Yes?”
“I happen to have a number of things in my cargo tanks that
you can use. I’ll have to collect their cost from you, so that I can replace
them and be ready for the next newcomers who get in trouble. With my
provisional, the Pallas branch of the Asteroid Development Fund should give you
a loan.”
He set his mouth. At exorbitant terms no doubt. What they
give with one hand, they take... No. No, that attitude was a one-way ticket to
more trouble, he told himself.
Sasha looked at him, clearly worried. Was she more worried
about undertaking a loan, or at his potential reaction? Probably both.
“Darling,” he said, we have to trust someone. Inspector
McCarthy just risked her life for Tina.”
Sasha exhaled and grinned, eyes glistening.
“Good, Dolph.” Eileen McCarthy said, smiling. “It won’t be
that much compared to what you should get out of this rock in water alone in
the next year, and you won’t have to pay until you’ve been self-sufficient for
a couple of years. Now, one more thing. Could you do without Tina for that time?
I think I can teach her a thing or two on Pallas about how to live in space,
follow instructions, and so on.” Then she got a little glint in her
grandmotherly eye. “And don’t worry about Jaynes Femrite hooking her on
something. Anyway, it was a gang initiation thing and he was only thirteen at
the time. He didn’t know what he was eating.”
The cannibal. Damn, his suspicions had been right. Suddenly
the knot in his stomach was back in force. He didn’t care how reformed the man
was... “I’m not...” Dolph began.
McCarthy grinned now. “Young man, the look on your face! That’s
got to be the oldest yarn in the Belt, and I’m the one who would know. I
invented it so people wouldn’t take him for a wimp!”
His breath left him at a rate just short of explosive
decompression. He’d just bought the ghost station—got taken big. Tension
started to drain out of him. Yes, the whole thing was a damn conspiracy, but a
benign one. And it looked like, for once in his life, he was being given the
opportunity to become one of the conspirators. At least, believing that might
get him through the next year. He nodded and smiled, but suppressed the
beginnings of a laugh. That, perhaps, could come later. When the work was done.
“I think boarding Tina with Eileen would be an excellent idea,” Sasha broke in. “Once she gets used to Eileen a