Donald Moffitt - Genesis 02

of the other safety marshals and we can escort her forcibly.”
    “No, it’s all right. I’ll talk to her,” Bram said. “Go on, Marshal, I’ll take responsibility for sending her back.”
    The monitor raised a quizzical eyebrow and withdrew. Bram turned to Ame. “You haven’t rehearsed with us. There’s the question of equipment—”
    “Oh, that! There are spare space suits in the ship, and one of them is bound to fit me—it isn’t as if they had to be custom fitted. I’ve ridden with Lydis lots of times before—on trips to other branches and even to the probe. And when it comes to that, I’ve spent as much time in vacuum as anybody. If I can climb around the branches under spin, I ought to be able to manage on one of those nice flat things out there.”
    Bram refrained from bringing up Jao’s speculations on the nature of disk gravity gradients. “Are you sure you want to leave the twins alone for that long?”
    “Smeth will take care of them. They adore him. He spoils them like mad. They’re two years old now—they don’t need to have me around constantly.”
    Bram sighed. “Everybody and their gene sibling wanted to be included on this trip. I almost had a riot. I had to promise that if there are no problems, everyone who wants to will get a turn while we’re parked in this orbit. And here I am, giving preference to a descendant. They’ll have my hide for nepotism.”
    “I can go, then?”
    He gave in. “Your great-great-grandmother is the pilot. It’s her decision. If she says you can go, then you’re on. Otherwise you promise to leave quietly, all right?”
    “I promise.”
    Above, Jao stuck his head out of the hatch. “What’s holding you up? Lydis’s already lost a turn while you’ve been palavering.”
    Ame scrambled up the landing leg ladder, with Bram behind her carrying the sack of equipment. It was bulky; he felt the handle of a digging tool through the fabric as it swung against his hip.
    At the top, Bram twisted around and caught sight of Mim waving to him from the other side of the barrier. He waved back and squeezed through the hatch after Ame.
    Jao filled the air lock, huge and grinning. “Stay here a minute with her,” Bram said, “while I—”
    “Lydis says it’s okay,” Jao said. “Let’s get going.”
    A great rumbling sound filled the bay as the curtain rolled around its track and sealed off the cylindrical launch chamber. The crowd on the other side would be streaming toward holo monitors to watch the drop as relayed by the exterior pickups.
    Bram turned sternly to Ame. “You had it all arranged with her in advance, didn’t you?”
    She wrinkled her nose at him. “She said you’d only be stuffy about it, and she was right.”
    Bram shrugged and sealed the outside hatch, then, after herding Jao and Ame through the air lock, screwed the inner lid into place.
    He looked around the dome-shaped cabin. The landing vehicle was basically a squat hemisphere supported on five arched legs. It had started out as a Nar design with the pilot’s seat in the middle, but like the rest of the considerable fleet the tree had been stocked with, its interior had been rearranged during the intergalactic crossing to give it something resembling front-back orientation, and the controls had been shifted to conform to human morphology. Lydis and her copilot sat facing one of the five bulging ports—the one that had been designated “forward.” The rear of the cabin contained passenger couches—more than the current mission profile called for—storage, equipment, and minimum amenities.
    “You have exactly ten minutes to tie yourselves down,” Lydis said. “I don’t intend to sit here for another go-round.”
    “Sorry,” Bram said.
    He nodded to his daughter’s copilot, a wiry, nonchalant fellow named Zef, then helped Enry and Jao stow their gear. Ame went to a locker and helped herself to a spare vacuum suit. While she struggled to get into it, Bram hefted the clanking sack she had given him and, after a moment’s reflection, shoved it into a padded locker. “I hope there’s nothing breakable in there,” he said.
    “Nothing very breakable,” she said.
    They climbed onto their couches and fastened the arm-pits-to-hips webbing in place. Jao cranked his couch to a sitting position.
    “I want all you treelubbers to lie prone for the drop,” Lydis said. “And while you’re at it, put your helmets on.”
    She herself was sitting upright, as was Zef. Jao