CHAPTER 22

A metallic sound that was accompanied by considerable vibrations, in the hull, echoed through the compartment. Pete was floating in mid air so he got to miss most of the sensations. His headset was patched into the wall and he was having to steady himself on a grip as well. As a result he did not miss as much of the earthquake as he would have liked.

When it was all over with he checked the workstation computer next to the airlock. It read that the seal was good and the clamps were engaged. Despite this, Pete checked everything manually before he actually called the arriving orbiter and gave them the ok to break the seal on their hull. Airlocks were funny things and Pete kept having to remind himself that most of this stuff was not only new, but also, built in haste. There were all kinds of things that could go wrong with it.

Everything was fine, this time around, and Pete happily, and with no small amount of relief, welcomed his commanding officer aboard with a handshake. Up here, such customs were a practical necessity since that grasp was really to help pull Jack out of the airlock.

“Want me to pipe you aboard Jack?” Pete asked as he helped pull Harry out next.

Jack knew it was only a joke. They had been very short on formalities here. It made him think though. Every branch of service had it’s own traditions and customs. The military was ripe with it’s funny little quirks and ceremonies. Most of them had started out as practical actions that had long since outlived their usefulness. There were none for starships since the Hermes was the first one.

It meant that everything the crew of the Hermes did was a trend setter and it was certainly no secret that every little thing they did was going to be scrutinized. Up till just now, Jack had never really considered just how much. He thought about their trip up here. He felt more like a Dad taking his kids on vacation than he did an astronaut, a ship commander even, who was deploying critical technicians to a front line ship.

All of that was only highlighted when Saiid poked his head through the air lock, took a serious look around, and asked, “are we there yet?”

Gina was already in the compartment and exploring her new environment. She heard Saiid and fanned the flames, “god you are such a nerd.”

Jack rubbed his chin and sighed. He hoped that this was not going to become the tradition of any future US space service. In his mind he could see some flag officer, with stars on his collars, returning the salute to the commander of the watch and barking out, “are we there yet?” The officer of the watch snappily replying in a crisp military fashion, “aye aye your nerdness, welcome aboard!” Somehow that wasn’t quite right.

When Pam finally made her way out of the airlock she looked over the interior of the ship with a very discriminating eye. She commented with a sickly sounding tone, “oh god. Don’t tell me this is what we’re going to be looking at all the way to Moe.”

At least that comment had the virtue of getting Jack’s mind back on technical matters. He took a quick look around the compartment but saw nothing of what disgusted the doctor. To an old hat, like Jack, the Hermes, even partially completed as it was now, was kind of roomy. Jack said as much.

Pam shook her head and had one of those ‘mere man’ looks that women often got, “Jack this place is worse than the clinic I used to work in.”

Pete developed this huge grin, “well with you women folk up here now, I’m sure we’ll be getting plenty of Better Home and Gardens tips.”

Pam quickly snatched one of her sharp doctors tools and waived it at him, “you know Pete. I’ve been just waiting to see what this will do in Zee Gee.”

Before it could go any further, Jack cut in with, “at ease.” He then pointed to the doctor, “good point Pam. You’re in charge of fixing this problem.”

She put her instrument up and looked shocked, “Jack I didn’t mean that I…”

He cut her off and chuckled, “well the next time you got a gripe, Doctor Short, either fix it or keep your mouth shut.”

Pete mumbled, “that’ll be the day.”

There was fire in her eyes when she looked at Pete. Jack would have put his foot down right then but that would have only sent him flying across the compartment. He did stop the escalation however, “that’s enough you two. We all got work to do so… let’s get it done.”

The ‘bridge’ was called the command module. It was in the very bowels of the ship. It was Jack’s first destination after he put on a pair of booties, with Velcro bottoms, over his shoes. There were Velcro covered surfaces all over the zee gee modules. It did not take long before the crunching sound of walking got annoying and you learned how to do what you needed while floating around. That included just traveling from one module to the next and, as Jack had quickly found out, this was an almost lethal activity at times.

There were plenty of NASA technicians and civilian contractors up here. A lot of them had very little experience in low gravity conditions and they were still reveling at the novelty of it all. Some of them would come zooming down corridors like a missile. More than a couple of people got hurt that way. They were most common when two people would be coming around a corner at the same time.

Bumping into someone on Earth was minor. Up here you could propel yourself at velocities that were really a lot greater than they felt like. You might could fly as fast as superman but, when you hit somebody else you found out your body was not made of steel. There had already been a few broken bones from such incidents.

Jack was extra careful about going down and made a mental note to inquire about putting up some mirrors on blind corners. He was actually kind of thankful to make it to the command module with no broken limbs.

As Jack pulled himself into the inner core of the command module he made a comment to Pete, “I want our people up here doing most of the work. We got too many outsiders. Best way they can know to fix something is if they helped build it in the first place.”

The perfect example of what Jack wanted was in the command module when he got there. Billy Sams was a Navy Chief Petty Officer that Jack had personally recruited. Billy had spent almost twenty years working in nuclear submarines. Jack had decided to borrow a lot of technology that went into those boats and in meetings with the sub drivers, Chief Sams had stood out. His working knowledge and practical experience with those systems was second to none. The guy was just a natural and he had jumped at the chance to sign on with Hermes.

At the moment, Billy was busy supervising the installation of the computer hardware. He looked like he was having fun. Jack figured the guy deserved it. The interior layout of the command module had been mostly Billy’s idea and it was even impressive too Jack. Most people had a hard time with translating their ideas into real world conditions when it came to space travel. You had to think in terms of three dimensions in a way that you never would in an environment with gravity.

Jack was even guilty of it and the command module was a good case in point. He had been so busy with other aspects of the ships design that his ideas for this module were very dull and unoriginal. He had just figured they would lay out floor plating to create a flat surface in something that was essentially a great big cylinder. After that, Jack just shoved all of the systems in as they came up.

Billy Sams tossed all of that out as soon as he saw the blueprints. He suggested that their floor surface should conform to the dimensions of the compartment. In other words they welded in a giant cylindrical cage that rapped around the interior and created an inner and outer deck area. The interior, or the inner core, was where all of the normal work was done. All of the computer monitors and access panels faced inward. The outer area was for maintenance only. In this area you could reach the backsides of the electronics with relative ease and pull an entire component when you had too. Billy’s design was beautiful in its simplicity and so that was what they went with.

At the moment that was not what Pete was concerned with. He cleared his throat and Jack got the hint. It also left him wondering, “when are you guys going to install my office?”

“The swing arms are next week sir,” Sams replied while deciding which of the floating screwdrivers he wanted.

The Hermes would have two modules that extended at the ends of long arms. They would be set in a rotating motion around the ship. This would create the effects of gravity by utilizing centrifugal force. Other sections of the ship would rotate in a counter direction to create an equilibrium of motion and prevent the swing arms from throwing the ships trajectory off.

The A and B rotating modules would be where the crews quarters were. The galley, infirmary, certain labs, and a gymnasium would all be in those two modules as well. They would be the hub of activity for the ship since Doctor Mike had already made it clear that access to the zee gee sections would only be for limited amounts of time. On such matters his word was final.

At the moment, neither Doctor Mike nor the swing modules were up here so Jack was going to have to command from the module that bore the name. He politely excused everybody but Pete and then both Marines waited for Harry Wu to find his way down from the newly completed astronomy lab.

“So what’s the big deal?” Jack asked his two crewmen.

Pete steadied himself on the mostly empty cage, “it’s that Barringer guy.”

Up till this point, Jack had not really had too much contact with the man. Even after Jack put his foot down with Rockmont, about being in command of the crew, Gary Barringer had shown himself to be mostly immune to that. He was always polite about how he ignored Jack’s authority but, he did not follow directions just the same. It was a case where Jack had little choice but accept the situation. Barringer knew a lot of people worth knowing. That included the CEO of the OK Corporation and the President of the United States.

“All right Pete,” Jack said after thinking it over for a minute. “He’s a head shrink. I guess we need one. Could get a lot of cabin fever on this trip.”

Harry was floating around and only occasionally correcting his drift, “well that’s the problem Jack. You know I thought I knew that guys name. Only I never heard of a single thing he had published as a clinical psychologist. So I asked a buddy of mine who would know. Barringer never has published anything past his doctoral thesis. At least not in psychology. I mean he is a humanities kind of guy, but that’s not his thing.”

“I’m not following you Harry,” Jack grumbled.

Pete answered, “he’s a linguist Jack. He specializes in dead languages.”

“Well not just that,” Harry went on. “More like his one claim to fame is on theoretical speech.”

Jack arched an eyebrow, “what the hell is that?”

Harry thought about how to explain it, “think chaos theory for English professors. You know something they invented to sound legitimate. That was his little clique up at MIT.” Harry suddenly realized where he was, “well I mean down at MIT. I guess?”

Pete summed it up for Jack, “the point is, what the hell is he doing here?”

“Playing cargo is what it sounds like,” Jack replied. It made sense to Jack. How many people would just love to get their names in the history books by making this trip? Now that he thought about it, Jack was surprised that more guys like Gary didn’t show up. There had been quite a bit of political wrangling and favor pulling to get assigned to Hermes.

That was not the opinion of the ship’s Executive Officer, “Jack, we didn’t get the first say with that guy and I think it’s a little more than…”

“Pete,” Jack said cutting the man off. “I don’t have time to be paranoid right now. I think you’re just pissed because you didn’t get any say in the matter.”

Again, before Pete could respond, Jack put a hand up and relented, “not that you don’t have a right to be. I’m just saying we’re stuck with him and that’s the reality we’re going to have to live with.”

Pete was not a happy camper but he let it go for now, “if that’s what you want Jack.”

“Not what I want Pete,” Jack replied, “it’s what I’m stuck with. Now don’t we have some real work to be doing?”