Motherload | Page 6

exchanger.
The inner core of the power plant had an emergency vent to the exterior,
so as to blow plasma or super hot vapors out to vacuum should it ever
be necessary. Sally used it this time, however, to simply cool off the
core -- now shut off, but still lethally hot. When that looked good, she
took a cordless vibrosaw and began cutting through the reactor housing.
She wasn't kidding about Value Powers not being meant to be fixed! As
she worked, periodically having me hold or fetch something, she
explained how the small reactor would normally have been serviced
and rebuilt in the factory: giant automated prying tools would pop off
the housing case; other tools would extract each integrated component
and test it; the faulty emitters would be replaced; and the whole thing
would have been reassembled in a matter of minutes. An easy process,
apparently, for a robotic factory. Not so easy for people using hand
tools, and who were weightless, in the dark, and had a really final
deadline hanging over their heads.
Despite our best intentions, we did end up taking a ration bar break
after a few hours. We'd made coffee before the shut-down, and had
insulated cups of hot joe to wash the dry, tasteless things down. A
little-enough reward, maybe, but it picked up my spirits some.
Bayern had popped in periodically over the previous few hours, always
saying something inane meant to bolster our morale, and then withering
fast under Sally's sarcastic responses. He chose this moment to float in
again for an update.

"We've opened the array," I told him. "Now we have to start working
on the emitters themselves."
"Well, that's pretty good," he replied, pleased. "Sounds like we'll be up
and running soon."
"This was the easy part," Sally corrected, burning her tongue as she
checked her coffee. "Ouch! Dang it! We have days of hand-machining
and testing ahead of us yet, so just hold your water! We'll be done
when we're done, and not 'til we're done, savvy?"
"You know, Sally," he said, trying to sound like a concerned manager,
"we would all get along better if we could just be a little more polite to
each other."
"What's this 'we', Bayern -- you have multiple personalities? If so, do
you have one that's not an idiot?"
"See, now that's what I'm talking about..."
"If everybody in this tub just did their fornicating jobs, and let
everybody else do THEIR fornicating jobs, we'd all get along just fine!
Keep bothering us down here, and none of us -- not one person -- will
have to worry about getting along with anybody ever again! Is that
polite enough for you Captain Bligh?"
Bayern looked at me, but I just held up my hands. As he turned to go,
he motioned me to follow him out to the companionway.
"I'm concerned about Sally," he stated grimly, once we were alone, still
in manager mode. "Do you think she's up to this?"
"Look, don't take it personally," I replied, steading myself in the
weightlessness, "you just get under her skin."
"It's not her engineering skills that are in question here," he went on, as
if I hadn't spoken, "it's her ability to work under pressure. Can she
handle the stress of our current situation, or should I be thinking of

change?"
"Think whatever you want. Our lives are riding on Sally right now,
because nobody else aboard -- myself included -- can hand-machine
those spheres without ruining them. Just give her some space, Bayern,
and she'll get us home."
He chewed it over like he had a choice and then shook his head with a
sigh.
"Okay, Ejoq. But I want you to watch her closely. If she starts to crack,
we have to be ready to take action."
He shoved off and floated down the companionway until he had to take
a corner, then smacked right into the bulkhead with a painful oomph.
After that he floundered off out of sight. I'd known bigger fools in my
time -- even ones who were ostensibly in charge -- but this was an
emergency. If he kept bugging Sally, we'd have to tie him up and gag
him.
She was still fuming when I returned to Engineering.
"Is Bayern talking fecals about me, Ejoq?! I'll space him, I swear it!"
"Sally, please don't sweat a moron. I mean, why does he bug you so
much?"
She grumbled inarticulately, and turned away to the exposed magnetics.
I thought that would be her only reply, but after nearly a minute of
silence, she spoke again without turning around. Her voice was quiet
and sounded fatigued, as if she'd been running a marathon.
"Every time I look at Bayern, I see my first husband. He