The Burning Bridge | Page 6

after all, the Sun-maker had also wrought this flesh, atom by atom, and at the very least would think it worthy of hell. Coffin had never understood how his atheist colleagues endured free space.
Well--
He took aim at the next hull and fired his little spring-powered crossbow. A light line unreeled behind the magnetic bolt. He tested its security with habitual care, pulled himself along until he reached the companion ship, yanked the bolt loose and fired again, and so on from hull to slowly orbiting hull, until he reached the Pioneer.
Its awkward ugly shape was like a protective wall against the stars. Coffin drew himself past the ion tubes, now cold. Their skeletal structure seemed impossibly frail to have hurled forth peeled atoms at one half c. Mass tanks bulked around the vessel; allowing for deceleration, plus a small margin, the mass ratio was about nine to one. Months would be required at Rustum to refine enough reaction material for the home voyage. Meanwhile such of the crew as were not thus engaged would help the colony get established--
If it ever did!
Coffin reached the forward air lock and pressed the "doorbell." The outer valve opened for him, and he cycled through. First Officer Karamchand met him and helped him doff armor. The other man on duty found an excuse to approach and listen; for monotony was as corrosive out here as distance and strangeness.
"Ah, sir. What brings you over?"
Coffin braced himself. Embarrassment roughened his tone: "I want to see Miss Zeleny."
"Of course--But why come yourself? I mean, the telecircuit--"
"In person!" barked Coffin.
"What?" escaped the crewman. He propelled himself backward in terror of a wigging. Coffin ignored it.
"Emergency," he snapped. "Please intercom her and arrange for a private discussion."
"Why ... why ... yes, sir. At once. Will you wait here ... I mean ... yes, sir!" Karamchand shot down the corridor.
Coffin felt a sour smile on his own lips. He could understand if they got confused. His own law about the women had been like steel, and now he violated it himself.
The trouble was, he thought, no one knew if it was even required. Until now there had been few enough women crossing space, and then only within the Solar System, on segregated ships. There was no background of interstellar experience. It seemed reasonable, though, that a man on his year-watch should not be asked to tend deepsleeping female colonists. (Or vice versa!) The idea revolted Coffin personally; but for once the psychotechs had agreed with him. And, of course, waking men and women, freely intermingling, were potentially even more explosive. Haremlike seclusion appeared the only answer; and husband and wife were not to be awake at the same time.
Bad enough to see women veiled when there was a telecircuit conference. (Or did the masks make matters still worse, by challenging the imagination? Who knew?) Best seal off the living quarters and coldvat sections of the craft which bore them. Crewmen standing watches on those particular ships had better return to their own vessels to sleep and eat.
Coffin braced his muscles. The rules wouldn't apply if a large meteor struck, he reminded himself. What has come up is more dangerous than that. So never mind what anyone thinks.
Karamchand returned to salute him and say breathlessly: "Miss Zeleny will see you, captain. This way, if you please."
"Thanks." Coffin followed to the main bulkhead. The women had its doorkey. Now the door stood ajar. Coffin pushed himself through so hard that he overshot and caromed off the farther wall.
Teresa laughed. She closed the door and locked it. "Just to make them feel safe out there," she said. "Poor well-meaning men! Welcome, captain."
* * * * *
He turned about, almost dreading the instant. Her tall form was decent in baggy coveralls, but she had dropped the mask. She was not pretty, he supposed: broad-faced, square-jawed, verging on spinsterhood. But he had liked her way of smiling.
"I--" He found no words.
"Follow me." She led him down a short passage, hand-over-hand along the null-gee rungs. "I've warned the other girls to stay away. You needn't fear being shocked." At the end of the hall was a little partitioned-off room. Few enough personal goods could be taken along, but she had made this place hers, a painting, a battered Shakespeare, the works of Anker, a microplayer. Her tapes ran to Bach, late Beethoven and Strauss, music which could be studied endlessly. She took hold of a stanchion and nodded, all at once grown serious.
"What do you want to ask me, captain?"
Coffin secured himself by the crook of an arm and stared at his hands. The fingers strained against each other. "I wish I could give you a clear reply," he said, very low and with difficulty. "You see, I've never met anything like this before. If it