BOUNDARY(68)

Having assessed the situation, Helen pulled a butterfly net from the wall, where it had been held by a magnetic hanger arrangement, and launched herself slowly across the room. It took several minutes, but eventually she had rounded up everything except her pen.



"Where the hell did that get to?"



Myles being non-helpfully silent, Helen started another slow survey of the room.



Nothing.



All right, she thought, let's reason this through. Which direction would it have been scattered in?



She thought back, then looked carefully along the rather broad arc that it might have gone in.



Nothing.



Then she smacked herself in the head, or rather tried to. The spacesuit thunked obligingly. She called up the record of her mishap and replayed it in slow motion, watching the pen as it slowly, gracefully, somersaulted through the air.



And slowly, gracefully, somersaulted into the megayears-old ventilation duct.



There was only one appropriate response to that level of stupid accidental coincidence. "D'oh!" she grunted. "I suppose I am now the solar system's first interplanetary litterbug, as there's no way I'm getting that one back myself. Maybe A.J. would be able to send in a drone someday."



"Well, not the first," Myles said, his tone amused. "Several other trainees have lost objects effectively permanently before. I will say that yours was the most elegant method for losing something on Phobos I've yet seen."



"Thanks. I think. Give me another pen and let me start this over."



"Certainly." The simulation shimmered out of existence, leaving a large tank with objects roughly coinciding with the Phobos control room layout set inside it. "Actually, go get yours back; it's over where the vent would be."



"Got it." Helen retrieved the pen and prepared to start the research simulation again.





It's amazing how you can sweat so much in a climate-controlled spacesuit, Helen mused later, as she finished toweling dry. I hope we have a lot of thought put into creature comforts for this cruise. It's going to be a hell of a trip.



At least the second half of the practice had gone well. If she could keep it up, she'd be ready to try real microgravity soon. They'd already tested her acceleration tolerance, which had been surprisingly high—at the same level, in fact, of trained fighter pilots. Only Colonel Hathaway had scored better.



She wasn't looking forward to weightlessness, though. A.J. had come back from his first experience looking about three shades paler. He hadn't quite lost his lunch, but apparently it had been a near thing. Still, he'd gotten over it and done his first orbital two weeks ago.



Joe, on the other hand, apparently hadn't even blinked when he first went weightless. Hopefully, Helen would have the same reaction.



That reminded her—Joe should be coming back from his first orbital flight soon. She checked the time. Yes, if she hurried she could be there for the landing.



She opened a voice channel to A.J. as she dressed. "Hey, A.J.!"



"What's up, Doc?"



"I'm going to go see Joe land. You coming?"



"I'm already on my way. Meet you there. Then we can all go out to eat before it's back to the salt mines."



"Sounds good to me."



She finished dressing, jogged down to the parking lot, and got in her car. She was careful to keep the windows rolled up as she exited. That wasn't to ward off the late autumn chill, it was to ward off reporters. Following the announcement of the discovery and the upgrading of both Nike and Ares, news crews were always hanging around the exits.



She let the window down after she passed the news people and headed for the landing strip, a couple of hours away. Her blond hair whipped in the breeze. The air was a little chilly, but the sensation felt good after all that time in a spacesuit.



She had a sudden vision of driving like this on Mars, the terraformed Mars that Ares envisioned. The New Mexico landscape she was driving through was even somewhat similar to that on the Red Planet. Now wouldn't that be cool? Well, not something I'll see, but maybe three generations from now.



Eventually she pulled through the security gate, parked in the lot, and headed for the landing area. The vastness of the dry, dusty plain shimmered in the desert sun. The landing strip, a darker ruler-straight road built to a giant's scale, seemed to waver slightly. Off to the left, the control and support buildings threw sharp shadows against the hardened soil, but their somewhat illusory coolness wouldn't allow a good view of the landing. Instead, a long, open pavilion with chairs sat not far from the control area, with a large flatscreen monitor installed in its own weatherized enclosure to one side to provide alerts and alternative views of the landing.