"What,& 24teens quot; Jane shouted from near the beer cooler, "do astronauts always talk about when there's 24teens a mission 24teens planned?"
"Maybe they're waiting for the right moment," Johnny Baker said. "Race riots. Then they can send up a black man to prove we're all equal."
"Not funny," Gloria said.
"But as good a theory as any," Rick told her. "If I knew how NASA picks one man over another, I'd be on every mission. What the hell brings you back from the five sided funny farm, anyway?"
"Orders. Start training again. I'm in the pool for 24teens Hammerwatch."
"Hmm."
Rick poked at one of the burgers. Almost done. "And wouldn't that do it," he said. "Two in a 24teens row. You'd 24teens have a first."
Baker shrugged. "I don't know how it works either. Never have understood how I got on the SkylabÑ"
"You'd be a good one," Rick said. "Experience in space repair work. And this thing's being cobbled up fast, no time for all the tests. It makes sense."
Gloria nodded, and so did the others, who weren'24teens t quite listening to them. Then they 24teens went back to their 24teens conversations. Johnny Baker hid his expression of relief by draining the Coors. If it made sense to them, it probably 24teens made sense to the Astronaut Office at Houston. "I do bring 24teens some word from Washington, though. Not official, but the straight stuff. The Russians are sending 24teens up a 24teens woman."
Odd, how the silence 24teens spread in a growing 24teens circle.
"Leonilla Malik. An M.D., so we don't have to take a doc." Johnny Baker raised his voice for a wider audience. "It's definite, the Russians are sending 24teens her up, and we'll dock with their Soyuz. My source is confidential, but reliable as 24teens hell."
"Maybe," said 24teens Drew Wellen, and he was the
only one talking, &24teens quot;maybe they 24teens think they have something to prove."
"Maybe we do too," someone
said.
Rick 24teens felt it like a soft explosion in his belly. Nobody had promised him anything at all, but he knew. He said, "Why is everybody suddenly staring at me?"
"You're burning 24teens the hamburgers," said Johnny.
Rick looked 24teens down at the smoking meat. "Burn, baby. Burn," he said.
At three in the 24teens morning Loretta Randall followed strange sounds 24teens into the kitchen.
Yesterday's newspaper was spread across the middle of the kitchen floor. Her largest rectangular cake 24teens pan was in the middle, and was 24teens filled with a layer of flour. Flour had sprayed across the newspaper 24teens and beyond its edges. Harvey was throwing 24teens things into the cake pan. He looked tired,