Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [66]
They floated at strange angles to each other, and shifted as in vagrant breezes, smiling at nothing. Even for Baker and Jakov it was exhilarating, and they'd been up before. For Rick and Leonilla it was sheer heaven. They tended to drift toward the viewports and stare at the stars and Earth.
"Did you bring the lunch?" Delanty asked.
Leonilla smiled. The smile was cold. "Of course. I think you will enjoy it. But I will not harm Comrade Jakov's surprise."
"First we have to find a place to eat it," Baker said. He looked around the crowded capsule.
It was crammed with gear. Electronics bolted to the bulkheads. Styrofoam packing around amorphous lumps suspended on yellow nylon strapping. Plastic boxes, racks of equipment, canisters of film, microscopes, a disassembled telescope, tool kits and soldering irons. There were multiple copies of diagrams that showed where everything was stowed, and Baker and Delanty had drilled until they could literally lay their hands on any item in total darkness; but it made for crowding and gave no sense of order.
"We can eat in the Soyuz," Leonilla suggested. "It is packed, but … " She waved helplessly.
"It is not what we have been given to expect," Jakov said. "I have spoken to Baikunyar, and we are now on our own for a few hours until we can deploy the solar wings. But I suggest we eat first."
"What's not what you've been given to expect?" Delanty asked.
"This." Jakov waved expressively.
John Baker laughed. "There wasn't time to do any real planning. Just pile the stuff aboard. Otherwise, everything here would have been designed especially for comet watching, at half the weight—"
"And nine times the cost," Delanty said.
"And then there would have been no need of us," Leonilla Malik said.
Jakov looked at her coldly. He started to say something, but decided not to. It was true enough, and they all knew it.
"Jesus, they sure packed it in," Delanty said. "Let's eat."
"You feel no effect? From the free fall?" Leonilla asked.
"Him? Old Iron Ear?" John Baker laughed. "Hell, he eats lunch on roller coasters. Now me, I feel it a bit, and I've been here before. It goes away."
"We should eat now. We are entering darkness, and we will want to deploy the solar wings in light," Jakov said. "I, too, suggest the Soyuz, where there is more room. And we have a surprise. Caviar. It should be eaten in bowls, but doubtless we can make do from tubes."
"Caviar?" Baker said.
"It is high in food value," Leonilla said. "And soon the new canal will be finished and there will be plenty of water in the Caspian and the Volga for our sturgeon. I hope you like caviar—"
"Sure," Baker said.
"Shall we get to it?" Jakov led the way into the Soyuz.
No one noticed that Rick Delanty held back, as if reluctant to begin lunch after all.
Delanty and Baker were outside. Thin lines connected them to Hammerlab; around them was the vacuum of space, brightly lit in sunshine, dark as the darkest cave in shadow.
Skylab had wings covered with solar cells. They were supposed to deploy automatically, but they hadn't.
Hammerlab had a different design. The wings were folded against the body, and were designed to be deployed by human muscle power. Baker and Delanty supplied that.
The solar-cell power was all needed. Without it they couldn't operate the laboratory—or even keep it cool enough to live in. Space is not cold. It has no temperature at all: There is no air to give it a temperature. Objects in sunlight absorb heat, which must be pumped out. Human beings generate even more heat. No man can live long in an insulated environment, whether a pressure suit or a space capsule. A man generates more heat inside each cubic inch of his body than the Sun does in each cubic inch of its surface. Of course, there are a great many cubic inches of Sun …
So they needed the solar cells, and that took work. They moved large masses—in space there is no weight, but