Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [83]
"What is admirable?" Jakov said. "I think you and I would not agree. But if you are running for President of the United States, you have my support. I will make speeches for you, but they will not let me vote."
"That's a pity," said Johnny Baker, and thought for a moment of John Glenn, who had run for office, and won. "Back to the salt mines. Who's going out for samples this morning?"
The nucleus of Hamner-Brown was thirty hours away. In the telescopes it showed as a swarm of particles, with a lot of space in between. The scientists at JPL were excited at the discovery, but for Baker and the others it was a pain in the ass. It wasn't easy to get Doppler shift on the solid masses, because everything was immersed in the tail, and the gas and dust was streaming away at horrendous speeds, riding the pressure of raw sunlight. The masses were approaching Earth at around fifty miles per second. Finding a sideways drift was even more difficult.
"Still coming straight at us," Baker reported.
"Surely there is some lateral motion," Dan Forrester's voice said.
"Yeah, but it's not measurable," Rick Delanty told him. "Look, Doc, we're giving you the best we've got. It'll have to do."
Forrester was instantly apologetic. "I'm sorry. I know you're doing all you can. It's just that it's hard to make the projection without better data."
And then they had to spend five minutes soothing Forrester's ruffled feathers and assuring him they weren't mad at him.
"There are times when geniuses drive me crazy," Johnny Baker said.
"Easy way to fix that," Delanty said. "Just give him what he wants. You don't hear no complaints about my observations."
"Shove it," Baker said.
Delanty rolled his eyes. "Where?" He drifted over to Baker. "Here, I'll punch in the numbers. Just read 'em off."
When they finished the morning observations and had a few moments to relax, Pieter Jakov coughed apologetically. "There is a question," he said. "I have wanted to ask it for a long time. Please do not take it wrong."
It struck Johnny that Pieter had waited until Leonilla had gone into the Soyuz and closed the hatchway. "Go ahead."
Pieter's eyes tracked back and forth between the two Americans. "Our newspapers tell us that in America the blacks serve the whites, the whites rule the blacks. Yet you seem to work together very well. So, bluntly: Are you equal?"
Rick snorted. "Hell no. He outranks me."
"But otherwise?" Pieter suggested.
Rick's face would have looked serious enough, except to another American. "General Baker, can I be your equal?"
"Eh? Oh, sure, Rick, you can be my equal. Why didn't you say something before?"
"Well, you know, it's a delicate subject."
Pieter Jakov's expression wasn't cryptic at all. Before he could explode, Johnny asked, "Do you really want a serious lecture on race relations?"
"Please yourself."
"How does Leonilla pee in free fall?"
"Hm. I … see."
"See what?" Leonilla came wriggling back through the double hatch.
"A minor discussion," Johnny said. "No state secrets involved."
Leonilla clung to a handhold and studied the three men. John Baker was tapping numbers into a programmable hand computer, Pieter Jakov grinned broadly, watching in apparent admiration … but they all wore that broad, irritating, I've got-a-secret grin. "They give you good equipment," said the kosmonaut. "There are not many things that we do better in space than you do."
Delanty seemed to have trouble with his breathing. Baker said quickly, "Oh, this pocket computer isn't NASA issue. It's mine."
"Ah. Are they expensive?"
"Couple of hundred bucks," Baker said. "Um, that's a lot in rubles, not so much in terms of what people make. Maybe a week's pay for the average guy. Less for somebody who'd actually have a use for it."
"If I had the money, how long would it take to get one?" Leonilla asked.
"About five minutes," Baker said. "Down there, in a store. Up here it might be