Lunar Descent Read Free Page A

As unbelievable as it seemed, this prosaic Baptist Republican no-nonsense family man was on the take from someone. The trick to finding out which Spam-can , Fast Eddie mused as he jogged down the stairs, is to watch the Dork carefully when he makes his inspections .
    Eddie made it to the floor just as the Dork was heading for the mobile ladder leading up into the Puttkamer ’s payload bay. “Morning, Gene,” he called out over the barrage of noise, pulling the ear protectors down around his neck. “Ready for your look-see?”
    The Dork turned and cast a disdainful look at the approaching bay foreman. It was Eddie Delany’s job to accompany the cargo supervisor during the inspection. Eugene knew that, but it didn’t mean he had to like it, or like Eddie either for that matter. The Dork just nodded, then glanced down at his datapad. “You had trouble earlier getting the pallet into the cargo container,” he said, peering over his horn-rimmed glasses at Eddie.
    â€œUh-huh.” Eddie pointed up at the shuttle; the bridge crane had lowered the pallet the rest of the way into the payload bay and the two cargo grunts were disengaging the cables. “A couple of bolt holes were misaligned in the forward section by about a quarter of an inch either way.…”
    â€œ About a quarter of an inch?” The Dork couldn’t tolerate generalizations. He preferred people to speak to him in metric terms—this was a person who, if asked on the street by a driver for directions to the nearest charge station, would tell the man how far it was in kilometers—but he had come to reluctantly accept the fact that he was working with other Americans.
    â€œThree-point-four tenths of an inch,” Eddie automatically replied. “Anyway, we got NASA to give us a waiver to drill new holes, so it isn’t a problem anymore.”
    The Dork nodded his head, moved his lightpen across the pad and double-checked to see if a NASA waiver had indeed been issued, and nodded again. “Okay. Send me a memo on this so we can bill the supplier for the work.” Then he turned and began walking up the ladder.
    Eddie was about to follow him up when he heard a sharp whistle. He glanced over his shoulder and spotted Lynn Stoppard standing in the doorway to Bay Three. The other foreman quickly shook his head, then ducked back out of sight. Eddie got the message; Eugene had thoroughly inspected the payload canisters in the Sally Ride . If there was contraband in any of the Skycorp shuttles, it had to be in the Puttkamer .
    The Dork was in the bucket of the cherry picker by the time Fast Eddie made it up the ladder. As Eddie watched, Eugene checked the serial number stenciled on the outside of the first of the two cargo canisters strapped to the pallet—nicknamed Spam-cans because of their general shape—against the list on his datapad, then reached down and unlocked the hatch. He pulled a tiny flashlight out of the penholder in his shirt pocket, bent over the railing and shined the beam across lashed-down plastic crates containing ball bearings, spare computer breadboards, toilet paper, glove linings, and whatnot destined for Olympus Station, the powersat construction base in geosynchronous orbit. He glanced up at Eddie, then pulled a jackknife out of his pocket, selected a box at random and sliced open the plastic sealing tape. His flashlight roved briefly over stacks of folded paper underwear. The Dork looked at his datapad again—no unauthorized jockstraps were going to make it into orbit if he could help it-then he clicked off the penlight and stood up. “Reseal that box and have the hatch locked down,” he commanded Eddie as he moved to the second Spam-can.
    Eddie watched the Dork carefully now. Ah, yes, it was happening just as it had the last time, six weeks earlier. Eugene looked at the serial number on the Spam-can, checked it against his list … then furtively glanced at