This Old Rock Read Free Page B

ask for some help?”
    “As you pointed out,” Dolph answered, trying to keep his
voice even and conversational, “we are normally several light-minutes from any
other habitation. And there’s no more money.”
    McCarthy frowned and pushed herself up from the table. “I
can see that. You’ve been cutting back rations. I have an extra fifty kilo CMF
standard—I’ll send a telop down with it.”
    Sasha shook her head, “We can’t... “
    “Did I ask? You can’t feed the baby that way if you don’t
feed yourself.”
    Sasha’s face turned red, and her smile got very tight.
    How, Dolph wondered, had this old biddy known Tina was still
suckling? And what business was it of hers? His indignation began to rise, but
he thought better of it. Fifty kilos of vacuum dried food would keep them going
for two or three months, if they stretched it. He was in no position to object.
“Thank you, Inspector McCarthy,” he finally choked out.
    “Hmmpf. We will start inspecting this supposedly childproof habitat
construction site at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow morning. I can find my way back
to my ship.”
    In an embarrassed silence, she put her helmet back on and
cycled out of the lock.
    Sasha’s face fell as soon as the door hissed shut, and she
began to sob. Dolph put his arms around his wife and child.
    “Oh, oh !” Tina squeaked, realizing something was
wrong.
    ∞±∞
    The inspection was a disaster. By the end of the day, there
were some thirty-three items which had to be fixed before provisional approval,
and another seventy-two that needed to be corrected by final approval. It
seemed to Dolph that McCarthy’s sole purpose was to prevent them from occupying
their asteroid, and when it seemed no amount of appeasing her would slow the
accumulation of items on the list, he’d allowed himself, in desperation, to
argue. At this rate, they would have to vacate before they even got to her gift
rations. Maybe that’s why she could be so generous—she was going to get it back
anyway.
    Finally, Dolph blew his gasket. The vestibule air seals had
been the final crack in the air hose, so to speak, and Dolph’s feelings had
gushed out as they shut the inner door and stood in the bright, clean, sweet
smelling entryway to the home Dolph was beginning to realize would never really
be his.
    “Ms. McCarthy,” he wailed, “those seals are in spec! All the
vestibule is supposed to do is to guide the last wisps of air from the airlock
to the ion pumps so you can open the door sooner. It’s never supposed to
hold any real pressure. It’s not a backup system!”
    “A seal is a seal. You never know when you might need it.”
    “Damn it! I’m going by the book and the book says IPA
certified pipe is safe to use outside as is!”
    “The book, young man, says inspectors are to use their
judgment,” she said in as frosty and imperious a tone as he’d yet heard her
use, “and my judgment right now is that you have an attitude problem; not
toward me—while I can see that, too, it’s irrelevant. But you aren’t attacking
your problem. You’re just filling squares on the list—not thinking, not being
proactive. This isn’t a chore you kids have to do—it’s your lives and you don’t
seem to realize it!
    “Specifically, here and now, I don’t consider your vestibule
seal installation adequate and I don’t consider your piping installation
adequate”
    “But, by the book, they are! And I’m going to damn well
appeal this, and your fix-log on the door motors. I got the certified
equipment, certified materials, installed them with certified procedures, and
you redline it! I don’t know what your game is, whether Shan Toy’s parents are
paying you, or some people that want this rock without taking the trouble to
settle on it, or some politicos that don’t like people running around outside
the grip of some power structure they can control, but it’s not fair!”
    “Neither,” she said, so softly he had to concentrate to