Free The Aftermath by Ben Bova Page A

was one of the vessels in orbit around Ceres when the attack started.
    Victor pounded on the comm key. “ Elsinore, this is Syracuse. What’s left of it, anyway.”
    A woman’s voice replied, “We have you in sight. Will rendezvous with you in twenty minutes. Be prepared to come aboard.”
    Victor wanted to kiss her, whoever she was. But then he remembered, “I don’t have a suit. I can’t go EVA.”
    Several heartbeats’ silence. Then a man’s voice answered, “Very well, we will send a shuttlecraft and mate to your airlock.”
    â€œThank you,” Victor said fervently. He had never felt so grateful in his life. “Thank you. Thank you.”
    *   *   *
    After dinner Theo was so tired that all he wanted was to crawl into his bunk and sleep. But as he got up from the galley’s narrow table, Angie said, “Thee, isn’t there anything I can do to help you?”
    He looked down at his sister. Was she asking out of a sense of duty, or because their mother had told her to? She looked sincere.
    â€œI mean,” Angie went on, “I just sit around here all day with nothing to do but keep the kitchen appliances in working order.”
    â€œYou’re helping me work out our diets,” Pauline said, from the sink where she was scraping dishes and putting them into the microwave dishwasher. Instead of using precious water, the dishwasher blasted everything clean with pulses of high-power microwaves. Theo wondered if it wouldn’t be better to wash the dishes with recycled water than use the fusion reactor’s dwindling fuel supply to power the microwave cleaner.
    â€œMom, that’s nothing more than busywork,” Angie said. “I want to do something useful. ”
    Theo was impressed. Angie had never shown a desire to be useful before. Their parents had always raised Angie to be a little queen, he thought, lording it over him while Mom pampered her. Maybe her telling me about her boyfriend is bringing us closer together, he thought. But then a different voice in his head sneered, Or maybe she just wants to stay close to you to make sure you don’t tell Mom about her love life.
    â€œDon’t look so surprised, Thee!” Angie demanded. “What can I do to help you?”
    He blinked, then grinned. “Well…” he started, drawing out the word, “most of what I’m doing in the workshop is dogwork chemistry: mixing things and seeing if the mixtures have the conductivity I need for repainting the antennas.…”
    â€œI could help you do that, couldn’t I?” Angie asked. “I mean, you could tell me what to do and I could do it.”
    Slowly he nodded. “Yeah. I guess so.”
    â€œGood!” Angela seemed genuinely pleased. “Tomorrow morning I’ll go to the workshop with you.”
    Theo glanced at his mother, still by the sink. She was smiling. Did Mom get Angie to do this? he wondered. With a mental shrug, he said to himself, Doesn’t matter. Maybe Mom talked Angie into it, or maybe Angie’s growing up and trying to take some responsibilities. Or maybe she just wants to keep an eye on me now that I know about her boyfriend. Whichever, it’s okay.
    If my spoiled brat sister actually lets me tell her what to do in the workshop, he added.

TORCH SHIP ELSINORE
    It’s a freaking floating palace, Victor thought as the two uniformed crew members—one man and one woman—led him through the carpeted corridors and spacious lounges of the Elsinore.
    The lounges were empty and quiet, the corridors nearly so. The crew seemed to far outnumber the passengers.
    The same two crew members had flown a shuttlecraft and plucked Victor from the command pod that had been his home for nearly two weeks. They had delivered him to Elsinore ’s small but well-stocked infirmary, where a pair of medics—again, one woman and one man—checked him