Free Apollo's Outcasts by Allen Steele

found myself able to do. Our first big workout had us bouncing off the walls, laughing like crazy even though we frequently collided with one another. Even Hannah joined the fun for a few minutes, until she sailed into the cockpit and nearly slammed into an instrument panel. After that Gordie lay down some ground rules: no more than two kids could play at a time, and the cockpit was strictly off-limits.
    Most of the time, though, we lay in the hammocks Gordie helped us string across the cabin. We'd read or watch movies, but that got to be dull after awhile; I had some novels and vids stored in my pad, but the ones Gordie had aboard were mostly loaded with tech manuals or 20th-century comedies that none of us really liked. We'd sleep, even though it was almost pointless; in zero-g our bodies didn't requireas much rest as they did on Earth, so our naps would last only a few hours.
    So we spent a lot of time talking. Or at least Logan, Melissa, and I did. Conversations with Eddie were pleasant, and he was really nice once we got to know him better, but it was a little hard to have a meaningful chat with someone who had the mind of a second-grader. Nina was smart as hell, but she didn't seem to like us very much. Melissa was always on the verge of making fun of Eddie, and even after I told MeeMee to knock it off, Nina was constantly defensive of her brother.
    As for Hannah...she remained a mystery, quiet, and reserved, only rarely smiling. She avoided both Melissa and Nina, and had as little to do with Logan or me as she could. Yet it seemed that, whenever I looked her way, our eyes would meet for a second and I'd find a warmth there which was both attractive and unsettling. She probably thought that I saved her life, and she may have been right. All I knew was that I wanted to dislike her...but how can you hate the first girl who's ever paid attention to you?
    Nonetheless, she was keeping something bottled up inside. At one point, she went to the head and didn't come out for two hours; behind the door, we could hear her crying. She wouldn't tell us what was wrong, though, and no one could get through the wall she'd built up around her.

    We were about halfway to the Moon when Gordie made good his promise about showing me how to fly an LTV. At first I was reluctant; after all, the promise had been made while he'd been trying to calm me down. Besides, I had no ambition to become a spacecraft pilot. But Gordie insisted, and I was bored, so while the others slept I went forward to the cockpit, where Gordie had me take his place in the pilot's seat while he hovered behind me.

    The flight profile called for a mid-course correction, a routine procedure that has to be done two or three times between Earth and the Moon. In this instance, that entailed firing the reaction-control rockets and main engine in just the right order to keep us on the proper trajectory. "The autopilot can do this on its own," Gordie said, "but no self-respecting pilot lets a computer do a man's job."
    Well...not exactly. The computer did most of the work, really. Once I was strapped in, Gordie had me take hold of the pistol-grip hand controller, then pointed to the two small screens directly in front of me. The screen on the left displayed a crosshatch with a tiny square in its middle and a tiny four-pointed diamond just to the right of it; the screen on the right displayed several vertical red and blue bars signifying the LTV's present speed, change of velocity (or delta-V), and rate of fuel consumption. All I had to do was use the hand controller to move the diamond into the middle of the square, and then squeeze the controller's trigger to ignite the main engine.
    It seemed simple enough, but getting the diamond into position was harder than it appeared, particularly since it twitched with the slightest move I made. I chewed on my lower lip as I carefully slid the diamond into the square, trying not let it move too far away from the center of the screen. I