Free Voyagers I by Ben Bova

“Well, you’re on the right project for that.”
    But Jo said, “Who’s going to notice a little technical assistant, next to the famous Dr. Keith Stoner or Professor McDermott. No. I’m going to become an astronaut. A real one.”
    “NASA isn’t hiring.”
    “They will be, sooner or later. And women will get special preference, you’ll see.”
    “It’s not a romantic life. It’s more like being a bus driver. Just a lot of hard donkey work. And risk.”
    “But you went into space. You became famous.”
    “And unemployed.”
    “Imagine making love in zero gravity!”
    “Waterbeds are almost as good. Besides, astronauts don’t make love in orbit. They’re too damned busy. And scared. And exhausted.”
    “I don’t believe it.”
    “It’s a dull life, I tell you.”
    “No duller than being a computer programmer.”
    “Is that what you’re studying?”
    He could sense her smiling in the darkness, cradled next to his body. “That’s what my parents think I’m studying. They want me to go to school and learn a nice, sensible trade until I meet a nice, sensible guy and get married and start having babies.”
    “And they’re paying your way…”
    “The hell they are! I got myself a partial scholarship. And I work weekends and summers. How do you think I got into the observatory? I get paid for helping out.”
    He grinned at the determination in her voice. “So now you’ve joined Big Mac’s supersecret ETI project. I hope he’s paying you well.”
    “I get a full technician’s salary.”
    “Not bad.”
    “And I’m transferring to the Astronautics Department,” Jo added. “I’m going to be an astronaut and nothing’s going to stop me.”
    “Fine,” Stoner said, fighting back a yawn. “But in the meantime let’s not freeze to death.” He peeled back the covers on his side of the bed.
    “Don’t worry,” Jo answered. “We’re going to be nice and warm this winter. We’re going to Arecibo. I’m sure of it.”
    “McDermott can’t swing that much weight,” Stoner said, sliding into the bed. The sheets were already warm from the press of their bodies.
    But Jo was on her feet, searching through the moonlit room for her scattered clothes.
    “What’re you doing?”
    “I brought an overnight bag with me,” she said, yanking on the jeans without bothering about the panties. “It’s in my car. I’ll be back in a minute.”
    She was still buttoning her blouse as she went out into the hall, heading for the stairs.
    Stoner yawned and wondered briefly how she knew so much about McDermott’s plans. Then he thought about the overnight bag. The cocky little bitch! He didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry. Yawning, he decided to do neither. He turned over on his side and drifted to sleep.

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    It is said that the freezing temperatures on planets like Jupiter or Saturn, in the outer Solar System, make all life there impossible. But these low temperatures do not apply to all portions of the planet. They refer only to the outermost cloud layers—the layers that are accessible to infrared telescopes that can measure temperatures. Indeed, if we had such a telescope in the vicinity of Jupiter and pointed it at Earth, we would deduce very low temperatures on Earth. We would be measuring the temperatures in the upper clouds and not on the much warmer surface of Earth.
    CARL SAGAN
The Cosmic Connection
Anchor Press/Doubleday
1973
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CHAPTER 9
    A cocktail party in official Washington has an inbred hierarchical cast to it. Senators usually outweigh congressmen, of course, but there are all sorts of gradations among both senators and congressmen. A committee chairman is obviously more important than a subcommittee chairman—most of the time. But what about a junior Republican who happens to be an attractive woman? What about a congressman’s aide who happens to be related to the governor of the congressman’s home state?
    Lieutenant Commander Tuttle was sensitive to the subtlest nuances