Hex by Allen Steele Read Free Book Online Page A

of their gear had been loaded aboard the Reese , then they left the lander and trotted back to the shuttle. By then, everyone else had gone aboard, and the aft pods of the spacecraft’s hjadd -made reactionless drive were already glowing. The ground crew held the ladder while Sean and Mark climbed aboard, then they wheeled it away, leaving it to Sean to close the hatch and dog it tight.
    The rear compartment was cramped; the shuttle was meant only for ground-to-orbit sorties, with passenger comfort a lesser priority. Mark had already found a seat, so there was only one left; Sean was relieved to find that it wasn’t next to his mother, who’d gone forward to join Melpomene in the cockpit. On the other hand, Zeus had decided to take the seat next to Kyra, which meant that Sean found himself having to sit with Cayce.
    â€œEverything all right?” the lieutenant asked, as Sean pulled his harness straps around his shoulders and waist.
    â€œYes, sir.” Sean clicked shut the six-point buckle and made sure the straps were tight. “Loaded and locked down.”
    Cayce nodded. There was a mild jar as a tractor attached itself to the shuttle’s forward landing gear and began to tow the spacecraft out to the launchpad. Cayce gazed out the starboard window beside them, and for a few moments, Sean was able to hope that the team leader would leave him alone. But it was too much luck to count on because the tractor had just detached itself from the shuttle and moved away when Cayce turned to him again.
    â€œThat was a rather cold reception you gave your mother.” His voice was none too quiet; on the other side of the aisle, two other Montero crewmen—the name patches on their jumpsuits read R. KURTZ and j. RESSLER—turned their heads slightly as if to listen in. “I hope this isn’t going to be a problem.”
    â€œIt won’t be.” Sean glared at Kurtz and Ressler until they looked away again, then he turned back to Cayce. “And forgive me for saying so,” he murmured, “but how I get along with my mother is no one’s business but mine . . . sir.”
    Cayce scowled at him, and for a couple of moments, Sean thought he was going to have a quarrel with his CO. Which was fine with him. He was willing to respect the lieutenant’s position as team leader; despite his shortcomings, Sean also had found a few things to admire about Amerigo Cayce in the eight months they’d worked together. Yet there were times when Cayce could be overbearing; unlike Mark, he wasn’t hesitant about pulling rank. There was nothing in Corps regulations that said Sean couldn’t argue with a superior officer, though, and Cayce had already learned that Corporal Carson was willing to take him on.
    â€œVery well, then.” Cayce dropped his voice a little. “I’ll let you two work it out on your own . . . so long as it doesn’t get in the way of our mission.”
    Sean was about to reply when, as if on cue, his mother’s voice came over the ceiling speaker: “All hands, stand by . . . Launch in ten seconds.”
    That ended the conversation, much to Sean’s relief. Grasping the armrests with both hands, he lay back against the heavily padded seat, forcing himself to relax as much as possible. This wasn’t the first time he’d been aboard a spacecraft; nonetheless, he still had to ignore the skeeters in his stomach whenever he went into orbit.
    A low, hollow moan from the engines’ pods rose gradually to a high-pitched whine, then there was a slight jar as the shuttle lifted off from the pad. There was no exhaust plume as it ascended to five hundred feet upon its negmass thrusters, then the nose tilted upward, and, with very little noise, the shuttle leapt toward the sky. Careful not to turn his head toward the window, lest the mounting g-force cause his neck to suffer whiplash, Sean watched from the corner of his eye as the sky gradually