Saturn Rukh by Robert L. Forward Read Free Book Online Page B

and the ring seal around the viewport window.
     
    “Insert inner tube into sealing ring around smallest viewport window…” continued Seichi. With Seichi, Pete, and Chastity making sure the tube didn’t tilt, Rod and Dan braced their feet against the opposite wall and pushed the tube into the ring seal. There was a series of loud clicks as latches grasped the ends of the habitat tube, connecting the tube firmly to the viewport window frame.
     
    “Check seals for gas leaks ...” said Seichi. He raised his voice slightly and changed to a command tone. “Jeeves. Have Kitty and Puss check seals for leaks.” The computer’s inside mechbot, Puss, scurried over the ceiling, around and down under the console and around the ring seal, then returned to its nest in one of the electronics compartments. The outside mechbot, Kitty, could be heard clicking its way along the outer hull, carrying out a similar check.
     
    “No leaks observed in viewport seal,” reported Jeeves.
     
    “Push habitat into seal ring until fully seated ...” read Seichi. Rod and Dan pushed harder, and slowly the habitat tube slid into place until the end seal was flush with the holding bracket. Where there had once been a window, there was now a two-meter-long, ninety-centimeter-diameter bedroom, with a window at the outer space-facing end and a soundproof hatch-door at the inside end, ready to be “furnished” by its owner.
     
    Soon the second habitat tube was in place. It was five centimeters larger than the smallest habitat, and Sandra could hardly wait to try it out.
     
    “I’ll pop into mine and get out of the way,” she said, leaving the hatchdoor open so she could look out and see the activity as the rest of the habitat tubes were put into place.
     
    “Say ... this is roomy,” she reported hollowly, some time later. “I can even sit up in here. That’ll make it easy getting dressed.”
     
    “I’ve heard these habitats can hold three in a pinch,” said Pete.
     
    “That’s about all you can do in them with three,” said Rod. “I’ve heard two is more fun.”
     
    “Don’t listen to them, Sandra,” said Chastity. “Once you get the bedding in there, one is enough.”
     
    Soon all six habitats were installed, and despite Chastity’s protests, she was given the largest one, 115 centimeters in diameter. The smooth outlines of the conically shaped crew capsule now bristled with six cylinders jutting out parallel to the base of the cone, the six “teeth” in Sexdent. Since the viewport that now formed the outside end of the habitat tube had once been set in the side of the conical spacecraft, it was set at a thirty-degree angle to the tube and was elliptical in shape. The fixture that held the viewport window to the end of the habitat tube could be rotated by a powered worm gear, so the occupant could not only look out, but look forward, aft, or to the side by merely activating the window control. Most of the crew went to sleep with their heads under the viewport, looking up at the stars. Rod and Chastity, having seen those views many times before, would sleep with their heads inward. In an emergency, they could be out the hatchdoor and into action instantly. Dan, however, turned his viewport down, so he could watch the Earth roll by underneath, watching the lights of Houston pass under, trying to determine which of those pinpricks of light was from the security floodlights illuminating the lawn of his home—with Pamela and the kids asleep inside. He even looked for his new vacation home on the Riviera, but he realized that he didn’t know where the Riviera was, and by the time Jeeves had given him directions on how to find the location, it had passed over the horizon. He was asleep when it came by the next time—dreaming about winning the Solar Lottery. Finally, he would have enough money to satisfy Pamela....
     
    Chastity was the last one to use the bathrooms. She had taken advantage of the freedom of free fall and