The hatch opened to reveal Ivy’s face. “My. Goodness. Gracious,” she said.
“Thanks, sister,” Dinah said, and vaulted through as Ivy got out of the way—partly just to be accommodating but largely, Dinah assumed, to avoid getting smeared with the bodily fluids of Julia’s late science advisor. Julia herself was strapped into one of the jump seats, buckled over into a fetal position suffering from the dry heaves, and keeping an eye on Dinah out of the corner of her eye.
Welcome to space! was on the tip of Dinah’s tongue, but she managed to stifle it.
“While you were, uh, busy, we flew through the Cloud Ark again. We have about forty-five minutes now on its nadir side,” Ivy said.
“Should be enough,” Dinah said. She strapped herself into the other jump seat, wiped her hands on her thighs, and pulled her laptop close. Holding it down with the heels of her hands so it wouldn’t float away, she brought up the set of interface windows that she used to communicate with robots. Over the course of a few seconds, the laptop established communication with all the robots that were within range—which is to say, that were riding along on the outside of this Flivver.
Meanwhile she pulled down a folding arm with a mitten-like contraption on its end. This was the interface for the Flivver’s external robot arm.
“Pop the airlock for me, sweetie?” she said.
“Already done, hon,” Ivy returned.
In her peripheral vision she could see Julia’s eyes swiveling back and forth, reacting to this exchange. She tried to ignore Julia in spite of—perhaps because of—her weird talent for demanding attention, and focused on the video feed from the camera on the end of the robot arm.
The airlock’s round orifice grew larger as she reached toward it, revealing the device Tekla had stashed inside.
The Lamprey was a box with a blinking light on it. On the side facing the airlock door it sported a lug, or handle. With the hand on the robot arm, Dinah was able to grapple this easily and pull the device out into the light.
“Any reason not to just ’biner it onto the X-37’s arm?” she asked.
“Can’t think of any.”
“What is it you’re doing?” Julia asked.
“Deorbiting that piece of space junk before it kills someone.”
“That piece of space junk happens to be carrying the earthly remains of a brave man who gave his life in the name of—”
Dinah said, “Ivy, you want to take this or should I?”
“I’ll do it. You’re busy,” Ivy said. Dinah could hear her twisting around in the pilot’s seat to look at Julia. She spoke as follows: “Julia. Shut up. If you say another fucking word I’ll stave your fucking head in and put your corpse out the airlock. Nothing about this is acceptable. Starting with the fact that you are flapping your gums, posing a distraction to Dinah while she is carrying out a difficult mission-critical operation to protect the Cloud Ark. You just attempted to countermand a direct order from Markus, who is in charge of everything here under the PSAPS clause of the Cloud Ark Constitution. You are up here illegally. The Crater Lake Accord specifically barred the sending of national leaders to the Cloud Ark. You have violated that commitment and found a way to be launched up here anyhow, and judging from the looks of it there was no end of dirty dealing along the way. Your vehicle approached the Cloud Ark in a manner incompatible with our safety and security procedures, endangering the lives of everyone up here, and forcing arklets and Izzy itself to expend priceless and irreplaceable fuel to perform evasive maneuvers. We were sent here on an emergency basis, placing ourselves in harm’s way and expending more scarce resources to clean up the mess that you created by your cowardly and dishonorable act. For all of these reasons I am commanding you, by my authority as the commander of this vessel, to remain silent until we have docked safely at Izzy.”
“Very well,” Julia said.
Dinah looked up from her work to see Ivy and Julia glaring at each other.
“I’m sorry,” Julia said.