PROFESSOR UHLRICH’S OFFICE
Grant Simpson got as far as the corridor door, then realized he was being asinine. You can’t confront Uhlrich in your space suit, he told himself. That’d just confirm all his suspicions about you.
Grimly he turned around and clunked back to his personal locker. The young woman and Win Winston were standing a few lockers up, staring at him.
“Grant, this is Trudy Yost,” Winston repeated. “She’s a new postdoc.”
Grant extended his hand, then realized it was still encased in the heavy glove of his space suit. He ripped the seal open, then pulled off his glove while Winston was saying:
“Dr. Yost, this is Grant Simpson, the assistant chief of the mirror lab’s technical staff.”
Grant clasped Trudy’s hand briefly while he looked at her. Nice face, he thought. Wholesome. Little snub of a nose. Hair cut short. Greenish eyes.
“Good to meet you, Dr. Yost,” he said.
She nodded, said nothing.
To Winston, Grant said, “Can you give me a hand with the suit, Win?”
“Sure thing.” Winston stepped behind him and began to disconnect Grant’s backpack. Once that was done he helped Grant lift the suit’s hard-shell torso over his head and rested it in his locker.
“I’m in kind of a hurry,” Grant said to Trudy. “Got to see the Ulcer.”
Trudy’s eyes looked perplexed. “Ulcer?”
Winston laughed shakily. “That’s Grant’s pet name for the professor. Uhlrich the Ulcer.”
“He doesn’t get them,” said Grant. “He gives them.”
“Oh.” She looked somewhere between amused and alarmed. “I’m going to be Professor Uhlrich’s assistant, you know.”
Settling himself on the bench in front of the lockers, Grant replied as he started to undo his dust-covered boots, “Then you’ll probably get an ulcer, too, sooner or later.”
She glanced at Winston, then said, “I won’t tell him that you call him that.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Grant said. “He knows it. Everybody here at Farside calls him the Ulcer.”
Trudy seemed unsure of herself. She looked toward Winston again, who merely shrugged. Then she said, almost apologetically, “I’ve got to get to my quarters. I need a shower.”
She started toward the door as if she were fleeing from danger. Over her shoulder she said, “It was nice to meet you, Dr. Simpson.”
“Mr. Simpson,” Grant called after her. “I’m not a Ph.D. I work for a living.”
Winston laughed nervously, then started after her. “Her first day,” he said.
As if that explains anything, Grant thought. He sat wearily on the bench in front of his locker and unconsciously rubbed at the small of his back. It throbbed with a dull, deep, sullen pain.
* * *
The Ulcer was in a grim mood when Grant slid back the door to his office. Carter McClintock was already there; why, Grant could not fathom. The man wasn’t an astronomer, not an engineer or even an administrator. He seemed to be nothing more than a visiting playboy, but somehow he was always at the Ulcer’s elbow. McClintock was about Grant’s own age, but there the similarities ended. Where Grant was a compact middleweight with strong, stubby limbs, McClintock was tall, gracefully good-looking, smiling, and totally at ease. His job wasn’t on the line. His neck wasn’t in the noose.
“Come in, Simpson,” said Professor Uhlrich, his voice as cold and sharp as a dagger’s blade. Then he got a whiff of Grant’s sweat-soaked clothes.
As Grant took the seat across the table from McClintock, Uhlrich’s nose wrinkled. From behind his desk he said stiffly, “And where is Mr. Oberman? I expected him to be here with you.”
“Nate’s on his way,” Grant said. “I phoned him while I was coming here.”
As if in response to his words, the office door slid back and Nate Oberman stepped through, looking wary, troubled. He was tall and lean, loose jointed, with a long square jaw and narrow, suspicious eyes.
Although Oberman was Grant’s immediate superior, Grant had never warmed to the man. Nate didn’t take his job seriously enough, Grant thought. He had a shrunken sense of responsibility: always ready to let Grant do the work while he lazed in the background. He didn’t seem to really know very much about engineering; Grant wondered how he had gotten Uhlrich to hire him for Farside in the first place. Probably doctored his résumé, Grant thought. Maybe he even got through college that way. Plenty of hackers ready to improve your record—for a fee.
The thing about engineering, though, is that sooner or later you have to make something work. You can’t finesse your way through your entire career. The real world’s caught up with Nate, Grant thought.
“Mr. Oberman,” said Uhlrich, his voice glacially cold.
Oberman pulled up the chair next to McClintock and eased his lanky frame into it. “I heard about the accident,” he said, almost as lightly as if he were talking about the weather.
“The road you laid out was too difficult for the mirror to negotiate,” said Uhlrich.
Shaking his head, Oberman countered, “There’s nothing wrong with the road. Grant should’ve been able to get the mirror across the mountain with no trouble.”
Looking as if he’d been forced to swallow a half-dozen lemons, Uhlrich said, “Yet the mirror fell off its carriage at one of the switchbacks that you designed.”
“You approved the design,” Oberman said.
“After you assured me that it was adequate,” Uhlrich retorted.
Jabbing a finger across the table toward Grant, Oberman said, “It’s not my fault that he messed up. Probably took that switchback turn too fast, I bet.”
The pain in his back flared up again and Grant felt his pulse thundering in his ears. Nate’s dumping the blame in my lap, he told himself. And he realized it was nothing less than he’d expected from Oberman. He closed his eyes for a moment, telling himself to relax, don’t get angry, be reasonable, rational, calm.
“Well, Mr. Simpson?” Uhlrich’s voice cut through his mantra.
Keeping his voice soft, tranquil, Grant said, “I never exceeded the speed limits set by the transport plan. You can check the monitor’s record at the excursion control center. I kept to the indicated speed limits.”
“Then why did the mirror frame slip off the carriage?” Uhlrich demanded.
“Because the switchback was too tight for the carriage to negotiate,” Grant said. Turning to Oberman, he said, “Nate, I told you those curves were too sharp. I warned you we’d have trouble.”
“So you’re dumping it all on me!” Oberman snapped.
“No, all I’m saying—”
Angrily, Oberman screeched, “My design was fine! Perfect! The professor here okayed it!”
Suddenly Uhlrich looked alarmed. “I approved it only because you assured me it was satisfactory.”
McClintock broke in, “Recriminations aren’t going to help anything.”
“It’s not my fault,” Oberman insisted. “I did my job right. Grant screwed up.”
Grant fought down the urge to lean across the table and smack Oberman in his lying mouth.
“The fact remains,” Professor Uhlrich said, his voice quivering slightly with deadly anger, “that the mirror is damaged and it is your responsibility, Mr. Oberman.”
“Not mine,” Oberman insisted, pointing across the table again at Grant. “His.”
“Yours,” Uhlrich repeated. He took a deep breath, then said, “I am relieving you of your position, Mr. Oberman.”
“You’re firing me?”
“Yes.”
Oberman smiled maliciously. “You can’t fire me. I have a contract. I still have more than a month of employment coming to me. With salary and benefits.”
Uhlrich stared at him blankly, then replied, “Mr. McClintock will find some administrative assignment for you for the remainder of your contract. I don’t want you involved in any of the technical work here.”
Grant felt stunned. He hadn’t realized that the Ulcer was so blazingly furious.
Then he heard the professor say, “Mr. Simpson, you will take over the leadership of the technical crew, on a temporary basis.”
Oberman hauled himself up from his chair and glared at Uhlrich. “Okay, fine. I don’t give a shit. I’ll sit around here for another few weeks and twiddle my thumbs—at full salary. Why the f*ck not?”
Then he turned back to Grant. “Congratulations, backstabber. You’ve got what you wanted all along, haven’t you?”