starships that sent feckless, and usually obstreperous, bits of the human race off to colonize other star systems.
Of course, that still didn't mean there were a lot of vessels with nuclear plants. Even now, there were probably not more than four dozen operating in the system, all marks and missions included. But whereas cargos could be shuttled from one far-flung point of the system to another with VASIMIR drives, and shorter trips could be made by slightly higher power magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters, deep space personnel movers had to be equipped with nuclear thermal rockets. Otherwise, journeys that currently took a few weeks would take months, even years, to complete.
But since the leadership of Earth always viewed nuclear rockets as a deal with the devil, they never became comfortable with them. If anything, their necessity was an infuriating goad to the Greens and the Neo Luddite camps alike, prompting a steady derogation of anything—or anyone—having anything to do with them.
And so, trailing at the rear of the four-man boarding team, Lee Strong watched his otherwise technically competent ratings—Burns and Lewis—superstitiously flinch away from contact with the sides of the tube. Lee half expected to see one of them make a warding sign in the direction of the fission plant itself.
At the end of the tube, Finder counter-puffed his suit jets until he hung motionless before an oversized hatch fitted with immense bolts. On the private channel, he reported, “REM now up to twenty-three an hour. Rising slowly. What now, L.T.? I didn't bring a big enough wrench to unbolt this monster.”
“We don't need one. We're not going in there.”
“No?”
“Nope. Look to your left. See the panel, flush with the wall?”
“Yeah. Okay. Recessed bolts. But it looks like we'll need a special key wrench to unlock them for manual removal, and I don't—”
“You don't have the right shaped wrench-head,” Lee completed for Finder as he drifted forward between Burns and Lewis. “But I do.” He undid a small velcro-sealed pocket on the inside of his left wrist, and carefully withdrew the lanyarded key-wrench.
“Huh.” The sergeant had gone back to the private channel. “Guess that's why you're the officer.” Finder's quick smile sent a glint of teeth even through his semi-tinted visor.
“In this case, yeah. The big wigs in Geneva don't like advertising anything about nuclear access. Particularly a backdoor like this one.”
“So they entrust it to a lieutenant who'd never seen a nuke pile before leaving Luna. No offense, sir, but a lot of you guys from Earth—well, you're not exactly brimming with good sense. Current company excepted, of course.”
“Of course. And I can't say I disagree with you, Sarge.” Which was not just polite banter with the NCO whose help or hindrance would either save or undo him during his first year in deep space. In this case, the sergeant's Upsider prejudices were sadly accurate. After ensuring that every child grew up hearing an unceasing flood of invective against the dangers of technology, of space, and of nuclear power, the Earth Union's Space Activities subdivision had a hard time finding enough capable young men to serve as officers. Women were not permitted to work in the Customs Service or any of the other official spacefaring divisions of the Earth Union. Their ovaries had to be protected from the electromagnetic rapine of spaceside radiation exposure. And among the men, Lee had to admit that few of his training class had showed half as much technical aptitude as political shrewdness. Consequently, although they often failed to grasp the practical realities of life in space, they understood full well why, in services populated almost exclusively by native-born Upsiders, only natural-born sons of Earth were allowed to wear the gold braid of the officer ranks: they were the watchdogs of Dirtside interests. They were to ensure that those lesser humans born in space, and who performed all the dirty work there, never found themselves unsupervised long enough to consider turning the tables on their terrestrial masters.
Lee had finished unlocking the bolt covers with the key wrench. “They'll give to hand tools easily enough, Sarge.”
Burns' voice was hushed as he asked on the other circuit, “L.T., if the mutineers, or hijackers, or pirates, or whoever took over the Blossom hear us back here, could they—well, could they wash us out of this tube with radioactive gases?”
Resisting the impulse to shake his head at the depth of ignorance implicit in the question, Lee toggled his mic back to the general circuit. “No, Roderigo. That's not how these engines