Eating was no longer a pleasant pastime. It was, rather, a full-scale operation. This distressed Ted because he was a boy with an unusually large appetite, and weightlessness somehow took the edge off his hunger. At least, he attributed his loss of appetite to the weightless condition inside the rocket. Eating his meals alone, separate from the other men, may have had something to do with it.
At the end of their first day out from the Station, Ted was physically exhausted. And he soon discovered that sleeping was another pleasure which had been complicated by the peculiar properties of weightlessness.
It was conceivably possible to simply stretch out in mid-air and go to sleep that way. Barring any sudden jar, the body would simply hang there until it drifted off to sleep. Ted found this wasn’t the case. Every time he breathed, he found himself drifting over toward one or another of the bulkheads. When he finally settled himself close to one of the bulkheads, preventing any further drifting, he was surprised to discover he was slowly being sucked toward the intake grill of the air-conditioning system.
He gave it up as a bad try, and ended up by strapping himself into his couch, where he spent a tossless night-and, as a result, a sleepless one. He was not used to being strapped down in bed. He was a sprawling sleeper, and his inability to turn and toss at will kept him awake most of the night.
That was how he discovered the loose rivet.
He was lying on the couch, the straps across his waist and chest annoying the life out of him. He stared up at the overhead, tracing the pattern of rivets with his eyes. He decided to count the rivets, using them as substitutes for sheep. He started with the first rivet near the instrument panel, working his way aft, over his head, down the side of the bulkhead, and then across the deck. When he was back from where he’d started, he’d counted one hundred and thirteen rivets, and he then began on the rivets that ran athwartships.
He had reached one hundred and fifty-four when he saw the rivet hanging from the overhead. At first he thought his mind was just fuzzy from lack of sleep. He stared at the loose rivet, trying to decide whether its apparent looseness was simply an optical illusion, a trick being played by the shadows and the flickering lights of the instrument panel.
Undecided, he loosened his safety belts and shoved off from the couch, floating quickly across the cabin to the overhead. He hung beneath the questioned rivet, his eyes close to the overhead. Tentatively, he reached out to touch it, surprised when it almost fell out in his hands.
“Captain Merola!” he called.
The steady breathing of the other men filled the cabin, giving it the warm atmosphere of sleepy contentment.
“Captain Merola!” he shouted, his voice louder this time.
“Hm? Huh? What?” Merola stirred on his couch, straining against the straps for an instant and then sinking back against the cushion.
“Captain!” Ted pushed his fist against the overhead, dropped quickly to the captain’s couch. “Captain, wake up!”
Merola turned his head away from Ted. “No,” he mumbled. “Go ‘way.”
Ted grabbed his shoulder and began to shake the man. “Come on,” he pleaded, “wake up.”
Merola’s eyes popped open suddenly, alert instantly. He twisted his head to one side, the alert cocker spaniel look on his face again. “What is it, Baker?” he asked quickly.
“A loose rivet, sir. In the overhead.”
“Yes, sir. I just happened to see it while…”
“Where?”
Ted pointed. “Up there, sir. I can show you.”
Merola had already unbuckled his belts and he sat upright now. “Dan!” he called. “Roll out, Dan. On the double!”
Forbes was up so quickly it seemed as if he had been awake all the time. He swung out of his couch and pushed himself in the direction of the other two.
“What is it, George?” he whispered.
Ted was suddenly excited. The figures hovering in the darkness, the excited whispers, all contributed to a sense of intrigue that was rapidly growing inside him. For a moment, he felt as if he were one of the crew. He felt as he had at the Academy, on the occasions when the boys had staged midnight raids on the mess hall.
“Baker’s found a loose rivet. Where is it, Baker?”
Ted shoved off for the overhead, mentally counting the rivets as he drifted by. “This one, sir.”
Both Merola and Forbes were instantly beside him.
“It’s loose all right,” Merola said. “Almost falling out. Good work, Baker.”
Forbes grunted.
“Well have to pound it back home and then weld some strips over it to keep it in place,” Merola said.
“You can get back to bed,” Forbes told Ted.
“Can’t I help, sir?”
“Get back to bed,” Forbes insisted.
Ted reluctantly drifted down to his couch, tightening the belts over his body. He saw a flashlight go into play as Merola rummaged in the tool locker for the equipment he needed. The two officers spoke in hushed whispers, reluctant to wake either of the two doctors.