Ricks now looked truculent and determined. Blair grimaced at the sight of him and snapped, "All right, Ricks, what is it? I don't have time for hand-holding right now." "You're going outside," said Ricks, "to help fix the strike. I want to go out with you." "What? Go to hell!" "You're going to need more than one man out there." "We'll get an experienced crewman. You've never been outside in vacuum in your life. This isn't any training course." "How did you do the first time, Blair? Did you make it?" "You aren't me, sonny." "I've been taking vitamins." "If you want that chip knocked off your shoulder, you better try somewhere else. I'm liable to knock your head off with it." "Try it afterwards, Superman. I'm a better man than you are every day in the week and twice on Sundays. Give me a chance to prove it." "No." Ricks grinned crookedly. "Okay, big man," he said. "It's your football, so you can choose up the sides." He started toward the doorway and Blair growled, "Hold on a second." When Ricks turned, he said, "You're a grandstander, Ricks. You knew there wasn't a chance in a million I'd let you go outside with me, so it was a nice safe challenge, wasn't it?" "Then call my bluff!" Blair nodded. "I'm going to. Get into your suit. But just let me tell you something first. This isn't a game. If you flub, it counts. You're going to be living on the Moon for the next two years. That's a small community; everybody knows everybody else. If you flub, those are going to be two miserable years for you, sonny. You're going to be the boy who lost the cargo for QB, and nobody'll let you forget it." Ricks' face was pale, but his grin sardonic. "All right, Cargomaster," he said. "I can handle that job, too. I can be your whipping boy." He spun around, and out of the cubicle. Fists clenched tight, Blair glowered at the empty doorway. * * * * * Ricks nervously followed Blair and Wiley out through the personnel hatch and onto the grid outside the Station. His meeting with Wiley had been a simple exchange of names, with no questions asked and no explanations given. Apparently, Wiley had no idea he was merely a passenger on the Station, and not a crew member. Irv Mendel, on the other hand, had pointedly ignored him. Ricks got the impression that Mendel and Blair had argued about him, and that Mendel had lost. Blair himself simply looked grim. It was the first time Ricks had seen the exterior of the Station. He was standing now on a grid extending from a semi-conical section which itself protruded upward from the ball in the middle of the Station. The ball contained the administrative and recreational rooms of the Station, and the cone above it contained the radio room, the control room, and cubicles containing the meteorological equipment of the weather team.