Part 2

Returning to the hatch, he reworked the combination to make sure it was not the lock that held him. He pushed upward with all his strength, steadily with increasing pressure, until the beads of perspiration turned into gulleys that streamed down his face.

Exhausted, he crawled back to his chair and lay across the desk littered with calculations of a landing he would never make. The soft luminescence from the _Destiny's_ nuclear engines crept forward and caressed him.

* * * * *

In the aft recroom, Eve and Mary were admiring Joseph's strength in being able to push the heavy couch over Adam's trapdoor.

Three wall panels lit red. All the mecs appeared together. "It's time for your science lesson," one said. "But where is Adam?"

"He's in the trapdoor," they answered flatly.

The panel turned green, reserving its redness for the delinquent Adam when he would choose to appear.

Mecteacher began, "Now about the Solar System...."

But the cousins didn't listen. Joseph had turned the gravity switch off and they were too busy floating upended, trying new positions, laughing at each other's ridiculous postures in the ship without bottom. The game was not a new one, but it was newly discovered and they reveled in its glories.

Month after month, they played their weightless games while the mecs implored them to come down. The constellations shifted in the visiports. New Sol grew larger and then smaller as the _Destiny_ sped toward its unseen planet.

In the recroom, the mecvoices were only noises to the trio now, annoying noises that could be silenced, they discovered, with forceful kicks to the red-glowing panels.

When all the mecscreens had been smashed and the weightless games grew boring, Mary looked out the sunroom port. She was surprised to see a rust-yellow sphere hanging in the sky. She watched it seriously for a time, frowning as it grew bigger and filled a third of her horizon. Then she called Eve and Joseph.

Mary pointed and they all stared in bewilderment. She opened her eyes wide and laughed with glee. "It's an apple," she said. "An apple in the sky!"

But Joseph wasn't fooled. Dimly he remembered something Adam had told him--something about a thing that would appear in the sky. He fought hard bringing it to conscious memory. Then he started aft toward the recroom. In there, under the couch, he remembered, was Adam. Adam would remind him what it was.

Suddenly Joseph smiled, his face flushed. He turned back to the sunroom port. He wouldn't have to ask Adam, after all. For a moment, he watched to make sure, while the huge yellow sphere swam closer.

"No, Mary," he said triumphantly. "It's not an apple in the sky. Apples are red. It's an orange!"