"Good morning, Nick—or good evening, if you like. Let's go up to the control cabin and see Garcia."
For a very brief moment, Pappas considered. Although the Tang was in free fall, he was very conscious of the weight of the gun concealed inside his jacket. He might use it now, but the sound would bring Garcia. Better to bluff it through. The other two might not be suspicious yet, and in a pinch he had the advantage that they weren't armed. "Sure," he said, and pushed himself across to where Birkerod stood.
"After you," said Birkerod, much more politely than usual.
Pappas smiled uncertainly. He planted both feet against the side of the airlock opening, then jumped off. He floated down the ship's corridor to where it took a sharp bend; there he grabbed a rung of a ladder bolted to the corridor wall.
Birkerod had pushed off harder than Pappas had; he arrived at the ladder at the same time. "After you," he said again.
Pappas saw, at the end of the long corridor ahead, the open door to the control cabin. He pushed off in that direction.
Yusuf Garcia was in the ship's pilot's seat. Garcia was half Brazilian and half Malagasy. His eyes had a strong green tint which looked strange against the deep brown-black of his face. Pappas had always been a little afraid of him and the present situation didn't help that any; there was a gun in Garcia's hand.
Birkerod followed Pappas in, taking a seat facing Garcia. "What did you find, Yusuf?" he asked casually.
"Well, Arne, I haven't finished checking up on our little conjecture; the calculator over there is still working on it. But while I was waiting I looked through our friend Pappas's locker. You may already have noticed what I found." He waved the gun. "Where did you find our friend, by the way?"