There was nothing, however, that was a substitute for hands.
"Now that you're up and moving, what do you want to do?" he said. "You must be anxious to get busy."
"It's a funny thing but I'm not," she said. "It sounds queer but I want to look around. I haven't seen anything except what I could glimpse from the tank."
Docchi rocked back; he'd always thought of her as knowing more about the asteroid than anyone else. In a personal sense she did, having been there longer than anyone he could name. It was said she may even have been responsible for the building of the asteroid, so they'd have some place to put her. It might be true. "Go ahead. Jordan will show you around. You don't have to be in a hurry to take a job."
Anti rose a few inches to show that she could. "First I want to visit the laboratory Nona has. I want to see the ship that's after us. I know they haven't given up just because they can't land."
He felt so too though he hadn't figured out what they could do. "Let me know if anything occurs to you."
When she left, walking by preference, the responsibilities came back, Maureen and other deficients with various degrees of disability, the ship with undetermined resources behind them, stars and planets ahead of them, unknown or vaguely guessed at, mysterious. They'd reach their goal but all of the accidentals might not survive.
Anti alone was better off but there were others who were not. It was depressing at times, so much freedom and so little to show for it. Docchi went back to work but the image of the ship kept rising up out of the countless important and unimportant decisions he had to make. What did they plan to do?
Late the following day Anti returned. She marched in determinedly and sat down. It was no longer remarkable that a few chairs would fit her. She'd never be mistaken for someone else, but her bulk had diminished considerably and her weight was whatever she wanted. That the chair didn't collapse in a soggy mass or burst into flame was an indication that Jordan had found a way to neutralize the acid that clung to her without reducing the medical effectiveness. "Nice place we have," she remarked. "Didn't realize it was so pretty."
"There are others who disagree."