Birthday! Nils had forgotten all about it. That was right—he was thirty-five today. Realizing that he must have looked puzzled, he laughed. "It slipped my mind completely," he explained. "When you're on another planet, Earth dates get all mixed up."
Kerr said, "The captain's ordered you aloft for a physical check-up. It came over the radio while you were down."
Nils Borgmann stopped laughing. That could mean he'd never get a chance to make another plunge, never have another crack at an air lion, never collect that seventh bonus. They'd rotate him, put him on the mother ship and fill in on the raft with a substitute.
Nils clambered to his feet, helped by Kerr and the other man, and walked over to take a look at the air lion he had just killed. It was a good, big beast, its fur still that faint yellowish color that was bleached out on Earth. It looked something like a walrus, but without any tusks.
"Just one more," Nils said, "and I'm going to quit. I've got thirty thousand dollars in bonuses, on top of my pay."
Kerr said, "That's almost enough to buy your wife an air lion coat. That'd be a nice present, so that you could be reminded of your happy days on Uranus every time she wore it."
Nils laughed and said, "Go to hell." He was feeling pretty good again. Kerr always perked him up. After all, a physical examination might be just routine; they might find out that he could go on hunting air lions for five more years if he wanted to.
The scout came roaring over the horizon; but no one could hear it in the airlessness. Somebody saw it and said, "Here comes Erskine!" and everybody turned to watch. The scout was a gaudy red and came in low over the surface of the atmosphere. It put out its pontoons and came to a landing near the raft. Then it taxied over slowly, its jets running at their lowest speed. When it got very close it cut its motors and men in clumsy space suits grappled it and made it fast with ropes.
Erskine hopped out of the scout. You could tell who it was from the cocky stride and the colorfully decorated suit, which he spent hours in painting and shining. "Who's Nils Borgmann?" he asked. "The lucky man gets a trip upstairs for tonight. You scow jockeys will have to sleep out in the cold again."
Actually, the raftsmen lived in an air-filled bubble in the center of the raft which was comfortable and warm. But it was a standing joke that the men "upstairs," in the ship that wheeled idly in its orbit around Uranus, slept in feather beds every night with all the comforts of home except women—and some rumors even gave them that advantage.