"When we hit that ocean," he said in English, "I'm going to break out the raft, strip naked, and go for a swim, sharks or no...."
"Ta geule," someone said, "shut up."
The observer looked around, embarrassed at what he'd said. It was as if they were all superstitious, as if talking about Ground, even thinking about it, would bring bad luck. Each of them would have denied this hotly. But for a moment the observer looked as if he would have knocked on wood, had there been a piece of wood in the ship. After a minute the observer pulled out some processed film plates and began examining them through a lens.
Rene Duport had looked up from his radio console. There was nothing for him to do at the moment. He thought that he would have liked to be in the observer's place, or the navigator's, able to look through one of the periscopes directly into deep space. He had loved the Moon, he had loved to suit up and walk out onto the lunar dust and look upward at the sky, at the stars that did not flicker, at the Magellanic Clouds, close enough to touch. But even there, on the surface of the Moon, he had always been standing on something. He thought of the vacuum that was all around the ship, on every side, just beyond the hull, just beyond the escape hatch behind his back. He wondered what it would be like to look directly into space, standing on nothing, to see not merely a dome of stars, but an entire sphere of them, bright and unblinking. All his life he had wanted to go into space, and all his life he had known that he would. Now he did not want to go back, he wished that he could leave the Earth forever.
The research observer leaned toward the African engineer and began discussing one of the film plates with him. Rene Duport listened to them, only half interested. He thought that the African and the Russian were the only crewmen besides himself who could speak French without sounding ridiculous.
He saw the pilot abruptly bend over the control panel and make an adjustment. He said something to the Russian that Duport did not catch, the Russian co-pilot nodded and began turning a knob slowly, his eyes on a vernier dial. For several minutes the American and the Russian worked steadily at the controls, frequently glancing at each other. Once the Russian rose to open an access plate in the overhead and inspect some wiring, then he strapped himself in again and continued working his controls. The engineer left his seat and pulled himself forward to begin talking to the pilot in low tone. After a minute the engineer opened a technical manual and began reading off a series of numbers.
The research observer was watching a dial on the cabin wall.
"She's heating up," he said.
Then Rene Duport noticed it. The cabin temperature had risen during the last few minutes, already he was beginning to sweat profusely.
"C'est trop," the Russian said. It's too much.