"Mama Nilla, I gotta go now." The little quaddie wrapped all her arms tightly around her torso by way of emphasis, and Mama Nilla perforce broke away.

Andy was still wailing his indignant disappointment in intermittent bursts.

"Hey, little fellow," Dr. Minchenko paused to address him, "that's no way to talk to your mama. . . ."

"No milk," explained Claire. Glumly, feeling dreadfully inadequate, she offered him the bottle, which he batted away. When she attempted to detach him momentarily in order to dive after it, he wrapped himself around her arm and screamed frantically. One of the five-year-olds twisted up and put all four of his hands over his ears, pointedly.

"Come with us to the infirmary," said Dr. Minchenko with an understanding smile. "I think I have something that will fix that problem. Unless you want to wean him now, which I don't recommend."

"Oh, please," said Claire hopefully.

"It will take a couple of days to get your systems interlocked again," he warned, "the biofeedback lag time being what it is. But I haven't had a chance to examine you two since I came up anyway . . ."

Claire floated after him with gratitude. Even Andy stopped crying.

*      *      *

Pramod hadn't been joking about the clamps, Leo thought with a sigh, as he studied the fused lump of metal before him. He punched up the specs on the computer board floating beside him, a bit slowly and clumsily with his pressure-gloved hands. This particular insulated pipe conducted sewage. Unglamorous, but a mistake here could be just as much a disaster as any other.

And a lot messier, Leo thought with a grim grin. He glanced up at Bobbi and Pramod hovering at the ready beside him in their silvery work suits; five other quaddie work teams were visible along the Habitat's surface, and a pusher jockeyed into position nearby. Rodeo's sunlit crescent wheeled in the background. Well, they must certainly be the galaxy's most expensive plumbers.

The mess of variously-coded pipes and tubing before him formed the umbilical connections between one module and the next, shielded by an outer casing from microdust pitting and other hazards. The task at hand was to realign the modules in uniform longitudinal bundles to withstand acceleration. Each bundle, strapped together like the cargo pods, would form a sturdy, self-supporting, balanced mass, at least in terms of the relatively low thrusts Leo was contemplating. Just like driving a team of yoked hippopotamuses. But realigning the modules entailed realigning all their connections, and there were lots and lots and lots of connections.

A movement caught the corner of Leo's eye. Pramod's helmet followed the tilt of Leo's.

"There they go," Pramod remarked. Both triumph and regret mingled in his voice.