Metafire

"No, this isn't going to work. Jill, no matter what, you can't go. You know too much, and you're too valuable here. It's like me. I can't go either." He thought for a second and realized a solution, " Jack, two other agents will go with you. Then you will just be the analyst that you are. You won't be trained as an FBI agent, but there will be two people covering you." He mused, "This'll work. A capsule holds up to six people, you will have more room than most."

"OK." Jack was getting tired of this talk. He just wanted to go. He had grown certain, no matter how unfounded in fact, that Erisa was up in space on Metafire Two. "I want Metafire Two. If anybody knows the whereabouts of Erisa in that organization, it'll be them. Those assholes."

Ferguson decided, "Right. There is a capsule leaving the day after tomorrow. I'll arrange the agents."

When Ferguson put out the Internet notice to the FBI field agents, he had taken pains to inform everybody that this was a volunteer mission. A return to Earth guaranteed after the mission, although the flight up would be in a standard settlement capsule. He was surprised that three of the agents who volunteered said they didn't care about coming back. Apparently, the idea of setting up a permanent FBI field office in space was pretty attractive. One agent wrote back that if he had to stay up, at least he couldn't be moved around anymore.