“You willin’ to bet on that?” Pancho asked.

“Nobody can stand vacuum for ninety seconds. It’d blow your eyeballs out.”

Pancho smiled toothily. “How much money are you ready to put against it?”

“How can we collect off you after you’re dead?”

“Or brain-damaged.”

“She’s already brain-damaged if she thinks she can suck vacuum for ninety seconds.”

“I’ll put my money in an escrow account for the five of you to withdraw in case of my death or incapacitation,” Pancho said calmly.

“Yeah, sure.”

Pointing to the phone on the wall, next to the sandwich dispenser, she said, “Electronic funds transfer. Takes all of two minutes to set up.” They fell silent.

“How much?” Pancho said, watching their eyes.

“A week’s pay,” snapped one of the men.

“A month’s pay,” Pancho said.

“A whole month?”

“Why not? You’re so freakin’ sure I can’t do it, why not bet a month’s pay? I’ll put five months worth of mine in the escrow account, so you’ll each be covered.”

“A month’s pay.”

In the end they had agreed to it. Pancho knew that they figured she’d chicken out after twenty-thirty seconds and they’d have her money without her killing herself. She figured otherwise.

So she used the galley phone to call her bank in Lubbock. A few taps on the phone’s touchtone keypad and she had set up a new account and dumped five months’ pay into it. All five of the other jocks watched the phone’s tiny screen to make certain Pancho wasn’t playing any tricks.

Then each of them in turn called their banks and deposited a month’s pay into Pancho’s new account. Pancho listened to the singsong beeping of the phone as she laid her plans for the coming challenge.

Pancho suggested they use the airlock down at the far end of the maintenance module. “We don’t want some science geek poppin’ in on us and gettin’ so torqued he punches the safety alarm,” she said.