noon
She became conscious , then , of the awkward weight of her equipment , and began redistributing it , shifting the straps of her oxy-tank pack , slinging the camera from one shoulder and the board and drafting tools from the other , gathering the notebooks and sketchbooks under her left arm . She started walking down the road , over hillocks of buried rubble , around snags of wall jutting up out of the loess , past buildings still standing , some of them already breached and explored , and across the brush-grown flat to the huts . * * * * * There were ten people in the main office room of Hut One when she entered . As soon as she had disposed of her oxygen equipment , she lit a cigarette , her first since noon , then looked from one to another of them . Old Selim von Ohlmhorst , the Turco-German , one of her two fellow archaeologists , sitting at the end of the long table against the farther wall , smoking his big curved pipe and going through a looseleaf notebook . The girl ordnance officer , Sachiko Koremitsu , between two droplights at the other end of the table , her head bent over her work . Colonel Hubert Penrose , the Space Force CO , and Captain Field , the intelligence officer , listening to the report of one of the airdyne pilots , returned from his afternoon survey flight .