by Ben Bova
“We should use this time to review what happened,” she said, flat and cold. No room for disagreement or even discussion.
“Could we get some decent clothing, d’you think?” O’Hara asked.
“Later,” said Krebs.
She used the conference room’s smartwalls to display the mission’s data records. Grant studied the propulsion and power systems’ performance. Nothing out of the ordinary. Everything functioned normally, with smooth efficiency. No one else seemed to find any anomalies in their areas, either.
Even Pascal’s medical data showed her to be fine, until suddenly her heart rate, blood pressure, and pulse all spiked at once.
“There’s nothing to indicate the chest pain she complained of,” Frankovich noted.
Krebs snapped, “Then it was not severe enough to register on the monitoring systems.”
“Let’s look at her EEG,” Muzorawa suggested. “That loss of limb control should show something in the record.”
It did not.
O’Hara murmured, “Could it’ve been psychosomatic, do you think?”
They went through the data for hours. Two guards came in with dinner trays. Krebs ordered them to bring clothes for the three blanket-clad crew members. They ate as they talked, discussed, argued over the data.
“As far as the records are concerned,” Kayla Ukara said, frowning angrily, “nothing went wrong.”
“Not until Irene doubled over,” Muzorawa said. He looked troubled, Grant thought.
Karlstad had recovered some of his old flippancy. “Maybe she scared herself to death.”
“She’s not dead!” Ukara snapped.
“Want to bet?” Karlstad sneered. “If she was okay, Patti or maybe even Old Woeful himself would have come in here and told us.”
“They are still working on her, most likely,” said Muzorawa.
“If they’re still working on her after this many hours, she’s a goner,” Karlstad said.
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” O’Hara muttered.
Karlstad shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s like the ancient Spartan mothers used to tell their sons, ‘Come back with your shield or on it.’ Irene came back on hers.”
“I still think it’s a terrible thing for you to say,” O’Hara repeated.
Ukara glowered at him.
“Why? Are you afraid that my saying it will make it come true?”
“I—”
The corridor door slid open and Dr. Wo wheeled his powerchair into the room. He looked exhausted, drained. For the first time, Grant thought of the director as old.
“Dr. Pascal died without recovering consciousness,” he said, his grating, rough voice desolate, bleak. “All attempts to revive her were useless.”
Grant read the emotions on their faces: shock, loss, fear. Kayla looked angry, but beyond her grim expression Grant thought he saw tears in her eyes.
“Mr. Archer,” said Dr. Wo, “you will assume Dr. Pascal’s place in the crew. You will prepare yourself for the necessary surgery tomorrow.”
It hit Grant like a thunderclap. Me? Surgery? Stunned, Grant felt his heart flip in his chest. He looked across the table at Karlstad, smirking at him now.
“With your shield or on it,” Karlstad mouthed silently.
SURGERY
With growing nervousness, Grant smeared the depilating cream over every part of his body. They’re going to immerse me in that goo, he kept saying to himself. They’re going to drown me.
It had been difficult enough to chop the hair off his head and then shave the remainder down to bare skin. The depilating cream worked only on thin body hair or shaved stubble. Trying to reach his calves and buttocks in the cramped confines of his lavatory made him feel clumsy and stupid. He kept banging elbows and stubbing toes as he contorted his limbs. The cream was slick and slimy; when he washed it off it was furred with his hair. He wondered if it would clog the shower drain, then realized that he really didn’t give a damn.
No matter how many times he told himself that it was all right, that he’d be able to breathe the liquid PFCL just the way Lane and Zeb and all the others did, Grant felt the fear rising inside him. And resentment, growing into anger. I don’t want to do this, he thought, but Wo’s given me no choice. He points his finger and I get dunked into the drowning tank. It’s just as Egon said: Wo pulls the strings and we puppets dance. No questions, no appeals, no help.
He found himself praying as he washed the antisepticsmelling cream off his legs, his arms and armpits, his groin. He prayed for understanding, for acceptance, and above all for courage. Don’t let me make an ass of myself when it’s time to go into the immersion tank, he asked silently. Don’t let them see how scared I am.
Well, he told himself, if Egon can go through with it, I can. Still, his hands shook.
The harsh buzz of the phone startled him so badly he dropped the washcloth.
“Answer phone,” he called out.
From the lavatory, Grant couldn’t make out whose face it was on his desktop phone screen, but he heard the guard captain’s coldly insolent voice. “The surgical team is waiting for you. Should I send some of my men to fetch you?”
“I’m almost ready,” Grant answered, the heat of anger flushing his face. “I’ll get there on my own.”
“Ten minutes,” said the captain. “Otherwise I’ll have to come after you.”
Grant finished his washing as best he could, then pulled on a fresh set of coveralls and moccasins. He went to the door, hesitated. You’ve got to do it, he told himself. You have no option.
Seething with irritation and a growing, helpless apprehension, he yanked the door back and strode up the corridor toward the immersion center. As he stalked along, his anger gave way more and more to outright fear.
The Lord is my shepherd, Grant said silently. I shall not want…
By the time he reached the immersion center, he’d repeated the psalm a dozen times.
The captain and half a dozen guards were waiting for him. Sheena was there, too, hunkered down on the floor by the tank, munching on a pile of celery stalks. She hauled herself up onto all fours and knuckle-walked toward Grant.
“Hello, Sheena,” he said tightly.
“Grant swim,” the gorilla rasped. “Like fish.”
He swallowed hard.
The guard captain came up. “We’re running late.”
“Sorry,” Grant muttered, kicking off his moccasins. Then he unzipped his coveralls.
One of the guards whistled as Grant stepped out of his clothes. “Nice legs.”
The others snickered.
“Let’s get started, then,” said the captain.
“Wait a second. I want to—”
They didn’t wait. The captain pushed him toward the edge of the big tank.
“No, wait,” Grant said, his chest heaving with fright, his eyes wide, darting.
Sheena grabbed Grant’s right arm; she was careful not to snap his bones, but her powerful grip was painful all the same. Two of the guards held his left arm while a third wrapped him around the middle and still another lifted his bare feet off the deck so he couldn’t get any leverage for his wild-eyed struggles.
None of the guards said a word. Grant could hear his own desperate, panicked gasping, the scuffing of the guards’ boots on the cold metal of the floor, the hard grunts of their labored breathing.
The guard captain grimly, efficiently grasped Grant’s depilated head in both his big meaty hands and pushed his face into the tank of thick, oily liquid.
Grant squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath until his chest felt as if it would burst. He was burning inside, suffocating, drowning. The pain was unbearable. He couldn’t breathe. He dared not breathe. No matter what they had told him, he knew down at the deepest, most primitive level of his being that this was going to kill him.
Reflex overpowered his mind. Despite himself, despite the terror, he sucked in a breath. And gagged. He tried to scream, to cry out, to beg for help or
mercy. His lungs filled with the icy liquid. His whole body spasmed, shuddered with the last hope of life as they pushed his naked body all the way into the tank with a final pitiless shove and he sank down, deeper and deeper.
He opened his eyes. There were lights down there. He was breathing! Coughing, choking, his body racked with uncontrollable spasms. But he was breathing. The liquid filled his lungs and he could breathe it. Just like regular air, they had told him. A lie. The perfluorocarbon liquid was cold and thick, utterly foreign, alien, slimy and horrible.
But he could breathe.
He sank toward the lights. Blinking, squinting in their glare, he saw that there were other naked hairless bodies down there waiting for him.
“Welcome to the team,” a sarcastic voice boomed in his ears, deep, slow, reverberating.
Another voice, not as loud but even more basso profundo, said, “Okay, let’s get him prepped for the surgery.”
They strapped him down onto the surgical table.
“Christ,” rumbled a disgusted voice, “you were supposed to depilate yourself.”
Grant tried to say that he’d done the best he could, but he gagged instead.
“We’ll have to shave him, goddammit.”
“Get the lawnmower.”
Someone put a mask over Grant’s face and he quickly, gratefully, slipped into unconsciousness.
When he awoke he was lying on his back in a narrow cubicle enclosed with what looked like flimsy plastic screens. The infirmary, Grant realized. Medical monitors hummed and beeped softly somewhere over his head.
I’m breathing air!
The surgery didn’t work, was his first thought. I won’t be going on the mission. He wanted to laugh, but disappointment and shame washed out his sense of relief.
His legs ached. Lifting his head took some effort, but when he did he saw that he was wearing a loose-fitting green hospital gown that reached to his mid-thighs— and his legs were studded with metal electrodes. The flesh around them was puckered, red, raw-looking.
With trembling hands Grant reached up to his neck. Plastic ports for the intravenous feeding tubes had been inserted just behind his ears. They were hardly bigger than penny coins, yet they made his skin crawl, feeling those … those things inserted into his flesh. He knew that beneath his skin the ports were plugged into his jugular veins.
“How do you feel, my friend?”
Turning slightly, Grant saw Muzorawa sitting beside his bed. Zeb was smiling slightly, tentatively, like a man hoping for good news.
“Kind of dizzy,” Grant said, letting his head sink back on the pillow.
“That is normal.” Pointing toward the monitors lining the wall, Muzorawa said, “Your condition seems fine.”
“How long have I been unconscious?”
“About six hours, I believe.”
“You’ve been sitting here all that time?”
Muzorawa chuckled softly. “No, we took turns. I only arrived here a few minutes ago. If you had awakened sooner, it would have been Lane sitting with you.”
“Oh.”
“The surgery went smoothly,” Muzorawa told him. “You were an excellent patient.”
“That’s good, I guess.”
“Better than you know.” Then Muzorawa’s smile evaporated. “While you were under, we got Irene’s autopsy report.”
“What did it show?”
“Her blood was loaded with amphetamines.” “What?” Grant snapped to a sitting position despite his dizziness.
Muzorawa spread his hands. “Apparently the stimulants affected the central nervous system more strongly in the high-pressure environment than they do normally.”
“That’s what caused her heart attack?” Grant couldn’t believe it.
Muzorawa nodded.
“But why would she take uppers?” Grant wondered.
“To control her fear, perhaps. Or to heighten her reactions, make her more alert…” His voice trailed off.
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
The fluid dynamicist shook his head. “No. I have never known Irene to take drugs of any kind. Certainly not a cocaine derivative.”
“She took something from Red Devlin,” Grant remembered.
“When?”
“Several nights before you went into immersion. Uppers, he called the pills.”
Muzorawa frowned. “I will speak with Devlin. But I can’t believe Irene would put amphetamines into her system during the mission. She knew better.”
“But maybe … if she was frightened…”
“It would be very unlike her.”
“Then how did it get into her blood?” Grant asked.
Muzorawa leaned closer to the bed. “Perhaps the amphetamines were fed to her without her knowledge.”
“Somebody slipped them into her food?”
“Or drink.”
“But who would do that?”
“A Zealot.”
“Devlin?” Grant yelped.
“Perhaps.”
“No,” Grant blurted. “It’s impossible. How would he know how it would affect Irene when she was immersed in the sub? How would anybody know?”
Very gravely, Muzorawa replied, “My friend, you assume that the Zealots are all ignorant, irrational fools. That is wrong, I think. A man might be quite well educated and still a fanatic.”
“It couldn’t be Devlin,” Grant muttered, more to himself than Muzorawa. “He’s … he’s just a glorified cook.”
“He is a very ingenious man,” said Muzorawa. “Very capable, in his own way.”
“But he’s not a Zealot. He couldn’t be!”
“Why? Do you think all the Zealots are wild-eyed hysterics? A man may smile and still be a villain, as Shakespeare pointed out.”
“But… Devlin?” Grant looked into Muzorawa’s wary, red-rimmed eyes. “Don’t you think it’s more likely to be one of us? One of the crew?”
“No, not at all. That would be like committing suicide.”
“But a Zealot wouldn’t mind dying if it accomplished his goal. Or hers.”
“I cannot believe it would be Egon or Lane.”
“What about Krebs?”
“Krebs?”
“She’s weird, Zeb. I think maybe she’s crazy.”
Muzorawa blinked slowly several times. Then he said, in a voice hushed with fear, “If it is Krebs then we are all doomed.”
TRAINING
The surgeon who implanted the biochips and electrodes in Grant was a baby-faced, sharp-tongued martinet: young, almost Grant’s own age, obviously gifted and obviously well aware of his talents, impatient with his meager staff, his enforced Public Service duties, the station facilities, and especially with his patients.
“You can’t stay in bed forever,” the surgeon snapped as soon as he yanked back the plastic screen on the side of Grant’s cubicle. Two other medics stood behind him at a respectful distance, watching. “Wo wants you up and on your feet. Now.”
With some trepidation, Grant swung his legs off the bed. They felt like lengths of lumber, as if they didn’t belong to him.
“Let go of the bed!” the surgeon demanded. “Stand on your own feet!”
Grant tried it and stood there, swaying slightly, feeling as if he would topple over any second. The surgeon glared at him, fists on his hips. Two other medics watched in silence.
“All right, now walk to me,” the surgeon said, holding out his hands.
Grant took a hesitant, clumsy step. His legs hurt; stinging pain stabbed through them.
The surgeon backed away, urging, “Come on, come on.”
Grant moved his other foot. It was like dragging a dead weight, but a dead weight that burned with pain.
“Walk, damn you!” the surgeon yelled. The medics behind him retreated, keeping their distance from their chief.
Grant forced himself to take another step, then stumbled. He grabbed for the surgeon, but all he managed to do was clutch the man’s sleeve as he crashed painfully to the
floor.
“Jesus H. Christ!” the surgeon yowled. “You ripped the sleeve out of my damned shirt!”
He turned his back on Grant and stamped angrily away. His aides scampered after him, leaving Grant alone in a heap on the floor.
“Clumsiest damned idiot yet,” he heard the surgeon complaining loudly. “Goddamned clod! Wo’s going to have a stroke when he hears about this one.”
Reaching for the bed for support, Grant slowly pulled himself back to his feet and propped his rump on the edge of the mattress, panting with exertion. His legs felt as if they were on fire. I’m going to be a cripple, he said to himself. I can’t walk!
For what seemed like hours Grant sat on the infirmary bed, his legs aching, his pulse racing with the certainty that his legs had been ruined. I’ll be just like Wo, he told himself. I’ll be stuck in a powerchair for the rest of my life.
He even thought he could hear the thin humming whine of a powerchair’s electric motor. Looking up from his ruined legs, he saw Dr. Wo rolling past the mostly empty infirmary beds toward him.
Grant flinched inwardly. But as Wo approached, he felt a steely anger flow over him. His fists clenched on the bed-sheets. He sat up straighter.
He can’t scare me, Grant told himself. He can’t intimidate me. I don’t care what he says …
Wo stopped his chair a good five meters from Grant’s bed. The director looked Grant up and down, from his completely bald head to his electrode-studded, useless legs.
“I know it is difficult, at first,” the older man said calmly, almost gently. “But we have no time to spare. The IAA inspection team will be here in little more than eight days. Zheng He must be beneath the clouds before they enter this station.”
Grant shook his head sadly. “I know. I understand what you’re trying to do, but—”
“Your legs are physically strong. You can walk. It merely takes a bit of practice to reestablish the nerve pathways.”
“I can’t even stand up,” Grant said.
“Yes you can.”
“I tried…”
“Try again,” Wo said softly. “Try with me.”
