“Now you tell me!” But would the trip have been as thrilling if she had? “What caused it to go in the first place?”
“Our weight, I think, plus an accumulation of stresses. I’m beginning to think the crevasse is fairly young—otherwise a meteor impact would have caused the slump before we did.”
“There could be more than physical tension,” Eloni says. “Near the surface, over many years, radiation will cause chemical changes and produce unstable molecules in crystalline ice. A physical shock, such as an ax, might release these energies.”
“Possibly,” Juanita says.
I look down at the ice bridge under me. If the crevasse is fairly recent, this would be even more recent—and not, I hope, have had time to accumulate radiation “energies.”
We are physically tired but the midday nap and the feeling of accomplishment leave us too hyper to sleep immediately. After rations, I suggest the idea that had led me to join their expedition in the first place.
“Randi?” I ask. “Dr. Lotati?”
They turn their heads to me.
“Are you aware of the theories of a Dr. Nikhil Ray?”
Dr. Lotati purses his lips as if he had something to say, then thought better of it.
Juanita answers. “He tries to explain the low density of Miranda and some other outer satellites, by making them a sponge of caverns. It is an innovative idea, but, I’m afraid, not well accepted.”
Dr. Lotati grunts. “I’ve met the man. His theories are unorthodox and he has this infuriatingly superior manner about him…. Well, we’ll know soon enough anyway. The IPA is finally getting around to dropping sonography stations on the major Uranian satellites.”
As “free” robot-produced resources grew exponentially, so did the Interplanetary Association’s influence on who goes where and does what. The IPA, whose main members are the United Nations of Earth, the Mars Council, and the Cislunar Republic, responds, in large measure, to politicians. They in turn respond to the media and the public—I am counting on this.
“I was,” I venture, “thinking that it might be time to visit Miranda—and that, with the coincidence in their names, Randi might be the one to do it. It would certainly be an interesting angle. Especially if Dr. Ray could be persuaded to come.”
Dr. Lotati frowns. “That would be rather commercial, wouldn’t it?” Ed contributes with a wink in my direction. He is not taking this too seriously.
“Finish school,” Randi says, “do some low g work in the asteroids, Saturn, then maybe.” She grins at me. “My world. Caves?”
“There are certainly caves there,” Juanita says with a grin, “but if they are big ones, you might be sorry about taking Nikhil. He’s already insufferable with the issue in doubt. God help us if he’s right!”
Dr. Lotati and Ed laugh heartily. Randi shrugs, and a flicker of pain crosses her face at the gesture. The shoulder hurts more than she wants us to know, I suspect.
“You can make too much of that,” Ed says. “He’s not a monster, Juanita. He can be very much the gentleman, and his conversation is always interesting. I sometimes wonder if the personality conflicts don’t have more to do with his peer review problems than the merits of his work.”
Dr. Lotati turns and tugs on his beard. “Uranus is the frontier,” he finally says. “There’s only one small inhabited scientific station in the Uranus system, in its outer satellite, Mustardseed. Within the Uranian magnetosphere, radiation is a concern.” He stares briefly at me, then Randi. “Also, I don’t want to associate the Society with Ray’s claims just yet. Let’s see what happens with the seismic study. And let’s see how well Wojciech’s presentation of this expedition is received.”
I glance at Randi. She stares back at me, intently, and the ghost of a smile crosses her face as she wrinkles her nose.
“I could use a shower,” I say—humorously. There will be no showers for several days yet.
But Randi hands me a silver foil wrapper. Her nose has decided that it’s bath time—understandable in view of our exertions. The foil contains a light towelette soaked in a cleaning solution that does not have to be rinsed. She offers them to the others, removes her coveralls, and then releases the seam of her vacuum suit. Her father turns his back to us and, facing the wall of the tent, does the same. Eloni also turns to the wall of the tent. Ed watches Randi, and they exchange a brief smile.
We are a cross section of the Solar System, and a cross section of attitudes about our bodies. I still feel a slight twinge, as if in nostalgia for an old cultural taboo, but the observer of people in me rejoices the passing of taboos. Ed, surprisingly, seems the one uncomfortable with communal bathing.
Juanita, whose family left Earth a century ago, is already sponging, oblivious to anything else. She is a well-endowed woman in excellent condition, as is everyone on this kind of endeavor. Her hair, unbound, hangs to her shoulders. It is almost all white and makes her skin look darker than it is in contrast. Her only other concessions to her fifty standard years are a slight gut and a bit of looseness on her neck and under her arms.
Randi is still watching Ed watch her, as if she enjoys it. She is a rangy young woman of jet-black hair and well defined, though not exaggerated muscles. Her female features seem like the afterthoughts of a god who in making an athlete decided at the last minute to make a woman, too. There is an intriguing hardness about the rest of her, including an untouched scar on her side. But her face, her smile, and her manner are womanly.
Embarrassed at myself for staring, I turn around like Dr. Lotati and finish undressing—applying the cleaning cloth to my body. But I love women too much to resist another look. When I do, both Eloni and Juanita are looking at me. Our eyes meet, we smile and I relax. My feelings as they watch me bathe are hard to describe—would it make sense to say that I felt first forgiven? I feel something of a sense of camaraderie.
Then Eloni reaches with both hands and turns me to the side of the tent. Its drum-tight bulge instantly reminds me of the vacuum, just beyond that millimeter of tough, impervious fabric.
I feel a damp cloth on my back, up and down, hitting every needful spot. When she is done, I return the favor. She sighs just on the edge of audibility. Almost like a purr.
I feel suddenly very good, and useful—should poetry and nature writing fail me completely, I could do this for a living. Well, maybe.
Dr. Lotati turns to crawl into his sleeping bag, and I accidentally get a brief glimpse of injuries he has chosen not to show the rest of us. Gunshot wounds? Before he can seal the side, Juanita touches his shoulder and crawls in with him.
Eloni turns from the wall then and sees Randi and me, not yet in our sleeping bags. She looks down, then looks up again, then crawls into her sleeping bag. I can’t read the expression on her face.
I get into my bag, pull my suit and helmet in with me, and seal the hood behind me. Its flaps will close and hold pressure if there is an accident while I sleep.
“Lights off,” Randi says, and the tent complies. It is utterly, totally dark. There is movement. As my eyes adapt, I glance in her direction, but her sleeping bag is empty. She is probably not sleeping with Eloni, which leaves Ed. I feel a twinge of jealousy, though I know Ed has known the Lotatis for many years, and gone on several expeditions with them.
The exhaustion of this day does not permit sexual regrets, however. It seems like only a moment, and then I awake to light, discussions about the ascent, and the smell of freshly opened breakfast bars. The discussion is between Ed and Emilio, and it concerns who is to go up the wall with Randi, to set the ropes for the rest of us.
“We need to make time,” Dr. Lotati says.