The station manager waited, letting the silence and uneasiness build. Finally he went on. "The reason we're using so much water is, of course, a mystery." There was a murmur of surprise, but Doctor Bob was watching Cameron expectantly, nodding slightly. "The one thing we do know is that if we're going to make it through the winter with a sufficient fuel reserve, we have to curb our excessive consumption."
"One person has to," astronomer Harrison Adams muttered.
"So," Cameron continued blandly, ignoring Adams, "I'm being forced to announce a new rationing policy. Effective immediately, showers are being cut from two to one a week."
"What?" Geller shouted. The crowd erupted. Several turned to glare at Tyson. He had straightened in initial surprise but now was grinning sardonically, enjoying their outrage, seeming to feed off it.
"That's not fair!" Dana Andrews protested.
"Rod, you can't do that to the maintenance crew," station carpenter Steve Calhoun objected. "We get dirty, man. We stink. Once a week is too long in between."
"And I'm not going to lose my privileges to accommodate that blowhard baboon!" Mickey Moss thundered, pointing at Tyson. "He's a bully!"
"Sticks and stones, man," the mechanic mocked him.
"I'm going to break you!" Moss shouted at Tyson. "Not just here but after, when we get home! Your performance is going to dog you the rest of your life!"
"Fuck you, Mickey Mouse."
Moss was seething, fighting for self-control. "The rest of your life, Tyson."
Cameron held up his hand. "This rationing is temporary until water consumption appears to be coming back into line with projections. I'm leaving it up to the rest of you to figure out how to make sure that comes about."
There was quiet again, everyone looking speculatively at Tyson. He looked back at them defiantly, saying nothing.
"This is your fault," Lena Jindrova finally hissed, standing up to look at the big man, who topped her by a good foot. "You are the pig who is making the rest of us suffer."
"Fuck you, too, Lena."
"You are the pig like the old party bosses in Czechoslovakia, pulling everything to themselves, caring for no one."
"This whole water-rationing crap is bullshit. We've got plenty of fuel. More than we can use."
"You're wrong, Buck," Cameron said quietly.
"You are like a worm that cares only for itself," Lena went on heatedly. She pointed to the galley serving counter, where a glass mason jar held a leaf of lettuce and the curled form of Hieronymus. "Our mascot has more heart than you. More soul."
Tyson scowled, the resentment in the room toward him so palpable it made the air they breathed like syrup. You could smell the sweat, the electric tension. In a moment Cameron had turned everyone against him. "That slug?" the mechanic growled ominously.
"More brains, more work, more everything."
"Little Hiero?" The mechanic pushed himself away from the wall and made his way around the folding chairs where the others sat, his work boots ringing on the floor as he walked. He was supposed to have taken them off, as well, before entering the galley, and they left a trail of snow and grease. The others watched him warily, resentfully, none quite daring to interfere with whatever he chose to do next. He walked up to the counter and picked up the mason jar with the gastropod. "This slime sucker here?"
"Don't you touch him!" Lena warned.
Tyson held the jar up to the light. "Oh yeah. I see what you mean. He's cuter than any bitch in this room."
"Buck, put it down," Cameron commanded. He now looked worried. Tyson's open defiance hadn't been planned.
"Cool it, Tyson." Pulaski stood up, too, muscles tensing.
"I'm cool, Cueball." Then the mechanic made a sudden violent swing of his arm and brought the jar down on the galley counter with a crack. The glass shattered and Lena screamed. The slug slid a short distance on the stainless steel, braked by its own slime. Tyson flicked a couple of pieces of glass off the animal and gingerly picked it up between two fingers, holding it up in front of the crowd.
"Is this what you prefer to me, Lena?"
"You put him down!" she cried.
Norse had become rigid, his gaze flicking around the room, taking it all in.
"Do you think I give a flying fuck what any of you think of me?" Tyson asked them, turning in a slow half rotation to give everyone a clear view of the slug. "Do you think I give a diddly damn about any of you? We're all down here for bucks and glory and to punch the time card home, man. I don't give a shit about the science, I don't give a shit about the station, and I sure as hell don't give a shit if the rest of you don't get a single shower for the rest of the fucking winter. Here's the bottom line. I don't need you. I don't want you. I sure as hell don't like you. I ain't afraid of you." He held the slug closer to his face, scrutinizing it. "And this is what I think of this little guy here."
He opened his mouth.
"Buck, if you do that you're bloody dead on station!" Dana Andrews cried.
"Suck my dick, Dana." He crammed the animal in.
"No!" Lena shouted.
"Jesus Christ," Pulaski said in disgust. The crowd groaned.
Tyson chewed twice, his look wildly defiant, and then swallowed, the gulp audible. There were flecks of slime on his beard. He deliberately belched.
"Why in the name of God did you do that?" Cameron breathed, his look one of horror. He took a shaking step toward Tyson, and Norse put a hand on the station manager's arm.
"Here's another rule for you ass-kissers," Tyson said, wiping his mouth. "No pets in Antarctica."
Lena was looking at him in hatred. Pika regarded the mechanic in disbelief.
"This your idea, Bob?" Tyson asked the psychologist. "Turn everyone against me? Well, surprise, surprise, they already were. So fuck you, too."
Norse, composing his expression into something opaque, didn't answer.
"I'm crazier than you thought, aren't I?" Tyson persisted.
"You're setting yourself alone, Buck," the psychologist warned quietly.
"You're right on that one." He waited for another challenge, his look amused, but none came. "Okay? We done here? Gotta hit the showers, man."
The quiet was as thick and cold as the ice cap.
He left.
Lewis could hear the bubble of the juice dispenser in one corner.
"One shower," Cameron finally said shakily.
The others looked frustrated, furious, sick.
That night, someone nailed a piece of burnt toast to Buck Tyson's door.
It was two nights later that Jed Lewis was roused from his bed once more, again in the early hours of the morning. Cameron burst into his room and flicked on the light.
"What? What?"
"Get up, we're organizing a search."
"Now?"
"Sooner than now. Get your ass in gear." The station manager looked sick.
"What's going on? Is it the meteorite?"
"Screw the meteorite. Now something's really wrong."
"What?"
"I can't believe this is happening to me."
"What, dammit?"
"Now Mickey Moss is missing."
CHAPTER TEN
This is what it's like to be dead, Lewis thought.
The searchers had stopped on the polar plateau three miles from the dome, clambering gratefully down from the Spryte to take a break from the snow tractor's ungainly lurch and guttural growl. It was a tiring vehicle to ride in, noisy and slow, with treads like a tank and a cramped, wedge-shaped orange cab. But it could also straddle small crevices, snort its way up forty-degree slopes, and clamber over pack ice. If Mickey Moss was lost on the plateau, the tractor should spot him.
He wasn't.
There was nothing to see. Distant radio towers appearing as fine as spider silk marked Scott-Amundsen base, its dome a bump on the horizon. In all other directions the whiteness was as empty as heaven and as frozen as hell. It was amazing how far they seemed from the station. The effect was strangely dreamlike, Lewis feeling as detached as an astronaut cut from a lifeline. He didn't like being out here, unprotected and cold.