With a smirk, Karlstad answered, “The work, of course.”
O’Hara and Muzorawa, with the two technicians hovering behind them, glided to the control panel and slid their bare feet into loops set into the floor.
“Sim one-a,” the controller’s voice announced. “Separation and systems checkout. Manual procedure.”
The panel was chest high, Grant realized. The two scooters stood at it, anchored by the floor loops, and began working their way through a long countdown, punctuated by the controller’s check-off of each action they took. It was boring, Grant agreed. Repetitious and dull.
“You said Dr. Wo was going to be part of this,” Grant said to Karlstad.
“He’ll show up.”
“When?”
“When the dull routine stuff is finished Old Woeful will make his dramatic entrance, never fear.”
I ought to be working, Grant thought. I ought to be inserting the data points from last month’s probes into the equations to see how they affect the flow maps. But instead he watched O’Hara and Muzorawa as they patiently, methodically, went through the simulation.
“This is the separation procedure,” Karlstad said. “This is what they’ll have to do to disconnect the saucer from the station.”
“It takes so long?” Grant wondered aloud.
Karlstad grunted. “You don’t want to fire your jets and find that there’s still an umbilical linking you to the station proper. Could ruin your whole afternoon.”
“But still, can’t these procedures be automated? I mean, launch crews have automated—”
“Hold it!” Karlstad snapped. “Here he comes.”
All that Grant could see was the technicians outside the tank turning to look down the corridor at something beyond the camera’s view. He heard Karlstad clicking on the computer keys again, and the view shifted to show Dr. Wo rolling toward the test tank in his powered chair. He was wearing a bright red wetsuit, with shining metal braces over the lower half of his pitifully thin, weak legs.
Wo rolled up to the tank and the technicians made a reverential half circle around his chair.
“Dr. Wo,” said the controller’s disembodied voice. “We’ve completed the separation procedure. Ready to start ignition and entry simulation.”
“Good,” said Wo. “I will join the crew now.”
No one said a word. No one moved. Wo pushed himself to his feet and stood unsteadily on his steel-braced legs for a long, breathless moment. Then he took a step toward the ladder. Another step. My god, Grant thought, he’s clunking along like Frankenstein’s monster. He’ll never make it up that ladder without their help.
As if he could read Grant’s thoughts, Karlstad said, “The deal our woeful master made with the test controller is that if he could get up the ladder unassisted, he could go into the tank and participate in the sim. Otherwise, no.”
“As if the simulation controller could say no to him,” Grant sneered.
“During the sim, the controller is god almighty. If he says no, it’s no. Doesn’t matter who he’s talking to. He’s the absolute boss during the simulation.”
“And afterward?”
Karlstad shrugged.
Wo stood uncertainly at the base of the ladder and took a deep breath. Grant felt almost sorry for the man. It had taken all his energy to make the few steps from his chair to the ladder. Surely he won’t be able—
Wo suddenly seized the rungs of the ladder and pulled himself up, hand over hand, his legs dangling uselessly. Grant could see sweat break out on the man’s face, see his snarling, teeth-gritted determination. He made it to the top of the ladder and swung his legs over the edge, letting his feet dangle in the water.
Two of the technicians swarmed up the ladder behind him, carrying his face mask, air tank, and weights. In minutes they had Wo properly rigged. He pushed himself off the edge of the tank and splashed awkwardly into the water. One of the technicians started to applaud, but when he saw he was alone he froze in midclap, a mortified look on his face.
Wo sank to the bottom of the pool and swam easily to the control panel, taking his station between O’Hara and Muzorawa.
“You’ve got to admit that he’s got guts,” Karlstad said reluctantly.
Grant agreed with a nod.
“You’ll never see me getting into that fish tank,” Karlstad went on.
“But aren’t you part of the mission?”
“Me? Don’t be ridiculous!”
“But I thought…”
“Wo put me on the team, yes,” Karlstad admitted. “I’ll be one of the monitors in the control center when they go. But that’s all! They couldn’t get me into that death trap unless they put a gun to my head. Maybe not even then.”
THE WRATH OF WO
It was boring and fascinating at the same time, watching the three of them going through the simulation. Grant kept telling himself that he should get back to his work, he shouldn’t be wasting his time this way, but he could not take his eyes from the wallscreen.
Wo was clearly in charge, and enjoying it. Instead of remaining anchored at the instrument panel as O’Hara and Muzorawa did, he pulled his feet free of the floor loops and floated easily, almost lazily in the big tank. Hovering over the other two, drifting slightly from one side to the other, Wo gave orders and did all the talking with the test controller.
“He’s enjoying himself, isn’t he?” Grant asked rhetorically.
Karlstad hmmphed. “First time he’s been able to get around without his chair since the accident.”
“No wonder he likes it.”
“He also likes the feeling of power, don’t forget that.”
“He gets that all the time,” Grant countered. “He’s got more power around here than God… just about.”
“There are different kinds of power, Grant. Right now, in that tank, he feels physically strong. I’ll bet he’s thinking in the back of his mind that he could grab Lainie and pop her and she’d welcome the thrill.”
Grant felt his face flush again and Karlstad snickered at him. “Hit a nerve, did I?”
“You can be pretty crude sometimes.”
With a tilt of his head, Karlstad replied, “Why not? Sticks and stones, you know. Words can’t hurt you.”
“I thought the biochips short-circuited the sex drive,” Grant said.
“Who told you that?”
“Lane.”
Karlstad’s knowing grin turned into a smirk. “The chips don’t do anything about the drive: That’s in the head, in the brain.”
“But—”
“They apparently shut down all the sensory nerves in the groin, though,” Karlstad went on. “That must’ve been Wo’s brilliant idea.”
“Why would he do that?” Grant wondered.
“The crew on the deep mission will be cooped up in that saucer for weeks. Wo doesn’t want any of them distracted by human frailties.”
Grant nodded, thinking, He’s taken away the sensations but left the desire. That must be as close to hell as a man can get.
“I’ve got to get back to my work,” Grant said, surprised to hear his own words.
“You don’t want to watch the rest of this?”
“It’s not all that interesting.”
“Watching luscious Lainie in that skintight suit? That’s not interesting?”
Grant turned back to his desktop and commanded the computer to bring up its active screen again. The screen saver’s fractal pattern disappeared, replaced by the same graph Grant had been working on when Karlstad had interrupted him.
“Or maybe,” Karlstad said with a wolfish grin, “watching Lainie is too interesting for you. Is that it?”
Grant snapped, “I have too much work to do to sit around watching—”
“Hold one!” the simulation controller’s voice called out. “Medical hold.”