The three people in the tank looked up reflexively, bubbles rising from their masks.
“Dr. Wo,” said the controller, “we’re getting a sharp rise in your blood pressure readings. Your pulse is starting to spike, as well.”
“It’s temporary. Monitor and—”
“Test procedures call for a halt when a subject exceeds the preset medical parameters, sir,” the controller said, his tone respectful but firm.
“It’s temporary, I say!”
O’Hara and Muzorawa had stopped their work at the instrument panel. Glaring red lights were blinking along the panel, casting shimmering highlights in the water.
Even more reasonably, the controller said, “Dr. Wo, I have no choice but to shut down the simulation.”
“Not necessary!” Wo snapped, flailing his arms.
“But the safety protocols—”
“This is the medical officer,” a woman’s voice broke in. “This simulation is terminated.”
Karlstad, still sitting beside Grant, broke into a low chuckle.
“What’s funny?” Grant asked.
“Several things. First, seeing Wo’s macho act collapse around his tiny little ears.”
Wo was still arguing with both the controller and the medical officer. But now all the lights on the panel were a steady glowering red.
“Second, knowing that his blood pressure is going up even higher because he can’t get his way.”
Grant didn’t think it was funny.
“But the funniest thing of all is the medic,” Karlstad went on. “Old Woeful can’t muscle her.”
“The medical officer can’t be overruled?”
“Not this one. She’s due to ship out on the next supply craft. And she’s got a full residence at the university hospital in Basel. Wo can’t do a thing to her.”
“She’s shut down the sim.”
“She certainly has. And I imagine she’s shut down Wo’s plan to head up the deep mission, as well.”
The next few weeks were quickly dubbed “the Wrath of Wo.”
Frustrated in his desire to command the upcoming deep mission, the station director turned his fury on everyone and anyone who crossed his path. Dozens of scooters were summarily banished from the station, sent out to the frozen wastes of Europa and the other Jovian moons, exposed to Jupiter’s intense radiation bombardment, forced to live for weeks on end inside armored pressure suits while grappling on the ice with drilling equipment like common oilfield roughnecks.
All the technicians who worked the ill-starred simulation were relocated. Several were sent packing back to Earth, with the worst possible job ratings that Wo could write. The simulation controller was shipped off to Selene, with a stinging evaluation inserted into his dossier. Even so, they were all glad to get away with their skin still intact.
“He can’t do anything about Lainie and Zeb,” Karlstad said confidently to Grant in the midst of the weeks-long rampage. But he whispered now, and spoke of the director only when the two of them were alone. “He needs them for the mission.”
“Who’s going to command the mission?” Grant whispered back.
“Zeb will, if Wo’s got any shred of common sense left in him. Zeb’s the most capable person on the team.”
Grant wondered. He stayed as far away from Dr. Wo as he could, working steadily in the fluid dynamics lab, keeping his nose clean—and on the grindstone. He even tried to avoid being seen with O’Hara and Muzorawa, on the theory that although Wo could not directly punish them for witnessing his humiliation, he might very well punish their friends.
“He can’t let the mission drift into limbo,” Karlstad said, still whispering even though they were alone in his quarters, well after the cafeteria had closed for the night. “He’s got to appoint a new commander and realign the crew assignments.”
“There’s a vacancy on the crew” said Grant. “Doesn’t that mean that one of the backups will be put on the active list?”
Karlstad’s eyes went round. “There’s only three backups.”
“And you’re one of them.”
“He won’t pick me,” Karlstad said, shaking his head as if to get rid of the very idea of it. “Irene and Frankovich are much better qualified.”
Grant had barely met the other two; Irene Pascal was a medical specialist in neurophysiology, Bernard Frankovich was a biochemist.
“But you’re one of the available backups,” Grant said, surprised at how much he was enjoying the look of sheer terror in Karlstad’s normally ice-calm eyes.
“He won’t pick me,” Karlstad muttered again. “He won’t. He can’t!”
Several days later all of the Jovian team were called into a meeting by Dr. Wo. To his surprise, Grant was included in the summons. Why me? he asked himself. But he made certain to show up at the conference room next to the director’s office several minutes ahead of the appointed time.
Nine men and women crowded into the small, austere conference room, four of them in the black studded leggings that marked them as crew or backup. They milled around for several minutes, talking in guarded whispers until the moment for the meeting arrived.
Precisely at that second, the door from Dr. Wo’s office slid open. Everyone froze in place as the director wheeled himself to the head of the conference table, the faint hum of his chair’s electric motor the only sound in the room. Suddenly they all scrambled for seats at the far end of the table, away from the director. It was like a brief, intense game of musical chairs. Faster than most of the others, Grant grabbed one toward the end of the table and sat down, flanked by O’Hara on his right and Pascal, the neurophysiologist. Karlstad sat exactly opposite him.
Without preamble Wo began, “The medical people have scrubbed me from the mission.”
He paused. Everyone around the conference table made sympathetic noises.
“Therefore,” the director went on, “it is necessary to appoint a new mission commander.”
He looked toward the open door to his office, and a woman stepped hesitantly through, limping noticeably. A sigh of recognition wafted through the room, almost a moan, Grant thought. The woman was a stranger to him, but obviously most of the others knew her. Grant glanced across the table at Karlstad; his long, pallid face looked aghast.
“Most of you already know Dr. Krebs,” said Wo. “She will be commander of the next mission and deputy director of the station, with the specific duty of preparing for the crewed flight.”
Grant got an eerie feeling, a strange tingling at the base of his neck. The aura around the table was tense, almost terrified. If most of the people here know Dr. Krebs, he thought, they certainly don’t like her.
Krebs was short and stocky, barely taller than the seated Dr. Wo, her arms thick and heavy. Her legs were already encased in the studded leggings that told Grant she’d been implanted with biochips. Her face was square, blocky, her deeply black hair obviously a wig cut in a short Dutch boy style with bangs that came down to where her eyebrows should be. The complexion of her face was a pasty gray, as if she hadn’t seen sunlight or a UV lamp in many years. The expression on that face was granite-hard: square jaw thrust out pugnaciously, pale-blue eyes surveying all the faces turned toward her, peering at each individual in the room for a few seconds and then turning to the next. She seemed to be saying, I know you don’t like me; the feeling is thoroughly mutual.
Those accusing eyes focused on Grant for a moment, freezing him even though he wanted to turn away.
At last she turned her attention to the next person. Grant felt as if he’d just been freed from a police interrogation.
“You,” she said, pointing at Karlstad.