“No stimulants, I’m afraid,” Lane said in a hushed voice. “The mission, you know.”
Grant nodded his understanding, then padded across the starry floor to sit between Muzorawa and Pascal. Zeb’s beard was gone, Karlstad was totally bald. Pascal’s wig was slightly askew; not nearly as natural-looking as Lane’s. All the crew members have been depilated, Grant realized. Because of the immersion; it’s more sanitary.
“I thought you would be with Sheena,” said Pascal.
Grant felt his jaws clench. With an effort, he told her, “I had a problem with her last night.”
“Oh?”
He described the fiasco with the burned-out electrode.
Instead of disappointment, Pascal immediately asked, “Did you get data?”
He blinked at her. “I don’t know. I didn’t check. Everything was so—”
“The other electrodes should have worked,” Pascal said. “You should have some data, at least. Anger. Pain. Such data is priceless!
Betrayal, Grant thought. What kind of brain waves will show feelings of betrayal?
“Do you blame yourself for what happened?” Muzorawa asked gently.
Grant shrugged. “Who else was there?”
“Sometimes experiments blow up on you,” he said. “Equipment can fail.”
“That’s great to hear on the eve of our dunking,” Karlstad grumbled. He’d been sitting on Muzorawa’s other side.
“Do you think Sheena will stay angry with you?” O’Hara asked.
“I don’t know,” Grant said. “Right now, I’m kind of scared to go back and see her again.”
“Lovers’ quarrel,” Karlstad said.
Grant was in no mood for his quips. “Speaking of lovers, isn’t Dr. Krebs coming to this party?”
Karlstad threw up his hands. “God forbid!”
Muzorawa chuckled. “That’s right, Egon. She did specifically tap you for the mission. She must have a special place in her heart for you.”
“That means she hates me, then,” Frankovich chimed in. “Thank goodness!”
O’Hara said, “I didn’t think inviting Krebs here would be such a lovely idea.”
“Why not?” Karlstad snapped. “Maybe she’d perk up this party. We could certainly use something to liven up the proceedings.”
“D’you notice how she seems to stare at you when she talks to you?” O’Hara asked no one in particular. “It’s positively spooky, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Pascal said. “She never did that before the accident.”
“It’s the evil eye,” said Karlstad. “She’s learned witchcraft.”
“Whatever it is, it makes my blood run cold,” O’Hara said.
“You think it runs cold when she gives you the fish-eye,” Karlstad said, almost smirking, “wait until you’re immersed in that PFCL gunk. That’ll chill your blood down to the marrow.”
For a long moment no one spoke a word. Grant knew what they were facing and shuddered inwardly.
“There’s an IAA inspection team on its way here,” Frankovich muttered.
“I’d heard that,” said O’Hara. “It’s really true, then?”
Karlstad grumbled, “That’s why our woeful leader wants to get this mission off so fast. He’s afraid the IAA officials will stop it, once they find out about it.”
“Why would they stop it?”
“Risking human lives.”
“Finding things they don’t want to find,” Grant heard himself say.
The others all turned to him.
“They’ll be here in ten days,” Grant added. “You should be safely on your way by then.”
“Safely?” Karlstad sneered. “I wish.”
Muzorawa said, “Let us remember one thing: We will be exploring a region where no human has gone before. We will be searching for life on a world that is utterly alien to us. We will be seeking intelligent life, if it exists down in that sea. Those are good things to do, no matter how much discomfort we must endure.”
For a moment Grant thought that Zeb would say they’re doing God’s work. But the Moslem scientist stopped short of that.
Sitting at his console in the mission control center, Grant was almost quivering with anticipation. This morning the consoles no longer connected to the simulator in the aquarium. Now, as he looked up at the big wallscreen, Grant saw the interior of the submersible itself.
It was empty, as yet. No, not really empty, Grant told himself. It’s filled with that PFCL gunk instead of air. The crew will be breathing that soup, immersed in it, living in it for days on end, weeks.
“Ready for immersion procedure,” Dr. Wo said from his position at the central console, lapsing unconsciously into the clipped speaking style of the controllers.
The image on the wallscreen changed to show the airlock in the docking module. Krebs and the other crew members stood in a small huddle by the outer hatch. They each wore snug-fitting bodysuits, more for modesty than need, Grant understood. The tights left their legs bare, and he could see the studs of electrodes lining their flesh, like obscene metal leeches attached to their skin.
“We are ready,” Krebs said, peering directly into the monitoring camera. She had an odd way of staring, as if she were focusing only one eye on you.
“Proceed,” said Dr. Wo.
Starting with Muzorawa, the crew entered the airlock one by one. Surveillance cameras watched as the hatch sealed tight and the lock slowly filled with the thick liquid perfluorocarbon, rather than air. It looked to Grant as if each of them were being deliberately drowned. Each one floated upward as the chamber filled, instinctively lifting their heads to suck in their last lungful of air. When the liquid finally filled the airlock, each of them spasmed with inborn reflex, eyes popping wide, mouths gaping and gasping, arms and legs flailing.
Grant had to force himself to sit still, to say nothing, as he watched his friends’ desperate convulsions. This must be what it’s like to watch an execution, he thought, his fists clenched, his own pulse racing hard.
Then, after what seemed like hours of struggle, each member of the crew began to breathe almost normally and opened the inner hatch of the airlock to swim into the sub’s interior. Grant blinked with disbelief when he checked his console clock and saw that Muzorawa’s reflexive struggles had lasted less than thirty seconds. The others did almost as well.
Krebs was the last to enter the airlock. She hardly struggled at all. In fact, Grant thought he saw a smile cross her heavy, gray-skinned face as the liquid closed over her head.
SEPARATION
For most of the day the crew simply accustomed themselves to the submersible. Grant was surprised, as he watched the wallscreen display, at how cramped the interior was. Despite the outer size of the ship, the bridge was no bigger than the simulator in the aquarium had been. The galley was nothing more than a shoulder-tall console built into one of the bulkheads.
Of course, Grant realized. They won’t be eating normally; they’ll get their nutrition intravenously, through the ports in their necks.
Krebs had assigned each of them a privacy berth, where they could sleep and get away from the others for a while. They reminded Grant of the coffin-sized quarters he’d shared with Tavalera aboard Roberts.
Their voices were different: deeper, slower, as if someone were playing a recording at lower than normal speed.
No one left the control center for more than a few minutes. When noon came, Dr. Wo told Grant to go to the cafeteria and bring back enough sandwiches and drinks for all five of them.
“Big appetite, mate,” Red Devlin wisecracked as Grant loaded his tray.
Grant merely nodded.
“What’s goin’ on, eh? Big doin’s?”