"It's okay…?" she said.
"Sure. You've been at this for an hour. That's enough for today."
She flashed a grateful smile, then made her way "down" the exercise module, through a vertical hatch, and into the sleep area.
If you were in a bad mood, she decided, the sleep module could be a depressing place. Because of Silver Tower's lower than Earth-normal atmospheric density, and because the real noisemakers on the station — the four attitude-adjustment thrusters — were almost two hundred yards away on the ends of the station's center beam, the station was already a very quiet place to be. But the sleep module, which was well insulated and isolated from most of the station's activity, was even quieter; and, despite its light, cheery atmosphere, its plants and its decorations, it resembled a mausoleum. With three groups of two horizontal telephone-booth-sized curtained sleep chambers on each side of the module, she could not suppress the thought of rows of caskets stacked all around her.
Putting the sleep chambers out of her mind, Ann retrieved a bathrobe and headed for her PHS, personal hygiene station.
Showers in space were little more than complicated sponge baths. She first donned a pair of plastic eye protectors, like sunbathers or swimmers wear, then wet a washcloth with a stream of water. As she directed a short stream of warm water along her body, the blobs of water that didn't shoot out in all directions like soft BBs made eerie amoeba-like puddles. The puddles moved everywhere — up her back, up her legs, under her arms — as if they truly did have tiny little legs.
Next she sprayed a little liquid soap on the washcloth, scrubbed herself with the cloth and a handy water blob, then rinsed. Even a relaxed vacuum shower used about five gallons of water; the occupant might actually drown in floating water blobs if there was more than five gallons of water loose in the shower.
Before opening the shower door and reaching for a towel, she activated a rubber-covered button. A powerful fan built into the shower floor sucked the water blobs from their orbits all around her down to collectors in the floor. She swept a few persistent blobs from the shower walls, took off the plastic eye protectors, opened the stall and reached for a towel. A wide mirror mounted on the wall caught her reflection, and as she had done three weeks before in the visiting officer's quarters back in Vandenburg she stopped to take stock. Space was murder on a woman. Even though daily exercise had kept her face naturally lean, fluids and fat cells had redistributed themselves, giving her a slightly Oriental look, which contrasted with a noticeable increase in height — microgravity had awarded her three extra inches — and a loss in body weight of about six pounds.
Well, maybe as usual she was too hard on herself, but she certainly didn't feel too desirable at the moment, although normal female desires were intact. Part of it, she knew, was that her work on Skybolt had gone forward in fits and starts, with more problems to overcome than she'd anticipated. Any time her work was not going well her self-image took a hit. She knew it was irrational to link her desirability as a woman with her progress in the laboratory, but she couldn't separate the two… She had been using her intelligence and professional acumen to win acceptance for so long.
Telling herself to cut it out, she promptly ignored her own injunction, wondering what the station's commander, Brigadier General Jason Saint-Michael, thought of her work so far. A strange man, Saint-Michael. Difficult to get a fix on. Considering what Colonel Walker had told her about the general's sponsorship of her project, she had expected a warm welcome from him. But their first meeting the day after she arrived had been a very perfunctory affair indeed. When the conversation turned briefly to the laser, he had shown little enthusiasm. It seemed he was preoccupied with something else and not really listening to what she had said.
As she pulled on a fresh, powder-blue flight suit and set off for the station's galley, she mentally reviewed what else she'd learned about Saint-Michael in the short time she'd been here. Most of her information had come from the talkative engineering chief, Wayne Marks. The way Marks told it, Saint-Michael was a legend in Space Command — what some called a "fast burner. " After graduating at the top of his pilot class he'd made captain easily and become an Air Training Command instructor pilot. From ATC it was on to Air Command and Staff college at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, where he wrote a paper laying out fundamentals of what would later be called the United States Space Command, an organization that would control America's space-based defensive armaments.
Saint-Michael's paper somehow found its way to the desk of the president, who liked what he read, and Saint-Michael, at age forty, found himself with a general's star and stewardship of the nascent Space Command — an organization that at the time existed only on paper. How Saint-Michael was able to build up Space Command to its present level was never precisely clear to anyone outside the inner circle of power but it was said that the general, by sheer charismatic force, had eventually been able to make converts out of his strongest adversaries. It seemed he had that sort of effect on people.
At least that was Marks's version. For her part Ann, feeling a bit let down, she admitted, by her nonreception, had failed to discern any special magnetism, animal or otherwise, in the man. He was efficient, no question, in complete command of the myriad operations aboard Silver Tower. But there was also a remoteness about him, a detached air edging on imperiousness that tended to leave her cold. If indeed he was a fast burner, he hadn't turned any of his heat her way…
She moved through the cargo docking area and across to the connecting tunnel leading to the primary docking module. As usual she stopped and admired the spectacular view of Silver Tower orbiting above planet earth. The most eerie sight was space itself — a deep, pure, haunting blackness that was remarkable for its uniformity, its lack of gradation. As a child growing up in Massachusetts she had always felt insignificant somehow, watching an approaching thunderstorm darken the landscape. During the summers she had often camped in the Maine woods, where it had been so dark she literally hadn't been able to see her hand in front of her face. But space was a million times more so. The darkness was total, absolute, shrinking, swallowing everything in it. Space somehow seemed like a living thing, like two giant hands cupped together around the tiny station, cutting out all air and light…
It took less than a minute for Ann to reach the galley and begin the delicate task of making coffee: put "coffee bag" into an insulated drinking cup, snap lid on, watch as hot water is injected in cup. By the numbers, like so much else around here. "One for me, too, please," a deep voice called out behind her. She turned and saw Jason Saint-Michael floating through the hatch. "Good morning, General," Ann said. As she placed a coffee bag into another cup, she watched the powerfully built officer plant his feet on a Velcro pad six feet away and stand with arms crossed. "I take mine black," he said.
She nodded and reached for the first cup of coffee, which had just finished. She tossed the cup over to Saint-Michael, noticing with satisfaction that it sailed directly into his hand.
"You're really becoming a pro at this."
"Fixing coffee isn't exactly high-tech, General."
"How's the space-sickness?"
She looked at him. Why the sudden interest in her? "All right. I still feel the 'leans' when I move upside-down but the nausea is going away."
"It takes some people longer to adapt." He seemed to study her for a long moment, then asked: "And how's life on the station going?"
"Life? As opposed to work?"
"I guess that's what I mean. I know there have been some problems getting the laser ready for the first beam test, but maybe you're worrying too much. You stay off by yourself when you're not working on Skybolt…"