‘He’s right, Ronica,’ yawned Gates. ‘My pH is way off the scale. I reckon if I so much as breathed on a piece of litmus paper, it’d turn red.’ Unzipping his own bag he floated free in the cabin. ‘I’d better take a look at the environmental control system. And nobody light a match. There’s enough gas in here to blow us all to pieces.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ said Lenina. ‘This ship’s liable to fall apart before it blows up.’
‘Who made you cheerleader?’ jibed Ronica.
‘Keep it down, will you? By my reckoning, the sleep period doesn’t end for at least another hour.’ This was Simou, the team’s mechanical and electrical engineer, a permanently weary-looking man with platinum-blond hair and the kind of prominent lower jaw that would have given a Habsburg king a run for his kingdom.
Prevezer poked his head out of his bag. ‘Take more than a few z’s to improve the way you look, Simou,’ he said. ‘For most people, beauty sleep means being in bed before midnight. But for you it would mean going through a black hole and traveling back in time to make sure your mother was asleep before she met your father.’
‘Did your mother ever meet yours?’ Simou came out of the opposite end of his sleeping bag. He floated up alongside Prevezer, wearing a grin that was all bottom teeth and contempt, adding, ‘I heard she picked your old man using a pipette and a petri dish.’
‘So? Nothing so unusual about that. Lot of people have donor fathers. Gates, for instance.’
‘Yeah, but his mother got to the lab early Monday morning and made sure she had the pick of the crop. I mean, just look at the guy. He’s Zarathustra’s prologue, for Christ’s sake. You, on the other hand, are a typical Friday afternoon job. The frog spawn at the bottom of the jar. Face it, Prev. You’re not so much a dumb ugly fuck as an excuse not to have one.’
In fact there was nothing wrong with Prevezer to look at. By any standard he was better looking than Simou. But all the time he had spent inside silicon microworlds had given him an undernourished, skinny look. Appearances deceived, though. Prevezer was prone to violence and possessed a quick temper. He had killed people for saying less than Simou had said.
For a moment Lenina thought Prevezer might go for Simou — but for the zero gravity, perhaps he would have.
‘Cut it out, you two,’ she said. ‘Or take it outside.’
‘Yeah,’ laughed Ronica. ‘Now that’s a bit of EVA[94] I’d like to see. Couple of space suits trying to slug it out.’ She sprayed some eau de cologne over the heads of the two men. ‘There. That should sweeten the atmosphere between you boys.’
Still smiling prognathously, Simou pushed himself off a stowage hatch cover and floated away from Prevezer.
‘Three days of this,’ said Prevezer, ‘we’re all going to be climbing the walls.’
‘We are climbing the walls, asshole,’ said Simou. ‘In case you didn’t notice, it’s the only way to get around this tin can.’
III
The waste control system was the ship’s lavatory section. It wasn’t particularly private or very pleasant to use. With no gravity to draw feces into the bowl, a person had to assist the process with the aid of a finger inserted into a condom-shaped pocket that was itself inserted in the plastic seal attaching him to the seat. Cabin air was then used to direct the solid and liquid waste into a fan separator before being filtered and returned to the cabin. Urine, along with liquid from the humidity separator, was dumped in space every day. By space law, however, feces had to be captured in a tank because of the risk to other space travelers: At twenty-five thousand miles an hour, solid human waste can cause enormous amounts of damage to expensive equipment. When not in use the tank was vented to prevent odors and bacterial growth, and it was this function that had proved to be faulty.
The WCS was not easy to use, as Cavor himself had demonstrated, but there was actually nothing much to clean, and most of the mess related to disposable plastic seals and wetwipes improperly stowed. It was only when it was incorrectly used that a less seemly cleanup was required — hence, the tiny pieces of shit that were still floating around the cabin. Under the eyes of Dallas, Cavor bagged one and then posted it into the solid tank.
‘How are you doing?’ asked Dallas.
‘It’s a Zen thing,’ he said. ‘Ultimate truth discovered through self-mastery and perfection in the simple art of turd bagging. Damn it, there’s another.’ Cavor collected another plastic bag and pursued another tiny asteroid of floating shit. ‘I thought all of our food was supposed to be low residue.’
‘It is.’
‘In that case, I’m going on a diet. I don’t think I could stand to do this again.’ Cavor grimaced. ‘Come here, you little shit.’ He caught and bagged his quarry, dropped it through the disposal chute, and leaned back in the air. ‘Right now I’d settle for some enlightenment. Such as what the hell I’m doing here. You’re the only one who seems to know, Dallas, only you’re not telling. Which makes me feel like a sacrificial victim. Like some poor sucker who’s going to get his throat cut at the end of the journey and who’s the only one who doesn’t know it.’
‘After myself, you’re the most important member of this whole team, Cav,’ said Dallas.
‘Me? You’re just saying that.’
‘No.’
‘But why?’
‘I can’t tell you yet. You’ll just have to take my word for it. We can’t hope to pull this off without you.’
‘Nor without you, Dallas. Only you know all the answers.’
‘I know all the questions. That’s hardly the same thing. We’ll find out if I can answer them when we carry out the plan in virtual reality at TB.’
‘Presumably you have a good reason for not taking anyone into your confidence.’
‘It’s for your protection and mine,’ insisted Dallas. ‘Plus, it helps me to keep control over what’s happening. Until the critical moment when I have no alternative but to reveal my hand. And yours. Between now and then, I want you to do something for me. No questions asked. Will you do that?’
‘I haven’t got much of a choice.’
Dallas handed Cavor a packet of blood-colored pills. ‘I want you to start taking two of these, five times a day, from now on.’
‘What are they?’
‘Remember, no questions? If anyone should ask you, they’re something the doctors prescribed back on Earth. But whatever medication you’re already taking, you’ll have to stop. In case there’s some kind of adverse reaction.’
‘Very considerate of you.’ Cavor examined the packet. There was nothing printed on it. Not that he expected there would be. Dallas was too clever to have made such a simple mistake.
‘They might make you feel a little strange at first,’ advised Dallas. ‘If so, I want you to tell me immediately. Every detail. And only me. Don’t talk about this with anyone else. This is our secret, understand?’
‘Of course. I may have only one arm, but there’s nothing wrong with my brain.’
‘That’s what I’m counting on. You see, Cav, it’s your brain I’m really interested in. You know it’s a stroke of pure luck that Gates should have found someone as reasonably intelligent as you.’
‘That’s reasonably kind of you to say so, Dallas,’ smiled Cavor. ‘So the false arm...?’
‘The prosthetic’s not important. But it wouldn’t do any harm to let everyone else continue under the delusion that it’s why you’re here. Otherwise you can forget about your false arm, Cav. As far as I’m concerned it might as well not be there.’