The personal hygiene facilities in Hab 2 were superior to those in Hab 1. The hot water was generally hotter and the pressure in one particular full-body shower was the most powerful on the station. Even the Whits were tolerable. The difference in quality and comfort certainly justified a swim from Hab 1 to Hab 2 first thing each morning.
Dan was surprised to discover that someone had beaten him to his favorite shown. He could hear the man singing tunelessly as the water removal vents sucked the millions of droplets out of the air inside. The singing broke into a torrent of curses, then subsided completely. Moments later, Hugh O’Donnell emerged from the shower. His neck and chin were mottled with splotches of blood.
“Up awful early,” said Dan.
“Habit,” O’Donnell replied.
“You also know which shower works best.”
“I keep my ears open,” said O’Donnell. He dabbed his chin; the towel came away dappled with blood. “Do you know any secrets to good shaving?”
“I nick myself every damn time. But I do find that long slow strokes draw less blood than short fast ones.”
“I’ll remember that tomorrow.”
Dan closed himself into the shower and powered up the spray. The water drenched him from all directions, warm and fine, and for a moment he was a boy again, walking home through a sudden rainstorm on the last day of school. His bare feet squished in the mud of the dirt road that curved up to his house and a bead of water tickled his nose before dropping to earth.
He cut the shower and watched the vacuum vent suck away the water droplets hanging in the steamy air. The mist spiraled out, and with it the memory. He slapped shaving gel on his face, slipped his feet in the loops, and squinted one eye to focus himself in the aluminum mirror attached next to the shower head. The razor pulled slightly, and he concentrated on the long slow strokes he had suggested to Hugh O’Donnell.
Dan toweled himself dry and went to his compartment to change into his flight suit. He ate breakfast alone in the wardroom, then went to his office in the command module. He wasn’t there long before crewman Stanley rapped on his bulkhead.
“Phone call, sir.”
Dan looked at his watch. The station was set for central daylight time, which meant that it was 7:30 A.M. in Dallas, too.
“I think it’s her,” said Stanley.
Across the command module, Hugh O’Donnell floated patiently near the ceiling of Lorraine Renoir’s tiny office.
“How do you find Trikon Station?” Lorraine asked. She slipped her feet into the restraining loops on the floor and opened a wall compartment.
“Not so bad,” said O’Donnell. He had a perfect view of the razor-sharp line on the top of her head where her chestnut hair was separated and twisted into a neat French braid. “The scientists could be a little friendlier.”
“I see,” said Lorraine. An orange rubber tube slithered out of the compartment. She pinned it to her side with her elbow.
“Actually, I feel pretty damn good,” said O’Donnell. “Haven’t even seen the creepy-crawlies.”
“What are they?”
“In my case, spiders.” O’Donnell smiled at the worried look crossing Lorraine’s face. “Not real ones. More like eye floaters. Saw them all the time in rehab. Now only on occasion, like if I’m knocked out of my routine. I thought I’d be bored here, but I feel just the opposite. I’m very focused.”
“You’ve been here hardly a week,” said Lorraine.
“Ah, but I can tell, Doc. This orbiting space lab was made for a workaholic like me.”
“Is that what you are now? A workaholic?”
“Slip of the tongue, Doc. A mere slip of the tongue. What I meant to say is that there is nothing here to do except work. Consequently, I’m already a week ahead of schedule in my project. That is, how you say, fantastique?”
“Enough levity, Mr. O’Donnell. Push yourself down here and roll up your right sleeve.”
“Already, huh?” said O’Donnell. He guided his stockinged feet to a second set of restraining loops and worked his sleeve toward his shoulder. His arm muscles were wiry. The veins inside his elbow were prominent.
Lorraine cinched the orange tube around his biceps and rubbed an alcohol swab over a vein. O’Donnell made a point of staring at the Monet print adorning the wall.
“I didn’t think you would be so squeamish,” said Lorraine.
“I’ve done my share of drugs,” he said, “but nothing that required a needle.”
Lorraine expertly drew a vial of blood and pressed a bandage against O’Donnell’s arm.
“What exactly are you testing for, Doc?”
“I use a screening panel for thirty different drugs. Cocaine, amphetamines, MDMA, and a host of synthetics you probably never heard of.”
“MDMA?” O’Donnell asked. “Ecstasy?”
“That’s correct,” said Lorraine as she tried to coax the rubber tube into its compartment.
“Ecstasy on Trikon Station?”
“God forbid,” Lorraine said.
Station personnel often joked that the sleep compartments were glorified telephone booths. The command module, however, was equipped with two authentic phone booths for the personal use of the crew, the scientists, and the Martians. A call originating from the station was transmitted by unsecured radio link to any of several communications satellites in geosynchronous orbits, then beamed down to receiving installations on Earth where conventional fiber-optic lines carried the call to its destination. Calls from Earth to the station went the same way, in reverse. The system was fast but had two drawbacks. First, the various links of the phone patch often distorted voices beyond recognition. Second, although the phones had voice encryption capabilities, Trikon regulations specifically prohibited scrambling except during operational emergencies. Any ham radio operator could eavesdrop on the calls by intercepting the radio signal.
Dan sealed himself into the booth. Conversations with Cindy were always tense. Knowing that strangers the world over could be listening made it worse. After one particularly violent argument over a child support payment, a female ham radio operator from the Shetland Islands had written to Trikon complaining about obscenities emanating from space.
Cindy cut him off one syllable into “Hello.”
“I found something on Billy’s dresser and I hope it’s a joke.” Her voice, even distorted, was coldly contemptuous. “A round-trip pass on a space plane.”
“That is no joke,” said Dan. His latest ploy in dealing with Cindy was to maintain a placid tone regardless of the topic of conversation. It did not always work, but it kept him from losing his temper. Sometimes.
“You can’t take him away from me like that!”
“It’s only a visit.”
“I don’t like the idea of him going up there. Riding a space plane. It’s a glorified rocket.”
“The aerospace plane is nothing of the sort. It has been tested and retested and shaken out in all kinds of conditions. Flying in it is safer than driving to the Seven Eleven.”
“Maybe the way you drive it is.”
Dan let the barb pinch him without answering. His driving record during their marriage had been checkered with speeding tickets.
“He’s just a boy!” Cindy screamed into the silence.
“Bill is twenty years old. In most places and in most times, that qualifies him as a man.”
“Not with me.”
“When I was twenty I already had a thousand hours’ solo flight time.”
“You’re always measuring him against your milestones. That isn’t good for him.”
“I’m no psychologist,” Dan said evenly. “But is it bad for a young man to know what his father did with his life?”
Cindy grumbled. One of her subsequent gentleman companions had been a psychologist. “How did you get the passes to him?”