Ten feet away, a sedated Russell Cramer hung silently in a sleep restraint that fit snugly over his pear-shaped body. His helmet was tethered to the wall to prevent his head from bobbing with the pulse of his carotid arteries. The zipper of the sleep restraint was locked.
Lance closed the book over a flattened straw he used as a mark and bound the covers with a rubber band. It was almost midnight, the time he would be relieved by Freddy Aviles. He pulled himself close to Cramer and stared intently at his face. Cramer’s eyes were partially opened, the lids welded in place by dried white gunk. His jaw was slack. A strawberry-shaped bruise discolored one cheek.
“Hey, man.”
Lance shot away from Cramer with a start. Freddy Aviles, trailing a flight bag from his shoulder, slowly spiraled through the rumpus room. He deftly arrested himself by hooking a handhold with a single finger.
“You get any closer to him, people goin’ to talk.”
Lance’s face hardened. “That isn’t funny, Freddy.”
“Hey, man, don’ look at me. I don’ care. I’m very liberal, you know?”
“It’s not funny.”
Freddy undipped the flight bag from his shoulder and attached it to the wall. He removed a banana and a squeeze bottle containing a bright red liquid.
“Hawaiian Punch,” he said. “Wan’ some?”
Lance waved away the offer. “Why did you say that?” he asked.
“Is a joke, okay?”
“You know I’m not like that.”
“Forget it.”
“I was looking at him because I’m interested in what happened.”
“Lotsa people interested,” said Freddy, “here and on the ground.”
“What do you think happened?”
“Orbital Dementia. Tha’s what the doctor’s report said.”
“What if that isn’t the reason?” said Lance.
Freddy felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle.
“Whatchyou mean?” he asked. “What else could it be?”
Lance shrugged.
“You made it sound like you knew something.”
“Just a feeling,” said Lance.
“Well, he had all the symptoms we learned in preflight. Cranky. Recluse.”
“I know all that,” said Lance. “But what if something else caused it?”
“Like what?”
“Something evil.”
Freddy shook his head and took a bite of the banana.
“Something so evil and so clever that it makes itself look like Orbital Dementia.”
“You reading too much of that shit.” Freddy nodded toward the book tumbling slowly behind Lance’s head. To accentuate the point, he fished around in his flight bag for a thin volume devoted to computer esoterica.
“I’m not talking about fiction,” said Lance. “I’m talking about real evil. The devil, maybe.”
“The devil is fiction, man.”
“If the devil is fiction, why do you wear that crucifix?”
“Is a gift,” said Freddy. He tugged at the chain until the crucifix popped out from under his shirt. “Besides, I can believe in Jesus Christ without believing in the devil. The devil is what we all can be if we don’ got God.”
“All right, suppose it isn’t the devil. Suppose it is Orbital Dementia. Maybe that’s a sign we shouldn’t be here.”
“That sound awful strange from somebody who say he always wanted to be an astronaut.” Freddy grinned as he stuffed the crucifix back inside his collar.
“I don’t know,” said Lance. “I was just thinking, that’s all.”
Freddy had relieved Lance at midnight three nights in a row. Each time, Lance had managed to linger well into the morning by starting some mildly philosophical conversation. Freddy knew that Lance had no intention of pursuing his half-baked theories on the cause of Russell Cramer’s madness. Lance simply wanted to deflect attention from his loneliness.
“I talked to Becky tonight,” said Lance.
“See? No problem, eh? Wha’d she say? She love you. She miss you. She can’ wait to see you.”
“She did, but—” Lance’s features hardened.
“But what?”
“She laughs funny.”
“Laugh funny? How you laugh funny?”
“It sounds different,” said Lance. “Not like it did on Earth.”
“Those phones are funny, not the laugh.”
“I know that, Freddy. Believe me, this is different. It’s like there’s someone with her, someone she doesn’t want me to know about.”
“She lives with her parents, right? Who the hell with her there?”
Lance ignored the direction of Freddy’s logic. “And she says stuff. Like about my birthday coming next month. She says she’s attracted to older men.”
“You getting older, no?”
“Freddy, I’m going to be twenty-four. She must be talking about someone else.”
“Lance, I think this girl driving you cuckoo.”
“You think so?”
“I know so,” said Freddy. “Now my cousin Felix, before he marry his wife she drive him crazy. She talk about this other guy, she stay out all night. But when he felt crazy, he din’ sit around and think about she did this or she said that. He’d go out with another chick.”
“You mean he would cheat on his girlfriend?”
“Not cheat,” said Freddy. “He call it the fine art of getting perspective.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“Sure you could.”
“Yeah, where? On Trikon Station?”
“Hey, man, there are chicks here. And you ain’t exactly a bad-lookin’ guy. Remind me of myself before my accident. I see these chicks checkin’ you out in the wardroom.”
“Like who?” Lance asked. A hint of a smile softened his features.
“All of them, man. Even the Swedes.”
“Really?”
“Would I shit you?”
Lance’s smile went into full bloom, creasing his face. Freddy plucked the paperback out of the air and pressed it into Lance’s hands.
“Get some sleep, man. We talk more about perspective tomorrow.”
“Yeah, Freddy,” said Lance. “You really think these chicks like me?”
“Tomorrow, eh?”
Lance wedged the book and the bottle under one arm and used the other to propel himself across the rumpus room. He paused at the hatch to wave at Freddy before diving into the connecting tunnel.
Freddy washed down the dregs of the banana with a few squeezes of Hawaiian Punch. Lance wasn’t a bad kid, he thought, just a little too hung up on his girlfriend. Maybe if he found some diversion up here he’d be a little less intense, and not so much of a leech.
Freddy removed a tiny aerosol can from an inner pocket of his flight bag. The can contained a stimulant much more powerful than smelling salts. He took off the cap and inserted the can’s thin rubber nipple into Russell Cramer’s nose. Cramer snorted. Freddy pressed the nipple. Cramer’s head shot back as if he had been punched in the jaw. His eyelids blinked and his lips trembled. Freddy shot more spray up the other nostril. Cramer groaned and shook his head. His eyelids separated. His eyes were bloodshot, but focused.
“Tha’s good,” said Freddy. He clamped one hand over Cramer’s mouth, and slowly worked the tiny brown bottle out of his pocket with the other hand. He held the bottle before Cramer’s face. The Martian’s eyes bugged.
“Now we on the same wavelength, eh?” Freddy spoke into Cramer’s ear. “You gonna talk?”
Cramer shook his head. Freddy held the bottle in his teeth while he shot more spray into Cramer’s nostrils.
“Burn, eh?”
Cramer coughed and gagged against Freddy’s hand. A giant tear loosened itself from his eye and floated away.
“Next one won’ be so nice. Next one burn you right down to your lungs.”