In the case of this patient, his failure to duplicate certain experimental results may have hastened a complete personality breakdown.
Dan Tighe went to The Bakery immediately after his morning shower. The main section of the module was empty. Lamps threw cones of light on the idle workstations. The padlock Hugh O’Donnell used to secure the door to his tiny lab was missing. O’Donnell was inside.
Dan knocked on the doorframe and heard a thud followed by a string of muffled words with the unmistakable cadence of obscenities. A moment later, O’Donnell poked his head out the door. His hair was still wet from his own shower and slicked back beneath his hairnet. His glasses magnified his eyes to the size of quarters. Oxidized quarters.
“Is this a business or social call, Dan?”
“Business,” said Tighe.
O’Donnell opened the door enough to squeeze out. When he attempted to close it behind him, the runner stuck. The delay allowed Dan a snapshot view of the lab. One wall was covered with test tubes containing colored liquids labeled with polysyllabic names. Another wall was covered with plants bathed in strong white light from two lamps clipped to the ceiling. The thin green stems grew toward the lights, but the white roots looped aimlessly in specially designed beakers. The leaves were oblong, an inch to two inches in length. Some were healthy and green. Others were shriveled and brown.
O’Donnell gave the door a swift chop with the side of his hand and tugged it shut.
“Well, Commander, what can I do for you?”
“What is your specific scientific discipline?”
“Genetics,” said O’Donnell. “And microbiology. I picked up some other areas of expertise along the way.”
“Pick up any chemistry?”
“Some.”
“Pick up any”—Dan paused—“medicine?”
“I wouldn’t ask me for a diagnosis or treatment,” said O’Donnell. “But I’d say I’m conversant.”
“What’s your opinion about what happened to Russell Cramer?”
“Is this a medical question?”
“If you want to treat it as such,” Dan said. “I’ll settle for a gut reaction.”
“I honestly didn’t give it much thought. Shit happens.”
“Dr. Renoir thinks it’s a case of Orbital Dementia. You know what that is, don’t you? A mixture of boredom, confinement, and dislocation, layered over with the physical and mental stress from living in micro-gee. I understand he’d deluded himself into thinking he discovered evidence of life in a Martian soil sample. No one believed him.”
“Sounds like a reasonable diagnosis,” said O’Donnell. “I can’t add anything.”
“What if I told you I wasn’t so sure it was correct?”
“I’d say that’s very interesting, Commander, but I have a job to do. And standing here talking about Russell Cramer isn’t helping me do it.”
Dan. pulled a vial from his pocket. The liquid within was deep crimson, slightly darker than the color of the Mars Project flight suits.
“Russell Cramer’s blood,” he said. “I need you to analyze it.”
“Why don’t you ask Dr. Renoir?”
“She’s already rendered an official diagnosis. I need another opinion.”
“Why me?”
“This station is riddled with professional politics, in case you haven’t noticed,” said Dan. “You’re the only person I can trust.”
“You’ve known me a matter of ten days or so. Why the hell do you trust me?”
“Because I know you better than you think.” Dan paused. “There’s something in your past. You talk about your ex-girl and your lawyer, but it isn’t them you’re running from. It’s either drugs or booze. I can’t make up my mind which, not that it matters.”
O’Donnell almost smiled. “What makes you think that?” he asked.
“Things you say. Things you do. Like the way you throw darts. Shaving every day. The gap in your personnel file. Your orders to report to Dr. Renoir. Don’t worry, she hasn’t told me a thing. There’s a lot she doesn’t tell me, even things she should.”
“Like what she feels about Jaeckle?” asked O’Donnell.
Dan’s eyes snapped wide.
“You know something about me, I know something about you.” O’Donnell’s face broke into a dimpled grin. “It’s obvious that you and Jaeckle are squaring off over the lovely doctor like a couple of bull moose.”
“That has nothing to do with my request. And Jaeckle and I aren’t squaring off. We both have our responsibilities. Sometimes they’re at odds.”
O’Donnell forced himself to stop grinning, but the two tarnished quarters behind his glasses still twinkled.
“Now that we’ve established how well we know each other, what am I looking for?”
“Anything out of the ordinary that can drive a man crazy.”
“Blood analysis doesn’t work that way. If you want me to test it, I need specific screening panels for specific substances.”
“I can get the testing rig that Lor—that Dr. Renoir uses.”
O’Donnell cocked an eyebrow. “Without her knowing about it?”
Dan nodded.
“But what am I supposed to be looking for?”
“Drugs,” said Dan.
“Now you are talking about my field of expertise,” said O’Donnell.
“You’re in fine condition,” said Lorraine Renoir, “considering…”
Thora Skillen smiled bleakly at the doctor. “Considering that I’m going to die in a year or two.”
“That’s not necessarily true,” Lorraine replied, knowing that she was being evasive, at best.
Her slippered feet anchored in the floor loops, Skillen pulled the top of her sky-blue flight suit back over her shoulders and pressed its Velcro seam shut.
For long moments the two women were silent, facing each other in the narrow confines of the station infirmary. Dr. Renoir floated near the display screen that showed an X-ray picture of Skillen’s lungs.
“Cystic fibrosis isn’t inevitably fatal,” Lorraine said. “In your case the antibiotics seem to be working well. Your lungs are almost clear of infection.”
“For how long?”
“If your immune system needs a booster shot…”
Skillen shook her head. “I watched my twin sister die of this. All that the doctors could do was prolong her suffering.”
“I didn’t realize you were twins.”
“Yes. We were… very close. I wanted to die with her.”
“But we’re learning more all the time,” Lorraine said, trying to make her voice brighter. “There’s gene therapy now that looks very promising.”
“There’s always something in the lab that looks very promising,” said Skillen, without rancor. “Has it ever occurred to you, Lorraine, that it’s all these altered genes from all these labs that causes these diseases?”
Lorraine blinked with surprise. “Causes them? But cystic fibrosis has been with us since the beginnings of recorded medical history; long before anyone even started the earliest gene-splicing experiments.”
“Do you believe that?”
“Yes. Of course.”
Skillen looked almost amused. “You mustn’t believe everything they tell you, Lorraine.”
“They?”
“Men. Men write the history books, and they are not to be believed.”
Lorraine smiled at her. “If I didn’t know you better I’d wonder if you’re starting to come down with Orbital Dementia.”
“Cranky and suspicious?” Skillen smiled back, a rare expression for her. “There’s nothing demented about being suspicious of men.”