“She’s already fitted me with a motion-sickness pad,” said Weiss.
“Fine,” Dan snapped. He glanced at Jaeckle, then returned his stern gaze to Weiss. “That’s all I have to say. I trust you will do your best not to interfere with the smooth operation of the station.”
Weiss mumbled something that did not sound like wholehearted agreement, but Dan let it go.
“Do you want to start with the Mars module?” asked Jaeckle, beaming the smile he reserved for members of the media.
“Not really,” said Weiss.
Hugh O’Donnell held the tiny strip of computer printout to one of the lights in his lab. The blood analysis unit Dan Tighe had pilfered from Dr. Renoir’s medical bay was programmed to screen thirty distinct drugs, from common natural substances like marijuana to obscure synthetics like 3, 4-methylenedioxamphetamine. He had obtained one positive result.
O’Donnell folded the printout into a pocket and squeezed out the door. None of the lab workers scattered throughout The Bakery paid him any mind as he secured his padlock. Except for Stu Roberts. He stared at O’Donnell with a cold, calculating eye as he hovered at an oblique angle between the microwave ovens fifteen meters away.
Dan Tighe was behind the closed door of his office. O’Donnell could hear him talking to someone over the radio. The topic of conversation was a TV news reporter who had apparently arrived at Trikon Station on the aerospace plane. Dan did not sound pleased with his presence.
O’Donnell waited until there was a lull in the chatter before rapping on the partition. The door slid open half a foot to reveal Tighe, his broad face pinched by a set of headphones.
“Be right with you. Let me wind up this report.”
The door closed and, after another minute of highly technical chatter, opened again. Dan no longer wore the headphones, although there was a white line where they had pressed against his roughened cheek.
“I have the blood work,” said O’Donnell, keeping his voice low.
Dan released himself from the foot loops and drifted toward the rear of the office, giving O’Donnell enough room to squeeze inside the narrow compartment.
“Better close the door,” he said.
O’Donnell obliged, then worked the printout from his pocket. Dan looked haggard. He had missed a spot shaving and his mouth was drawn down in an expression that in a lesser man would be worry, perhaps even fear.
“So what have we got?” he asked.
O’Donnell could tell from Tighe’s tone that he was tightly wound.
“The panel allows tests for thirty different types of drugs, some common, some not so common.”
“Get to the point,” said Dan. “Was Cramer dirty?”
“His blood tested positive for PCP.”
“I know that’s bad,” said Dan. “Now what the hell is it exactly?”
“Its chemical name is phencyclidine, but it’s better known as Angel Dust. It’s a hallucinogen that was developed in the fifties for use as an anesthetic. But it never was used because it caused bad dreams and aggressive behavior among the test subjects. It can turn a mouse into a maniac.”
“How do you know so much?”
“I wasn’t your normal doper,” said O’Donnell. “I would research a drug before I used it.”
“Did you ever do this stuff?”
“Once. I didn’t like it.”
Dan took the slip of paper from O’Donnell’s hand and peered at it like a suspicious man checking his supermarket bill. “Any chance of this being wrong?” he asked.
“There’s roughly a ten-percent error factor. From the amount in the blood sample, I doubt it was a false positive.”
Dan’s eyes narrowed until they resembled two sabers glinting in sunlight.
“Could he have been using this over an extended period of time?”
“No way I can tell from the blood,” said O’Donnell. “In low doses it could have a mild stimulant effect that might interfere with sleep. And the drug can build up in the fatty tissues of the brain and be released over time. But if you want to know the truth, one good dose can turn you into a psycho.”
Dan stuffed the results into his pocket.
“Dr. Renoir hasn’t missed her equipment yet. You’ll get it back?”
“Soon as I can.”
“Good.”
“Can I ask you a question, Dan?”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you have Dr. Renoir do this workup? After all, she’s the station’s medical officer.”
For the flash of an instant Tighe looked angry, furious. But with an effort he controlled himself.
“I needed somebody with no political ties to anybody else on the station,” he answered tightly. “Lorraine… Dr. Renoir… she’d been treating Cramer for sleep disorder without telling anybody but his supervisor.”
“Without telling you?”
Tighe held himself to a single curt nod. “She was following station regulations.”
“Cramer’s supervisor,” O’Donnell mused. “That would be…”
“Kurt Jaeckle,” Tighe snapped.
O’Donnell’s lips formed a silent “Oh.” He made a small shrug and turned toward the door.
“One more thing,” said Dan, his voice still edgy. “There’s a reporter on board. I don’t want any of this getting out, understood?”
“Understood,” said O’Donnell. “Who’s the reporter?”
“Guy named Aaron Weiss from CNN. Looks like a pain in the ass. Trikon’s given him limited access to the station. Damned if I know why.”
“What’s he reporting on?”
“Don’t know for sure. Trikon, I guess. He surer than hell isn’t interested in the Martians. He was pretty clear with Jaeckle about that.”
“Am I required to talk to him?”
“Don’t ask me. I’m not your superior. That’s right. The grapevine says you have no boss up here.”
“The grapevine says a lot,” said O’Donnell. “I just won’t talk to him.”
“Suit yourself,” said Dan. “Are you going to be all right?”
“What do you mean?”
“We just discovered that someone is cooking or smuggling drugs up here,” said Dan. “I think the question is validly put to someone with your history.”
“I’ll be all right,” said O’Donnell.
His hazel eyes, magnified by his glasses, stared into Tighe’s intense sky-blue slits. Neither man wavered.
“That’s good,” said Dan.
O’Donnell opened the door and pulled himself into the comparatively cool air of the command module.
“And, Hugh,” Dan called to him. “Thanks.”
For all his work and dreams about Trikon Station, Fabio Bianco had never been to space before, never experienced microgravity.
As a scientist he understood the facts of near weightlessness. As a frail old man he hoped that he would adapt to microgravity quickly, without embarrassing himself by becoming obviously sick.
He never expected to enjoy the sensation.
Yet from the moment the aerospace plane coasted into orbit Bianco felt a strange exhilaration surging through his aged body. By the time the plane had docked with Trikon and he and his fellow passengers had disembarked into the station itself, Bianco was grinning broadly. For the first time in years, in decades, he felt truly alive. Strong, almost. Twenty years younger. Thirty, even.
The young men and women of the station’s crew treated him with extreme deference. Bianco accepted their solicitude as his due as CEO of Trikon International, rather than because of his frail old age.
I’m not frail here, he marveled to himself as he floated effortlessly down the tunnel to Hab 1, following a ruddy-faced young crewman to the quarters he had been assigned. I’m strong again. Young again! I may never leave this place.
Within an hour of settling his meager luggage in his sleep compartment— and actually laughing when his clothes took on a weightless life of their own and floated almost out of his reach before he could corral them—Bianco used the intercom to call a meeting of all the Trikon personnel aboard the station.