IMMERSION CAPSULE
This is it, Deirdre said to herself as she ducked through the small round hatch and sat herself on the padded bench that ran around the interior of the circular chamber.
She waited for one of the men to make a comment about her skinned scalp. The buzz cut was hardly a centimeter long; Deirdre felt almost naked. She had nearly cried when she saw her beautiful auburn curls piling up on the floor as they cut her hair away.
Andy Corvus, already seated, extended a hand to help her. Dorn had gone in first; he was sitting by the control panel of blinking lights and keypads set into the capsule’s curving bulkhead. If Andy noticed her haircut he said nothing about it.
Max Yeager came through the hatch behind Deirdre, looking serious, almost grim. She thought that he must be reconsidering his decision to come on the mission. Not even Max said anything about her hair. Maybe being bald has made him more thoughtful, Deirdre surmised.
“Hope none of us are prone to claustrophobia,” Corvus said. It was an attempt at humor, but it fell flat.
“Helluva time to think of that,” Yeager grumbled.
All four of them wore nothing more than black elastane tights that hugged their bodies like second skins, lined inside with medical sensors that reported their heart and breathing rates, body temperatures, and blood pressures. Arms and legs bare except for a few more sensors plastered to the skin. Necklines low enough to allow easy access to the feeding ports in their necks. Deirdre was surprised at how buff Andy looked: lean but sinewy. She tried not to stare at Dorn’s half-metal body. She realized how uptight they all were when no one commented on how she looked in her revealing maillot, not even Max.
Dorn said gravely, “If anyone has second thoughts, now is the time to act on them.”
Deirdre felt a sudden impulse to get up and squeeze back through the hatch. But one look at Andy’s expectant face froze her in place. He’s depending on me, she thought. I can’t leave, not now.
Nodding, Dorn said, “Very well. We begin the mission.”
He touched a keypad and the hatch swung noiselessly shut.
“Here we go,” Deirdre heard herself say.
“Initiating immersion,” Dorn said into the tiny microphone built into the control panel.
“Initiating immersion,” a voice crackled from the grillwork of the speaker. Deirdre thought it sounded like that little blond woman who was the chief of the mission control team.
Thick oily perfluorocarbon liquid began to flow across the capsule’s deck, quickly covering their bare feet and rising toward their knees.
“Why do they have to keep it so cold?” Yeager groused. “They ought to warm it up a little.”
“Like soup,” Corvus said.
“Yeah. Gazpacho.”
Deirdre said, “I prefer lobster bisque.”
“Where’d you ever get lobster bisque?” Yeager demanded.
“We imported it from Selene,” Deirdre explained as the chilly liquid reached her hips. “It’s expensive, but we bring it in at least once a year, for the holidays.”
“Lobster bisque,” Yeager muttered, with a shake of his head.
The perfluorocarbon had climbed to their waists. Deirdre realized she was biting her lip. Andy was smiling nervously, Max staring down at the rising liquid. Dorn was turned slightly away from her, focusing on the control panel; she could only see the etched metal side of his face.
Deirdre tried to steady her breathing as the liquid rose to her breasts, then her shoulders, and up to her chin. Relax! she commanded herself. You’ve been through this before, several times. Just relax and try to breathe normally.
She couldn’t, of course. None of them could. Deirdre closed her eyes as her body spasmed and her lungs began to burn from holding her breath. She could sense the others struggling also, but kept her eyes shut tight. She didn’t want to see them, it would only make things worse.
At last she sucked in a breath and gagged on the cold, slimy liquid. Her body told her she was drowning even while the rational part of her brain insisted that it was all right, she’d be perfectly fine, just try to relax and breathe normally.
Breathe normally, she repeated to herself. As if this is normal.
After a few year-long seconds of coughing and nearly retching she began to breathe almost naturally. Opening her eyes, she saw that the three men were also gasping, shuddering, looking terribly afraid, as if each breath would be their last. Their breathing slowly steadied, though, and soon enough they were all breathing the perfluorocarbon. Just as she was herself.
Her lungs felt raw, and there was a cold knot in the pit of her stomach, but she was breathing.
“Immersion complete,” Dorn said, his voice strangely low, reverberating like a moan from hell.
“Copy immersion complete,” came the voice of the mission controller, also low now, distorted.
Looking squarely at Deirdre, Dorn asked, “Is everyone all right? Any pains? Any problems?”
“I’m … all right,” Deirdre said, her own voice sounding like a bassoon in her ears.
“Okay,” said Corvus.
“No problems,” Yeager said. Deirdre thought it sounded grudging.
“Very well,” said Dorn. “Now we ratchet up the pressure.”
Deirdre knew it would take precisely three hours to increase the perfluorocarbon pressure to the point where it was designed to be. Three hours of sitting in this cramped little metal womb and doing nothing except waiting for your body to break down, your internal cells to implode, your brain to go berserk.
None of that happened. They talked to one another, meaningless chatter to pass the time. Corvus made a few pathetically weak jokes. Yeager kept telling them that “all things considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.” No one laughed.
Deirdre thought she felt a dull pain in her abdomen, but it was so slight she didn’t mention it. Psychosomatic, she told herself.
Then she remembered her conversation with Katherine Westfall, at the party Dr. Archer had given them a few nights earlier.
After her toast with the faux champagne, Westfall had pulled Deirdre to one side of the crowded conference room and smiled coldly at her.
“I understand that your case of rabies has been cured,” she said.
Deirdre nodded happily, the champagne tickling her nose. “Yes. Dr. Mandrill says there’s no trace of the virus in my blood now.”
“Thanks to nanotherapy,” Westfall said.
Deirdre nodded again, uncertainly this time. She didn’t know how much she should admit to.
“You’re a very fortunate young woman. Dr. Archer went to great lengths to help you,” Westfall said. It wasn’t a question.
“I’m very grateful.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“Now I can go on the mission without any worries … about my health, that is.”
Westfall said nothing, merely maintaining her sphinxlike smile.
A little hesitantly, Deirdre asked, “Do you still want me to keep you informed? Once we come back, I mean.”
With the slightest shake of her head Westfall replied, “That won’t be necessary. Not at all. I’m fully satisfied with my other sources of help.”
Deirdre’s blood had run cold at the sight of Westfall’s eyes. Although her lips were smiling, Katherine Westfall’s eyes were like a pair of razors, like the eyes of a poisonous snake.
“Full pressure,” Dorn announced.
Deirdre snapped out of her memory. The capsule was fully pressurized. Time for the next step of the
