her.
Sure enough, Karlstad was sitting at a big table, with Patti Buono, Nacho, and several others. Quintero was regaling them with some story that had them all laughing hard. O’Hara seemed to ignore them; she went to the steam table and began filling her tray with a bowl of soup, a sandwich, fruit cup, and soda.
Feeling somewhat relieved but still cautious, Grant slid his tray toward her, grabbing a sandwich and a salad. As he was filling a mug with fruit juice, O’Hara carried her tray toward Karlstad’s table.
Grant followed her as O’Hara headed to their table. Karlstad and the others looked up as she approached. Their laughter died away. Grant thought they looked kind of guilty, although that might have been just his overworked imagination.
Karlstad smiled up at O’Hara as she put her tray on the table next to him. Then she picked up her bowl of soup and emptied it onto his head.
Everything stopped. The cafeteria went completely silent, except for Karlstad’s shocked sputtering. He sat there with soup dripping from his ears, his nose, his chin; soggy noodles festooned his thin silver hair.
O’Hara said absolutely nothing. She merely smiled, nodded as if she were satisfied with her work, then picked up her tray and limped off to a different table.
Quintero burst into roaring laughter. Karlstad scowled at him, but the others started to laugh, too.
Grant left his tray and headed out of the cafeteria. He had no desire to be caught in any crossfire.
SUMMONED
For several days Grant steered clear of both Karlstad and O’Hara. He became something of a recluse, avoiding everyone, taking his meals in his quarters, coming out only for his hours of work. But it was impossible to escape the gossip flickering all through the station.
It was a lovers’ spat, some said. Other maintained that O’Hara had somehow been wronged by Karlstad and the soup dumping had been her revenge. No, still others insisted: He had rejected her, and she’d humiliated him because he had humiliated her.
He saw O’Hara now and then, despite his best efforts not to. She was constantly working with the dolphins, swimming with them, talking with them. Grant tried to head the other way whenever he saw her, but there was no way to avoid all contact. She seemed cheerful and friendly, though, as if nothing had happened. For that matter, so did Karlstad, when Grant saw him—usually at a distance, in the cafeteria or in passing along the main corridor.
One night, when he couldn’t sleep despite watching Marjorie’s two latest messages and reading from the Book of Job for what seemed like hours, Grant pulled on a pair of slacks, stuffed a shirt into its waistband, and padded barefoot out to the empty, darkened cafeteria.
He punched the automated dispenser for a cup of hot cocoa. The machine seemed to take longer now to make the brew than it did during the busy hours of the day.
“Can’t sleep, hey?”
Startled, Grant spun around to see Red Devlin standing beside him. The Red Devil’s bristling hair and mustache stood out even in the shadows of the dimly lit cafeteria. His white jacket was limp, sweaty, unbuttoned all the way down, revealing Devlin’s olive-drab undershirt.
“You’re up pretty late yourself,” Grant replied.
“It’s a lot o’ work, runnin’ this joint.”
“I guess it is.” The dispenser beeped at last. Grant slid up the plastic guard and reached for his steaming cup of cocoa.
“Need somethin’ to put in it?” Devlin asked.
Grant shook his head. “It’s got enough sugar already, I’m sure.”
“I meant somethin’ stronger.”
Grant blinked at him.
“I know you’re a straight arrow an’ all that,” Devlin said, “but a man can’t go without
“I don’t drink,” Grant said.
“I know.” Devlin patted Grant’s shoulder. “An’ you don’t even take sleepin’ pills, do ya?”
“I’ve never needed them.”
“Until now, huh?”
“I don’t want any. Thanks.”
“Maybe some entertainment?”
“Entertainment?”
“VR, y’know. I could fix you up with some very good stuff. Just like the real thing. Make a new man o’ you.”
“No thanks!”
“Now wait, don’t get all huffy on me. You’re a married man, aren’t you?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“I can work up a VR sim for you, special. Just gimme some videos of your wife and I’ll put together a sim that’ll be just like she was with you, just about.”
Grant’s jaw dropped open.
“Sure, I can do it!” Devlin encouraged, mistaking Grant’s shocked silence. “I did it for ’Gon, y’know. Fixed him up with Lainie … in virtual reality.”
My God in heaven, Grant thought. So Egon’s fantasies about Lane aren’t just wet dreams, after all. He’s got a VR session with her in it. Maybe more than one.
“How about it, Grant?” Devlin urged.
But Grant was thinking, If Lane knew about this she’d kill the two of them.
“Well?”
“No thanks,” Grant said firmly. “Not for me.”
He turned and strode away, splashing hot cocoa from the mug onto his hand, thinking that he’d never let that filthy devil get his paws on videos of Marjorie. Never.
Days later, Grant was in the biochemistry lab, checking the delicate glassware he was taking out of the dishwasher, to make certain nothing had been broken or chipped. The glass tubes and retorts were still warm in his hands. He’d been thinking that it would be much more efficient if they made the lab apparatus out of lunar glassteel, which was unbreakable, but then figured it would cost too much. Cheaper to gather up the broken bits and recast them. Just as graduate students were an economic advantage over robots, old-fashioned chippable lab glassware was used instead of glassteel.
“I haven’t seen you for a while.”
The voice startled Grant so badly he nearly dropped the hand-blown tubing he was holding.
Looking up, he saw it was Zareb Muzorawa.
“Oh … I’ve been around,” said Grant. “I’ve … uh, been pretty busy, you know.”
Muzorawa hiked one leg on a lab stool and perched casually on it. Still in those metal-studded leggings, Grant saw.
Very seriously he said, “What happened between Lane and Egon was not your fault, my friend”
“Yeah, sure. I know that” Grant turned back to emptying the dishwasher.
“Lane told me about your conversation with her.”
Grant said nothing, kept busy unloading the glassware.
“You can’t hide all the time, Grant,” Muzorawa said. “The station isn’t that big.”
Straightening and facing the man, Grant said, “I guess I’m embarrassed, pretty much. I feel really rotten about it.”
“It was not your fault. No one is angry at you. Lane and Egon aren’t even angry at each other, not anymore.”
“I don’t see how that could be.”
