Jupiter

“Correct. It’s something like zero gee. That’s why we’re training for the mission in the dolphin tank.”

“I didn’t know.”

Muzorawa placed a finger over his Ups, the sign for silence. “Now you do, my friend.”

SIMULATIONS

Grant wanted to ask Lane about the dolphin tank, but he had forced himself to stay clear of her since the evening he’d spent in her quarters. Avoid temptation, he kept telling himself sternly. He spent his evenings sending long, rambling messages back to Marjorie and rereading hers to him.

Somewhat to his surprise, there had been no repercussions over his stained trousers. Either the guards who’d seen him that night hadn’t thought enough of the incident to repeat it to anyone else, or the station’s gossip-mongers didn’t consider it worth their notice. Whenever he bumped into O’Hara she was cordial and polite, businesslike but friendly at the same time. No mention of the brief kiss that bothered Grant so much. No personal emotions at all that he could discern.

You’re making a mountain out of a molehill, Grant told himself time and again. But he dreamed about O’Hara, despite his strenuous efforts not to. How do you not think about something? he demanded of himself. Take no pleasure in it, he heard the advice of his moral counselor from his teen years. If you rigorously reject any thought that’s pleasurable, then there’s no sin to it.

He prayed for strength to resist temptation. Yet the more he prayed, the more he thought about Lane. Neutered, she had said. The electronic biochips somehow block out the sex drive. Is that a side effect, an accident? Or did Wo make it that way on purpose?

Each message he got from Marjorie he read over and over again, like a rare treasure, like a drowning man clutching at a lifebuoy. Until…

Marjorie was sitting at a desk in some sort of office, or perhaps it was a hospital. Grant couldn’t see enough of the background to tell. Besides, his attention was focused on Marjorie, on her soulful brown eyes and beautiful dark hair. She’d clipped her hair short; it framed her face in thick, luxuriant curls.

“I guess that’s all the news from here in Bolivia,” she said cheerfully. “They’re sending me back home for a month’s R&R. I’ll take a trip to see your parents.”

Before Grant could even think about that, she added, “Oh, and Mr. Beech called to say he hasn’t heard from you. He’d like you to send him a call when you get a chance.”

Ellis Beech.

“That’s all for now, darling. I’ll send you a ’gram when I’m at your folks’ house. Bye! I love you!”

The display screen went blank as Grant sagged back in his chair. Beech wanted to hear from him. I’ll bet he does, Grant thought. But I don’t have anything to tell him.

So far, the New Morality had exerted no pressure at all on Grant; they hadn’t even tried to communicate with him, until now. And all Grant could report to them is that one crewed probe into the ocean failed disastrously and Dr. Wo was readying another mission. They already know that, Grant said to himself. I’ve been here for months now and I don’t know more than they knew when they sent me here.

In a way, though, he felt almost glad of that. He resented being ordered to spy on the scientists, resented being shipped out to Jupiter to suit the prying whims of a man like Beech and his unseen but powerful superiors. You’ve got to decide which side you’re on, Grant remembered Beech telling him. Why do there have to be opposing sides? Why can’t we study Jupiter without the New Morality poking their noses into it?

Confused, miserable, Grant sat up for hours watching and rewatching all of Marjorie’s messages to him. He found that he couldn’t picture her face if he didn’t study her videos.

Sleep just would not come. He was too upset, too resentful. His mind kept spinning the same thoughts over and over again. At last he pulled on a pair of coveralls and trudged barefoot down to the cafeteria for some hot chocolate. The place was empty, the overhead lights turned down to a dim nighttime setting.

As he stood before the dispensing machine, wondering if a cup of tea wouldn’t be better for him, he noticed Red Devlin making his way through the empty, shadowed tables.

“Up late, eh?” Devlin said cheerfully as he approached.

Grant nodded. “I can’t seem to get to sleep tonight.”

Devlin cocked his head to one side, like a red-crested woodpecker. Jabbing a finger toward the dispensing machine, he said, “Nothing in there will help much, y’know.”

Grant replied, “Maybe some hot chocolate …”

Devlin shook his head. “I’ve got just what you need. A couple pops o’ these”—he pulled a palmful of pills out of his trousers pocket—“and you’ll sleep like a baby.”

“Drugs?” Grant yelped.

With a laugh and a shake of his head, Devlin countered, “And whattaya think chocolate is? Or caffeine?”

“They’re not narcotics.”

Devlin put the pills back in his pocket. “Against your religion, eh?”

Nodding, Grant bit back the reply he wanted to make. A man who sells narcotics is evil personified, he knew. Yet Devlin seemed only to be trying to help—in his own benighted way.

“Maybe what you really need is some stimulation,” the Red Devil mused. “A VR program. I’ve got some real hot ones: fireballs, y’know.”

Before Grant could answer Devlin laughed and said, “But that’d be against your religion, too, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would,” Grant said stiffly.

“Well, I’m afraid there’s not much I can do for you, then,” Devlin said good-naturedly. “But if you ever need me, you know where to find me.” He strolled off down the shadowy corridor, whistling a tune that Grant didn’t recognize.

Dr. Wo shouldn’t let him stay on this station, Grant told himself. What he sells is wrong, sinful. Still, he found himself wondering what virtual reality sex might be like. Would it really be a sin? Maybe if he could imagine himself with Marjorie …

Grant spent almost all his waking hours in the fluid dynamics lab, doggedly working out a point-by-point map of the turbulent currents in the Jovian ocean based on the scant data returned by the automated probes. The course work sent by the University of Cairo remained in his computer, untouched, ignored.

Late one afternoon Karlstad mosied into the lab, a knowing, superior grin on his pallid face. Grant was alone among the humming computers and silent experimental equipment.

“You do tend to make a hermit out of yourself, don’t you?” he asked, pulling up the wheeled chair next to Grant’s.

Looking up from the graphs displayed on his screen, Grant muttered, “The work doesn’t do itself, Egon.”

“It’s a shame you’re not into biology, then,” Karlstad said easily. “Like, right now I’m helping the bio team from Callisto to culture some of their subzero foraminifera.”

“Are you?” Grant turned back to his screen.

“Damned right,” said Karlstad, leaning back in the chair and clasping his hands behind his head. “Helpful little creatures. The forams are multiplying all by themselves in the rig I built for them. It simulates the ice-covered sea on Callisto very nicely. The fora do all the work and I roam around the station—”

“Interrupting people who’re trying to get their work done,” Grant finished for him.

Karlstad pretended to be wounded. “Is that any way to treat a fellow scooter?”

Grant admitted, “No, I suppose it wasn’t polite.”

“I’m not here to interrupt you. I’m here to offer you a learning experience.”

“What?”

Karlstad leaned closer. “Zeb and Lainie are going into the tank together.”

Grant felt his jaw drop open. “What do you mean?”