His ribs twinged when he took a deep breath. No, Grant told himself, I certainly don’t want to upset Sheena.
BOOK III
For he sees that even wise men die … But man in his pomp will not endure; He is like the beasts that perish.
FINAL REHEARSAL
The month flashed past like a single brief day. Grant worked double shifts in the mission control center, squeezed in beside Frankovich, watching as the wallscreens showed Lane, Karlstad, Irene Pascal, and Muzorawa working in the aquarium on the simulators under Dr. Krebs’s baleful eyes.
At first they used only the manual controls in the simulator tank, but after a few days they began to link through the biochip electrodes with the ship systems.
Wo sat at the central console in the control chamber during each simulation run, but to Grant’s eyes the director often looked distracted, unresponsive to what was going on in the aquarium tank. He’s worrying about that IAA inspection team on its way here, Grant thought. They’re due to reach the station exactly seven days after the mission is launched.
Each evening they ate in the conference room and hashed over the day’s work. Krebs rarely had dinner with them, and when she did she was almost completely shunned by the others, eating alone at the head of the table, glowering. The only words she had for the team were warnings about security and complaints that their work in the simulator was sloppy or downright poor.
Most evenings Grant stole away early to spend some time with Sheena; the others were so intent on the mission that they barely mentioned Grant’s “dates” with the gorilla. Even Karlstad had found a new topic for dinner-table discussion.
“My God,” he said at dinner one evening, “being plugged in like that really is better than sex—almost.”
“When you get really adept at it,” Muzorawa explained, “you can even link with each other. It’s almost like telepathy.”
“Really?” Karlstad turned toward O’Hara, leering.
“Get your mind above your beltline, Egon,” she said. “It’s all mental, not physical.”
“The brain is the most important sex organ in the body,” he countered.
She shook her head, frowning.
Muzorawa explained for Grant that the electrode implants also contain microminiaturized semiconductor lasers linked through the fiber-optic lines to connect with the ship’s systems.
“Photo-optics can carry loads more information than electronics,” said O’Hara.
“But the human nervous system is electrical, isn’t it?” Grant asked.
“Electrochemical,” Karlstad corrected.
“Then if all this photo-optical data is pumped into your nervous system—”
“It produces an overload,” Muzorawa said.
“And the wildest sensations you’ve ever experienced,” O’Hara added.
Karlstad sighed mightily.
After dinner Grant went as usual to Sheena. He was trying to get the gorilla accustomed to the neural net. She still could not fit it over her head properly, but gradually Grant got her to accept his help in placing the spiderweb of electrodes properly over her skull.
“If only we could shave her head,” Pascal said yearningly over a late-night snack in the conference room.
Pascal was pulling double duty, too: watching Grant with Sheena each evening through the surveillance cameras and working in the fish tank on the mission simulator. She looked as exhausted as Grant felt.
“She wouldn’t like being shaved,” Grant pointed out.
“We could sedate her.”
“It wouldn’t work,” Grant said as he picked at his open sandwich of simulated roast beef. “By the time she got accustomed to the fact that she’d been shaved, her hair would’ve grown back again.”
Pascal sighed. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
“If she’d let me fasten the net under her chin, then you’d get a decent contact.”
“If she’d let you.” Pascal put down her fork, frowning. “Do you realize that the laboratory animal is running this experiment? It’s infuriating.”
It surprised Grant to hear Sheena referred to as a laboratory animal. And it surprised him even more when he realized that he thought of the gorilla as a person.
Trying to soothe the neurophysiologist, Grant said, “I’ll get Sheena to wear the net and make good contact with the electrodes. Give me a few more days.”
“We’ll be launching in six days.”
“Sheena can’t be put on a schedule, I’m afraid.”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” Pascal said. “Still, it’s very frustrating. Maddening.”
“I can run the console for you,” Grant said. “I’ll collect the data and have it ready for you when you come back from the mission.”
Pascal gave him a dubious look but said nothing.
The door to the corridor slid open and Red Devlin stepped into the conference room as casually as he might stroll along a city boulevard.
“Irene, luv, how are you?”
“What are you doing in here?” Grant demanded. “You’re not supposed—”
“Now, now,” Devlin chided. “Don’t get your shorts in a twist, Grant. Who d’you think brings your food and goodies in here, eh? Somebody’s gotta check on your coffee supply, mate.”
“It’s all right,” Pascal said softly. “He’s just doing his job.”
“Right you are, Irene luv. And you, Grant, how’s Sheena treatin’ you these days?”
“Fine,” Grant said, weary of jokes about him and Sheena.
Devlin pulled a plastic vial from his pocket and handed it to Pascal. “You sure you need these?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned. “Looks to me like you need somethin’ to help you sleep, not keep you awake.”
“I sleep very well,” Pascal replied. “I need to be alert during the day.”
“In the simulator, eh?” Devlin asked.
Pascal nodded.
“How’s it goin’? When do you push off?”
Before Pascal could answer, Grant said, “Dr. Wo doesn’t want us to discuss the mission with anyone who isn’t on the team.”
Devlin stiffened into a lampoon of a soldier’s coming to attention, clicked his heels, and snapped off a salute.
“Aye, aye, sir!”
Grant laughed despite himself.
Pascal said, “Grant is correct. We are not supposed to discuss the mission with you.”
“I understand,” Devlin said, relaxing. “No worries.”
“But in three days you will not see me for a while,” she added.
Grant felt a surge of dismay. He knew it was silly, but rules are meant to be followed, not broken. Krebs and
