“No, no, Sheena. You’ve put most of the pieces together. There are only two left. You do them.”
“Grant do first.”
He nodded understanding. “You want me to do one piece?”
Sheena said, “Yes.” And brought one big hand up to her skull.
“No, no!” Grant blurted. “Don’t rub your head! You’ll mess up your hat.”
“Hurts,” Sheena said.
Grant forced a smile for her. “No, it doesn’t hurt, Sheena. My hat doesn’t hurt. Your hat doesn’t hurt.”
She had knocked the net slightly askew. Grant got to his knees and straightened it out for her.
“Hurts,” Sheena repeated.
“It can’t hurt you,” Grant said. “Here, let’s finish the puzzle.”
He picked up one of the two remaining pieces and put it in place. Sheena stared at the puzzle for a moment, then reached for the last piece.
Suddenly she flung it away. “Hurts!” she growled, and reached up to yank at the neural net.
Grant saw a tendril of smoke rising from one of the electrodes. My God, it’s burning her!
Sheena ripped the net off her head and smashed it to the floor. She roared with pain and lurched up onto her hind legs.
She’s going to kill me! Grant thought.
The gorilla balled one mighty fist and smashed it against the steel wall of her pen. The metal buckled.
Grant scrambled to his feet. Sheena towered over him, immense, fangs bared.
“Grant hurt Sheena!” she rasped.
“No, I didn’t mean to—”
“Grant no friend!”
He started to back away from her, toward the entrance to her pen. There was an emergency control outside that could slide a thickly barred gate across the entry.
Sheena dropped down to all fours, and Grant could see a burned spot on her skull. She glowered at him as he backed away. Don’t turn your back to her! Grant remembered. Gorillas seldom attack a man who’s facing them.
It all seemed to be happening in slow motion, as if in a nightmare. Grant edged toward the pen’s entrance, Sheena growled and glared at him, then took a knuckle-walking step toward him.
Grant bolted through the doorway and banged the emergency gate control. The bars slid swiftly across the entrance and clanged shut. Sheena grasped one of the bars in a big, hairy hand. Grant thought she could have bent it if she’d wanted to.
“I’m sorry, Sheena,” he babbled. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. One of the electrodes must’ve been defective. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Grant no friend,” the gorilla rasped again. Then she turned her back to him and shambled to the far corner of her pen.
Grant stood there, heartbroken. You’re right, he admitted silently to the gorilla. I’m not your friend. I never was, even though I wanted to be.
IMMERSION
The following night the departing crew held a glum little farewell party for themselves in O’Hara’s quarters. Lane herself invited Grant to attend. Still miserable about Sheena, and afraid to get near the gorilla again, Grant accepted.
He was the last one to arrive. O’Hara’s room was in its planetarium mode again as she admitted him and then slid the door shut behind him. Even the floor was speckled with stars. For a dizzying moment Grant felt as if the others were sitting in empty space, floating in the middle of the universe. The faint, ethereal music of a single keyboard floated through the shadows.
“No stimulants, I’m afraid,” Lane said in a hushed voice. “The mission, you know.”
Grant nodded his understanding, then padded across the starry floor to sit between Muzorawa and Pascal. Zeb’s beard was gone, Karlstad was totally bald. Pascal’s wig was slightly askew; not nearly as natural-looking as Lane’s. All the crew members have been depilated, Grant realized. Because of the immersion; it’s more sanitary.
“I thought you would be with Sheena,” said Pascal.
Grant felt his jaws clench. With an effort, he told her, “I had a problem with her last night.”
“Oh?”
He described the fiasco with the burned-out electrode.
Instead of disappointment, Pascal immediately asked, “Did you get data?”
He blinked at her. “I don’t know. I didn’t check. Everything was so—”
“The other electrodes should have worked,” Pascal said. “You should have some data, at least. Anger. Pain. Such data is priceless!
Betrayal, Grant thought. What kind of brain waves will show feelings of betrayal?
“Do you blame yourself for what happened?” Muzorawa asked gently.
Grant shrugged. “Who else was there?”
“Sometimes experiments blow up on you,” he said. “Equipment can fail.”
“That’s great to hear on the eve of our dunking,” Karlstad grumbled. He’d been sitting on Muzorawa’s other side.
“Do you think Sheena will stay angry with you?” O’Hara asked.
“I don’t know,” Grant said. “Right now, I’m kind of scared to go back and see her again.”
“Lovers’ quarrel,” Karlstad said.
Grant was in no mood for his quips. “Speaking of lovers, isn’t Dr. Krebs coming to this party?”
Karlstad threw up his hands. “God forbid!”
Muzorawa chuckled. “That’s right, Egon. She did specifically tap you for the mission. She must have a special place in her heart for you.”
“That means she hates me, then,” Frankovich chimed in. “Thank goodness!”
O’Hara said, “I didn’t think inviting Krebs here would be such a lovely idea.”
“Why not?” Karlstad snapped. “Maybe she’d perk up this party. We could certainly use something to liven up the proceedings.”
“D’you notice how she seems to stare at you when she talks to you?” O’Hara asked no one in particular. “It’s positively spooky, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Pascal said. “She never did that before the accident.”
“It’s the evil eye,” said Karlstad. “She’s learned witchcraft.”
“Whatever it is, it makes my blood run cold,” O’Hara said.
“You think it runs cold when she gives you the fish-eye,” Karlstad said, almost smirking, “wait until you’re immersed in that PFCL gunk. That’ll chill your blood down to the marrow.”
For a long moment no one spoke a word. Grant knew what they were facing and shuddered inwardly.
“There’s an IAA inspection team on its way here,” Frankovich muttered.
“I’d heard that,” said O’Hara. “It’s really true, then?”
Karlstad grumbled, “That’s why our woeful leader wants to get this mission off so fast. He’s afraid the IAA officials will stop it, once they find out about it.”
“Why would they stop it?”
“Risking human lives.”
“Finding things they don’t want to find,” Grant heard himself say.
The others all turned to him.
“They’ll be here in ten days,” Grant added. “You should be safely on your way by then.”
“Safely?” Karlstad sneered. “I wish.”
Muzorawa said, “Let us remember one thing: We will be exploring a region where no human has gone
