Muzorawa, connecting the optical fibers from his console, pointed out, “But she’s not blind when she’s connected.”
Karlstad began to link up, too. “Whatever damage was done to her visual cortex, it’s gotten worse.”
“’Tis the pressure we’re under,” said O’Hara.
“Right. It’s damaging her brain even more,” Karlstad agreed.
“It only seems to affect her visual cortex,” Muzorawa said.
“So far,” said Karlstad. “How long will it be before other parts of her brain start to cave in?”
His eyes riveted on the closed hatch, Grant heard himself say, “She’s sailing us toward the Red Spot.”
“She’ll turn off long before we’re in any danger,” Muzorawa said.
“Will she?” Karlstad asked.
“Of course she will.”
“I think she’s going crazy,” Karlstad said. “She was always a tyrant. Now she’s getting fanatical, ignoring a direct order from the IAA.”
“We all agreed that we want to continue the mission,” Muzorawa said.
“Did we?” Karlstad shot back. “Nobody asked me.”
“Are you afraid, ’Gon?” O’Hara challenged him.
“Afraid? Me? Ninety kilometers down with a crazy blind woman in command who’s telling the IAA to stick it in their lower intestine? What’s there to be afraid of?”
Muzorawa finished connecting his optical fiber links. “I think a certain amount of fear is a healthy sign. But we mustn’t let it overwhelm us. We must not panic or take rash actions.”
“What do you mean by rash?” O’Hara asked. “Relieving Krebs of command,” Karlstad replied instantly.
“We can’t do that,” Grant said.
“Not even if she’s going to get us all killed?”
“There is no evidence of that,” said Muzorawa. Then he added, “As yet.”
O’Hara looked toward the closed hatch. “She must be in terrible pain.”
“She doesn’t act it,” said Karlstad.
“Not physical pain, perhaps, but… imagine being blind. Unable to see.”
“Unless she’s connected to the ship.”
“Yes,” said O’Hara, in a whisper. “There is that.”
“So what are we going to do?” Karlstad demanded.
No one had an answer.
Krebs returned to the bridge exactly one hour after she left, without the need for Karlstad to rouse her.
Watching her link up, it now seemed obvious to Grant that she couldn’t see. She fingered each of the optical fibers, her eyes unfocused, and ran its end across the electrodes in her legs until its minuscule electrical field clicked into place with the proper implant. She can’t see the color codes on the fibers, Grant realized. She can’t see anything at all.
Until she was completely wired and activated her linkage. Then she straightened up and took command.
“Mr. Grant, what are you gawking at?” she demanded.
Grant snapped his head around and stared at his console. “Nothing, Captain.”
“You tend to your duties, Mr. Grant, and I will tend to mine.”
“Yes’m.”
“Dr. Krebs,” said Muzorawa. “We must discuss your condition.”
“There is nothing to discuss.”
“I’m afraid there is.”
“I am fully capable of executing my responsibilities,” Krebs said. Grant thought he heard the slightest of tremors in her voice.
“Dr. Krebs, the trauma to your visual cortex is worsening.”
Krebs glared at him but said nothing.
“It is possible that it will continue to worsen,” Muzorawa went on calmly, reasonably. “It could lead to a cerebral hemorrhage.”
“I know that,” said Krebs, her voice several notches lower than usual. “I accept that risk.”
“We should abort the mission and return to the station,” Muzorawa said. Grant marveled at how impersonally he managed to put it. No blame. No shame.
Krebs hovered in the middle of the bridge, breathing hard enough for Grant to see her chest rising and falling. The ship was running smoothly enough; he still felt the steady thrum of the generator and the energy of the thrusters, but that was all background now, like the constant aching pressure behind his eyes, like the growing dull pain in his back, pushed to one side as he focused consciously on the interplay between Muzorawa and Krebs.
At last she said, “If we return to the station with nothing to show for our efforts, they will never permit another mission. They have already ordered us to abandon our work. I will not do that. Not under any circumstances. Is that clear?”
“But your health is in danger. Your life—”
“What good is my life if I can’t pursue the search to which I’ve devoted it?” Krebs’s voice rose powerfully. “What use would my life be if I am not permitted to do the work which I love? I have already sacrificed everything else in my life—family, friends, even lovers— to be
None of the crew could say a word. They all stared at her.
Krebs broke into a bitter smile. “I see the disbelief on your face, Dr. Karlstad. You find it difficult to believe that I had lovers?”
“Uh, n-no, not at all,” Karlstad stammered.
“We go on,” Krebs said. “I don’t care if I die here. Better here than in some dusty classroom where I wouldn’t even be allowed to teach about extraterrestrial life.”
Muzorawa replied meekly, “Yes, Captain.”
Krebs nodded as if satisfied, then turned her baleful look toward O’Hara. “Dr. O’Hara, dive angle of five degrees. Now.”
Lane glanced at the others, then asked, “We’re going deeper?”
“Deeper,” said Krebs.
Grant’s head throbbed with pain. Each beat of his pulse was like a hammer banging inside his sinuses. His back hurt as if it were slowly petrifying. They had passed the hundred-kilometer depth and were still pushing deeper, in a shallow dive that ran parallel to a bright swirling stream of organic particles.
Somewhere out in that dark sea waited the Great Red Spot, Grant knew. He could not see it, not even when tapping into the ship’s long-range sensors. But it was there, that enormous vortex, that eternal storm that was bigger than the entire Earth, sucking currents into its voracious maw. It was waiting for them, drawing them to it like a magnet pulls on a tiny filing of iron.
They were riding one of those inflowing currents now, buffeting noticeably whenever they drifted toward its turbulent outer edge. As long as they remained well within the current, though, the ship rode easily, smoothly. Grant was able to cut down on the thrusters’ power. The Red Spot was doing their work for them, but Grant feared that the work would lead to their destruction.
On a rest break with Muzorawa, Grant pleaded, “Zeb, you can’t let her drag us into the Red Spot.”
“She’ll turn off long before we get into danger,” Muzorawa said. But his red-rimmed eyes would not maintain contact with Grant’s.
Pulling himself down wearily to sit on the end of his bunk, Grant pointed out, “The current’s getting stronger. I don’t know how far we can go before it’ll be too strong for the thrusters to break us free.”
Muzorawa considered that for a long, silent moment, then looked directly at Grant. “What does your fluid dynamics program tell you?”
“I’d have to make a calculation …”
