Listening to the others talk about Brendan made him want to laugh. Monster, monster in the sky . . . He suppressed a giggle, then sobered quickly. Their perceptions seemed confused. Cornwell was mostly interested in the content of his own ideas, and ideological egocentrism was always a good excuse, but why were Ariane's notions so different from his own?
His attention drifted away from them, thinking about his recent exchange with Sealock. Some sort of change will have to come over me, and soon. He noticed the first sensations of a developing erection and his lips twisted into a derisive smile. Some deep-thinking artist I am! What should I do, sit here and jerk off at the ceiling? He wanted to feel amused, but the thought made him angry, bringing unreasoning tears to his eyes.
Out of nowhere, Beth's hand was resting gently on his collarbone. She was looking at him with a kind of concern. "What's the matter?"
"It's . . . nothing."
She touched his face lightly and her fingers came away wet. "This doesn't look like nothing to me." He looked away from her, out the window, then said, "What's always the matter, then?" She sat down beside him on the edge of the chair. "I know. It's tough. You and Brendan. Harmon and Vana. Me and John. Even . . . even Brendan and Ariane. We always want what's out of reach, don't we?" Suddenly she reached down and, splitting the material of his garment, seized his penis, holding it in a pressure grip that trapped the blood inside. It swelled rapidly, involuntarily.
"What are you doing?" he asked, incredulous, feeling paralyzed.
"Nothing." She lowered her head downward and took him in her mouth. As he watched her head bobbing slowly, ridiculously, up and down, he thought, But I didn't want this!
Still, he watched, fascinated by the sight and realizing that, for now, he was occupying Brendan's psychological niche. Is that what I look like? He found himself imagining that he was Brendan, and suddenly his perception shifted. He put his hand on the back of the woman's head and began pushing her down further, something that Brendan often did to him. She started to gag but didn't stop moving. He wanted to giggle.
In the background John and Ariane had fallen silent, watching them.
Suddenly Vana appeared from her compartment, naked, a broad smile on her face. She announced,
"Da-daaa!" and the PC hatches sprang open. "It's orgy time!" They all gathered in the center of the room, on a ridge surrounding the exit hatch, coming to cluster together by ones and twos, forming a ragged circle.
Harmon was trying to grin, but his pale skin was suffused by a succession of easy blushes. "This isn't exactly spontaneous, is it?"
Vana laughed. "Whoever said it needed to be? Come on!" She started to peel him out of his clothes, and the othersslowly followed suit. They stood there naked, appraising each other, at a loss. Sealock looked them over with amusement, then his eyes fell on Demogorgon, still paired with Beth, and on his moist, still erect penis. "Well, well," he said, "very nice. I told you you'd like it, kiddo!" His peal of laughter was absorbed by the soft walls.
The Arab looked away, starting to feel angry, then he suddenly felt his mood fall in line with the spirit of the occasion. "Yes, you did." He glanced at the others. "Big brave heteros . . . I'll show you how it's done!" He stalked over to Brendan and kneeled.
Vana said, "No sense letting them have all the fun." She turned and kissed Harmon, then reached for Ariane, and the three of them moved in on the scene together. Tem put his arm around Jana, who looked at him suspiciously, then glanced at John and, as if giving in to the social pressure, went with the inevitable. Not waiting any longer, Axie joined them all.
John watched for a moment, then felt a body pressing against his and turned to see Beth, who was smiling. As she reached for him he thought, What's happening here? Is this wrong? Aren't we still in the same little groups, closing each other out?
Asterology was a new science, relatively speaking. In the past, when the study of space had been limited to the narrow confines of Earth, looking up through an ever shifting miasma at dancing, mercurial points of light, men had been correct to separate astronomy from the growing jumble of -ologies that denned the universe. Star-naming, it was called, and that humble name was not far wrong for the study of such remote, unapproachable objects. But then came the Mariners and the Veneras and the Voyagers, expanding the faintest of photographic specks into huge variegated worlds with their own histories and morphologies. Astronomy ceased to hold sway over these new objects, and geology, in its guise of comparative planetology, took over. There were, however, other things in heaven and earth than the planets. Therewere electromagnetic fields, there were planetary rings in all their glory, and, most important of all, there were stars. Eventually the study of the structure of the universe became known as asterology, despite all the confusion that name produced.
Jana Li Hu had taken her degrees in asterology from the Reflexive Institute in Ulaanbaatar, perhaps the most rigorous and tyrannical school that had ever existed. She knew the literature well, to put it mildly. Her final paper, on Enceladus' Sarandib Planitia, had been a model of its kind and had placed her among the foremost asterologists of her generation. Still, she worked under the stigma of being an asterologist who had not left Earth, something like an Egyptologist who'd never seen the Pyramids. The opportunity to study Triton was a necessity to her career. Now this!
Four new worlds, an entirely new order of cryogenic moon-lets, and Iris herself! The task of preparing the preliminary reconnaissance had fallen on her shoulders as the de facto asterologist on the scene. With essentially homemade equipment being doled out to her at the whim of a madman, she had to be very, very careful to be right. Of course, they would all be looking over her shoulder, monitoring the data, and coming to their own conclusions. . . . But the Science article would be over her name. She felt the weight of the responsibility like lead.
Added to this, she had to continue to understand and interact with the rest of the colonists. They were her lifeline and, if she alienated them, the future would be bleak indeed. She should already have been out there taking samples, looking at the fine detail of the highlands, but first they had to build an instrument carrier and adapt the worksuits for zero flux.
She went back to analyzing the integrated radartop /spectral images of the ocellus periphery. The ship's photorecorder had derived full coverage of the area at a three-centimeter resolution, and there was plenty to think about.
Ocypete was odd. Although the terrains seen on the other two satellites had, at least roughly, corresponded with those on similar objects in the outer Solar System, the moon'sencounter with a radioactive object had profoundly influenced its history, had emplaced terrains totally unlike those seen on any other world. Nowhere else had such an extensive atmosphere frozen out. The sea that had filled the ocellus had extended almost to the center of the worldlet, a conical intrusion into its core, causing massive relaxation of the remaining crust and mantle, and then had refrozen, pushing them back into place. Since the size and density of Ocypete did not allow for anything other than Ice I, even at these temperatures, the equations that defined it were comparatively simple. It should only be a matter of careful, assiduous study to completely define the parameters that had formed Iris III. Suddenly she felt a rush of anxiety. Could she successfully catalog and describe these worlds, with the limitations of her own mind as well as those being imposed by the others? Would she make a fool of myself? She had to get moving! Now!
Driven by a compulsion to camouflage the adrenaline that was creeping up her backbone, she slipped down into the aft compartment. Taking the orange suit from her locker, she put it on and prepared a backpack full of her tools. The feel of the suit hugging her securely seemed to assuage her crawling skin. Impatiently, she sent a command to Shipnet and waited. When the door dilated, she ignored the platform and jumped. She began to tumble outward, and a childish, chaotic joy filled her. Perhaps the discomfort she'd felt had been claustrophobia, pure and simple, after all. In a moment she remembered her gyro, and she swung right side up to get her bearings as the ground implacably rushed to meet her feet. She wondered if they would miss her aboard the ship.