“OUR INTELLECTUAL COUSINS”
He didn’t. Once she got started on the station’s security regulations, O’Hara became strictly business. She called up on her wallscreen a bewildering set of rules and restrictions, then quizzed Grant about them mercilessly for what seemed like hours.
At last, with a reluctant, “I suppose that will have to do.” She dismissed Grant—but only after telling him that the cafeteria would stop serving dinner in fifteen minutes.
“I don’t know where the cafeteria is,” Grant bleated.
“Turn right outside my door and follow your nose,” O’Hara said.
Grant got up from the chair, aching slightly from having sat in it for so long.
“Better dash,” O’Hara said.
“What about you? Aren’t you going to eat?”
She sighed heavily. “I hope so. But I’ve got a bit of work to finish first. Scamper, now!”
Grant headed straight for the cafeteria, stopping only to use one of the wall phones to find its exact location.
He could have followed his ears, he realized as he approached the busy, crowded, clanging, clattering noisy cafeteria. For the first time since he’d left Earth, Grant found himself in a familiar environment. The odors of food, real cooked food instead of the microwaved packaged meals he’d had aboard Roberts, almost brought tears of joy to his eyes.
The cafeteria was a wide, busy open area on both sides of the station’s main corridor. Against the curving bulkheads on either side stood steam tables and automated dispensing machines, apparently the same on both sides. A few other latecomers were lined up there with trays in their hands, making their dinner selections. Tables were scattered across the carpeted floor, except for the cleared area of the corridor. People walked back and forth, picking tables, finding friends.
Grant realized that he didn’t know anyone in this crowd. Even though half the tables were empty, there must have been more than a hundred men and women there, chatting, eating, laughing noisily—and all of them were strangers to him.
Then he spotted Egon Karlstad sitting at a table with two women and a muscular-looking black man. But there were no empty chairs at that table. So Grant went through the line glumly, expecting to eat alone, or with strangers. His mood quickly changed, though, once he saw the quality and variety of the food available. The meats were undoubtedly soy derivatives or other synthetics, but the vegetables looked crisp and fresh, and the fruits seemed straight out of the Garden of Eden: luscious and tempting.
Those flowers on Wo’s desk are real, Grant told himself. They must have tremendous hydroponics farms here.
He loaded his tray, even taking the largest-sized cup of soymilk the machines offered, then wandered through the maze of tables, looking for a place to sit.
“Archer!” someone shouted. “Grant! Over here.”
He turned to see Karlstad standing and waving at him. Feeling immensely grateful, Grant headed toward his table.
“I don’t want to interrupt …” he said lamely as he reached the table. All four seats were still occupied.
“Nonsense,” Karlstad snapped as he pulled a chair from the next table, startling the couple who were hunched toward each other deep in intense conversation.
Grant carefully laid his tray on the table and sank into the proffered seat. “Thank you,” he said.
He took his plates and cup off the tray, then—as he had seen others do—slid the tray under his chair. He started to say a swift, silent grace over his food, but Karlstad interrupted.
“Ursula van Neumann,” Karlstad said, pointing to the petulant-looking blond Valkyrie sitting on Grant’s left. She smiled as if it hurt her face. “Ursa’s one of our best computer docs. You have a problem with a simulation or an analysis, go see Ursula.”
She nodded somberly. “He tells that to so many that I am always swamped with work.”
Before Grant could reply, Karlstad turned to the other woman, a petite Oriental with a face as round and flat as a saucepan. “Tamiko Hideshi, physical chemist.”
“You come to see me,” Hideshi said, with a sparkle in her dark eyes, “if you have a problem understanding the chemistry going on in Europa’s ocean.”
Everyone at the table laughed, except Grant.
“I’m afraid I don’t get the joke,” he admitted.
Hideshi touched Grant’s arm gently. “The joke is that no one understands the chemistry going on under that damned ice. They’ve been splashing around in it for more than ten years now, with thirty years of automated probes before that, and the complexity is still beyond us.”
“Oh,” said Grant. “I see.”
“I wish I did,” Hideshi answered ruefully.
“This big bruiser here,” Karlstad said, jabbing a thumb toward the black man, “is Zareb Muzorawa. Fluid dynamics.”
“My friends call me Zeb,” said Muzorawa, in a slow, deliberate tone.
From the looks of him—muscular build, shaved scalp, a trim beard tracing his jawline, red-rimmed eyes of deepest brown—Grant expected his voice to be a powerful leonine rumble. Instead it came out soft, almost amiable, despite his grave attitude. Then he smiled and all the fierceness of his bearded face vanished in a warm friendliness.
Muzorawa was wearing a comfortably soft turtleneck pullover. Grant could see that his trousers were black, metal-studded leggings, the same as Lane O’Hara had worn. Van Neumann wore a sleeveless chemise, cut low enough to show how amply she was built. Hideshi was in frayed olive-drab coveralls.
Grant said, “I’m very happy to meet all of you.” He started to put his fork into the salad he’d selected, but Hideshi interrupted with:
“What’s your discipline?”
“I’m an astrophysicist.”
“Astrophysicist?”
With a nod, Grant added, “My special field of study is stellar collapse. You know, supernovas, pulsars, black holes … stuff like that.”
“What in the name of sanity are you doing here?”
van Neumann asked.
“Why did Dr. Wo pick you?” Karlstad added.
Grant could only shrug. “I’m doing my Public Service duty. I don’t think Dr. Wo asked for me in particular; I’m just the brightboy that the personnel board sent here.”
Karlstad nodded knowingly. “Just a warm body to fill an open slot.”
But Muzorawa countered, “I’m not so sure of that. The director is always very careful about his personnel selections. Very exact. No one comes to this station unless he wants that precise individual.”
Grant knew that was wrong. He’d been sent to this station to spy on Dr. Wo and the other scientists. Maybe Wo knows that, he thought suddenly. That’s why he’s so ticked at me.
Van Neumann’s brows knit into a worried frown. “Well, there’s no astrophysics work for you to do here, that’s for certain.”
Grant looked at each of his four companions: biophysics, computer engineering, physical chemistry, and fluid dynamics. What did it add up to? he wondered.
Aloud, he asked, “Just what is the work you’re doing here?”
Hideshi quickly answered, “Ursula and I are supporting the teams investigating the Galilean moons.”
Turning to Muzorawa, “And you?”
Muzorawa glanced at the ceiling, then replied guardedly, “I’m part of a different team, studying Jupiter.”
“The planet itself, not its moons?”
“That’s right.”
“Fluid dynamics,” Grant mused aloud. “Then you must be studying Jupiter’s atmosphere. The clouds—”
“And the life-forms,” Karlstad interrupted.
“Those big floating balloons,” said Grant. “Why are they called Clarke’s Medusas? They don’t look anything like medusas on Earth.”