While Grant mopped up his dessert of fresh melon and soymilk ice cream, a mountain-sized young man in coveralls that seemed about to burst grabbed an empty chair, flipped it around in one hand, and swung a heavy leg over it, resting his beefy arms on the chair back. His dark, drooping mustache made him look like a bandit in Grant’s eyes.
Karlstad said, “Grant Archer, this is Ignacio Quintero.”
“Nacho,” said the newcomer, in a surprisingly sweet tenor voice.
“Macho Nacho, he’s known as,” Karlstad said.
Quintero looked like a football lineman: big in every direction. He was smiling pleasantly, though, and his brown eyes looked friendly.
He stuck out a big hand. “Good to meet you, amigo. Bienvenido and all that.”
Grant shook hands with Quintero.
“Nacho works with us,” Karlstad explained. “He’s a structural engineer, but his main talent is entertainment.”
“Entertainment?” Grant asked.
Quintero shrugged massively. “I try to keep people amused. It gets too dull around here. Too solemn.”
“Once he sprinkled black pepper in the air circulation system, and when people started sneezing their heads off he spread a rumor about a mysterious virus causing a plague.”
Quintero made a hushing gesture with both hands. “Hey, not so loud, amigo. The medics still don’t know it was me who did it.”
“And then there was the incident of the pornographic data dump …”
“You can’t blame me for that one,” Quintero said, shaking a finger at Karlstad. “I had plenty of help.”
“Sure you did.”
“So what do you do, Grant?”
Grant explained that he was an astrophysicist and hadn’t yet received his work assignment.
“Astrophysicist?” Quintero scratched his head. Grant noticed that his dark hair was tightly curled, almost kinky. “You’re in the wrong part of the universe for that.”
Before Grant could reply, Karlstad said, “I’m taking Grant down to the aquarium. Want to come?”
Something flashed across Quintero’s face, an expression that came and went so quickly Grant could not tell what it was.
“No can do, amigo. Got too much work to catch up with. Wo’s got us on double shifts now.”
“Double shifts?” Grant asked. “What are you working on?”
Quintero glanced at Karlstad, then hauled himself to his feet. “Got to run. Nice to meet you, Grant. Adios, muchachos! ”
He practically ran out of the cafeteria.
Once Grant finished his dessert, Karlstad led him out into the corridor.
“We could do this tomorrow,” Grant said. “I mean, if it’s your time to retire for the night—”
“No, no,” Karlstad said quickly. “Sometimes I stay up even past ten o’clock.”
Grant didn’t know if that was supposed to be a joke or not, so he stayed silent. Karlstad seemed impatient to get to the fish tanks, whatever they were. Grant couldn’t believe the station had an aquarium built into it, but then why was there a marine biologist on the staff?
Karlstad set a brisk pace as they walked through the corridor. He glided along, wraithlike, but the expression on his wan face seemed eager. The corridor was deserted, empty of people, all the doors closed for the night.
Up ahead, though, the corridor seemed to end in a metal wall with a single small door set into it. No, not a door, Grant saw as they got nearer. It was a pressure hatch, much like the kind of hatch he’d seen on airlocks, with a security keypad set into the bulkhead alongside it.
Letters in fading, flaking red paint above the hatch proclaimed authorized personnel only. Someone had scrawled beneath it No fishing allowed. The metal of the bulkhead seemed to be covered with freshly scrubbed areas and patches of new-looking paint. Apparently other graffiti had been written or scratched into the bulkhead and then erased or painted over.
“Wo tries to stay ahead of the graffiti artists,” Karlstad explained. “If he catches you at it, you spend the next week of your off-duty time with Sheena, scrubbing and painting.
Pointing to the official notice above the hatch, Grant asked, “Are we authorized personnel?”
Karlstad shrugged his slim shoulders. “We are if we know the entry code.”
He tapped on the keypad with quick, nervous fingers. The red light atop the keys turned green and the hatch popped open with a thin puff of chill, dank air from the other side of the bulkhead.
Karlstad pulled the hatch open, grunting. “Lainie gave me the combination,” he said. “She likes to play in here. She likes an audience.”
Completely puzzled, Grant stepped over the coaming of the hatch. This section of the station felt cooler, chilly, and clammy with humidity. The corridor was much narrower here, and dimly lit, but Grant could see a glow along the wall.
Then his breath caught in his throat. It was an aquarium! The glow was from a thick, long window. On its other side swam a dizzying assortment of fish, big ones, little ones, some nuzzling the gravelly bottom, others weaving through swaying fronds of plants. They were every color of the rainbow: bright stripes, bold patterns of spots, gleaming silvery squid slithered through the water, tentacles waving.
“Aquaculture,” said Karlstad. “That’s how it started. The first settlers on the Moon found that they could grow more protein in less space from fish farming than from meat animals.”
With a pang, Grant remembered that he should be at Farside, on the Moon, or at least in Selene or one of the other lunar communities. Instead …
“Come on,” Karlstad beckoned, heading along the narrow passageway. “You’ve got to see this.”
They passed more tanks filled with fish. The pale glow from the underwater lights made Karlstad look more ghostly than ever, with his silvery hair and pallid complexion.
He stopped and jabbed a thumb at the next window. “This is where Lainie likes to do it,” he said with a malicious grin.
Grant stared into the tank. A pair of dolphins were swimming there, sleek and huge, bigger than horses, gliding effortlessly, playfully, through the water.
“Their tank is almost a kilometer long,” Karlstad said. “At feeding time it’s opened to the other tanks.”
Grant gaped, slack-jawed. He heard himself ask, in an awed, faint voice, “Why in the world did you bring dolphins all the way from Earth?”
Karlstad made a derisive grunt. “It’s Wo’s idea. Our ‘intellectual cousins,’ he calls them. Old Woeful thinks the dolphins can help us to explore Jupiter’s ocean.”
“Our intellectual cousins,” Grant repeated slowly, still staring at the graceful dolphins. They seemed to be smiling at him as they swam past, then turned to stare back at him.
“There’s something else you should see,” Karlstad said, motioning Grant farther along the passageway.
“What is it?” Grant asked, following the biophysicist as they walked past the end of the dolphins’ tank. The lighting was dimmer here, the walls on both sides of the narrow corridor blank metal.
“Quiet now,” Karlstad whispered, a finger to his lips.
Slowly, softly the two men walked down the dimly lit way. Karlstad stopped and motioned Grant to move ahead of him. “It’s on the right,” he whispered.
Grant tiptoed through the shadows until he saw an opening in the wall on his right. He glanced back at Karlstad, who motioned him to go through it.
Puzzled, Grant stepped into the wide entryway and found himself in some sort of darkened chamber. There was something in the far corner, a large heap of—
A full-grown gorilla opened its eyes not more than three meters in front of Grant. He realized it had been slumped down on its haunches, asleep. There were no bars between Grant and the gorilla, no partition at all.