Instantly he was awed by the flow of sensations that enveloped him. He could see through the water clearly, see the swirl of manna trickling from above, and—far in the distance—thicker streams of the organic particles sifting downward into the darker depths. The water flowed past him smoothly, as if he were gliding through the ocean like a fish. And the ocean was warm; Grant felt a steady glow of heat rising from the bottomless depths.
There were no creatures in this sea, he realized. No fish, no fronds of plants. We’ve got to go deeper for that. Dr. Wo said they detected the moving objects more than ten kilometers below the surface, and even then they were so far away—
“She’s asleep.”
Grant snapped his attention back to the bridge. He had to blink several times, get his perspective adjusted. I’m in this ship, he told himself, consciously disconnecting from the sensors’ data stream.
Turning, Grant saw that Krebs had actually left the bridge. The optic fibers that linked her to the ship’s systems were tucked back in their storage locker in the overhead.
“She finally left the bridge,” Karlstad said softly, furtively, “after almost fifty hours straight on duty.”
“She took a couple of naps,” O’Hara said.
“Run out the antenna,” Karlstad told her. “Quick, while we’ve got the chance.”
Muzorawa said, “Grant, it might be wise if you go to the hatch and keep an eye on her. Warn us if she gets out of her bunk.”
“I’ll have to disconnect,” Grant complained.
“I’ll monitor your systems,” Muzorawa said.
With even more reluctance than usual, Grant disconnected while O’Hara spooled out the antenna and powered up the microwave transceiver.
“Oooh, there’s a great lot of incoming messages waiting for us,” she said. Then, her expression turning puzzled: “No, wait. It’s only one message, but they’ve been repeating it over and over again.”
“Never mind the incoming crap,” Karlstad snapped. “Link me to the medical computer.”
Grant hovered by the hatch, one eye on Krebs’s berth, the other on the wallscreen that began showing blocks of medical jargon. Krebs’s bunk was shuttered off by its privacy screen. The captain was resting, alone, disconnected from the ship for the first time since they’d left the station.
He wondered about Krebs, what drove her. Nearly killed in the first deep mission, here she was back in the Jovian ocean, staying linked to the ship far longer than she had to, longer than she ought to. Is she surrendering to the emotional power of the linkage? Grant asked himself. But if she did, how could she disconnect herself voluntarily after so many hours of being linked? She must be tough, he thought; a lot stronger than I am.
“So that’s it!”
Karlstad’s exclamation made Grant turn to the bridge. The three of them were still at their consoles, and the wallscreen was covered with medical terms.
“Visual agnosia,” said Karlstad, “means she doesn’t recognize things visually. Her visual sense is impaired.”
“You mean she can’t recognize faces?” O’Hara asked.
Nodding vigorously, Karlstad said, “That’s why she looks so funny at you. She can’t tell who she’s looking at until you say something to her. Then she recognizes your voice.”
“That’s strange,” Muzorawa said.
Scrolling through the medical dictionary display, Karlstad said, “It’s rare, but there’s a considerable history on it.”
“What causes it?”
“Often it’s physical trauma to the brain, the visual cortex. A cerebral hemorrhage, for instance.”
“A stroke?”
“Or a physical blow to the head,” Karlstad added.
“But she’s had neither,” Muzorawa pointed out.
Karlstad said, “True, but she was badly injured in the first mission.”
“No head injuries, if I recall rightly,” said O’Hara.
“Yeah, that’s right.” Karlstad sounded disappointed.
Grant spoke up. “What about living in this high-pressure environment? Could that cause injury to the brain?”
“The earliest experiments did cause some nerve damage,” Karlstad said. “That’s why we raise the pressure slowly, give the body time to adjust.”
“Do you think that’s what’s happened to Dr. Krebs?” O’Hara asked.
“Obviously,” said Karlstad.
“Then what do we do about it, do you think?” she wondered aloud.
“Nothing,” Muzorawa said, “Nothing at all?”
“Krebs has adjusted to her problem. It hasn’t interfered with her work, has it?”
“No,” O’Hara said slowly, “I suppose it hasn’t.”
“Not yet,” Karlstad said.
“The medical board approved her for this mission,” Muzorawa pointed out. “The psychologists did not object.”
Karlstad looked unconvinced. “She’s a walking time bomb,” he muttered.
“I disagree,” Muzorawa said.
“She could get us all killed.”
Muzorawa’s expression was utterly serious. “Egon-all of you—I think our best course of action is to watch Dr. Krebs carefully. If she shows signs of disability, if she begins to behave erratically, then we will have to decide what should be done. At present, she’s performing quite normally.”
“Staying linked to the ship for nearly fifty hours is normal?” Karlstad challenged.
“Did she perform her duties well?” Muzorawa shot back. “Have we accomplished our mission goals so far?”
The two men were glaring at each other, Grant saw: Karlstad with his usual haughty, almost sneering expression; Muzorawa stolid and determined.
O’Hara broke the deadlock. “I’d better take a peek at this message the station’s been beaming to us all this time.”
Muzorawa said, “Good idea.” Karlstad nodded.
The medical dictionary’s text vanished from the wallscreen. In its place the blue-and-white symbol of the International Astronautical Authority appeared, quickly replaced by the scowling face of a man in a gray tunic, sitting at what appeared to be a workstation aboard a spacecraft.
Grant twitched with surprise. He knew that face. It was Ellis Beech, the New Morality official who had recruited him to spy on Dr. Wo.
Beech’s dark eyes were steady and calm, his long narrow face looked composed, almost indifferent. Yet to Grant there seemed to be something seething beneath that impassive cool exterior, something unrelenting, implacable.
“Dr. Krebs, I am the chairman of the IAA inspection team approaching the station. You have previously been ordered by Dr. Wo to abort your mission and return to Station Gold. He gave that order at my insistence. Now I personally order you to return to the station. In the name of the IAA, I order you to abort your mission and return at once! We know that the message you sent with the data capsule is a deliberate falsehood. You are still able to maintain communications contact with the station. Return at once or you will be stripped of your position at Station Gold and your professorship in Heidelberg will be forfeited. Abort your mission and return immediately!”
Grant stared at Beech’s icy image on the wallscreen. How could he be chairman of the IAA team? he wondered, his mind spinning. The New Morality must have taken control of the inspection team. Maybe they’ve taken over the entire IAA!
Karlstad also stared at the wallscreen, mouth hanging open in shock.
“They found out about your tapping the medical computer,” Muzorawa said softly. It wasn’t an accusation, merely a statement of lamentable fact.
“That they did,” O’Hara agreed sadly.
Karlstad closed his mouth, shrugged, then said, “Okay, so they found out. What do we do about it?”