Getting to work was the only way Sandovaal knew how to settle down. Without Dobo here, he would have to unpack and set up the laboratory materials himself. He attacked the task, flinging open cupboards, glancing at the facilities. He located the main supply room and hauled out brown boxes of test tubes, sketchboards to be linked into the computer, special pipettes that would work properly in the low gravity.
After a few hours, the magnitude of the task wore at him. He couldn’t get started until everything was in its proper place, in order. In frustration, he ignored the tedious jobs and decided to set up the computer. He had already planned his analysis of the Aguinaldo’s ecology, and now he wanted to see how bad things might be.
The mainframe’s crates weren’t hard to find, though the components fit together into a computer only as large as a suitcase. Sandovaal usually left such work to the hardware people, but he had little trouble assembling the computer himself and running two simple diagnostic routines.…
Sandovaal immersed himself in a study of the Aguinaldo’s resources, running simulations, variable checks, and endless projections. Over and over he graphed out the results and discarded them to try again.
He left only to relieve himself or to scrounge some instant coffee from an aluminum packet he had included in his file drawer from Scripps. He uncovered some prepackaged food among the supplies when he noticed he was hungry. He found himself nodding asleep, but splashed cold water on his face and went back to work.
Persistence. It felt good to be doing something again.
The laboratory lights came on by themselves when the lightaxis dimmed for the colony’s nightfall. He had no idea how much time had passed when Dobo finally arrived at the laboratory.
Sandovaal whirled from his chair as the assistant walked in. “Dobo, look at this.” The words came as a command.
Dobo rubbed his hands as he approached Sandovaal. “I just got unpacked and did a little exploring. My wife and I are still settling down.” Dobo slowed as he looked at Sandovaal, then raised his eyebrows. “Work has not been scheduled to start until tomorrow, but I decided to check in at the laboratory. They said you were brought here after you disembarked. Have you located your dwelling yet?”
“Look at this.” Sandovaal jabbed his fingers at the display.
Dobo squinted at the holoscreen. He pondered for an unacceptably long moment. “It appears to show—”
“It leaves no room for doubt. With the Aguinaldos current agricultural plan using only Earth crops, a catastrophic shortage of food will occur if any imbalance is brought into the system, even years down the road.”
“What system?” Dobo squinted at the screen, puffing out his pudgy cheeks and muttering to himself. “Crop yields, animal offspring, population growth. And the figures are for fifty years from now. What does this have to do with molecular biology? I thought we were setting up a new genetic institute—”
With an exaggerated sigh, Sandovaal said, “At one time I thought you were bright, Dobo.” He gestured across the graphs, indicating nothing in particular. “Use your imagination—or did you forget to pack it? If this colony is to survive, this data shows we must design special new crops tailored to this environment, not Earth’s.”
Dobo frowned. “A new ecological system—ah, so that is where our work comes in.”
“I just said that. Now, pull up a chair and help me with this design matrix. Or better yet, finish the unpacking.”
Sandovaal attempted to plug a fiberoptic cable into the monitor but was quickly frustrated by the maze of cable ports in the back. “Where does this go?”
Dobo didn’t seem to notice Sandovaal’s harshness. “The second port. But my wife, Dr. Sandovaal—she is waiting for me outside. We were going to mass.”
“Your wife is an adult, old enough to take care of herself. You did come to the Aguinaldo to assist me, correct?” Sandovaal turned back to the screen.
Dobo looked lost in thought for a moment and then shrugged. He pulled up a chair next to Sandovaal.…
After closing his eyes and listening to his breathing in the closed cyst, Sandovaal gave up trying to sleep and sat up.
Unlike Ramis, who had continued to accelerate until the end, Sandovaal wanted his armada of sail-creatures to arrive at Orbitech 1 intact. So they had tacked a carefully calculated course, allowing their kinetic energy to evolve into potential (or whatever the nuts-and-bolts people called it), and steered for a spot in the middle of the L-5 gravity well—between Orbitech 1 and the Soviet Kibalchich. He dismissed the insignificant danger of running into the weavewire strung between the two colonies, but nevertheless they had plotted the sail-creatures’ course to bring them in above the ecliptic plane.
Satisfied that the Aguinaldo transmissions had indeed ceased, Sandovaal turned his attention to inspecting the sail-creatures. He flicked on the external flatscreen camera. From his vantage point in the center of the array, everything appeared to be all right. He swiveled the exterior camera around and tried to pick out the individual cores dotted among the huge wings. Only his nearest neighbors were visible, since the tiny camera could not resolve features more than twenty kilometers away.
Slapping at the controls, Sandovaal activated the direct fiberoptic line to Dobo’s sail-creature. The vision segment on the flatscreen showed only a gray-white storm of static. A deep, rumbling sound buzzed out of the speakers. Sandovaal jerked upward and pressed at the volume control. Listening for a moment, he raised his white eyebrows.
“Dobo!” No answer. “Dobo, wake up, you imbecile!”
Nothing.
“Dobo—you are to keep on the schedule. Now, wake up immediately!”
Sandovaal grew angrier with each passing second until he felt as though he might explode. He was glad the doctors on the Aguinaldo could not monitor his blood pressure. Dobo must have turned off his receiver, as well as the visual portion of their communication link; only the audio came through. Inexcusable! “Probably left the transmission line on just to intimidate me.”
Sandovaal had kept in constant contact, making sure Dobo didn’t sleep too much, that he kept his mind challenged by listening to Sandovaal’s theories on bioengineering. Someday Dobo might have to carry on the work.
But it seemed that as soon as they had pushed off from the Aguinaldo, Dobo had become difficult—adhering to his own schedule, switching Sandovaal off in the middle of a conversation, only to apologize later for “accidentally” bumping the television controls. You would think the man had a mind of his own.
Sandovaal snorted. A mind of his own! A preposterous thought for anybody who knew Dobo Daeng.
He stopped abruptly, wondering if Dobo had actually been trying to intimidate him. A moment passed before Sandovaal snorted again, wondering if the cramped solitude was beginning to give him delusions. No, he thought, not Dobo.
Twenty kilometers away, in the core of his own sail-creature, Dobo stopped making his snoring sounds into the microphone and pushed away from the transmitter. With a grin on his face, he watched the flatscreen image as Sandovaal switched off the monitor. As before, Sandovaal had forgotten to turn off his own transmitter.
Dobo watched in quiet amusement as Sandovaal threw a fit but found no target for his outrage. Finally, after all these years of being an unappreciated assistant …
If nothing else, Dobo was having the time of his life.