With his slightly crooked smile Reed said, "You can thank Joanna for it. She led the revolt against Hoffman."
"Joanna did?"
"Yes. Got her father to support it, actually. She can be quite the little jaguar when she wants to be."
There were others gathering at the far end of the long passageway, Jamie saw. And more coming behind (below?) them.
Lowering his voice, Jamie asked, "You mean Joanna was the one who forced Hoffman out?"
"She was the ringleader. We all had something of a hand in it. Once it was clear that DiNardo was gone, we suddenly realized that we were facing two years locked up with that Austrian martinet."
"He wasn’t so bad," Jamie mumbled.
"Most of us thought he was, rather. And Joanna apparently wanted him off more than any of us." Reed’s expression turned canny. "Or perhaps she wanted you to be on with us. I feel rather jealous, you know."
Jamie bit back a reply. They were too close to the others now to continue the conversation. He wondered how much truth there was in Reed’s words and how much of what he said was joking exaggeration.
The scientists were not expected to do any work for the first few days in orbit; the mission planners had expected them to be suffering and useless for that long. But they could attend briefings. The psychologists even claimed that activities that required mental rather than physical exertion would take their minds off their queasiness.
Jamie followed Reed through a hatch set into the bulkhead that ended the long passageway. He found himself gliding weightlessly into a large open area, rising like a bubble into a cavernous chamber in the nose of the former propellant tank. The briefing center’s domelike interior had been painted with stripes of black and white that converged on the point of the nose cap. Jamie hovered in midair, blinked several times, and realized that the "wall" he had come through had become the "floor" of the briefing center.
The flat surface was studded with plastic foot loops, further defining it as the floor. The black and white stripes provided strong vertical orientation. With up and down clearly defined, Jamie felt somewhat better. He reached out a hand as he approached the curving wall and pushed himself lightly back toward the floor. Anyone can be an acrobat in zero gravity, Jamie realized. Or a ballet dancer.
Slowly sixteen queasy, faintly green scientists gathered on that floor, anchoring their boots in the foot loops, their bodies hunched forward slightly in what was called "the zero-g crouch," their arms floating weightlessly up around chest height. Like polyps attached to the sea bottom, Jamie thought, weaving back and forth in the currents.
Dr. Li, clad in sky-blue coveralls with a stiff collar, stood on a slightly elevated platform at one side of the circular area. Not that he needed a platform, with his height. In contrast, most of the astronauts and cosmonauts gathered around him were quite short, Jamie saw; American or Russian, most of the fliers had the sawed-off physiques of fighter pilots.
Li looked pretty green himself, Jamie thought. The expedition commander waited a few moments for the assembled scientists to quiet down. Then he began, in his thin, high-pitched voice, "Believe it or not, we are now going through the most difficult part of our mission."
"I believe it!" someone muttered loud enough for everyone to hear and laugh at.
"In a few days more we will become accustomed to microgravity. In a few weeks more we will transfer to Mars spacecraft, which will eventually be spun up to simulate terrestrial gravity — and then de-spun as we approach Mars to acclimate us to Martian level of gravity."
Li looked pallid, drawn. Yet his face was puffier than it had been on Earth, his eyes seemed narrower. It struck Jamie that if they maintained zero g all the way to Mars they could save tons of food; no one would have much of an appetite. But we’d be in no condition to work on the surface once we got there.
"In a moment I will introduce our astronauts and cosmonauts to you. Then we will break up into smaller groups to become better acquainted. However, first I wish to remind you of a very sensitive and very important point, a subject that you have all discussed individually with the physicians and psychologists. It is mentioned, but only briefly, in your mission regulations books."
Li took a deep breath. "I refer to the subject of sex."
Everyone took a breath, like a collective sigh wafting through the group. Jamie could not see the faces of the other scientists without turning his head — which would bring on a wave of nausea. But the astronauts and cosmonauts were facing the scientists, and Jamie saw a couple of grins and even a frown.
"We are all adult," said Dr. Li. "We all have healthy sex drive. We will be living together for nearly two years. As your expedition commander I expect you to behave in adult manner. Adult human beings, not childish monkeys."
No one said a word. There was no laughter, no giggling, not even a cough.
"Men outnumber women among us by four to one. I expect you men to behave sensibly and to keep the goals of the expedition above your personal desires. Dr. Reed and Dr. Yang, our two physicians, have medications that will suppress the sex drive. You can go to them in complete privacy and confidentiality if you need to."
Jamie wondered how much privacy and confidentiality there could be among twenty-five men and women locked inside a pair of spacecraft for nearly two years.
Li looked over his assembled team members, then added, "I want to make it quite clear that neither I nor mission controllers will permit sexual problems to interfere with success of this expedition. If any one of you cannot control his sex drive, he will be required to take medication. Is that clear?"
What about the women? Jamie wanted to ask. But he did not. The image of Edith flickered in his mind, but he found himself turning his head ever so slightly to look at Joanna, standing just off to his left in the row ahead of him.
"Very well then, I will now introduce the men who will pilot our spacecraft and be in command of our various teams once we reach Mars."
As Li began to introduce the astronauts and cosmonauts, Jamie wondered what would happen if a man made trouble and then refused to take the medication he was ordered to take. What can they do when we’re millions of miles out in space?
2
After the introductions the group broke up into smaller units. Jamie joined his fellow scientists and the two men who had been appointed their pilots and commanders. They were assembling along the curving wall at one end of the platform where Dr. Li remained.
The scientists moved cautiously across the loop-studded floor, like men and women in a dream, or drunks who were trying to maintain their dignity and self-control. Jamie saw the astronauts and cosmonauts casually pushing themselves off the walls or the floor itself to glide effortlessly toward the little knots of scientists gathering to talk with them. Insolent grace, Jamie thought. It was a line from a story he had read years ago, in freshman English. One of the Russians floated by overhead, grinning wolfishly as he looked down at the lurching, wobbling scientists. Insolent grace.
Jamie made an effort to reach Joanna. He came up to her side and touched her on the shoulder of her coveralls. She jerked with surprise, then paled noticeably and put a hand to her mouth.
"I’m sorry," Jamie said in a low voice. "I didn’t mean to startle you."
Joanna swallowed hard, the hint of tears in her eyes. "One moment… I will be all right…"
Jamie said, "I just wanted to thank you for helping me to get here. I’m very grateful to you."
Her face still pale, she replied, "It was necessary to remove Professor Hoffman. He would have been impossible."