Despite her intense need for Cardenas’s assistance, or maybe because of it, Wunderly found herself mentally comparing herself to the other woman. Kris is so beautiful, Wunderly thought. Even in a lab smock she looks young and vital. No wonder Manny tossed me aside and went for her. Wunderly didn’t need a mirror to convince herself that she was a short, dumpy woman with a bad hair job, dressed in a dark brown blouse and slacks to hide her thickset figure. But I’m getting better, she told herself. I’m slimming down and I’ve got a date for New Year’s Eve and I’m down another five hundred grams this morning. She could almost feel the nanomachines inside her body chewing away the fat, slimming and strengthening her figure.
None of that matters, she told herself, even though she knew that it did. It mattered a lot. To her.
As Cardenas adjusted knobs on the assembly box’s control plate, she said, “Urbain doesn’t care about the rings, Nadia. You know that. Especially not now. Not with his machine gone silent on him.”
“It’s worse than that,” Wunderly said to her back.
Cardenas glanced over her shoulder. “Oh?”
“The probe has taken off. On its own. It started moving late yesterday and this morning they lost its tracking beacon.”
That made Cardenas turn around to face her. “You mean they don’t know where it is?”
Nodding, Wunderly replied, “It’s gone off on its own and they can’t find it.”
“Urbain must be going nuts.”
Unable to suppress a vengeful grin, Wunderly said, “They’re all going crazy.”
Cardenas went to the three-legged stool by the counter and perched on it. “He asked me if I could work up a set of nanos to build a new receiving antenna for the machine.”
“He’ll have to find it before anybody can fix it,” Wunderly said, still grinning.
“Ouch,” Cardenas said. Then, “So what can I do for you, Nadia?”
Wunderly detected the slight emphasis on you. She liked Kris, even though Manny Gaeta had left her to take up with Cardenas. Maybe it’s true love between them, after all, she thought. I should be so lucky.
“I need to get Manny to go into the rings again,” she said, trying to keep her voice even, trying not to let Kris see how much this meant to her.
Cardenas’s cornflower blue eyes snapped. “The first time damn near killed him.”
“I know, but we’re prepared better now. We understand about the ring creatures. We can protect Manny against them.”
“Nadia, if you understood the ring creatures that well you wouldn’t need Manny to go back, would you?”
“I need samples,” Wunderly answered sharply. “I need to get some of those bugs into a lab where we can study them. Most of the big decision makers in the ICU don’t even believe they exist! They don’t believe there are living creatures in Saturn’s rings.”
“Couldn’t you send in a robot probe for the sampling mission?” Cardenas asked.
Feeling impatience simmering inside her, Wunderly replied, “And how do I get a robot probe built? How can I even get one of the standard probes modified for sampling when Urbain won’t even talk to me?”
“I see.”
“Manny could do it,” Wunderly urged. “He’s got his suit. I can get Timoshenko or one of the other engineers to ferry him out to the rings on one of the transfer rockets.”
“Manny had a team of technicians to run the suit. He wasn’t a one-man show.”
“And they’ve left the habitat, I know,” Wunderly admitted. “Gone back to Earth.”
Cardenas spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “So there we are, Nadia. Manny can’t help you, I’m afraid.”
Wunderly bit back the reply she wanted to make: Of course you won’t let him help me. You’re too afraid he might get hurt. Or killed.
Instead she merely said, “I understand,” her voice low, her head drooping.
“I’m sorry, Nadia. I wish there were something I could do.”
“I understand,” Wunderly repeated. She turned and walked swiftly to the door, leaving the lab before her anger burst out and she said things she’d regret later.
As Wunderly closed the door behind her, Cardenas was surprised to find herself thinking, Does she want to get Manny killed? Is she angry with him for leaving her? Maybe unconsciously, Cardenas decided. She couldn’t believe Wunderly would deliberately want to hurt Manny or anyone else.
Tavalera sauntered over to her, his long horsy face looking glum as usual. “You know, I could work with Manny on that suit of his. I could be his technician.”
“No you couldn’t!” Cardenas snapped. “Manny’s not getting into that Frankenstein outfit of his ever again!”
Tavalera looked shocked at the vehemence of her reply. Cardenas felt shocked herself.
Professor Wilmot’s oral diary
I suppose this therapy business is helping me. Damned embarrassing, though, talking about your fantasies and desires to some blasted computer program.
Hasn’t done me any harm, I suppose. I haven’t had a peek at any of the vids for months. No dreams about sadomasochistic encounters. Well, the occasional odd fancy, of course. Never had much in the way of dreams, not as long as I had the vids to fantasize about.
Perhaps I actually do dream and I simply don’t remember once I’m awake. Does that count? I’ll have to ask the psych program about that. It probably won’t answer me. Beyond its programming, doubtless.
That blasted Eberly. Him and his snooping. I’ve made him remove all the damned bugs and cameras he and his people had planted in our living quarters. The maintenance people sweep the apartments regularly just to make certain we’re not being spied upon. That’s one thing I’ve insisted on. Even though I’m officially out of power now, I made certain that that has been done.
So now I spend my evenings reviewing the day’s news events instead of watching Gestapo agents interrogating beautiful female spies. Healthier, I suppose. It’s all computer animation, of course. No one actually gets hurt. There are no real people involved. The therapy program claims there will come a time when I’m no longer interested in S vids. Can’t say that I believe it, but I’m willing to proceed with the therapy if for no other reason than to keep Eberly from holding my infatuation over my head.
On the other hand, watching Urbain twist in the wind is almost as pleasurable. Never liked the man. Too excitable. And now he’s hoist on his own petard, as the Bard would say.
I really must get out more. I shouldn’t stay shut up in this apartment. Get out. Meet the people. Study them and their reactions. You have a self-contained anthropology experiment at your fingertips, my boy. It’s time for you to do some field work instead of sitting by passively.
Yes, time to go out and—what is it the politicians say? Ah yes: Press the, flesh.
31 December 2095: Morning
Shouldn’t you be at your job?” Holly asked, as she stood in the morning sun with Tavalera.
They were waiting in front of the administration building, at the crest of the little hill on which the village of Athens was situated. Low, white-walled apartment and office buildings lined both sides of the village’s gently curving main street. In the distance sunlight sparkled off the lake.