“She’s so stuck,” Darcy said. “Never tries anything. Never takes a risk. And she calls herself an explorer.”
“She calls herself a scientist,” Brute said.
“I’m the explorer,” Squirrel said. The face window on his suit showed a big grin. He lifted his hands and took off the hood.
“Put that back on,” Jenks said.
“Look at my hands.” Squirrel lifted them up and showed the holes. “The air’s been getting in for two weeks, at least. Let me tell you,” he said, breathing in deep, his nostrils working, “it’s got a strange smell.” He sucked in air so hard his chest rose up. “Spicy.” His chest relaxed. “Good.”
“Oh hell,” Brute said, taking off her hood as well. “It’s not like I haven’t done it already. I’ve been out sniffing it when no one’s looking. I swear, sir, it’s harmless.” She looked at Jenks and saluted.
Darcy already had his off. “Sir,” he said, “the smell gets better at sunset. It has something to do with the colors, I think.”
They looked at Jenks, waiting. She considered the facts: they were all exposed anyway. So she took her hood off. The air was moist, which was surprising; the sea never evaporated, it just rolled around. There was never moisture on their suits. But the smell was good, indeed.
“The colors are brighter,” Brute said, looking at the sea. Even though it wasn’t evening yet, the colors wove into the sky: yellow, saffron, salmon, butter, carnelian, ruby, blood.
They shed their hoods and then they shed their suits. The weather was perfect. There seemed no variation in temperature as they felt it. They did keep on shoes, because the arches of their feet were always tender, but they stripped down to their underwear.
And then they began touching the water.
It was irresistible. “Did you notice the variations?” Brute asked. “The variations of shade. How it runs from almond to cream? How you can watch the colors move?”
“To think I didn’t notice it before,” Darcy said. “What do you think caused that? The hoods? Maybe it was too subtle to make it through that plastic window of ours.”
“Plastic window,” Jenks laughed. “I think so. Look at Sibbetts, now, she doesn’t notice anything.” They turned and looked at Sibbetts, who straightened up and looked out at them, then turned away again.
“See that color there,” Squirrel said, pointing. “The way it laps.” They came up next to each other, forming a line. They stood very close. They were naked along their arms and legs, and they pulled in close to each other, so their skin touched. “I would hate to leave this place.”
“True, it’s getting to be more and more like home.” This was from Brute, who stepped forward and bent down, scooping up a ball of water. “All the comforts.” Her face got a sudden illumination and her eyes narrowed a little and she got a wicked grin. She looked at the ball of water in her hand, said, “Here goes, kids,” and neatly split it in two, dropping half and popping the other half in her mouth.
Jenks wasn’t fast enough to stop her, and it would have been half-hearted anyway. They understood each other better, so they all knew that they agreed with Brute: test the water. The air had proved to be all right, the temperature was perfect. They had never felt better, never been happier. Sibbetts in her little window looked ridiculous; out here, in the creamy sunlight, near the iridescent sea—out here was a higher order of perfection.
Still, they watched as Brute swallowed and her eyes went internal, tracking the feel of the water going down.
“Brute? What’s it like?” Jenks took a step closer.
Brute sighed. “It’s good.” She looked around, to the sea, the horizon, the rock shelf behind them. “It’s very satisfying. I can feel it.”
Brute was fine that day and the next and the next. Jenks caught Darcy and Squirrel pulling small rolls of water from the edge, pushing it around in their palms, eating it. She watched in silence.
“Everything’s sharper,” they said. “Not at the edges, no, in the center. It’s hard to describe, but it’s great. Don’t be afraid.”
That was from Darcy, who whispered to her. Jenks was already considering it. She bent down and pulled a bead of water out. It had soft edges, reforming slowly. She took it in her mouth, rolled it on her tongue, and swallowed.
“Well,” Darcy said. “Welcome to the club.”
The thick water was all they needed—that and the gray seaweed that formed like a frost along certain rocks; slightly crisp, a small taste that lingered. “You guys are nuts,” Sibbetts said tightly when they showed dutifully up for meals. “You don’t know what’s going to happen, the effects, the long-term significance. You’ve left me all alone here now. If something happens, I’m the only one who can take care of you.”
“You could join us,” Brute said, shrugging. “We’re not so bad. And you’ll have more fun.”
“I have work to do,” Sibbetts answered, lowering her eyes. She ate her food industriously, chewing vigorously and swallowing carefully. They all watched her.
“Why are you watching me?” she said finally.
“You don’t look comfortable with us,” Squirrel said.
Sibbetts put down her fork. “You’re not wearing clothes. You don’t eat. You stare at me when you come in. You eat the water. None of you is acting normal.” She looked around the room. They looked at her, all of them, and they were all smiling. One by one, they held their hands out to her. “You should come with us,” one of them said. She couldn’t tell which one.
The next day Brute came up to the plexi window. Sibbetts didn’t see her at first; she was waiting for the centrifuge to stop spinning. She had no hope that anything new would be discovered, but she was thorough. If she did a test once, she did a test twice.
She looked up to relieve her eyes from the fine work. She looked out the plexi window.
And there was Brute, grinning at her through the window, staring and grinning, her lips pulling back more and more from her teeth. Brute’s eyelids rose even higher and she moved back as if confounded, then she pushed her head fast against the plexi. Sibbetts could even see the plexi move a little, and she was annoyed.
What if she broke it? Sibbetts stood up, raised her hand, about to yell, when her hand dropped and her mouth opened.
Brute’s face was smack against the plexi, yes, and it was entirely flat. Like a balloon against the plexi. Sibbetts stared, her mind slowing down, trying to make it into some trick, when Brute slowly peeled her flat face off the plexi, and Sibbetts watched as the face reshaped itself, back to Brute’s face. Even then, she stood frozen, waiting for some explanation to occur to her, something sensible. Brute stared at her, winked at her!
Sibbetts stood there, trying to think, watching Brute wave at the others, who were standing together and watching. They all met together, waving arms gently, bobbing in and out. She could almost feel how much they gravitated together. In the old days, they wouldn’t have tolerated that. Everyone had been conscious of personal space.
She spent the afternoon wondering if she had caught some kind of dementia; if she were seeing things. She checked herself and doubted herself and shivered a little, and took some antibiotics.
They ate less and less, yet they seemed healthy. They came to dinner most of the time, arriving together and staying for a while, then drifting away. Drifting. Well, it was hardly drifting with all that laughter. They giggled together, they cast glances together, they squealed with joy when Sibbetts asked if they had done their reports, if they had checked any of the equipment, if they had brought more samples.
“Samples?” Darcy asked. “Samples?” And with that he pulled a hair out of his head. He held it out dramatically and then dropped it into the soup. His cohorts laughed again. Sibbetts could feel herself tense; laughter laughter laughter. They were monsters.