Sheena seemed torn between curiosity and fear. At first she merely looked at the headgear, one set draped over Grant's sandy hair, the other lying casually on the floor beside him.
Grant was sharing his fruit cup dessert with Sheena when she picked up the net from the floor with her syrup-sticky fingers. She held it in front of her face, studying it, the electrode-studded wires hanging in her massive hand like some arcane set of jewelry.
Tapping his own net, Grant smiled and said, 'Funny hat, Sheena.'
'Funny hat,' she echoed, in her painful whisper.
'I brought it for you."
The gorilla's deep brown eyes shifted from the dangling net to Grant's face and then back again.
Grant said nothing.
Sheena slowly lifted the net higher and then clumsily plopped it on her head. It slid to the floor with a metallic clicking noise.
'Let me help you,' Grant said, reaching for the wires.
'No.' Sheena pushed Grant back, just a brush of her hand, but it was almost enough to bowl Grant over. He'd forgotten how strong the gorilla was. I'm taking her for granted, he thought. That's a mistake.
Sheena fumbled with the net, using both hands this time, and draped it over her head once more. It was lop-sided and came down over one eye, but it stayed put.
Grant wanted to laugh at the ludicrous sight, but he held himself to a broad grin. 'Good girl, Sheena!' he approved.
'Funny hat,' said the gorilla.
'Funny hat,' Grant agreed, patting his own head.
In a week or so we can connect the net and start taking readings of her brain patterns, he thought. Let her get accustomed to it first. And I'll get Pascal to show me how to work the console. No sense bringing strangers in here. It would just upset Sheena.
His ribs twinged when he took a deep breath. No, Grant told himself, I certainly don't want to upset Sheena.
For he sees that even wise men die… But man in his pomp will not endure; He is like the beasts that perish.
Psalm 49
The month flashed past like a single brief day. Grant worked double shifts in the mission control center, shoehorned in beside Frankovich, watching as the wallscreens showed Lane, Karlstad, Irene Pascal and Muzorawa working in the aquarium on the simulators under Dr Krebs' baleful eyes.
At first they used only the manual controls in the simulator tank, but after a few days they began to link through the biochip electrodes with the ship systems.
Wo sat at the central console in the mission control chamber during each simulation run, but to Grant's eyes the director often looked distracted, unresponsive to what was going on in the aquarium tank. He's worrying about that IAA inspection team on its way here, Grant thought. They're due to reach the station exactly seven days after the mission is launched.
Each evening they ate in the conference room and hashed over the day's work. Krebs rarely had dinner with them, and when she did she was almost completely shunned by the others, eating alone at the head of the table, glowering. The only words she had for the team were warnings about security and complaints that their work in the simulator was sloppy or downright poor.
Most evenings Grant stole away early to spend some time with Sheena; the others were so intent on the mission that they barely mentioned Grant's 'dates' with the gorilla. Even Karlstad had found a new topic for dinner-table discussion.
'My God,' he said at dinner one evening, 'being plugged in like that really is better than sex - almost.'
'When you get really adept at it,' Muzorawa explained, 'you can even link with each other. It's almost like telepathy.'
'Really?' Karlstad turned toward O'Hara, leering.
'Get your mind above your belt-line, Egon,' she said. 'It's all mental, not physical.'
'The brain is the most important sex organ in the body,' he countered.
She shook her head, frowning.
Muzorawa explained to Grant that the electrode implants also contained microminiaturized semiconductor lasers linked through the fiber-optic lines to connect with the ship's systems.
'Photo-optics can carry loads more information than electronics,' said O'Hara.
'But the human nervous system is electrical, isn't it?' Grant asked.
'Electrochemical,' Karlstad corrected.
Then if all this photo-optical data is pumped into your nervous system—'
'It produces an overload,' Muzorawa said.
'And the wildest sensations you've ever experienced,' O'Hara added.
Karlstad sighed mightily.
After dinner Grant went as usual to see Sheena. He was trying to get the gorilla accustomed to the neural net. She still could not fit it over her head properly, but gradually Grant got her to accept his help in placing the spiderweb of electrodes properly over her skull.
'If only we could shave her head,' Pascal said yearningly over a late-night snack in the conference room.
Pascal was pulling double duty, too: watching Grant with Sheena each evening through the surveillance cameras and working in the fish tank on the mission simulator. She looked as exhausted as Grant felt.
'She wouldn't like being shaved,' Grant pointed out.
'We could sedate her.'
'It wouldn't work,' Grant said as he picked at his open sandwich of simulated roast beef. 'By the time she got accustomed to the fact that she'd been shaved, her hair would've grown back again.'
Pascal sighed. 'Yes, I suppose you're right.'
'If she'd let me fasten the net under her chin, then you'd get a decent contact.'
'If she'd let you.' Pascal put down her fork, frowning. 'Do you realize that the laboratory animal is running this experiment? It's infuriating.'
It surprised Grant to hear Sheena referred to as a laboratory animal. And it surprised him even more when he realized that he thought of the gorilla as a person.
Trying to soothe the neurophysiologist, Grant said, 'I'll get Sheena to wear the net and make good contact with the electrodes. Give me a few more days.'
'We'll be launching in six days.'
'Sheena can't be put on a schedule, I'm afraid.'
'Yes, yes, I understand,' Pascal said. 'Still, it's very frustrating. Maddening.'
'I can run the console for you,' Grant said. 'I'll collect the data and have it ready for you when you come back from the mission.'
Pascal gave him a dubious look but said nothing.
The door to the corridor slid open and Red Devlin stepped into the conference room as casually as he might stroll along a city boulevard.
'Irene, luv, how are you?'
'What are you doing in here?' Grant demanded. 'You're not supposed—'
'Now, now,' Devlin chided. 'Don't get your shorts in a twist, Grant. Who d'you think brings your food and goodies in here, eh? Somebody's gotta check on your coffee supply, mate.'
'It's all right,' Pascal said softly. 'He's just doing his job.'
'Right you are, Irene luv. And you, Grant, how's Sheena treatin' you these days?'
'Fine,' Grant said, weary of jokes about him and Sheena.
Devlin pulled a plastic vial from his pocket and handed it to Pascal. 'You sure you need these?' he asked, sounding genuinely concerned. 'Looks to me like you need somethin' to help you sleep, not keep you awake.'
'I sleep very well,' Pascal replied. 'I need to be alert during the day.'
'In the simulator, eh?' Devlin asked.
Pascal nodded.
'How's it goin'? When do you push off?'
Before Pascal could answer, Grant said, 'Dr Wo doesn't want us to discuss the mission with anyone who isn't on the team.'
Devlin stiffened into a lampoon of a soldier's coming to attention, clicked his heels and snapped off a salute. 'Aye, aye, sir!'
Grant laughed despite himself.
Pascal said, 'Grant is correct. We are not supposed to discuss the mission with you.'
'I understand,' Devlin said, relaxing. 'No worries.'
'But in three days you will not see me for a while,' she added.
Grant felt a surge of dismay. He knew it was silly, but rules are meant to be followed, not broken. Krebs and Dr Wo might be paranoid, but Grant thought it was better to be paranoid than the victim of some terrorist's fiery zeal.
As Devlin headed for the coffee urn, Grant leaned toward Pascal and whispered, 'Irene, you told him three days. But the mission doesn't launch until six days from now.'
'Yes,' she agreed, nodding. 'But in three days the crew goes into immersion. We do not come out once we are immersed.'
'I didn't realize—'
'Once we begin breathing that awful liquid, we do not come into the air again until the mission is completed,' she said.
Grant thought she looked grim, like a prisoner about to be swallowed up by an inescapable jail. And she looked more than a little frightened, too.
He walked with Irene back to their quarters. Pascal's compartment was a few dozen meters up the corridor from Grant's. The corridor was dim, shadowy in its nighttime lighting. They saw no one else along the way except a solitary security guard pacing sleepily along his rounds; it was too late at night for casual strollers.
So it surprised Grant to see Kayla Ukara sitting on the floor next to Pascal's door, her back propped against the wall, her head resting on her knees as if asleep.
'Oh,' Irene said, in a small voice.
Ukara's head snapped up, her eyes fully alert. Instead of her usual fierce, panther-like expression, she actually smiled up at Irene.
As Ukara scrambled to her feet, Pascal turned to Grant, red-cheeked with embarrassment. 'Thank you for walking me home,' she said, in a quick, low voice.
Grant nodded, puzzled. 'It's okay. My place is just down the corridor.'
But Pascal was not paying any attention to him. Her eyes were on Ukara and no one else.
Grant muttered a goodnight to them both and continued down the corridor. He glanced once over his shoulder at them. Pascal was tapping out the security code on her door lock; Kayla had a long, slim arm around Irene's waist.
They're lovers! Grant felt shocked. He knew he shouldn't, knew it was none of his business, that the two women were adults and had the right to their own personal lives. Yet deep in the core of his being he felt that what they were doing was wrong, deeply wrong.
It's none of your business, Grant told himself. Forget about it.
Still, it bothered him.
The next night Grant tied the neural net he was wearing under his chin.
'See?' he said to Sheena. 'It looks better.'
Sheena eyed him suspiciously.
They were sitting on the plastic-tiled floor of Sheena's spacious pen, Grant facing the gorilla. Her bulk loomed over him like a hairy mountain.
'And it won't fall off.' Grant shook his head vigorously. The net stayed snug around his skull.
Sheena waggled her head ponderously and her net slid clattering to the floor.
She huffed and stared at the net at her feet. Then she picked it up and draped it over her head again. Grant expected her to try to tie its loose ends, but instead she simply looked down at her open hands.
'No,' she said, and Grant thought it sounded discouraged, disheartened.
She looked at Grant. 'Hands… no… Sheena can't do.'
Grant felt a wave of sadness wash over him. She knows her hands aren't dexterous enough to tie the ends. She knows how limited she is.
'Grant do,' said Sheena.
'Sure, Sheena,' he said, scrambling toward her. 'I'll be happy to help you.'
'Grant help Sheena.'
'Yes, I will.' He knelt before her powerful body, feeling the heat of her, knowing that those arms of hers could crush his ribs, and carefully tied the neural net under her chin.
'There,' he said, sitting back on the floor again. 'Now we're the same.'
'No.' Sheena swung her heavy head from side to side slowly. 'Not same. Sheena not Grant. Grant not Sheena.'
He gulped once, wondering what he could say. When he found his voice, he replied, I'm your friend, Sheena. You and I are friends.'
'Friends.' Sheena seemed to think that over for a while. Then she said again, 'Grant help Sheena.'
'Yes,' he said. 'I'll help you all I can.'
When the overhead lights went down to their nighttime level, and Sheena lumbered into the corner of her pen where the plastic padding had been wadded up into a sleeping nest, Grant climbed wearily to his feet and stepped out into the narrow corridor.
'Good night, Sheena,' he called.
She must have already fallen asleep, because she did not reply. Grant tiptoed to the electronic console sitting a few meters up the corridor. Gingerly he flicked on the power and activated the scanners.
Four small display screens along the top of the console lit up. Green worms of lines crawled across them. Squinting in the dim lighting, Grant checked to make certain that the equipment was recording Sheena's brain waves. He nodded, satisfied, hoping that the data would cheer Pascal before she left on the deep mission. Maybe we'll catch her dreaming, he hoped.
The next morning he located Pascal in the lockers where the mission crew changed into their wetsuits. No one else was in the locker area. The others had already gone to the aquarium for the day's simulation tasks.
Pascal was pleased that they were getting data at last, but Grant could see that her mind was obviously focused on the mission.
'By the time you get back,' he said, trying to sound cheerful, 'you'll have enough data to write a book.'
'If we get back,' Pascal muttered.
'If?'
She zippered up the front of the suit, then reached for the plastic full-face mask on the shelf above the empty suit rack. Grant realized that her legs were bare. Glittery electrodes lined the outside of both legs from her hips to halfway down her calves. They looked like the ends of silver bullets embedded in her flesh. It took a conscious effort for Grant not to stare at them.
'The closer we get to launch, the more fearful I become,' Pascal confessed.
'That's natural, I suppose,' said Grant. 'Nerves.'
'Yes,' she said bitterly. 'Entirely natural. But not pleasant to experience.'