'Doesn't she ever sleep?' Karlstad whispered.
Muzorawa whispered back, 'She must.'
'But when?'
The captain was already deep in discussion, presumably with Dr Wo.
'Well now,' O'Hara said to Grant, with a smile that looked a bit forced, 'how did you like being linked?'
Grant realized he was breathless. It took him several tries to make his voice work. 'Overpowering,' he said at last.
'Yes,'tis that, isn't it?'
Karlstad butted in, 'When do we link with each other like that?' He leered at O'Hara. 'That's what I'm looking forward to.'
She frowned at him. Muzorawa said, serious as usual, 'You must be wary of being overwhelmed by the experience. It
is
extremely powerful, but you must not allow it to overcome your judgment.'
'That's right,' O'Hara said. 'We're here to run the ship, not to invent some new form of depravity.'
Karlstad smirked. 'All work and no play isn't good for you.'
Muzorawa floated between him and O'Hara. 'Egon, the first mission was wrecked, possibly because one of its crew allowed the sensations of linking with the ship to overwhelm his judgment.'
'Or her judgment,' Karlstad said, nodding toward Krebs, still floating in the bridge, deep in discussion with Dr Wo.
There was absolutely no privacy in the catacombs: nothing but a bare, confined common area so small and tight that the four of them could hardly fit into it together. Their shelf-like berths took up one side of it, the hatch to the bridge the other.
'I've got to get into a fresh outfit,' O'Hara announced, and she began to strip off her leotard.
Grant couldn't help staring. Karlstad grinned wolfishly and asked, 'Do you need any help, Lane?'
'Grow up, won't you!'
He shrugged and began taking off his own bodysuit.
'Yes, we should put on clean clothes,' Muzorawa agreed.
Grant was surprised that he felt no physical arousal at the sight of O'Hara's naked body. Yet his breath quickened, his mind raced. She was slim, with small breasts and slender hips, totally hairless, but still this was a naked woman with smooth creamy skin and beautiful green eyes less than an arm's length from him. He felt embarrassed more than anything else, especially when Zeb and Egon peeled off their flimsy outfits. Neither of them was aroused, Grant saw.
Without a word he ducked into his bunk, pulled the privacy screen shut, and started wriggling out of his own bodysuit. The fresh clothes were in a locker out in the common area, he knew. So was the recycler for the old ones. He decided to wait until the others were in their berths and asleep before venturing out again.
You're being silly, he told himself. Silly and prudish. There's nothing sinful about any of this. Your sex drive has been practically eliminated by the surgery. It's like looking at a painting of a nude.
Yes, said another voice in his mind. But you enjoyed looking at her. The most important sex organ in the human body is the brain, and you took pleasure in seeing her naked body. That's sinful.
He heard O'Hara slither into the berth next to his; nothing between them but a thin plastic partition. He sensed her stretching out on the bunk, still naked, absolutely hairless. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to drive the image out of his mind.
'What do you think of her?' It was Karlstad's voice, whispering outside his berth.
'The captain?' Muzorawa's deeper voice replied.
'Right.'
'What about her?'
'Do you think she's ever going to sleep?'
'Yes, of course. She takes her responsibilities very seriously.'
Grant remembered his earlier conversation with Zeb, when he'd brought up the possibility that Krebs might be a suicidal Zealot.
Karlstad asked, 'Have you noticed the way she gives you the fish-eye? As if she doesn't recognize you.'
'Yes, it is strange,' Muzorawa agreed.
'Gives me the creeps.'
'As long as she does her job properly we have nothing to complain about.'
'Maybe you don't,' Karlstad replied, still whispering, 'but I don't like it, not one microbit. She's weird. I think she's crazy.'
For several heartbeats Muzorawa said nothing. At last he replied, 'Get some sleep. We're going to need all our energy in about five hours.'
'Engage the linkage,' commanded Krebs.
Grant clicked the switch that energized the fiber-optic links to the chips implanted in his legs. He closed his eyes as he felt the thrumming power of the ship's fusion generator vibrating within him, warming him, filling him with sensations he had never felt before linkage. He had a blazing man-made star within him. The electricity it generated was pulsing through him, the ship's wiring was his own nervous system, the ship's conduits were his own arteries and veins.
He could sense the vibrations of the life-support fans circulating the perfluorocarbon liquid through the ship's living space; each light and display screen on the bridge's consoles was like an extension of his fingers; he felt the ship's sensors powering up, peering into the space outside the hull like searchlights from an ancient lighthouse sweeping a stormy sea coast.
It took a concentrated effort of will to open his eyes and recognize that he was standing in front of his console on the bridge, feet anchored in the floor loops, flanked by Muzorawa and O'Hara, Karlstad on O'Hara's other side, Krebs floating behind him.
O'Hara was at the communications console, with its multiple touchscreens staring at her like the eyes of a spider. Wo's chunky, intense face filled the central display screen.
'… automated separation sequence begins in fifteen seconds,' the director was saying.
'Fifteen seconds,' Krebs repeated, her voice flat, unemotional. If separating from the station and launching
Zheng He
into Jupiter's clouds excited her, she hid it completely.
Grant licked his lips. The computer's synthesized voice began the final minute of countdown.
'Power and propulsion?' Krebs asked needlessly. She could see Grant's screens as easily as he could himself.
'Power and propulsion all green,' he said.
'Life support?'
'In the green,' said Karlstad.
'Communications?'
'Communications normal,' O'Hara replied.
'Sensors?'
'All sensors on and functioning,' reported Muzorawa.
'We are ready for separation and launch,' Krebs said to Wo's image.
Precisely at that moment the computer's voice announced, 'Automated separation sequence initiated. Separation in thirty seconds… twenty-nine…'
The seconds stretched endlessly. Grant stood there, aware that he was breathing a cold, slimy, oxygenated liquid but no longer caring about that. The ship was coming alive, electrical currents racing through all its systems now, the propulsion units starting up, pumps beginning to stir, the electrons in the powerful superconducting coils singing their eternal hymn of perpetual motion, ceaseless devotion to their task.
'Full internal power,' Krebs said.
'Ten seconds,' announced the computer.
Grant could feel the magnetohydrodyamic channels stirring into life, preparing to take the star-hot plasma exhaust from the fusion generator and accelerate it through the ship's thruster tubes. Along his nerves Grant felt the trembling thrill of anticipation.
The clamps and bolts that held
Zheng He
to the station opened like a dozen faces breaking into smiles. Grant broke into a smile himself. We're free, he knew. We're on our own now.
'Ignition.'
The plasma thrusters started softly, gently. Grant felt their strength as if it was his own arms reaching out and lifting a heavy burden. As the thrust built up, his strength multiplied, tripled, quadrupled, he was stronger than any mere human could ever be, stronger than Sheena, stronger than a whole tribe of gorillas: he was lifting the entire ship, hurling it with fine, purposeful power and precision, flinging it away from the station and down into the waiting clouds of Jupiter.
Better than sex? This was better than life! I can rev up the thrusters to full power and blast this ship past Jupiter in an eyeblink. I can push us out to the stars! To the farthest edge of the universe! Grant knew he had all the power of the universe throbbing inside him, superhuman energy, the strength and power of a god.
That surge of arrogance snapped him back to reality.
Pride goeth before a fall
, he heard his father's voice in his mind. All this power, all this sensation of godlike strength, is a trap, a snare, a temptation to the kind of hubris that has hurled many a good man into eternal damnation.
Vanity, vanity, all is vanity…
He stood trembling before his console, trying to regain control of himself, battling to keep the enormously seductive power of this illusion from deceiving him. It's an electronic mirage, he told himself. You are nothing more than a man who is linked electronically to the machinery of this ship. Control yourself.
Still, he trembled.
Is this what wrecked the first mission, Grant asked himself. Is this linkage so overwhelming that someone ran amok with the ship's systems? He had touched a place in his own mind where he had wanted to run wild with the plasma thrusters, tear away all restraints, push full throttle just for the sheer joy of power. Yes, he realized now. And if I'd done that I would have killed us all.
Still he trembled, but now it was with the understanding of the enormous dangers that dwelled within his own mind, his own soul. It's the age-old war, he realized, the never-ending struggle between pleasure and responsibility, between good and evil. This ship is simply a new battlefield in that eternal war. As long as we're human, the war goes on.
But for an instant, Grant knew, he had been more than human. He still was. He still felt the pulsing power of the ship's generator and plasma thrusters, they were still a part of him.
I am the ship.
Power requires responsibility, he told himself Extreme power requires extreme care.
Why dost Thou stand afar off, O Lord? Why dost Thou hide Thyself in times of trouble?
Psalm 10
'Disconnect,' Krebs ordered.
Grant hovered uncertainly in the viscous atmosphere of the bridge, his feet anchored in the floor straps, his arms floating chest-high, his mind battling against the seductions of power.
'Disconnect!' Krebs insisted. 'Now!'
The flight plan was for them to orbit Jupiter at least twice, long enough to make certain that all the ship's systems were indeed functioning properly. Only then would Krebs give the order to descend into the clouds.
Grant turned off the linkage with all the reluctance of an addict withdrawing from his drugs. He was alone again, separate, nothing more than a blob of protoplasm inside a shell of flesh.
'How do you feel?' Muzorawa asked as he slipped his feet free of the floor loops and bobbed gently in the viscous liquid.
'A little shaky,' Grant admitted.
Karlstad floated up to them. 'I don't see why we have to orbit around the damned planet like this. Why don't we stay linked and get on with the job?'
'You must rest,' Krebs answered, from over their shoulders. 'Eat. Take a nap. Staying linked with the ship for too long is not good.'
O'Hara, still at her comm console, said, 'Captain, Dr Wo wants to speak to you on the private channel.'
Krebs nodded and slipped a headset over her bald pate.
'When does she sleep?' Karlstad whispered.
Muzorawa nodded. 'I don't think she's disconnected herself since we first linked up.'
Grant shrugged and headed for the food dispensers. He felt jumpy inside, weary yet keyed up. Maybe a nap is what I need.
It still made him squeamish to plug the dispenser tube into the socket in his neck, but Grant did it. When the counter on the dispenser's metal face clunked and the flow of liquid shut off, he pulled the tube free with a shuddering grimace.
'What's the matter, doesn't it taste delicious?' Karlstad jibed.
Grant headed for his berth without answering, leaving the three others huddled at the dispenser.
Even knowing that he'd have to be awake and alert in a few hours, Grant could not sleep. He kept thinking about the thrill of power he'd felt when linked to the ship. Will it get easier as we go on, he wondered, or will it become more seductive, more corrupting? God, help us! he prayed. Give us the strength to resist temptation.
He thought about composing a message for Marjorie, even though he wouldn't be able to send it until they returned from this mission. If we return, he found himself thinking. Then he heard the other three come into the catacombs, talking quietly, grumbling really, and finally slipping into their own berths.
Grant gave them enough time to fall asleep, then crawled out of his bunk as quietly as he could and swiftly stripped off his bodysuit and pulled a fresh one from the storage bin in the common area. Wide awake, knowing that he wouldn't be able to sleep, he slid the screen open and floated into the bridge.
Krebs was sleeping, bobbing gently up near the overhead, eyes closed, a soft burbling noise that might have been a snore in normal air emanating from her half-open mouth. And she was still connected to the ship. Grant saw that the wires from the overhead compartment were still firmly linked to the electrodes in her chunky, hairless legs.
She sleeps connected, Grant said to himself, wondering what that must be like. Then he wondered if that was a good thing.
Is she addicted to it? he asked himself. Is that the joy she gets out of life?
One by one, Muzorawa, Karlstad and O'Hara returned to the bridge, almost like sleepwalkers, and took their stations at their consoles. Krebs still snored gently, bobbing up near the overhead. Grant slipped his feet into the floor loops and saw that his console was showing all systems normal. Nothing but green lights. He ran a finger across the console's central touchscreen to check the subsystems. He frowned, slightly nettled at the cumbersomeness of the manual procedure. If we were linked I could
feel
all the systems, I'd know how they're doing with my eyes closed.