Dan looked to Bianco for support. Bianco picked up on the cue and nodded.
“And after that, I assume O’Donnell’s lab may be dismantled,” said Skillen.
“Lab space is an issue for Trikon, not me,” Dan replied.
Hisashi Oyamo raised his hand. “What about O’Donnell’s data?”
“The data would be ours,” said Skillen.
“With all due respect, I disagree,” said Oyamo. “First, O’Donnell has been treated as an outcast the entire time he has been on Trikon Station. Second, this project is a cooperative effort, which indicates that whatever data he has obtained should be shared.”
Everyone’s eyes instinctively turned toward Bianco.
“I am not sure who would be entitled to O’Donnell’s files,” said the old scientist. “It should be subject to prior review.”
“Do we hear you correctly?” asked Oyamo, plainly astonished. “Fabio Bianco, the champion of international cooperation, siding with the Americans?”
“I have not sided with anyone,” Bianco said. “I simply expressed doubts pending a further determination.”
Oyamo turned toward Chakra Ramsanjawi. The Indian had been completely silent since the meeting began. His kurta was belted and his clasped hands rose and fell with each breath that passed through his nostrils.
“What do you think?” asked Oyamo.
Ramsanjawi looked for a long moment at each of his Trikon colleagues. He deliberately ignored Jaeckle, Dan, and Freddy.
“I defer to the wisdom of Professor Bianco,” he finally said.
Skillen and Oyamo started to protest, but Dan cut them off.
“Is there anything else that concerns me or the crew?” he said.
“There is,” said Jaeckle. “What precautions have you taken to protect us from O’Donnell?”
“He is bound and tethered to the aft bulkhead of the rumpus room. That’s where he’ll stay. He also has a full-time guard.”
“You had Russell Cramer bound and tethered and guarded,” said Jaeckle. “And you saw fit to have him drugged, too. And he hadn’t even killed anyone.”
“Different situations,” said Dan. “At the time, we thought Cramer was suffering from Orbital Dementia, and the medical officer sedated him to prevent any injury to himself and others. O’Donnell ingested a huge amount of fentanyl. Lorraine believes sedation at this point could be harmful.”
“What do you mean that you thought at the time Russell Cramer was suffering from Orbital Dementia? Was there another cause for his behavior?”
“I meant exactly what I said.”
“You mean you don’t think so now?” Jaeckle pressed.
“What I think and why I think it is no concern of yours.”
“Russell Cramer is one of my people.”
“Russell Cramer is no longer aboard this station, which makes him completely irrelevant to this discussion,” said Dan. He pulled loose from his foot restraints and glided toward the open doorway of his office. “Any other requests or suggestions?”
No one said a word. The only sound was Jaeckle snorting angrily at having been rebuffed.
“Good. I have work to do.” Dan pulled himself through the doorway and slid the door shut. He was pissed off himself. A few moments later, as the voices of the scientists receded toward the tunnel, he thought about his reference to Lorraine. In connection with Russell Cramer, she was “the medical officer”; now she was just Lorraine. He wondered what the psych-types on Earth would think about that.
Activities in the Mars module had returned almost to normal. Cautious, fearful talk about the murder of Aaron Weiss soon enough gave way to more animated discussions of Mars-related experiments. Kurt Jaeckle, however, felt anything but normal as his mind circled endlessly within the narrow confines of his office. Unlike his colleagues, neither Mars nor Aaron Weiss was uppermost in his mind. His main concern was Carla Sue Gamble.
Throughout his entire life, Jaeckle always had been careful in his dealings with women. His watchword was power. Never allow a woman to have power over you. Be charming and gallant, witty and intelligent. But never reveal the part of yourself that is most important to you. Knowledge is power, and what every woman wants is power over men.
Now Carla Sue had the power. She had disguised her all-consuming jealousy as a desire to travel to Mars, but the fact remained that no one wanted—no one deserved—to stand on the surface of the red planet as much as he. And now, in this empire that bore the imprint of his hand, in this first way station on his lifetime journey to Mars, he was being victimized by the most primal of human instincts.