Joanna was spared the sword even though she had indulged in more than one of Chakra’s concoctions. The price was to agree to succumb to Sir Derek’s unusual advances. By now, in the late 1990s, she had grown accustomed to his tastes. And his rewards.
Sir Derek leaned back against the pillows and admired the diamond choker Joanna wore around her neck. It sets off her other accoutrements quite nicely, he thought. She was naked except for the straps that bound her arms tightly behind her back.
“Will it be necessary to gag you?” he mused aloud.
“Please don’t,” said Joanna softly.
“I think I should.”
“Won’t you want to put something else in my mouth, instead?”
A fist thudded twice against the bedroom door. Joanna frowned and rolled onto her back. Sir Derek mouthed the words important business. He reached for a blanket and draped it over his bare legs and the hunched figure of Joanna huddled between them.
“Come in,” he called after clearing his throat.
Trane entered with a look of pained embarrassment on his face and a neatly bound sheaf of papers in his hands. He crossed the room with his eyes fixed somewhere on the farthest wall, handed Sir Derek the papers, and left at double speed.
Joanna wriggled beneath the blanket. Sir Derek pulled off the covers and gave her a sharp smack across her bare buttocks.
“You’ll have to be still for a while,” he said sternly. “Content yourself with thinking about what is to come.”
She made herself look frightened and rested her head against his scrawny thigh.
Sir Derek quickly scanned the transcript. For the first time ever, there were no genetic data embedded in the code. Toward the end, he unearthed a message: The research pace had slowed to a crawl, especially in the American/Canadian lab module. Ramsanjawi suspected that this new American scientist O’Donnell was to blame. Perhaps he was protecting data under the guise of performing related experiments.
There were obstacles, thought Sir Derek, there always were obstacles. All the great ones had encountered them: Arthur, Alfred, Drake, Cromwell, Churchill. The true measure of a man was how he met those obstacles. He knew that he would do whatever was necessary; he always had. But he was earthbound, separated by an insuperable three hundred miles from the stage upon which this drama would be played. He wondered whether Chakra would have the nerve.
In his frustration and anger he threw the transcript to the floor and grabbed a handful of Joanna’s dark hair.
“Now you’ll pay,” he whispered fiercely to her.
“Oh please,” she whispered back, knowing they were Sir Derek’s two favorite words.
29 AUGUST 1998
TRIKON STATION
MEMORANDUM
From: L. Renoir, M.D. To: Cmdr. D. Tighe Subject: Russell Cramer Date: 28 August 1998
My conclusion is that the patient is suffering from an advanced case of Orbital Dementia. The patient’s dedication to his work within the Mars Project induced him to conceal the early signs of personality breakdown.
The violent episode was most likely triggered by the scheduled arrival of the aerospace plane, which presented the patient with a means of returning to Earth outside the usual shuttle rotation. As demonstrated in studies of Antarctic “winterover” teams, the knowledge that escape from an isolated environment is possible forces the person to reexamine his reasons for being there. A conflict arises if the person cannot convince himself to remain.
In the case of this patient, his failure to duplicate certain experimental results may have hastened a complete personality breakdown.
Dan Tighe went to The Bakery immediately after his morning shower. The main section of the module was empty. Lamps threw cones of light on the idle workstations. The padlock Hugh O’Donnell used to secure the door to his tiny lab was missing. O’Donnell was inside.
Dan knocked on the doorframe and heard a thud followed by a string of muffled words with the unmistakable cadence of obscenities. A moment later, O’Donnell poked his head out the door. His hair was still wet from his own shower and slicked back beneath his hairnet. His glasses magnified his eyes to the size of quarters. Oxidized quarters.
“Is this a business or social call, Dan?”