“Any side effects?”
“Not a one,” said Roberts. “Hell, this stuff was legal until 1985.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I use it when I’m stuck with my music. You know, I hit a block, can’t get the notes down right. Just one swallow and the next thing I know I’ve got half a ton of paper covered with notes. Good stuff, too. Better’n I write cold.”
Cramer licked his lips. “But it’s illegal, isn’t it? If anybody found out…”
“Hey, you don’t want it, don’t take it. I don’t give a shit either way.”
Cramer refused the capsules that first time. Roberts shrugged and changed the subject. But two sleepless nights later Cramer came back to the technician’s quarters and asked if he could “just try out one capsule.” Roberts gave him three.
With them he felt alert, brilliant, powerful. The hallucinations were mild, just as Roberts had said. An inanimate object might wiggle in the corner of his eye. Flashing circles might appear, only to vanish when he blinked. An occasional bad dream might disturb his sleep. But these were mere trifles compared to the benefits of a keen mind.
Yet despite his enhanced perceptions, the Martian soil samples remained stubbornly, stupidly barren. He knew that Jaeckle and all the others were laughing at him behind his back. He knew that Mars was holding its secrets away from him deliberately.
Cramer stared at the reddening desert as he worked saliva into his mouth. The rocks were drier than the capsules Roberts usually gave him and needed lubrication going down. He popped one well back in his throat and swallowed.
The effect wasn’t quite instantaneous. He had enough time for a second look at his workstation and Jaeckle’s office. Both were as before.
He returned to the blister and steadied himself as best he could in its exact center. He closed his eyes, folded his arms, and crossed his legs at the ankles. Then he proceeded to drift, feeling great waves of energy course through his body as the drug entered his bloodstream. Time refused to speed up, but he didn’t care. His senses grew, intertwined, then blossomed into pleasantly confounding combinations. He could hear the orange paint on the outer skin of the Mars module. He could smell the hum of the station ventilators. He could see the words of the other Martians oozing through the seam of the door like green gunk.
A flash of searing heat disrupted his fantasy. His eyes flashed wide. The Sahara was fiery red. Storms roiled, sending aloft great spirals of sand that buffeted the station like giant handfuls of gravel. A huge figure of a bearded man with long hair and a flowing robe loomed out of the clouds. He beckoned to Cramer with outstretched hands.
The heat was unbearable. Cramer tore at the collar of his shirt, ripped at the drawstring of his pants. His nightmare had come true. They were falling. The station was plummeting through the atmosphere. The entire sky glowed with the heat of their descent. The bearded man beckoned.
Cramer clamped his teeth over his wrist. He pushed his free hand against the dome. Molten plastic burned his fingers. The cries of his fellow Martians resounded through the station. The bearded man drew back his lips in a Satanic grin.
Cramer screamed.
Dan Tighe and Freddy Aviles were reviewing the progress of the computer reconfiguration project when a voice burst over the command module’s loudspeaker.
“Emergency! Mars module! Emergency!”
Dan and Freddy locked eyes. A second later they were in the connecting tunnel, propelling themselves hand over hand toward a knot of people gathered at the Mars module’s entry hatch. Shrieks echoed within.
Dan peeled bodies away and dove inside. At the far end of the internal tunnel, the door to the observation blister floated free of its broken hinges. Torn plastic seals bobbed in the doorway like the waving arms of an octopus.
“We’re falling, we’re falling!” someone was screaming.
Dan turned to the entry hatch and yelled at the circle of faces. “Find Dr. Renoir. Tell her to bring sedatives. Fast! Freddy, get something to restrain him.”
Tighe dove headfirst through the nearest access door and found himself beside Kurt Jaeckle. The professor’s normally olive skin was ghostly white, his deep-set eyes wide in fear and confusion.