“Its chemical name is phencyclidine, but it’s better known as Angel Dust. It’s a hallucinogen that was developed in the fifties for use as an anesthetic. But it never was used because it caused bad dreams and aggressive behavior among the test subjects. It can turn a mouse into a maniac.”
“How do you know so much?”
“I wasn’t your normal doper,” said O’Donnell. “I would research a drug before I used it.”
“Did you ever do this stuff?”
“Once. I didn’t like it.”
Dan took the slip of paper from O’Donnell’s hand and peered at it like a suspicious man checking his supermarket bill. “Any chance of this being wrong?” he asked.
“There’s roughly a ten-percent error factor. From the amount in the blood sample, I doubt it was a false positive.”
Dan’s eyes narrowed until they resembled two sabers glinting in sunlight.
“Could he have been using this over an extended period of time?”
“No way I can tell from the blood,” said O’Donnell. “In low doses it could have a mild stimulant effect that might interfere with sleep. And the drug can build up in the fatty tissues of the brain and be released over time. But if you want to know the truth, one good dose can turn you into a psycho.”
Dan stuffed the results into his pocket.
“Dr. Renoir hasn’t missed her equipment yet. You’ll get it back?”
“Soon as I can.”
“Good.”
“Can I ask you a question, Dan?”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you have Dr. Renoir do this workup? After all, she’s the station’s medical officer.”
For the flash of an instant Tighe looked angry, furious. But with an effort he controlled himself.
“I needed somebody with no political ties to anybody else on the station,” he answered tightly. “Lorraine . . . Dr. Renoir . . . she’d been treating Cramer for sleep disorder without telling anybody but his supervisor.”
“Without telling you?”
Tighe held himself to a single curt nod. “She was following station regulations.”
“Cramer’s supervisor,” O’Donnell mused. “That would be…”
“Kurt Jaeckle,” Tighe snapped.
O’Donnell’s lips formed a silent “Oh.” He made a small shrug and turned toward the door.
“One more thing,” said Dan, his voice still edgy. “There’s a reporter on board. I don’t want any of this getting out, understood?”
“Understood,” said O’Donnell. “Who’s the reporter?”
“Guy named Aaron Weiss from CNN. Looks like a pain in the ass. Trikon’s given him limited access to the station. Damned if I know why.”
“What’s he reporting on?”
“Don’t know for sure. Trikon, I guess. He surer than hell isn’t interested in the Martians. He was pretty clear with Jaeckle about that.”
“Am I required to talk to him?”
“Don’t ask me. I’m not your superior. That’s right. The grapevine says you have no boss up here.”
“The grapevine says a lot,” said O’Donnell. “I just won’t talk to him.”
“Suit yourself,” said Dan. “Are you going to be all right?”
“What do you mean?”
“We just discovered that someone is cooking or smuggling drugs up here,” said Dan. “I think the question is validly put to someone with your history.”
“I’ll be all right,” said O’Donnell.
His hazel eyes, magnified by his glasses, stared into Tighe’s intense sky-blue slits. Neither man wavered.
“That’s good,” said Dan.
O’Donnell opened the door and pulled himself into the comparatively cool air of the command module.
“And, Hugh,” Dan called to him. “Thanks.”
For all his work and dreams about Trikon Station, Fabio Bianco had never been to space before, never experienced microgravity.
As a scientist he understood the facts of near weightlessness. As a frail old man he hoped that he would adapt to microgravity quickly, without embarrassing himself by becoming obviously sick.
He never expected to enjoy the sensation.
Yet from the moment the aerospace plane coasted into orbit Bianco felt a strange exhilaration surging through his aged body. By the time the plane had docked with Trikon and he and his fellow passengers had disembarked into the station itself, Bianco was grinning broadly. For the first time in years, in decades, he felt truly alive. Strong, almost. Twenty years younger. Thirty, even.
The young men and women of the station’s crew treated him with extreme deference. Bianco accepted their solicitude as his due as CEO of Trikon International, rather than because of his frail old age.