All of the tables were occupied, though none by four people. Three Japanese gathered around one table, their heads bobbing in unison as they efficiently moved precise cuts of food from tray to mouth with their chopsticks. A heavyset dark man with a billowing saffron shirt bellied up to another table, his spindly arms working his utensils like pistons. Lance Muncie and Freddy Aviles were together near the doorway to the ex/rec room.
O’Donnell opted for a table occupied by a pudgy, bearded man wearing a Trikon USA T-shirt. He chose the table less for the man’s nationality than for the amount of food remaining on his tray: He was almost finished with his dinner.
They introduced themselves. The bearded man was David Nutt. He explained that he was due to return to the States on Constellation.
“And not a day too soon, either. I’m not thrilled with the prospect of readjusting to gravity after six months, but this place is played out for me. You’re a biochemist? Microbiologist? What?”
O’Donnell pushed a valved straw into his apple juice.
“That’s the best policy. Don’t answer any questions, not even those asked by compatriots.” Nutt beckoned O’Donnell to lean closer and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Watch your ass and watch your data. See that Jap over there, the fat one with the crewcut? He’s Hisashi Oyamo, head of the Japanese group. He’ll kill you with politeness. All bowing and hissing. But one of those little pricks with him stole genetic data files from my computer.”
“So I heard,” said O’Donnell. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” said Nutt bitterly. “Oyamo called Tighe’s bluff and now the damned Jap’s going back home with my data on a bugged disk. They’ll figure out a way to get past the bug and then they’ll have everything I’ve worked six months to accomplish. Fucking zipperheads.”
“Racial epithets are not in the Trikon spirit,” O’Donnell said, working to keep his face straight. “It says so in the orientation manual.”
“Those fairy tales! And see that one over there with the yellow tent for a shirt? He’s Dr. Chakra Ramsanjawi, the former pride of Oxford.”
“He looks pretty dark for a Brit.”
“He’s the head of the European section.”
“I thought the Brits weren’t involved in Trikon,” said O’Donnell.
“They aren’t. Politics keeps them at arm’s length from the rest of United
Europe, so they decided to keep their scientists out of Trikon. Personally, I think they regret it.”
“Then why is Ramsanjawi here?”
“He’s had a hard-on for the Brits ever since he was dismissed as head of the biochem department at Oxford. Sex and drug scandal. You know, the type of story that keeps the tabloids in the black. He swears he’s innocent of all charges. Trikon is his way of sticking it in the Brits’ ear.”
“Did he break into your computer files, too?”
“Not that I can prove.” With some effort, Nutt forced himself lower and covered his mouth with his free hand. “When I came here six months ago the United Europe lab was a joke. They didn’t know a microbe from a bathrobe. Then Ramsanjawi comes up here and bingo, they know everything we Americans and the Canadians took months to synthesize and more. You tell me they aren’t stealing.”
“I can’t. But, Dave, how do you know what they know?” O’Donnell smiled impishly.
“Stick it, O’Donnell, willya?” Nutt yanked his food tray out of its bin and floated off.
Good thing he’s leaving, O’Donnell thought. Guy’s like a live bomb, ready to go off any minute.
O’Donnell ate slowly and carefully. Surface tension held the food in the containers and on his utensils, although the mixed vegetables escaped if he loaded too many onto his fork. Crumbs from his bread spiraled up into the vent like a lilliputian dust devil.
The music hid most of the dinnertime chatter. The only distinct voices he could hear belonged to Freddy Aviles and Lance Muncie.
“You din’ finish, man.”
“I’ve had enough.”
“Thought you were feeling better.”
“I am.”
“So why don’ you finish?”
“I know my digestive system better’n you do, okay, Freddy? I’ve had enough.”
A wide-hipped man wearing a red flight suit emblazoned with the circle and arrow insignia of the Mars Project maneuvered through the tables. His eyelids blinked rapidly and his head bobbed like a chicken’s. He looked at everyone in the wardroom, obviously considering and rejecting them as companions for his evening meal, then sank into footloops at O’Donnell’s table. Despite his girth, his shoulders were narrow and his collarbones resembled a pair of twigs beneath the fabric of his flight suit. His brown hair was greased and plastered across his forehead for maximum coverage. Unbound by a hairnet, one strand had worked free and stood upright like an antenna. The name tag above the project insignia read: R. cramer.