NIGHT: SOL 10
VIJAY SHEKTAR WAS ON DUTY AT THE COMM CONSOLE. SHE smiled at Jamie. “How’s it going, mate?”
“Really well,” Jamie said. He related their hypothesis about the lichen leaching water from their host rocks’ interiors and the possibility of scanning the whole planet for colonies of lichen.
“That’s wonderful, Jamie,” Shektar said, smiling happily.
“Trudy’s a really sharp one,” he said. “She’s on her way to a Nobel.”
“Good for her,” Vijay said, a bit abstractly, Jamie thought.
Then her smile faded and she asked in a lower voice, “How are you and Dex working out?”
Jamie thought of two nights ago, when he wanted to talk to her, but she was locked in chat with Trumball.
Keeping his face impassive, Jamie replied, “Not bad. He wants to salvage the old rover.”
“Yes, I saw that in your report from last night.”
“And he’s offered me a bribe to do it.”
“A bribe?”
Jamie explained about the cliff dwelling.
Shektar said, “But you were going to do that anyway, weren’t you?”
He had to admit it. “I certainly intended to. But now that Dex has brought it out in the open, I’m kind of glad about it.”
“That’s good.”
“Uh … you were talking with him a couple of nights ago, weren’t you?”
Her dark-skinned face showed no trace of surprise. Her onyx eyes did not waver. “Jamie, I try to talk to each team member every few days. It’s part of my job.”
“I understand,” he said.
With a smile, she said, “Sure you do.”
Suddenly Jamie felt uncomfortable. He wanted to talk with Vijay for hours, talk about everything and anything, not just the business of the expedition. Yet he sensed that she knew more about what was stirring inside him than he himself did.
“Are you okay?” he heard himself ask. “Everything going well back there?”
“We’re all fine,” Vijay said. “Possum’s drill has reached the two-hundred-meter level and he’s starting to pull up bacterial samples. He and Mitsuo are burning up the lab equipment, examining them.”
“Living bacteria?”
“Yes. The biologists back on Earth are dancing in the streets, to hear the two of them talk.”
“Why the hell didn’t they tell me about it?”
She looked startled. “I thought they did. They just pulled up the first sample this morning. I thought they sent you a quick report.”
Jamie took a deep breath. “Maybe it’s in my incoming mail. I haven’t checked it this evening.”
“I’m sure it must be.”
Without breaking his connection with Shektar, he pulled up the list of incoming messages. Yes, there were two of them from Fuchida, sent within minutes of each other, less than three hours earlier.
I ought to check my mail before I call the base, Jamie reminded himself. He realized he had been foolish, wanting to talk to Vijay so much that he neglected to go through his incoming messages first.
She was saying, “Mitsuo thinks the volcanoes might be even better sites for an underground ecology. He can’t wait to get started on his excursion.”
Jamie sighed. “I know the feeling.”
“You’re well?” she asked.
Almost startled by her simple question, Jamie answered, “Sure, I’m fine.”
“Not feeling tired or perhaps a little irritable, especially in the evening?”
Jamie shook his head. “No, nothing like that.”
“How about when you wake up in the morning? Any signs of depression?”
“What are you talking about?” He remembered how he had felt during the first expedition when vitamin deficiency had brought on scurvy. Is Vijay worried about that? he wondered.
But she answered, “Jet lag.”
“Jet lag?”
Shektar nodded, quite serious. “The Martian sol is more than half an hour longer than an Earth day. Several of the people here at the base have shown some difficulty in adjusting their internal clocks.”
Jamie was instantly alarmed. “Who? How serious is it?”
“It’s not serious,” Shektar replied. “Nothing to be worried about. And I’m not going to break doctor-patient confidentiality over it.”
“But if it affects people’s performance—”
“It hasn’t and I doubt that it will. They’re adjusting; just a bit slowly, that’s all.”
Jamie tried to keep himself from frowning at her. We should have thought of that, he scolded himself. We made the adjustment for the gravity, but nobody thought of adjusting for the different length of day.
“Cheer up, Jamie,” Vijay said, smiling again. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m absolutely, positively certain.” Then her smile turned impish. “Pretty much.”
They bantered back and forth about internal biorhythms and natural cycles. Jamie enjoyed chatting with her; he could feel the tensions of the day relaxing their hold on him. He noticed how white her teeth gleamed against her dark complexion. Her skin looked smooth and soft. Jamie thought how he’d like to stroke her face, her shoulders …
“Talking about biorhythms,” Vijay was saying, “I’ve been keeping an eye on the harem effect.”
That put an end to his fantasizing. “On what?”
“The harem effect,” she said. “The tendency of women who live together to have their menstrual cycles synchronize.”
Jamie said to himself, I don’t want to hear about this. But he heard himself ask, “Is that happening here?”
Shektar nodded, her eyes teasing. “Indeed it is, mate. I talked with Stacy a little while ago. We’re all within three days of each other.”
“The harem effect,” he muttered.
“Part of the general cussedness of nature,” she said.
“Is it?”
“We don’t do it on purpose, Jamie. We can’t control our cycles, not unless we take hormone therapy, and as far as I know none of us is on birth control pills.”
Jamie thought maybe they should be, then wondered why they weren’t. Because they don’t want to be sexually active?
“We agreed to keep off the pill before we left Earth,” Shektar explained. “The three of us are volunteers in a medical experiment on the harem effect.”
“You’re going to write a paper about this?”
“When we get back, yes. Publish or perish, you know.”
Jamie could not tell if she were serious or baiting him.
“Of course,” she went on, “if any of us thinks she has cause to, she can take a ‘morning after’ pill. I’ve got a good supply of those on hand.”
Jamie heard himself ask, “Has anybody …?”
Her smile became dazzling. “Patient-doctor confidentiality, Jamie. My lips are sealed.”
He sighed with exasperation. It sounded more like a growl.
Suddenly changing the subject, Shektar said, “You haven’t done a medical diagnostic since you left base, you know.”
“I don’t need—”
“You okayed the regulations, Dr. Waterman. We all agreed to abide by them.”
“Yes, I know.”
“It’s my responsibility to look after your physical and mental health.” She was totally serious now. “But I can’t do that if you don’t cooperate.”
“Have the others …?”
“Dex and Trudy have been very cooperative. Stacy has an astronaut’s aversion to medics, but she went through a diagnostic last night. I’ve got the data here.”
“I’d rather have you examine me personally than that dumb machine,” he blurted.
Her brows rose. “Really?”
Jamie cursed himself for an idiot. “What I meant to say is—”
But Vijay was smiling again. “I’ll be happy to examine you when you return. But for now, I’m afraid the diagnostic machine is as romantic as we can get.”
“Romantic?”
She laughed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fluster you. It’s my evil sense of humor.”
He forced a smile back at her. A weak one. “I’m not flustered. It’s all right.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
Trying to regain command of the conversation, Jamie said, “I’ve got to talk with Tomas.”
“Now?”
“Before I sign off.”
“Do you want to make your formal report?”
“I want him to program one of the soarplanes to do a reconnaissance run past the cliff dwelling.”