Kinsman caught a slight but definite stress on the word 91 physical. "You think there might be emotional problems, in the long run?"
"Chet, I can see emotional problems on a three-day mission." Jill forced the blood specimen into a stoppered test tube.
"What do you mean?"
"Come on," she said, her face showing disappointment and distaste. "It's obvious what you're trying to do. Your tail's been wagging like a puppy dog whenever she's in sight."
"You haven't been sleeping much, have you?"
"I haven't been eavesdropping, if that's what you mean. I've simply been watching you watching her. And some of those messages from groundside ... is the whole Air Force in on this? How much money's being bet?"
"I'm not involved in any betting. I'm just . . ."
"You're just taking a risk on fouling up this mission and maybe killing the three of us just to prove that you're Tarzan and she's Jane."
"Goddammitall, Jill, now you sound like Murdock."
The sour look on her face deepened. "Do I? Okay, you're a big boy. If you want to play Tarzan while you're on duty, that's your business. I won't get in your way. I'll take a sleeping pill and stay in the bunk."
"You will?"
"That's right. You can have your blond Barbie Doll, and good luck to you. But I'll tell you this . . . she's a phony. I've talked to her long enough to dig that. You're trying to use her, but she's trying to use us, too. She was pumping me about the power pod while you were sleeping. She's here for her own reasons, Chet, and if she plays along with you it won't be for the romance and adventure of it all."
My God Almighty, thought Kinsman. Jilt's jealous!
It was tense and quiet when Linda returned from the bunkroom. The three of them worked separately: Jill fussing over the algae colony on the shelf above the biomed desk;
Kinsman methodically taking film from the surveillance cam- eras for return to Earth and reloading them; Linda clicking away efficiently at both of them.
Ground control called up to ask how things were going. Both Jill and Linda threw sharp glances at Kinsman. 92
He replied merely, "Following mission profile. All sys- tems green."
They shared a meal of precooked boneless chicken and bland vegetables together, still mostly in silence, and then it was Kinsman's turn in the sack again. But not before he rechecked the flight plan. Jill goes in next, and we'll have four hours alone, including a stretch over the Indian Ocean.
He found himself whistling a romantic theme from Scheherazade as he zippered himself into his sleeping bag.
Once Jill retired, Kinsman immediately called Linda over to the radar display on the pretext of showing her the image of a Soviet satellite.
"We're coming close now." They hunched side by side in front of the orange-glowing radar screen, close enough for Kinsman to scent her delicate but very feminine perfume. "Only a couple hundred kilometers away."
"Should we blink our lights at them or something?"
"It's unmanned."
"Oh."
"It is a little like flying in World War I up here," Kinsman realized, straightening up. "Just being up here is more important than which nation you're from."
