Alec stirred uneasily on the narrow bunk. The fabric beneath him was wrinkled and cut into his bare skin annoyingly.
Why is he doing this? Why didn’t he return to us? Why is he trying to kill us all?
Then a new thought struck him. What if he doesn’t show up? That had not occurred to him before. What if I have to choose between returning to the Moon and finding him?
He lay there in the bunk, eyes watching the scenes of Tennessee’s rugged hill country unfolding on the viewscreen. “Speed and firepower,” he said aloud, trying to force his mind to focus on the mission. “Terrain is the key to speed. Get in and out before they know you’ve arrived.”
Do that and you’ll never find him, he knew.
Angrily, Alec reached out and punched the viewscreen’s OFF button. He turned over on the lumpy, wrinkled bed and tried to force himself to sleep.
Briefings. Exercises. Examinations. Training. The days in the satellite station blurred into a continuous round of automatic routine. Morning briefings on tactics. Physical therapy, mainly running along the central corridor of the satellite for an hour. Then medical exams. After lunch, training: weapons, communications, hand-to-hand combat.
“You’re losing weight.”
The medic was a woman, a handsome woman. Alec had watched several of the men make fools of themselves, trying to impress her. She was big, with a broad Slavic face and strong, big-boned body that she kept in perfect shape. Her white coverall strained across her bosom and hips.
“It goes with the job,” Alec answered. “Soon I’ll start turning gray.”
They were sitting in the tiny alcove off to one side of the medical compartment. The main section of the compartment was filled with the automated examination booth and its sensors and computer terminal. Sitting across the flimsy desk from her, Alec realized why the men chased her. But she was looking at him with coolly professional concern.
“What’s bothering you?” she asked.
You are, he started to say. But instead, “I’m responsible for the lives of fifty men who’ll be going Earthside with me. And for the life of the entire settlement, if we don’t bring back those fissionables.”
“But you sought out this responsibility.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier.”
She eyed him for a long moment, tapping her finger lightly on the tiny desktop, then turned slightly to study the data screen on the wall at her side.
“I think,” she said calmly, “that you are full of shit. Either you’re trying to con me, or you’re conning yourself.”
Alec broke into laughter.
“You find that funny?”
“Sure, why not?”
She pursed her lips in obvious annoyance.
“Look,” Alec said, “Dr. Sinton... um, what is your first name, anyway?”
“Lenore.”
“Lenore?”
“As in Poe.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Am I to assume I may call you Alexander, instead of Commander Morgan?”
“Alec.”
She still had not smiled. “Very well, Alec. You are losing weight, even though you’re not turning gray. To what do you attribute this medical phenomenon?”
“Are you a psychiatrist as well as a medic?”
“No. Please answer my question.”
Alec leaned back in the flimsy chair. “The answer is—I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
Without raising his voice, Alec said, “I really don’t give a damn what you think.”
Now she smiled. But it wasn’t sweetness. “You had better. Because you’re not going Earthside until I’m satisfied that your physical condition is up to it.”
Alec glared at her, feeling the heat rising inside him. “The tyranny of the medics.”
She shrugged. Despite himself, he found the movement delicious.
For a strained, silent moment they sat there trying to stare each other down. Finally she said, “Shall I tell you what my opinion is?”
“You’re the doctor.” Alec tried to make it sound casual, but his fists were clenched in his lap.
