Orbital Decay (25 page)

“I can understand that,” Hamilton said, dipping a finger into a tank to check the water level. “I got sick on the way up when the shuttle did its rollover during launch.”

“Happens to a lot of people,” Felapolous said. “We call it the Star Whoops.” I started to nose-hum the old John Williams movie theme, but Felapolous shushed me. “Some people get used to it, and some people never do, so the station was designed as a closed environment, without that distraction. It’s cut down on cases of spacesickness, which is good because the crewmen spend less work time in the infirmary losing their lunches.

“Unfortunately…” Felapolous paused to collect his thoughts. “Well, there’s a side effect, and as I said, it’s not terribly unusual for spaceflight. Psychologists call it the solipsism syndrome, and so far no one has come up with a cute name for it.

“It’s not unique to spaceflight. It’s occurred with submarine crews and with other people who stay for long periods of time in a cooped-up environment. Essentially, it means that a person loses touch with the outside, and begins to believe that the world begins and ends within the confines of his environment, that it is the entirety of his universe.”

Hamilton looked up from a tray of carrots he had been examining. “Hey! Sort of like the crew of that starship in that old Robert Heinlein story
Orphans of the Sky
, right?”

“You’ve read that!” I exclaimed. I warmed to Hamilton even more. Damn if it isn’t nice to find a person who’s familiar with the classics!

“I don’t know the work,” Felapolous said, “but I’ll take your word for it that you’re aware of a literary paradigm. In the case of the syndrome, it poses a paradox for the victim, because it’s difficult for someone else to prove he’s wrong. In an acute case, moreover, the victim will not only come to believe that his environment is the length and breadth of the universe, but he will eventually come to believe that
he
is the
center
of the universe.”

Hamilton grunted and led the way into the next of the five hydroponics modules. This one was mainly filled with growing vegetables: lettuce, onions, bell peppers, peas, more carrots. I got hungry just looking at it all. Considering that our entrees came freeze-dried from Earth, Skycan’s home-grown veggies were one of the few luxuries we had aboard. I deliberated over swiping a pepper or a carrot when the other two turned their backs. “But I saw Wallace watching TV monitors while I was on the command deck,” Hamilton said, “so it can’t be that he’s entirely out of touch with the real world.”

“Well, no,” Felapolous agreed. “Wallace’s case isn’t quite according to the textbook. Although he knows that there’s still space and Earth and so forth, he seems to think that he’s the center of it all, that he’s the only factor which matters.”

“I don’t quite follow.”

“He seems to believe, from my conversations with him, that his particular vision is the only one which matters. You have to realize what kind of person he is. He’s not only spit-and-polish military material, he’s also the product of lifetime fantasies of becoming a… well, a space hero. Coupled with his record as a famous astronaut, of blazing some frontiers in space, it has reinforced his ego, which has in turn reinforced the solipsism syndrome, to the point where no one can disagree with what he thinks, unless they manage to make him believe that
their
ideas are really
his
ideas. Then he’ll listen. Anyone who doesn’t agree, exists outside his universe, and therefore becomes an enemy.”

“Well, that’s paranoia, not this syndrome.”

“Yes, well, partly that, too,” Felapolous admitted. “You would have had to have been here for a while to understand where it all springs from. From the beginning of his tour of duty aboard this station, Henry didn’t fit in with the majority of the crew. While he’s had these visions of conquering the high frontier, exploring the farthest reaches of space, et cetera, most of the crew are here mainly to make a living….”

“To make a buck,” I threw in, breaking my silence. To hell with shoplifting carrots; this was getting interesting. “These guys are mainly blue-collar, salt of the earth, hard-hat types, with a wild-ass streak that would make them want to take on this particular job. They don’t want to hear discourses about manifest destiny among the stars, they want to make a bundle at a high-risk profession and get home alive. When Wallace tried to lecture these guys, they shut him off, alienated him. He came on too intense. Hell, I myself gave him a chance. I tried to eat dinner with him once on the mess deck, and frankly he was boring as hell. Space, space space—that was all he wanted to talk about.”

Felapolous nodded. “Sam puts it bluntly, but that’s essentially the way that it was. It’s now come to the point where Henry spends most of his time either on the command deck or in his private cabin and is rarely seen by the crew. He has his meals brought to him there and discourages anyone meeting him, unless it’s a new crewman such as yourself, whom he’ll try to convert—without success. I’ve continued to have informal therapy sessions with him—I’m one of the few persons aboard he trusts…”

“You’re Dr. McCoy to his Captain Kirk,” I threw in.

“Well, I prefer to think of myself as a confessor…. Did I tell you, Jack, that I’m also a Jesuit priest?… but, um, yes, you could phrase it that way. As far as Henry now believes, he’s still the intrepid and daring commander, backed by a hundred and thirty loyal crewmen, among whom he admits there are a few bad apples whom he is willing to tolerate. Besides his mental health, my concern is also with his physical health, since he spends most of his time in the weightless condition of the command deck, as demonstrated by the facial, skeletal, and body-mass ratio changes he has gone through due to spending so much time floating, and the shift in his internal liquids and metabolism that go with it.”

“I noticed that he looks different,” Hamilton said.

“Said much more succinctly than Doc could ever put it,” I said, giving Felapolous a wink. “But it’s not just zero g, it’s his mental condition. I mean, his eyes, the way he looks at you…”

Hamilton shuddered a little. “Right. I noticed that too. I guess he isn’t the only case aboard, either. Like the guy he shoved around back there. Popeye, he called him. And the guy who showed me around earlier, Virgin Bruce…”

Felapolous stared at him. “God Lord,” he said seriously, “you’ve
met
Virgin Bruce? Poor devil.”

I broke up. “No, no,” I insisted after I got hold of myself, “you’ve got it wrong with Brucie. He’s not crazy… or at least not in the usual sense of the word. I mean, he’s
crazy
, but he’s a sane kind of crazy. Relatively harmless, if you can expect that from an ex-biker. He intimidates everyone at first, but don’t worry, he’s a good person once you get used to him.”

“On the other hand, Popeye Hooker is a different matter.” Doc Felapolous shook his head and shoved his hands into the pockets of his shorts. “I haven’t been able to figure him out,” he said, more to himself than to either of us. “At first I thought he was simply homesick, just as we have several people aboard who are counting the hours till their contracts run out and they can ship back to Earth, but then just a couple of months ago he signed on with Skycorp for another two years. I discussed it with him, tried to talk him out of it, but he was adamant, and since he was then basically healthy in mind and body, I signed the form.” Felapolous sighed. “I regret to say I made a mistake. His mental health is deteriorating. He’s in a state of depression, and as far as I can tell, it stems from guilt, or feeling guilty, about something he left behind. But he won’t say a thing about it, and until he shows some overt sign of mental illness, I can’t recommend that he be sent back.”

“Like the guy I saw you putting on the OTV earlier, when I arrived,” Hamilton said. Felapolous nodded. “And Virgin Bruce… Christ, what a name… Virgin Bruce mentioned something about the last hydroponics engineer you had aboard, named McHenry.”

“McHenry, right,” I said. “He went right over the top. One day he started shouting at people in the rec room that the writing was on the wall. Pointing at the wall, screaming, ‘It’s there, can’t you read it!’ Doc had to come up and sedate him.”

“Shipped him back two days later,” Felapolous said. “I had therapy with him up until then, and he still wouldn’t tell me what he saw written up there.”

“Okay, okay,” Hamilton said, leaning up against a wall and folding his arms across his chest. “So here’s the million dollar question. You have guys sometimes go crazy up here from the confinement or whatever, you send ’em back. Henry Wallace, the top dog here, is crazy. You’ve diagnosed that with some certainty. So why haven’t you sent
him
back.”

I looked at Doc, who was silent for a moment. Our senior physician had painted himself into a corner by explaining all this so openly to Hamilton. Now he had to answer the obvious question. I stood back and waited; Doc and I were friends, but he still hadn’t explained that to me, either.

“First off,” Doc said quietly at last, “you have to both promise me that this doesn’t get beyond this compartment.” We nodded, and Felapolous glanced up at the overhead hatch leading to the catwalk, making sure it was closed. “I
have
explained to Skycorp Command about Henry’s condition, and I
have
recommended to them that he be replaced.”

“So they know Wallace has gone bonkers,” I said. “Why hasn’t he been replaced?”

“I discussed this with one of their senior planning officials, a young Turk named Clayton Dobbs,” Felapolous said. “He argued economics in return. Remember, this whole thing—the station, all the people on it, all the billions of dollars which have been invested—are geared toward one immediate goal, the construction of the Project Franklin powersats. The potential for construction holdups and cost overruns is staggering. There have been both of those, so far, but except for the recent incident of the Vulcan blowout, most of the problems have been ground-based. As far as Olympus, Vulcan, Descartes, and the other space-based operations are concerned, everything has been kept on schedule and reasonably within budget. We’re still on the production possibilities curve, as Dobbs phrased it. The economics equilibrium between costs and long-term benefits has not yet been upset. As usual with the corporate system, they have put the credit on the front-line man.”

“Oh, shit,” I murmured, “I can see it coming.”

Felapolous nodded. “Right you are, Sam, and in a sense, so are they. Henry’s the man in charge. He’s keeps everyone on line, keeps operations going smoothly, keeps the project alive. The investors would bail out otherwise, and that would sink the whole ship. Yes, McGuinness and Skycorp are aware that our project supervisor is unhinged, even though they keep it to themselves as a corporate top-secret. But the inarguable fact of the matter is that
he gets the job done.
As long as he does that, they don’t give a damn if he wears a pink bunny suit and runs around the station declaring himself the prom queen.”

Hamilton let out a breath. “Good economic sense,” he said. “If it takes a crazy man to do the job, let the crazy man do it.”

“You can’t argue with success,” I added. Felapolous nodded, and I knew he was right. It was scary, but it was logical.

We were quiet for a moment, each of us immersed in his own thoughts. After a minute Felapolous straightened himself, clapping his hands together. “Well!” he said. “I’m sure you’ve been given quite an earful, Jack, and I’ll trust that you’ll keep it all to yourself. If you gentlemen will excuse me, I’ll go attend to one of my principal duties aboard the station.”

“What’s that?” Hamilton asked.

“Feeding the cats.” Felapolous turned and walked to a ladder. “Sam here named them all after science fiction writers,” he said as he began to climb. “He’ll explain it to you. See you later.” Doc opened the hatch, climbed out onto the catwalk, and dropped the hatch shut behind him.

“See, it’s like this,” I started to explain. “I’m a science fiction writer myself, and…”

But Hamilton just waved his hand. “Never mind. Virgin Bruce explained it to me already. Nice guy, that Felapolous, isn’t he?”

“One of the better people we have aboard,” I agreed. “He keeps us sane.”

Hamilton crossed his arms and peered closely at me for a moment, as if sizing me up. “Y’know, I don’t think neurosis is the biggest problem here,” he said. “No one has come straight out and said it to me, but I think your problem—everyone’s aboard the station, not you personally—is that you’re bored.”

I let my eyes roll up. “Oh, gee, what a surprise,” I replied sarcastically. “I’ve been here for almost a year now, working in this can day after day, but I didn’t notice that until a new guy came aboard and pointed that out to me on his first day in orbit. Thank you, Jack, for that astute observation.”

Well, it
was
astute for someone to pick up on that upon arrival, and perhaps I should have given Hamilton credit for that quick bit of observation. But it was a little like telling the man who’s dying of leukemia that he’s looking a little anemic. Jack continued to gaze at me, and I shrugged. “I dunno, man. I manage to keep myself busy and entertained, but the guys who have to really face it are the beamjacks. From what I hear, their life isn’t all that great. Eight hours a day they take a lot of risks, and then they get to come back here, eat freeze-dried plastic crap, watch TV, and try to get some sleep before doing it all over again. This place reinforces boredom, y’know, and anything that’s really fun to do is either discouraged or outright forbidden. Yeah, they’re bored.
We’re
bored. What can you do, though, right?” I shrugged.

Hamilton returned the shrug. “There’s lots of ways you can beat boredom, Sam,” he said blandly, “if you’re willing to take a few risks.”

He had a wry smile on his face and a gleam in his eye as he said that. He was getting at something. “How so?” I asked casually. “You have an idea?”

“Well, what I mean is doing something you’ve maybe not considered doing before,” he said. “Cutting up a bit. Getting a little crazy. Taking a little risk. Know what I mean?”