Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [73]
"Swallow, please. In two minutes we will try a nutrient drink. You need hydration and nourishment. Do you often fail to report illnesses?"
"No. I thought I could make it."
"In every space mission approximately one-third of the personnel involved have experienced from mild to extreme forms of space sickness. The probability that one of us would have the difficulty was very high. Now drink this. Slowly."
He drank. It was thick and tasted of oranges. "Not bad."
"It is based on American Tang," Leonilla said. "I have added fruit sugars and a vitamin solution. How do you feel? No, do not look at me. It is important that this stay down. Keep your eyes closed."
"It's not too bad, this way."
"Good."
"But I'm no damned use with my eyes closed! And I've got to—"
"You've got to rehydrate and stay alive so the rest of us can stay here," Leonilla said.
Delanty felt something cold on his forearm. "What—"
"A sleeping injection. Relax. There. You will sleep for several hours. During that time I will give you an intravenous. Then when you are awake we can try other drugs. Good-night."
She went back into the main Hammerlab compartment. There was room in the center of it now; the equipment had been stowed in proper places, and much of the styrofoam packing had been ejected out into space.
"Well?" John Baker demanded. Pieter Jakov asked the same thing, in Russian.
"Bad," she said. "I think he has not kept water in his system for at least twenty-four hours. Possibly longer. His temperature is thirty-eight point eight. Badly dehydrated."
"So what do we do?" Baker asked.
"I think the drugs I have given him will keep the drink down. I gave him nearly a liter, and he showed no signs of distress. Why did he not tell us before?"
"Hell, he's the first black man in space. He doesn't want to be the last one," Baker said.
"Does he think he is the only one under pressure to succeed?" Leonilla demanded. "He is the first black man in space, but the physiological differences between races are small compared to those between sexes. I am the second woman in space, and the first failed … "
"It is time for more observations," Pieter Jakov said. Leonilla, assist me. Or must you attend to your patient?"
With the gear properly stowed, there was still very little room to spare in Hammerlab. They had found ways to achieve some privacy: Delanty in the Apollo, Leonilla Malik m the Soyuz. Baker and Jakov traded off watchkeeping and slept in Hammerlab when they slept at all. With three to cover the work of four, there wasn't a lot of time for sleep.
And Hamner-Brown was approaching. Tail-first it came, directly toward them, the tenuous gas that streamed from it already engulfing Earth and Moon and Hammerlab. They took hourly observations, visual, and daily went outside to gather samples of nothing: the thin vacuum of space, bottled to take back to Earth, where sensitive instruments could find a few molecules of a comet's tail.
At first there was little to see. Only in the direction of the comet was it obvious that the tail was streaming across space to cover hundreds of millions of miles; but later, as it came closer, they could see it in any direction they looked.
When they weren't watching the comet they could take observations of the Sun. There were another dozen experiments, in crystallography, in thin-film research, to occupy any spare time left from that.
It made for a busy day.
They hadn't much privacy, but they had some. By mutual agreement and ship design, the personal facilities were in the spacecraft, not the lab capsule. For Baker and Delanty the system was simple enough: a tube to fit over their male members, with a tank to pee in. It flushed.
This time when Baker used the system he felt Delanty's eyes on him.
"You're supposed to be asleep. Not watching me piss."
"You I'm not interested in. Johnny … how does Leonilla manage it? In space"
"Yeah. I managed to forget I don't know. I'll ask her, huh?"
"Sure. Do that. It's a cinch I'm not gonna."
"Me neither." Johnny opened a valve. Urine jetted from the Apollo into space.