The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell [102]
"REM-mediated dendrite formation," she told him. "Your brain is trying to organize a response to prolonged weightlessness followed by all this new sensory input."
Emilio regarded her through narrowed eyes. "You spend entirely too much time with Anne. What is it with the women on this mission?" he demanded suddenly. "If I looked up prosaic in the dictionary, it would probably say, ’Immune to poetry. See also Mendes comma Sofia.’ I happen to believe that dream was a religious revelation."
He had been praying, Sofia realized, not sleeping. His voice was light and ironic, but she had seen his face that day and knew he meant it. She tried hard to identify the feeling, to name what swept her, and realized that it was tenderness. This is impossible, she thought. I can’t let this happen.
"Aside from exasperating me," he continued, "did you have some reason for—?"
She blinked. "Oh. Yes, actually, it’s time for work. Anne sent me for you."
"No one is hurt?" he asked, getting to his feet.
"No. But Robichaux is ready to begin the experiments with local food sources. Anne wants you to help monitor the responses."
They walked back to the encampment, bantering amiably on the way. But she was careful to keep her distance, and believed she gave no sign that she had at last taken up a burden that Emilio had long carried for both of them, without her conscious knowledge. Sofia Mendes, after all, had survived by sealing off emotion, her own and others’. It was an old skill, employed in times past to protect herself and now honorably exercised on behalf of another. I am Mendes, she thought. Nothing is beyond me.
ANNE LOOKED UP from her notebook as Emilio and Sofia joined the others. It’s happened, Anne thought, but she turned immediately to the work at hand.
"We’ll start with a little meat," she told the group sitting in a circle in front of the lab tent. "Marc wants to go first, but he’s just spent a lot of time throwing up in zero G so I don’t want to put him under any further stress. Jimmy’s big and healthy and he’ll eat anything that gets near his mouth. I expect he’ll survive if the stuff here turns out to be poisonous to us." Jimmy laughed but looked a little nervous. Anne wasn’t joking. "Emilio, you and I are going to watch him in shifts for the next twenty-four hours," Anne continued. "I’ll take the first three hours and then you’re on."
"What are we looking for?" Emilio asked, sitting on the ground between Alan and George.
"Vomiting within the first hour or so. Then abdominal pain. Then intestinal pain, and then diarrhea ranging from annoying to bloody and life threatening. And then," she said seriously, looking at Jimmy the whole time, "there’s the possibility of strokelike bleeding in the brain and a whole range of damage to the intestines and liver and kidneys, which could be either temporary or permanent."
"You’d never get permission from the National Institutes of Health to run this experiment," Jimmy said.
"Not even if the lab rats signed their consent forms with perfect penmanship," Anne agreed. "But we’re not applying for a research grant. Jimmy, you know the risks. Marc and I have run a hundred tests, but there are endless chemical compounds in anything as complicated as a plant or an animal. Alan has volunteered to go first if you want to back out."
He didn’t, and they began with a small amount of roasted little green guy because the animals were abundant and easy to catch. Everyone watched as Jimmy got ready to take his first bite.
"Simply hold it in your mouth for thirty seconds and then spit it out, please," Marc instructed him. "Any tingling or numbness around the lips or in the mouth?"
"No. It’s not bad," Jim told them. "Could use some salt. Tastes just like chicken." There were moans, as he knew there would be, and he beamed happily at the response.
"So. Another bite and this time swallow," Marc told him. Jimmy sucked the rest of the meat from the little pair of legs. And was shouted at by Marc, to everyone’s surprise, since they didn’t know Marc had shouting