“It’s not helping that we’re all dealing with low blood sugar,” Maria said, thinking out loud. “Which is why I need to get everything worked out.”
“I’d like to test-check your toiletries as well,” Joanna said. “You may have some more poison traces on your toothbrush or lip balm or something.”
Maria continued down the hall. “Sure thing,” she said. “I’m fairly sure I have nothing to hide. Well. I don’t have anything to hide. I don’t know about the other me.”
They entered Maria’s room, and she pointed to her small bath. “Why don’t you grab my toothbrush and anything else you want? I can get another from the supply.”
Joanna nodded and turned toward the bathroom. When Maria was sure she was out of sight, she knelt below her bed and pulled out a small safe with a mechanical lock. She ran through the combination.
“Maria, why do you have a mechanical safe?” IAN said. “A digital safe is much harder to crack.”
Yeah, for a human. Maria grimaced. She’d forgotten the AI was back. “A woman has her secrets, IAN.”
“Not aboard the Dormire,” IAN said. “What are you retrieving?”
Maria realized the camera couldn’t see into the safe. She glanced at the interior quickly and pulled out a blue backup drive, ignoring the several other drives of various sizes stored within. She shut the safe and then held the drive up to the camera. “It’s just a backup drive.”
“I would have kept all of those logs,” IAN said. “You didn’t need a redundancy.”
“Clearly I did; you lost the logs,” Maria said.
“Kick a man while he’s down,” IAN said, sounding wounded. “How do you know those hold the data you want? You could have overwritten it in twenty-five years.”
Maria shrugged and pocketed the drive. “Digital pack rat. It’s what I always do. It’s just good sense to back up the data important to your job. And you’re not a man.”
“I will have to report to the captain,” IAN said.
“I’m about to go tell her myself in the kitchen!” Maria said. “And Dr. Glass is right here to see me do it!”
This wasn’t entirely true. The doctor was still in the bathroom, rummaging through her stuff. Then she backed out slowly. The non-accessible bathrooms weren’t large enough for a wheelchair to turn around in, and it had been a tight fit for her.
“I’ve got what we need for the printer,” Maria said. “IAN is shitting himself that I have a backup he doesn’t. Do you need anything else?”
“I need a shower and to get my legs back on. Otherwise, no. I took your toothbrush, your floss, and a towel. That should be enough.”
“Then I will definitely be a new toothbrush and towel, unless you want to be around a stinky cook.”
Joanna smiled. “I expect you can trust yourself not to squander our supply cache. I’ll get these tested. I want to know how far the attempt to poison you went.”
“I have brushed my teeth and showered since yesterday. Do you think that’s okay?” Maria asked.
Joanna frowned. “I should have told you not to do that. Too much chaos yesterday. But if you’re okay now, you’ll probably be fine. Let me know if you start to feel sick. Until then I’ll be in the medbay. Tell Wolfgang to meet me there in half an hour.”
“I can do that!” IAN said.
“I’m playing Russian roulette with hemlock? Great,” Maria said.
Joanna followed her out of her room, and Maria stopped to key in the lock code.
“Did you really keep a copy of all of our food preferences?” Joanna asked, pointing at the drive.
“Of course. Backups are important. Just ask Paul and IAN how they’re doing without a backup.”
“I resent that,” IAN said, his voice less chirpy.
“Fair enough,” Joanna said. “I’ll let you know.”
They parted in the hallway, and Maria hurried back to the kitchen to try to recalibrate the food printer. Her nemesis. Bebe.
So much for the “just a sip” of whiskey.
Wolfgang, Katrina, Paul, and Hiro had been trading shots for an hour and getting more and more relaxed while Maria finished calibrating the food printer.
Joanna stormed into the kitchen, slightly damp and upright wearing her prosthetic legs. “Please tell me the printer is up and going,” she said. “I’m losing the ability to concentrate.”
“Almost there,” Maria said, watching Bebe work on printing its last test, a simple slab of tofu. “Did you find your spare legs?”
Joanna nodded. “Found them in my closet, while you all apparently got drunk.” She collapsed at the table with the waiting crew and looked accusingly at the bottle. “That was a great idea. Did you know they tested—rather unethically—how long a clone can live without food after waking up? They did some tests on sleep deprivation as well.”
“I wouldn’t have wanted to be in that experiment,” Hiro said.
Joanna pointed at him. “You’re in it. Now. That’s what you’re going through. And it’s not pretty.”
“But what kind of asshole would volunteer for that?” Hiro asked.
“The kind of assholes who will think it’s a great idea to drink on a stomach that’s never had food before?” Maria called from her station at the mouth of Bebe.
She was ready. She programmed in some bread that everyone could share while the printer dealt with several meals at once.
“Or like the kind of person who will call everyone who outranks her an asshole when she hasn’t been eating,” Joanna said. “Exactly.”
“So these unethical experiments,” Wolfgang said. “What else did they test?”
“Physical dexterity, emotional durability, mental endurance. Twenty-four hours without food and the clones are next to useless,” IAN said. “This puts you on hour eighteen.”
Wolfgang looked at Paul. Pale by Earth standards, Paul was positively ruddy compared with Wolfgang. He returned the stare and didn’t flinch when the much taller Wolfgang stood up. He reached out and grasped the Paul’s shoulders, pulling him to his feet. He ran his hands down Paul’s arms in an oddly intimate gesture.
Paul stepped back out of his reach. “What are you doing?” His voice was slightly slurred.
“I want to run our own tests,” Wolfgang said at last.
“What are you talking about?” Katrina asked. “You’re pretty much breaking down in front of us, but you want to take it further? By feeling him up?” She paused to drain her shot glass. “That’s not the way to do security.”
“I need to blow off steam,” he said. “Sweat out the alcohol. I need a workout. Paul’s coming with me.”
“I don’t think—” Paul began.
“Dinner officially in one half hour,” Maria called. “The new printer is off and running!”
The crew cheered, and Joanna sagged in her chair.
Wolfgang looked at Paul. “So we have half an hour. Let’s go.”
“An empty stomach, plus alcohol, plus the stress of our current situation, means the odds of exhausting your new bodies are very high,” IAN said. “Scientifically speaking, it’s a really stupid idea.”