Toweling off, she was racked with a now-familiar churning in her gut, and she dropped to her knees in front of the toilet, lifting the lid just in time to expel the meager contents of her stomach.
Recovered, she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, stiffening with shock at the sight of her bald head. David would be horrified—he would make her get a wig until her hair had grown back in to a respectable length. And even Marta had to admit that this was not the best look for a woman of her age, that she, unlike the frankly stunning young woman with the ridiculous pop-singing boyfriend—mixed race, she must have been, with all of the gifts (luminous, vaguely Asiatic eyes, clear, nearly poreless light brown skin) such an ancestry might bestow—could no longer accentuate her beauty by radicalizing it (not that Marta had ever dared to radicalize her beauty, even in the bloom of youth). No, Marta’s face was drawn, hollow-eyed; her eyebrows had thinned and lightened so much that there was nothing to temper the shock of her hairless dome, so that, if she blurred her eyes, the image was not of a woman but of a skull. Trembling, she uncapped a pot of Retylastic face cream—a fifty-gram container cost as much as a replacement Stamp—and applied dabs to her face and neck using the soft pad of her ring finger. Then sunblock (what a strange, almost lovely sensation, working the cold lotion into the skin of her scalp). Then she squeezed a tiny bit of antiseptic Scar-Rid into her Stamp wound, which she had opted to have branded in the meaty flesh of her upper arm, where a long-ago generation had been scarred by polio vaccinations. The disfigurement scared her the most—more than her uncertainty about how well she would be able to keep up with the other, mostly younger travelers; more than her anticipation of David’s reaction upon her return; more, even, than the fear of death, though she would rather not meet her end in some slow, horrible way. Her only capital had ever been her looks, and later, her status as wife to David Perrone and mother to David Perrone’s twin sons (“heir and a spare,” David had joked—at least, she took it then as a joke—upon their birth). Age had taken away much of that capital, but she was still a handsome woman, a woman who was respectable on the arm of a man like David (no matter whom he kept out of sight and on the side), and she was loath to compromise that. Though there was a part of her that wondered what it would be like to come back to her husband visibly battle-marked. Could you have done this? her scars would say to him. Could you have risked yourself this way?
She packed quickly. All of her personal effects, excepting her microsuit and Stamp, had to fit into a small knapsack with a total weight of no more than thirty-five hundred grams; the knapsack also had to pass a security inspection, including X-rays and hand searches, to rule out the presence of forbidden items. Hanging her pack on a luggage scale, she started dropping in objects in descending order of importance: three changes of underwear, three changes of socks; a tube of sunblock; her Retylastic cream and Scar-Rid. That was just over two thousand grams. A canister of ibuprofen, which was permitted on the Outer Limits Excursions Rules and Regulations for Travelers. Three manufacturer-sealed pouches of antibiotic ointment, also permitted. These items were sold at the Canteen, as was the small spray bottle of Critter-Rid, which was useless against the miner ticks but handy for the nonfatal but still annoying (and prevalent) chiggers and mosquitoes. She was now up to twenty-seven hundred grams.
The Outer Limits Excursions statement on weapons read as follows:
Section 3.2: OLE Inc. is a firm supporter of our constitutional right to bear arms. However, for the safety of our travelers, personal weapons—including but not limited to firearms, blade weapons, explosive devices, projectile weapons, chemical or pepper sprays, and any other instruments or devices designed to inflict harm on another living being—are prohibited. OLE staff members will carry only small utility blades and have thumbprint and password-controlled access to locked weapons vaults at various points on the excursion. These vaults store bows, shotguns, and rifles suitable for the hunting of game and accessible only for the purposes of controlled hunting parties as described in the relevant Excursion Package (if applicable).
Travelers attempting to bring in weapons of any kind, or who use OLE weaponry in any manner other than that for which it has been designated, including hunting of out-of-season game, will be banished from the Excursion and issued a 25,000-credit fine. Criminal cases will be turned over to the proper authorities.
The statement on Drugs, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Prescription Medication was equally restrictive:
Section 3.5: Because the safety of a Traveler requires first and foremost an alert mind, possession of alcohol and most controlled substances is prohibited on OLE Tours. The exceptions are certain prescription medications (prior approval must be sought through the OLE physician-in-residence), allowable only in quantities necessary for the duration of the Excursion, and over-the-counter anti-inflammatory and allergy medications that can be purchased through the Canteen. Leaf tobacco is not allowed; however, Smokeless and replacement NicoClean cells are also purchasable through the OLE Canteen in unrestricted quantities. Canteen purchases have an identifying bar code—any over-the-counter medications or Smokeless not bearing that bar code are forbidden.
And so Marta paused, stomach knotted, over the last items on her dresser top.