Free Jupiter by Ben Bova Page A

for the aquarium.'
    'Why does the aquarium need a guard?' 'It doesn't. It's all Wo's brilliant idea,' Karlstad said, still in a near-whisper. 'He carted the animal all the way out here when she was an infant, so he's got to show some practical reason for the expense.'
    Grant shook his head in wonder.
    'At least there's one advantage to Sheena's limited brainpower.'
    'What's that?'
    'She can clean out her own cage,' Karlstad said. 'And she's toilet-trained.' He laughed. 'You should've seen the mess she made the first time she squatted on a regular toilet. We had to build a specially-reinforced bowl for her.'
    'I guess so,' Grant said, not wanting to visualize the scene. When he got to his own room and slid the door shut, Grant considered sending a message back to Ellis Beech's office on Earth. Dolphins and gorillas. Our intellectual cousins. Then he thought that the New Morality must know about that already. Wo couldn't smuggle a gorilla into the station in total secrecy, even a baby gorilla. And dolphins!
    Besides, he thought tiredly, what does it all add up to? Why did Dr Wo bring these animals here? What's he up to? That's what I've got to find out. That's my ticket out of here, my ticket back to Marjorie and Farside.
    It wasn't until he was in bed and drifting toward sleep that he realized Karlstad had tricked him. Meeting Sheena must be one of the initiation rites around here, he thought. I wonder how many guys have fainted from sheer fright. Or wet themselves.
    Thinking about it, Grant thought he'd acquitted himself pretty well. Not much for Karlstad to tell the others about, he thought. There's an advantage in being so scared you can't move, he realized.

    When Grant finally dozed off, his first night on Research Station
Gold
, he slept fitfully, dreaming of gorillas chasing him while Dr Wo growled and glared angrily. Marjorie appeared in his dreams briefly, but somehow she changed into tall, slim Laynie smiling at him beckoningly. He tried to move away from her, but Sheena blocked his path. Grant felt trapped and alone, beyond help.
    A buzzing noise blurred his dreams, insistent, demanding. He pried his gummy eyelids open and for a moment had no idea of where he was. Then it came into focus: his quarters on
Gold
. His bedsheets were tangled and soaked with his perspiration. With a lurch in the pit of his stomach, Grant realized he had had a nocturnal emission.
    It's all right, he told himself, while that stubborn buzzing noise kept rasping in his ears. Wet dreams are natural, beyond your conscious control. There's nothing sinful about them as long as you don't take pleasure from the memory.
    The buzzing would not stop. Grant slowly realized it was the phone. He could see its yellow light on the bedside console blinking at him in rhythm with the angry buzzing.
    'Phone,' he called out, 'audio response only.'
    The screen on the opposite wall lit up to show Zareb Muzorawa's dark, somber face.
    'Have I awakened you?' Muzorawa asked.
    'Uh, yes,' Grant replied. 'I guess I've overslept.'
    'That's natural, your first morning here. Ask the pharmacy for the timelag hormone mix. It will set your internal clock for you.'
    'Oh… really? Okay, I will.'
    'I've been assigned to your orientation,' Muzorawa said, his voice more businesslike. 'How quickly can you get to conference room C as in Charlie?'
    Still blinking sleep from his eyes, Grant said, 'Fifteen minutes?'
    Muzorawa smiled, showing gleaming white teeth. 'I will give you half an hour. Get to the pharmacy first, then meet me there.'
    'Yessir,' said Grant.
    Grant spent the entire morning in a small conference room with Muzorawa, his head spinning with details. The day was a blur of orientation videos, schematics of the station's layout, organization charts of the personnel, lists of duties that the various departments were responsible for. Grant had thought he'd known the station's layout and organization from his months of study on the trip out, but apparently most of his