"I'm sorry. I'd almost hoped you might know some way out that I haven't
been around long enough to pick up."
I didn't answer. I didn't have to. I'd said enough for a month already,
and we both knew it.
My speech left an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach. Space crews
are not selected for their talkativeness. In space, there is next to
nothing to talk about, and a large part of pre-space training consists
of developing the ability to be silent. Another part consists of
eliminating as much as possible of the remaining necessity for talking.
So many words, meaning so little, amounted almost to blasphemy, but
somehow the situation had seemed to call for them.
It was not a situation normally encountered by space crews.
* * * * *
The sounds behind me said that she was unfolding the beds, inflating
the mattresses, and then slowly stripping off the three layers of her
spacesuit "skin." I waited until I heard the peculiar "snap" she always
made when she removed the inner layer, then turned and began removing
my own spacesuit.
Space crews are normally nude when the situation does not require
spacesuits. It saves weight.
I watched her closely as she hung up the suit and crawled slowly
between the covers, and tried to feel something remotely resembling
passion. I remained as cold as the thin Martian air on the other side
of the rubber-fabric envelope around us.
I gave up the attempt and tried to convince myself that desire would
come later, when we got things organized better and the shock wore off.
After all, that had also been included in our training.
I shrugged off the rest of my suit and hung it up carefully, strictly
from force of habit, and slid into the bunk below hers.