Mike was sitting slouched in his "captain's" chair on the command deck staring off into space when Oksana came up behind him, "May I use the telephone to speak with my father?"
Mike was startled out of his reverie, "Of course! You know you can any time you want without asking. What's up?"
Now it was Oksana's turn to be evasive and act distractedly. "Not much. Vesna just wants us to check on some things with her." The girl walked away toward the elevator to the lounge, passing Carol who had just come off with an armload of printouts. If anything, Carol was more distracted than Oksana - totally lost in thought and wrapped up in her paperwork as she ignored Mike's presence and walked past him to her position at the controls. She set the load down on the shelf next to her navigator's console and began punching numbers into the computer. Occasionally she stopped to pencil notations on the paper.
Sharon came up behind Mike and sat beside him, "Alright, I really demand to know what's going on. I know my daughter can be obsessive at times, but look at her. She has no idea that any of the rest of us are here. She's becoming an old woman before she can vote. What do you have her doing now?"
"I'm not having her do anything. Whatever it is, she's doing it herself-or in cahoots with Vesna. And that damned machine isn't about to tell me a thing when she gets like this."
"But surely you have some idea. You said you have a hunch what's happening. Let's hear it."
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Mike looked at the floor, rather than the mother. "That's why I'm waiting to see what turns up tomorrow before I open my mouth. You all thought me a little crazy before, but someone would carry me off to the Colorado State Home for the Bewildered if I say a thing before I have any proof. Right now, I don't believe it myself."
Sharon gave him a nasty look but settled back on her seat and studied the back of her daughter's head intently.
"Vesna?" Mike said.
Chirp.
He hated that more than anything else she did to annoy him. The computer knew it.
"Is this about what you and I have been discussing?"
Chirp.
Sharon's head whipped around, "So you are in on this! What have you been discussing with that infernal machine of yours that has my daughter lost in space?"
"Tomorrow, I promise. Proof or no proof, I'll tell you all tomorrow."
If looks could kill, Mike would be vaporized to plasma. Sharon stood and stormed away towards the elevator, stopping next to Svetlana. "I honestly don't understand what you see in that man. I have never met anyone so infuriatingly stubborn! Even politicians are easier to interview."
Lana looked up with a half-smile. "I've seen him worse. I can put up with his stubbornness, secrecy, surprises, and bad jokes. That is not what bothers me."
The statement took Sharon by surprise as she sat next to her colleague on the couch. "What is it then that bothers you?"
Now she was really worried. Lana was the one person who seemed to be able to handle Mike up to a point. If she was bothered, they should all be worried.
"It is just that, in everything that has happened to us, have you ever seen Mike anything but in control: calm and carefree? He can talk to world leaders like they were children and force them to respect him while he remains cool and collected."
Sharon thought a moment before shaking her head.
"Nothing ever seems to bother him; he just takes whatever happens in stride, am I right?"
Sharon nodded.
"Look at him now." She waved at Mike's back. "He is well beyond worry. He passed worry hours ago. When I have spoken with Jim McKinney, he also says that Mike is never shaken or nervous. There is something even more important than when we went to Mars on his mind. To me, I would say he looks frightened because I have never seen him this way. Never. That is why I am bothered."
Sharon looked at Mike who was lost again in his own thoughts and realized that she had probably been worried for the wrong reason, and possibly for the wrong person.
