The Spawning by Tim Curran Page A

workers.”
    Frye swallowed the rest of his beer. “Right there, that’s your problem, Danny. You think you beakers run the show down here. Well, you don’t. If it weren’t for guys like me keeping you warm and fed and keeping your lights working and your water running . . . where the hell would you be?”
    â€œI never said we run the show. I just said that guys like you are in a support position. That’s all. You keep things running so we can do our thing.”
    â€œYou’re damn right. You should remember that.”
    â€œBoy,” Shin said. “This guy will argue about anything.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by that?”
    Again, Coyle tuned them out. That was something you learned at the stations: you kept your sanity by ignoring just about everything that went on around you. And down there, ninety percent of everything was bullshit so that made things real easy.
    He wondered if he was the only one tying up everything together, seeing wolves behind every tree. Feeling that something big and impossibly ominous was about to happen. But he didn’t think so. He knew Frye was and probably Horn, too.
    As he looked around, listening in on various conversations, he had the oddest sense that there was a tension here that was independent of him. People were laughing too loud or talking too quickly. They couldn’t sit still and when they did they smiled too much like those smiles were painted on and they couldn’t get them off. Everything was keyed-up. Now and again, he’d hear a peal of laughter that sounded almost hysterical in tone.
    Cassie Malone came over, more than a little drunk, and draped herself around Coyle. “Hey, Nicky! What say we get fucked-up before that Castini thing happens? What say?”
    Gwen came over and removed her, leading her back to her chair so she did not fall down, restraining her when she lifted her shirt and flashed her breasts at Horn.
    â€œC’mon, Gwenny! Not like he don’t wanna see ‘em! He’s always staring at my junk ‘n’ stuff!” She burst out laughing. “Did I say junk-stuff or stuff-junk? Woo-hoo, check out my junk-stuff!”
    Gwen got her into her seat and pretty much had to sit on her lap to get her to behave.
    And on it went.
    Hopper stood up and cleared his throat, blew his damn whistle. “Attention! Attention, everyone! Dr. Eicke would like to speak now! Let’s all listen to what he has to say! I’m sure it’s very important!”
    Shin laughed. “What’s that guy smoking anyhow?”
    â€œI don’t know but I want some!” Cassie Malone called out.
    â€œProbably the same thing your mother was smoking when she was pregnant with you,” Frye told Shin.
    Eicke walked out in front of the plasma screen that hung from the wall. He was a bespectacled, round little man with a closely-trimmed white beard that made him look like Santa Claus. Something that was accentuated by his rolling bold laughter and his habit of patting his expansive belly as he spoke. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, nodding and smiling, “I’ve just received word from the probe team at Ames Research Center in California.”
    Gwen sipped her martini and nuzzled Coyle’s ear. “You hear that, Nicky? He just said
probe.”
    â€œSsshh,” he told her.
    Eicke looked around. “We can expect to get our feed within the next twenty or thirty minutes. But before we do, I thought I’d touch upon the mission of the Cassini Three itself and, more importantly, the probe it has launched at Callisto.”
    He did more than touch upon it.
    For the next fifteen minutes he went on in dusty detail about the Cassini 3 mission which was extensive reconnaissance and mapping of the Galilean moons—Europa and Io, Ganymede and Callisto. All of which were considered excellent candidates for subsurface oceans that theoretically might be teaming with life. The entire