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most of her time at Boreal Base looking for ancient frozen microscopic lifeforms in the polar ice field. The two had, however, worked together once over the medical emergency link on a nasty accident case. A technician had lost a forearm to the whipping end of a broken cable. Sandra had successfully stitched the arm back on under Dan’s direction. He had gotten to know her better during their two-month journey back from Mars. Sandra was small and “pleasingly plump,” with a cap of easily managed gray-flecked dark brown hair that Dan thought of as a “nurse’s cut.” Sandra was very bubbly and pleasant to live with, and was the life of the party at the weekly “socials” during the return journey, where everyone stopped working and gathered together for a special communal meal. Sandra was famous for her rum-flavored cinnamon rolls. Although she flirted a lot in social situations, she was usually reserved in her relationships with men, wanting to be treated as a professional colleague rather than merely as a person of the opposite sex.
     
    “That month off certainly went fast, but I had the greatest time!” bubbled Sandra as they boarded the shuttle.
     
    “What did you do?” asked Dan.
     
    “Went on an expedition,” said Sandra.
     
    “Sounds like a busman’s holiday,” said Dan.
     
    “I joined a team that was studying the whales in the Gulf of California. We think we have finally figured out how whales speak to each other, and this group wanted to check their theories by listening in as the mother whales taught the whale calves how to speak.”
     
    “Developing a dictionary of whale words?” asked Dan. “Do you mean that soon we’ll have experts in whale language?”
     
    “Not quite,” said Sandra. “That was what held up research in cetacean communication so long. Whales don’t use ‘words’ like humans do, so even the concept of a dictionary of whale words makes no sense. Although they use sound to communicate, they are capable of making many different sounds at the same time over a wide range, from clicks to groans to whistles. It seems that the sounds not only communicate concepts but feelings and relationships too. A very complex language, and we are only just beginning to understand it.”
     
    “Fascinating,” said Dan.
     
    “What did you do on your vacation?” asked Sandra, changing the subject.
     
    “Spent time with the wife and kids,” said Dan. “Took the kids out of high school and we all went to DisneyNation for a week. I told the principal the kids would learn some American history.” The trip had been fun for the kids, but Dan and Pamela had argued most of the time. Although Pamela kept saying she didn’t mind his going away on these long trips in space, she pouted and was unapproachable every time they were alone. Dan had done his best and fussed over her, spending much more than he had planned on the vacation, but Pamela liked fun and pretty things. Besides, he had told himself, what was the point of working so hard if it wasn’t to spend the money on making his family happy?
     
    After arrival at the Assembly Station, the two donned space-suits, and they and their luggage were then taken out to the Saturn expedition vehicle by technicians driving Jet-Dos. After the lock cycled, the inner door opened and they were greeted by Rod and Chastity, waiting for them in the hexagonal-shaped lower facilities deck.
     
    “Why don’t you come inside with Rod for a while, Dr. Horning,” said Chastity, motioning him inside, while she floated past him through the inner airlock door. “I’ll help Sandra out of her suit and show her where to store her things.”
     
    “Let’s drop that ‘Dr. Horning’ bit,” said Dan. “Just think of me as ‘Dan the plumber’—patching the pipes of personnel pods and people.”
     
    “Sure thing, Doc,” said Chastity, as she traded places with him inside the airlock and shut the airlock door behind her so Sandra could get out of