Someone already had the stereo on when Spruance Del Curtin arrived at the lounge of his residence module. The Tea Time crew was just signing off for the evening, setting up one last Rolling Stones song before Spencer Dawes signed on and got the Disco Ball spinning.
Wonder what he’s going to be playing tonight? Although it might not be easy to hear over the hubbub of multiple conversations going at once. Sprue looked around the room, already crowded. From the looks of it, a bunch of people had brought folding chairs out of their apartments to supplement the furniture usually in the lounge.
He could retreat to his apartment, since his roommate had mandatory exercise time in the gym, and then work responsibility down at Aquaculture. However, right now Sprue really wasn’t excited about trying to study in an apartment not much bigger than most walk-in closets back on Earth.
Over in the far corner, Brenda and her kids were all huddled around a tablet. From the sound of it, they were doing a FaceTime conversation with Drew. With the new rules going into force, it didn’t matter whether he was still back in the Roosa Barracks or had flown in, it was all the contact Brenda and the kids were going to get with him for a long time.
She glanced up at Sprue, but didn’t say anything. However, the tension at the corners of her mouth suggested she did not approve of his being here.
Maybe it would be just as well if he did find somewhere else to study tonight. Given how many people around here were not residents of this module, it might be just as well to go see if any of the neighboring modules had a sufficiently quiet lounge that he could study without disruption.
As he was approaching the module airlock, his phone dinged: incoming text. He pulled it out to see a text from Dr. Doorne on the lock screen: I need to talk to you.
Not a good sign. If she just needed to confer with him about a project for class, she’d probably have texted with you. To you suggested annoyance, even a bawling-0ut in the offing, never mind that current events had superseded any information embargo that may have been in place.
But there was no use trying to avoid the situation. He texted back how soon?
He’d halfway hoped she’d take her time answering. Instead, her reply came right back: Tomorrow, 0800 at my office.
His first thought was annoyance at just how she knew when he was available. Then he remembered that she’d had everyone give her their schedules along with their phone numbers and e-mail addresses the first day of class.
Which made it impossible to pretend that he had another obligation at that time and would need to reschedule, or beg off entirely. Nothing to do but text back that he’d be there.
And in the meantime, he’d better be prepared to the nines. Which made it essential to find someplace where he could actually go over the material. Particularly the statistical information on the station’s listenership that he’d downloaded this afternoon.