He gave a bitter laugh. "Why wait? When I could be home in four hours."

"Come on, Bill. Get serious."

"I am serious. I should just get in the CRV and go."

"Leaving us with no lifeboat? You're not thinking straight." She paused.

"You know, you might feel better with some medication. Just to help you get through this period."

He turned to face her, all his pain, all his grief, giving way to rage. "Take a pill and cure everything, is that it?"

"It could help. Bill, I just need to know you won't do something irrational."

"Fuck you, Diana." He pushed off from the cupola and floated past her, toward the lab hatchway.

"Bill!"

"As you so kindly pointed out, I've got work to do."

"I told you, we can divide up your duties. If you're not feeling up to it -- "

"I'll do my own goddamn work!" He drifted into the U.S. Lab. He was relieved she didn't follow him. Glancing back, he saw her float toward the habitation module, no doubt to check the status of the Crew Return Vehicle.

Capable of evacuating all six astronauts, the CRV was their only home should a catastrophe befall the station. He had spooked her with his mutterings about hijacking the CRV, and he regretted it.

Now she'd be watching him for signs of emotional meltdown.

It was painful enough to be trapped in this glorified sardine can two hundred twenty miles above earth. To also be watched with suspicion made the ordeal worse. He might be desperate to go home, but he was not unstable. All those years of training, the psychological screening tests, had confused the fact Bill Haning was a professional -- certainly not a man who'd ever endanger his colleagues.

Propelling himself with a practiced push-off from one wall, he floated across the lab module to his workstation. There he checked the latest batch of E-mail. Diana was right about one thing, Work would distract him from thoughts of Debbie.