It was especially irritating to Nadia because she herself was in such a good mood.  She saw no reason to quarrel, and it disturbed her that the others didn't feel the same.  Why did the dynamics of a group fluctuate so?  Here they were on Mars, where the seasons were twice as long as Earth's, and every day was forty minutes longer; why couldn't people relax?  Nadia had a sense that there was time for things even though she was always busy, and the extra thirty-nine and half minutes per day was probably the most important component of this feeling; human circadian biorhythms had been set over millions of years of evolution, and now to suddenly have  extra minutes of day and night, day after day, night after night-no doubt it had effects.  Nadia was sure of it, because despite the hectic pace of every day's work, and the way she passed out in sheer exhaustion every night, she always woke rested.  That strange pause on the digital clocks, when at midnight the figures hit 12:00:00 and suddenly stopped, and the unmarked time passed, passed, passed, sometimes it seemed for a very long time indeed; and then snapped on to 12:00:01, and began its usual inexorable flicker; well, the martian timeslip was something special.  Often Nadia was asleep through it, as were most of the rest of them.  But Hiroko had a chant that she chanted during it when she was up, and she and the farm team, and many of the rest of them, spent every Saturday night partying and chanting that chant through the timeslip-something in Japanese, Nadia never learned what, though she sometimes hummed along, sitting enjoying the vault and her friends.

But one Saturday night when she sat there, nearly comatose, Maya came over and sat against her shoulder for a talk.  Maya with her beautiful face, always well-groomed, always the latest in chicarnost even in their everyday jumpsuits, looking distraught.  "Nadia, you have to do me a favor, please, please."

"What."

"I need you to tell something to Frank for me."

"Why don't you do it yourself?"

"I can't have John seeing us talk!  I have to get a message to him, and please, Nadezhda Francine, you're my only way."

Nadia made a disgusted noise.

"Please."

It was suprising how much Nadia would have rather been talking to Ann, or Samantha, or Arkady.  If only Arkady would come down from Phobos!

But Maya was her friend.  And that desperate look on her face; Nadia couldn't stand it.  "What message."

"Tell him that I'll meet him tonight in the storage area," Maya said imperiously.  "At midnight.  To talk."

Nadia sighed.  But later she went to Frank, and gave him the message.  He nodded without meeting her eye, embarrassed, grim, unhappy.