Jupiter Project (6 page)

I was supposed to put in some time on a teaching machine, brushing up on differential equations. Instead I hung around outside, reading the bulletin board, until Jenny turned up.

“Say, I thought you were logged for teaching machine time now,” she said.

I made a face. “That’s just what I need, a girl who’ll nag me until I straighten up.”

Jenny tossed her head, sending her brown braids tumbling in the low gravity. “I wasn’t aware that you needed any kind of girl at all.” She gave me a fierce snarl. I made a demon face back at her.

“Attention!” the loudspeaker system said. Heads turned in the corridor.

“I have an announcement,” a deep voice said. It was Commander Aarons’. “The
Argosy
has been delayed in its departure from Earth orbit. A series of holdups in fueling her and a few unexpected repairs will make it necessary to reschedule her usual cruise. ISA informs me that the
Argosy
will be delayed at least two weeks. This will result in the
Argosy
reaching us about two and a half weeks after her scheduled arrival. Section and Division leaders should alter their work programs accordingly.”

The loudspeaker went dead with a click. I looked at Jenny. “What does that mean?” she said.

I shrugged. “Not much. We’ll have a little longer to get our reports ready.”

“Why bother to announce it? There’s a thirteen month wait between ships anyway. What difference does a few weeks make?”

“Come on, dummy. There’s a favorable configuration between Earth and Jupiter that opens every thirteen months. If the
Argosy
misses it, the trip gets a hell of a lot more expensive.”

“How much more? I mean, if ISA is worried about budget—”

“Come on,” I gestured toward one of the study quads. “We can probably find out from computer retrieval.
Argosy
was slated for the minimum-energy orbit, so if it’s late…” I started figuring in my head.

Zak came strolling over. “Hear the news?” he said.

We nodded.

“I took the trouble to run a calculation, since I was using a teaching machine at the time. If the
Argosy
is delayed more than four weeks she won’t make it within budget.”

“Rather close,” another voice said. Yuri had moved in quietly to a position close beside Jenny.

“I wonder if ISA has anything up their sleeves,” Zak mused.

“Impossible to say. Anyway,” I said, glancing at Yuri, “it’s not our job to worry about ISA. Better we should find something new to dazzle the folks back home.”

“Was that crack directed to me?” Yuri said sharply.

Jenny said quickly, “I don’t think Matt—”

“What if it was?” I said casually.

“You ought to get your facts straight before you open your trap, Bohles,” Yuri said.

“What facts?”

“The fact that Atmospheric Studies works harder than anybody else in this Lab. The fact that we’ve run more probes into the upper atmosphere of Jupiter than the original plans called for. The—”

“Spare me the advertisement,” I said.

Yuri took a deep breath and was about to say something when Zak broke in. “Look, Yuri, we all know those things. ISA is starting to wonder why, with all this work, the Lab hasn’t turned up any evidence for life somewhere down in that ammonia atmosphere. I guess it’s natural for the rest of us—the ones who don’t work in Atmospheric Studies—to wonder, too.”

“There isn’t any answer, no matter what people like Bohles think,” Yuri said, jutting out his jaw.

“Okay,” I said, “give us a hard one.”

“I
would
like to hear about it,” Jenny said, turning on a brilliant smile.

So Yuri launched into a song and dance about the incredible hardships his group worked under, and how his father in BioTech was shouldering a staggering, superhuman work load—well, that was the implication, anyway. He gave us a lot of facts and figures to go with it, and those were interesting stuff, the straight scoop. As I listened it dawned on me that Yuri was going to be stiff competition for a staff position in the Lab. Commander Aarons and the others were going to be weighing him against me…

I focused my attention back on the conversation. Yuri was describing their latest descent, the one that malfunctioned from pressure overload.

“Meaning, it got squeezed to death,” Zak put in.

“—before it could report on its experiments to find life. But the package of instruments did show that deep in the methane and ammonia there is water and it is warm, as warm as this room is now. All the conditions necessary for life are satisfied.”

“Then why haven’t you found any?” Jenny asked innocently.

Yuri pressed his lips together. “We don’t know.”

“Yuri, you help put together the rockets that drop instrument packages into Jupiter. It’s not your fault if they don’t turn up anything.” Jenny said comfortingly.

“Right,” Zak murmured.

“What puzzles me is that your probes go deeper and deeper, until the pressure crushes them, and they still don’t find any living matter. No airborne spores, no bacteria, nothing,” I said.

“We’ll find some. Bohles,” Yuri said, with a sudden flash of anger. “Just give me elbow room. You will see results.” And with that he got up and left the room.

“Well, all this outdoorsy stuff didn’t calm
him
down any,” Zak said. “So much for the healing effects of bird songs.”

“Yeah,” I murmured, “he was going along fine for a while there, I guess we just reminded him of his problems and he covered up his worries by getting mad at us.”

“Pretty deep analysis, doctor,” Zak said.

“Go on, you two,” Jenny said. She got up and palmed the room lights down, and then left.

“I cast
off
for Ganymede tomorrow,” I said, “should do me good to get away from Yuri.”

“You can count me in as well,” Zak said.

“You’re going?”

“I don’t much want to, but the psych people say I should,” Zak shrugged.

We watched Jenny walk down the corridor and out of sight. Skirts are even more impractical in low gravity than they are on Earth—harder to keep from creeping up, for one thing—so everybody wears pants. But there’s no way to disguise a woman when she wants to be noticed, and Jenny departing was far more pleasant and interesting a view than the fake countryside of the meeting room.

“I think she’s a little miffed that her peacemaker attempt between you and Yuri fell flat. She’ll be okay by tonight.”

“Sure. See you at 1900 hours? Got to go practice my guitar.”

1900 hours meant a small party at Ishi’s apartment. Ishi’s parents maintain as much of the traditional Japanese life as they can, living 390 million miles from Nippon. They sit cross-legged on the floor, on tatami mats, and have delicately shaded woodblock prints on their walls. In the air hangs a faint background smell of rice and the salt tang of fish. It all blends together into a warm feeling of home.

Zak, Jenny, and I sat in Buddha position and took part in the ancient tea ceremony, exchanging small talk with Ishi and his parents. (My back ached, but I like the mild green tea.) Ishi didn’t seem bothered by the speculation over sending us Earthside. But then, nothing ever seems to disturb Ishi.

I didn’t mention his Lady X to him, even though I sort of wanted to. I didn’t have any specific questions in mind, but still… The best way I can explain it is that Ishi had
been there.
and I hadn’t. And it really was true, what Zak said about how a kid should spend his summer vacation trying to get laid.

It was a quiet evening. After the party broke up I walked Jenny home. Making our way through the hushed corridors, with only the whirr of the air circulators, I noticed that I did feel kind of uneasy with Jenny. She was more like a buddy to me than a, well, a woman. Females have a clear moment when they change from girls to women, at least in the biological sense. Males don’t have that. I wondered if it explained some of the way I was feeling. Boys had no way to tell they were men. I mean, nobody pinned a badge on you or anything. So maybe in the back of our heads all the guys I knew in the Can were still boys, without that magic touch. Getting Laid was for sure one signpost, though. There just didn’t seem to be any easy way to do it. Society sure as hell didn’t help. And the whole damned business seemed so irrational, too. Why should I keep feeling that odd, diffused affection for Jenny? Maybe Zak’s kibbutzim analogy was right after all.

Anyway, when we stopped outside her door. I leaned over and kissed her. The idea seemed to go over. She put her arms around my neck and the ol’ pulse rate picked up a bit. But then she let go and smiled and stepped back and murmured something nice and that was it. I made a grin I could tell looked awkward and foolish.

I felt confused on the way home. I wasn’t very good at figuring out the swirl of emotions I had inside me. But then I shrugged.
Forget it,
I told myself. Concentrate on the problem in front of you; that’s always a good rule. Take ’em one at a time. In the morning I was bound for Ganymede, the fourth moon of Jupiter. I forgot about Jenny and Zak and Ishi and Rebecca the passionate, and went on home to get some sleep.

We assembled near the axis of the Can, already suited up. All Laboratory vehicles, from the small one-man shuttles Jenny and Ishi used, to the ion cruiser used on the Ganymede run, are kept in the center of the Can.

As I said before, the Can is a big rotating drum. Most of that drum is empty. The middle of the Can, except for the axial cylinder and the connecting spokes, is open to free space. Our cruiser was parked there and we had to go out and board her.

Captain Vandez stood at the air lock, checking over each of us to be sure we had all our suit vents closed, hadn’t put our helmets on backwards, or something equally stupid. It’s in the regs; he has to do it. A technician who never goes outside can forget a lot in the nine months between mandatory “vacations” on Ganymede. Anything overlooked in free space can be fatal.

“Sing out when I call your name.” the Captain shouted. “Williams! Kandisi! Bohles!”

I answered and turned to look at the rest of the party. Zak waved from the other side of the tube, where he was holding onto an inset ladder. We were in very light gravity, almost at the axis. Orange signs reading ANCHOR YOUR LIFELINE—ALWAYS! jumped out at you from the white walls.

“Sagdaeff!”

Yuri answered “Yo!” I twisted around; he was ten meters behind me. I had a funny empty feeling.

In a moment Captain Vandez said. “You have all been on this milk run before, so I will not make a big speech about being careful. Remember, the
Sagan
is an ordinary cruiser. She’s adequately shielded against high energy particles but we can’t carry the mass to stop big chunks of rock, or even little ones. That means everybody stays in their suits, with helmets in place and ready to seal,
always.
Anybody violating the rules will have to deal directly with me, and that can be unpleasant. All right, into the lock!”

We filed in. We were exiting through one of the personnel locks and there were handholds everywhere. I felt a thrumming vibration through the soles of my suit as the pumps sucked the air out of the crowded lock. My suit limbered up and my arms and legs became easier to move. I read the meters and colored displays set below the edge of my viewplate, to be sure my suit was feeding air properly, balancing my temperature and perspiration, etc. The air tasted a little oily, but then, it always does. There are some things engineering never does get around to solving.

The vibration stopped, a red light winked over to green above the big door, and the outer hatch came free. Captain Vandez pushed it open himself. He gestured at a silvery thread fastened to the edge of the lock. It snaked away beyond view. The fellow in front of me leaned forward and snagged it. He climbed along it, hand over hand.

I was next. I clamped a sliding fastener to the line and cast off gently from the lock with a kick.

Every time you go out, it hits you hard. I was coasting along toward the “top” of the Can. The “lid” was pulled aside, to let the
Sagan
out. It looked like I was gliding toward an ocean of stars, down a bright metal tube. The safety line ended by a lock in the side of a spiderlike fusion cruiser, the
Sagan.
She was moored near the very top of the Can, against that awesome backdrop of stars.

The thing I tike best about open space is the feeling of complete, utter freedom. It’s as if I was a bird, able to fly straight and true.

Part of all this poetry comes from the feeling of weightlessness. Zero-g is pleasant enough inside the Can, but out here there’s a sensation of freewheeling liberty. It’s like having a weight lifted from your shoulders that you hadn’t even known you were carrying. I felt great.

The man ahead of me had reached the cruiser. I watched as the
Sagan
grew, and I tumbled over just in time to brake my impact. I felt a touch proud of the maneuver; it proved that freefall squash had kept my zero-g reflexes in shape.

I slipped carefully into the
Sagan
’s lock. The inner hatch was open. I pulled myself through and found myself in a long room with passenger seating arranged completely around the walls. A man in a ship’s officer’s suit gestured to a seat and I sat down. I clipped my thigh fasteners to the seat and waited.

The cylinder was filling rapidly. Our luggage had been brought aboard earlier—they didn’t want people trying to carry cases while they negotiated their way across to the
Sagan.

Zak came aboard and clipped in next to me. I noticed he was already eating some of the food rations recessed in his helmet. I hoped I never felt that hungry: the rations are balanced for nutrition and high protein, but they come out of squeeze tubes and I’ve never been able to get over the feeling that I’m eating toothpaste.

After a while everyone was in and the lock closed. I felt a tug of acceleration as the
Sagan
nosed out of its mooring point and drifted free of the Can. There wasn’t any way to see this, of course: the passenger cabin was just a concession to us poor cattle and doesn’t have any viewing screens.