Leviathans of Jupiter (25 page)

But she sat stubbornly for hours at the console, knowing that nothing was going to happen, but unwilling to take the chance that an emergency might arise that would need her immediate attention.

Yeager hovered around the consoles endlessly, taking only brief breaks. He even brought trays of food in, littering the area where he sat with crumbs and emptied cartons. Vishnevskaya at least had the good sense to take an hour for each mealtime and go to the galley before she hurried back to her console.

She was half drowsing when the message light began flashing and the audio pinged. Startled, she saw the main screen automatically power itself aglow and a list of alphanumerics began scrolling across it.

A data capsule! Unscheduled. Vishnevskaya realized something unusual must have happened down in that deep, dark ocean of Jupiter.

She started to turn to shout the news to Yeager, but saw that the burly engineer was already standing at her shoulder, peering intently at the symbols flashing across the screen.

“What's gone wrong?” he demanded, his voice hoarse, growling.

*   *   *

Andy Corvus was swimming with the dolphins again. The aquarium was big, filled with fish that everybody said were bright and colorful, but to Andy they were merely varying shades of gray. And the sleek, grinning dolphins chattering to each other. The translator built into Andy's face mask picked up only a few words:

“Squid below … warmer … fast current…”

Baby was growing fast, he realized. He almost failed to recognize her as the young dolphin glided up toward him.

“Hello, Andy.”

“Hello, Baby!” he said, happy that she was speaking to him.

“Race?”

Andy shook his head, not an easy thing to do in the water with the breathing mask. “You always win. You're too fast for me.”

Something like mirth seemed to emanate from Baby's whistling reply. The translator told him, “You're slow, Andy.”

“I do the best I can.”

“Two legs not good.”

Andy thought for a moment, then replied, “My two legs work fine on land.”

Now Baby fell silent. Andy watched her circle around him, then go up to the surface for a gulp of air. When she came back she said, “Water better. No fish on land.”

*   *   *

Deirdre watched the display screen as the enlarged image of a
Volvox aureus
colony swam busily through a drop of simulated pond water. She had worked very hard to alter the purified water of station
Gold
's drinking supply into the rich brew of pond scum that tiny
Volvox
thrived in.

The microscopically small green sphere was in the process of reproducing. Deirdre watched, fascinated as always, while the creature's cells began to fission, splitting into specialized gonadal cells, male and female.

No privacy for you, she thought. It seemed silly to be studying these microscopic algae in hopes of learning more about the gigantic leviathans. Then she remembered that Dr. Archer had also asked her to look at the images that the leviathans displayed on their mammoth flanks. Pictures, Deirdre thought. He believes the leviathans communicate through pictures. And he wants me to interpret them for him.

With a resolute shake of her head she told herself, It's crazy. He's grasping at straws, just like he said. Looking back at the screen's display of the reproducing
Volvox,
she thought, We're all grasping at straws. Like the blind men and the elephant, we don't really have the faintest idea of what we're dealing with. But I promised him I'd look into the imagery and see if I can make any sense of it. I'll have to fit that in, somehow. When I'm not talking with Andy's dolphins or studying these little buggers.

The new cells were faithfully arranging themselves into a another colony, but—as usual—the cilia that propelled the colony through the water were on the inside of the newly created sphere. Deirdre leaned forward intently, watching as the spherical creature dutifully turned itself inside out, and the cilia began chugging away, moving the newcomer out of the microscope's field of view.

Turning to the smaller readout screen beneath the main display, Deirdre saw that the sensors had acquired the data she needed: a detailed list of the chemicals that flooded the interior of the colony's tiny sphere. Those chemicals were what triggered the reproductive phase, she knew. They guided the tiny creature's creation of a new version of itself: the microbial analog of the pheromones that trigger human reproduction.

“Gotcha,” she murmured, with a satisfied smile.

*   *   *

The galley was crowded when Deirdre arrived, but none of her usual friends were in sight. She picked up a tray and took a salad and a mug of fruit juice, then found a table for herself. Before she could sit down, though, she saw Andy Corvus enter the galley, looking glum despite the garish orange slacks and emerald green pullover he was wearing.

She waved to him and waited while he packed his tray with a vegetarian lunch and sauntered over to her.

“How's it going?” Deirdre asked as Andy sat down.

He made a loose-jointed shrug. “Baby talks to me, but I'm not getting any new information, really. Not adding to the vocabulary.”

“Maybe there's nothing more to get,” she said. “Maybe you've got their entire language down.”

“I'd hate to think that. They're smart, Dee. They must have more in their minds than just fish and water temperatures.”

She said nothing, stuck a fork into her salad.

Corvus's phone jangled. Frowning, he pulled it from his shirt pocket. “This is Corvus.… Yes … yes, I did. Uh-huh…” Suddenly his eyes lit up. “You did? And the record shows it? No doubt about it? Wow!” He positively beamed at Deirdre. “Okay, thanks! Thanks a lot!”

“Good news,” Deirdre guessed.

“The report from Scripps, in California, just came in. Baby's mother was culled from the Pacific Ocean by a research team when she was practically a newborn. Younger than Baby is now.”

“And?” Deirdre prodded.

“They pulled her out of the ocean because sharks were attacking her pod. One of the other young females had already been killed.”

“Her sister,” Deirdre said.

“Just like she told you!” Corvus was almost bouncing up and down on the chair in his enthusiasm. “Just like she told you! That's the confirmation that we need! You made real contact with Baby and the rest of the dolphins!”

Corvus jumped to his feet. “You know what this means?”

Before Deirdre could reply he went on, “This means you really did make meaningful contact, Dee! We can prove it now!”

Deirdre had never seen a grown man look so excited. People at other tables were turning toward Corvus, staring. She half expected Andy to jump up on their table and dance a jig.

*   *   *

In the control center, Max Yeager was eagerly leaning over Vishnevskaya's shoulder, staring at the multiple screens on her console.

“The bastards're slamming into her!” he growled.

“No damage,” Vishnevskaya muttered.

The display screens showed
Faraday
's sensor views of the predators and the reading of the internal monitors as, one by one, the big sharklike creatures banged into the vessel.

“No damage,” Vishnevskaya repeated each time one of the beasts attacked.

Yeager felt each lurch as a punch in his gut. Anger seethed inside him. Why are they assaulting her? What in the name of hell do they expect to get out of such a stupid, pointless attack?

Vishnevskaya tapped an enameled fingernail against the central computer display screen. “It's making a decision to get away from them,” she said.

“About time,” said Yeager. “I didn't design her to be a punching bag.”

“Propulsion activated…” Vishnevskaya leaned back in her chair and exhaled a relieved sigh. “Ah, she made it. She got away.”

“Stupid goddamned sharks,” Yeager grumbled. “Maybe I should've designed some defense weapons for the ship. Electric fields. A few megavolts would show those damned fish to back off.”

Vishnevskaya smiled up at him. “Not to worry, little father. Your baby took good care of herself. The danger is past.”

Yeager nodded. “Yeah, maybe. But if the sharks keep putting themselves between our baby and the leviathans, how's she going to fulfill her primary directive? How's she going to study the leviathans if the sharks stay so aggressive?”

CONFERENCE ROOM

Grant Archer took careful note of how the quartet of people arranged themselves around the conference table: Corvus sat on his right, with an unhappy crooked pout on his face. Deirdre Ambrose sat beside him, looking radiantly beautiful even in a casual white pullover and dark slacks. Corvus is color blind, Archer recalled. Is she wearing black and white because of that?

Max Yeager looked tired as he pulled out a chair on the opposite side of the table, dark bags under his eyes and a two-day beard darkening his chin. His tan coveralls were wrinkled, as if he'd been sleeping in them. Archer's nostrils twitched as he caught a whiff of stale, musky body odor. Yeager's sour scent didn't seem to bother Linda Vishnevskaya, though: The petite, intense chief of mission control sat beside the beefy engineer with a contented smile on her heart-shaped face.

“We're all here,” Archer said, by way of starting the meeting. “Good.”

“Is this all of us?” Vishnevskaya asked, looking surprised. “Shouldn't Dr. Johansen be here?”

Clasping his hands on the tabletop, Archer replied, “He'll join us later. At the moment he's showing Mrs. Westfall through the fluid dynamics lab down in wheel three.”

The four of them looked puzzled.

With a slightly guilty smile, Archer said, “I want to get the latest information you have directly from you, without Mrs. Westfall in the way. Johansen is serving as a decoy, for the moment.”

Deirdre said, “She'll see through that soon enough.”

“I know.” Archer sighed. “But I do want to hear what you've accomplished without all the politics that Mrs. Westfall and the IAA carry with them.”

“Okay,” Yeager said crisply. “
Faraday
popped a data capsule earlier today. Those shark-things attacked her, banged into her repeatedly.”

“Any damage?”

“Nothing that her internal repair systems couldn't handle.”

Vishnevskaya added, “The sharks positioned themselves between the vessel and the stream of organics that we believe would have led us to a herd of leviathans.”

Archer stared at her. “You're sure of that?”

“You can review the data transmissions and see for yourself,” Vishnevskaya replied.

“We've never seen that kind of behavior before.”

Yeager suggested, “Maybe it's because
Faraday
's so much bigger than any other probe you've sent into the ocean. Maybe the earlier probes were too small for them to worry about.”

Nodding, Archer murmured, “That's something to consider.”

“Unfortunately,” Vishnevskaya said, “
Faraday
has not found any leviathans yet. The creatures are not in their usual feeding territory.”

“Scared off by the sharks, do you think?” Archer mused.

Yeager shrugged. “Ask your behavioral specialists. We're just engineers.”

“We don't have any behavioral specialists,” Archer confessed. “Until now neither the leviathans nor the sharks have shown enough different kinds of behavior to call for specialists.”

Andy Corvus gave a humphing little grunt and said, “Exopsychologists. A new field of study.”

His brows rising, Archer said, “You might be right, Dr. Corvus.”

“Andy,” he said automatically.

Archer replied, “Well, if you expect me to call you Andy, I suppose you'll have to call me Grant.”

“Deal,” said Corvus. “Grant.”

“I wonder who we could get to work as an exopsychologist?”

Corvus lifted his arm and jabbed a forefinger down at the crown of Deirdre's auburn hair. “Here she is.”

“Me?” Deirdre blurted.

Archer asked, “What do you mean, Andy?”

Leaning forward slightly, his lopsided face totally serious, Corvus said, “Deirdre's made really meaningful contact with the dolphins. She's a natural. She's found out more about them in a couple of swims than I've been able to get in weeks and weeks. I think, if anybody would be able to make contact with the leviathans, Deirdre's the one who can do it.”

For a long silent moment they all looked at Deirdre, who was too surprised to say anything. She remembered that Dr. Archer had asked her to study the images that the leviathans displayed on their flanks and she hadn't even started looking at them yet. She saw the unspoken question in Archer's eyes and had to look away from him, feeling guilty about not doing what he'd asked.

It's too much, Deirdre said to herself, apologizing silently to the station director. There's just been too much happening all at once. I'm sorry …

Finally Archer turned toward Corvus and asked, “Andy, do you truly believe that any human being can make meaningful mental contact with the leviathans?”

“To be completely honest,” Corvus said, “I don't know. There's a lot of unknowns involved in this. But if I can get a probe into one of them, I think Deirdre's more likely to establish contact with them than anyone else.”

“Ms. Ambrose, that means that you'll have to go down into the ocean when we send
Faraday
out with a crew,” Archer said, staring into Deirdre's troubled eyes. “Are you willing to do that?”

“I…” Deirdre hesitated, glanced at Corvus, then looked back at Archer. “I don't know. This is all … kind of a surprise to me.”

“To us all,” Archer said. “But if Andy is right, you hold the key to making contact with an intelligent alien species.”