Leviathans of Jupiter (47 page)

Corvus shook his head. “It won't do any good. There's no contact at all.”

“Perhaps your probe is placed in a poor spot,” Dorn said.

“Yeah,” Yeager added. “That critter's brain must be pretty deep inside its body someplace. Your probe doesn't penetrate deep enough, most likely.”

Corvus's face went from anguish to anger to misery, all in a moment. He looked close to tears. Bleakly, he asked, “So what do you want me to do, burrow through the bastard, skewer him like Captain Ahab harpooning Moby Dick?”

Yeager started to reply, thought better of it, and simply shook his head. Dorn stared at Corvus wordlessly. Deirdre wondered what she could say, what she might do, to help Andy.

“It's a failure,” Corvus moaned. “A complete flop. The creature's too big. We can't make contact with its brain.”

Out of the corner of her eye Deirdre saw her screens flickering. Turning, she saw images flashing across the leviathan's enormous flank.

“It's signaling again!” she said.

*   *   *

The alien's arm is not for feeding, Leviathan decided. It isn't cutting at our hide member. It has no teeth to cut with.

Then what is the purpose of its arm? If not for feeding, then what?

A possible answer formed in Leviathan's brain. The alien is slow and weak, yet it was pushing its way deeper, trying to get closer to the domain of the Kin. But its progress is pitifully slow. Perhaps it is asking our help in going lower. Perhaps it wants us to tow it down to the Kin.

Leviathan remembered the other alien, long ago, who had helped it fight off a pack of darters and been grievously hurt in the battle. Leviathan had lifted that smaller alien on its back and helped it to return to the cold abyss above, from which it had come.

Of course! Leviathan felt that it understood the alien's request. It has come down from the cold abyss to meet with the Kin, to communicate in its limited way with the Elders. Why else would it be here? It doesn't feed on the particle streams. It doesn't feed on our flesh. It isn't seeking food, it's seeking contact, communication.

We can't understand it, Leviathan thought, but perhaps the Elders can.

With that revelation, Leviathan turned and headed deeper, down toward the realm of the Kin, with the strange, hard-shelled alien in tow behind it.

*   *   *

Faraday
suddenly lurched like a tiny dog being tugged hard by a brutal master. The bridge tilted so suddenly that all four of the crew were jostled against one another. Deirdre's feet were wrenched out of their deck loops and she banged painfully against her console.

“What the hell was that?” Yeager shouted, steadying himself by grabbing Dorn's broad shoulders.

“It's dragging us deeper,” the cyborg said, his normally impassive voice edged with surprise, even fear.

“Disengage,” Yeager snapped.

“No!” said Corvus.

They all turned to Corvus, who was hanging on to the handgrips of his console as the vessel plunged steeply downward. Deirdre saw something close to panic in Max's wide eyes; even the human side of Dorn's face looked pasty, unsure. They're as frightened as I am, she realized. But Andy looked—indomitable, doggedly determined, like a man refusing to back down against impossible odds.

“We came here to communicate with them,” Corvus said, grim as death. “That's what we're here to do. Ride it out.”

“But it's dragging us deeper,” Yeager said, his voice almost cracking.

“Good,” said Corvus.

“How deep can we go?” Deirdre asked.

Regaining his self-control, Dorn said, “We're nearing our performance limits. Pressure is rising steeply.”

“Can we disengage when we have to?” Yeager asked.

Corvus's pale blue eyes snapped at the engineer. “The problem is, Max, will the connection to the beast hold? He's putting a lot of strain on the connection.”

“Where's it taking us?” Deirdre asked.

“To the rest of its kind, I hope,” said Corvus.

Deirdre felt the pain in her chest burning. Don't take us too deep, Andy, she begged silently. Don't follow that beast down so far that we can't get back.

“Temperature rising,” Dorn called.

“Pressure, too,” added Yeager.

Corvus's lips curved slightly into a tight smile. “We're here to make contact with the leviathans. Well, that's what we're doing. Not the way we planned, but we'll have to settle for this.”

“If it doesn't kill us,” Yeager muttered.

Deirdre recalled a line from her classes in ancient history. Spartan mothers told their sons as they headed off to war, “Come back with your shield or on it.” Victory or death.

Which will it be, she wondered.

CONFERENCE ROOM

Michael Johansen sat at the head of the long conference table, but he knew that wherever Grant Archer sat was the true power center of the meeting. Each of the younger scientists who had made presentations on the data returned from
Faraday
's capsule had addressed his or her remarks to Archer, seated halfway down the table's length, not to him.

So be it, Johansen thought, sighing inwardly. Grant's a natural leader. He's the one who pushed for this crewed mission, he took all the heat from Westfall and the IAA council, he's facing all the risks if anything goes wrong with the mission. He's earned everyone's respect. Besides, Grant doesn't play power games, he doesn't need to boost his own ego at the expense of others.

More important, Johansen told himself, this mission has already succeeded. They've made contact with one of the leviathans. They've
communicated
with an alien creature, an extraterrestrial! Those gigantic animals actually are intelligent!

Despite his years Johansen felt a quiver of excitement racing through him. What a discovery! Contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial species. Of course, this first attempt at communicating with them was very limited, but it's just the beginning. They'll be giving out Nobels for this.

He barely listened to the presentation being made by one of the younger biologists as she earnestly plodded through the video imagery sent by the data capsule.

This is what science is all about, Johansen thought. The thrill of discovery. Opening new frontiers. The excitement of new knowledge. The prestige that comes from breaking through into a new world. My reputation is made. Even if those four amateurs in the submersible don't come back, this has been a successful mission. Groundbreaking. Historic.

Nobels, Johansen thought, seeing himself in Stockholm, mentally preparing his acceptance speech. If they die down there, he told himself, I'll throw in a few lines about how scientific exploration requires sacrifices. Martyrs, that's what they'll be. Martyrs to humankind's unending quest for knowledge.

We've already succeeded, he repeated to himself. Whatever happens down there doesn't really matter: We've made contact with an extraterrestrial species, proved that they're intelligent. The rest is just a footnote.

WILD RIDE

Faraday
was shaking brutally as it plunged deeper, towed by the massive leviathan like a cork floater on a fishing line that had been seized by a sounding whale. Even in the thick liquid perfluorocarbon Deirdre could feel the shuddering that rattled every bone in her body.

“How deep are we gonna go?” Yeager asked. He was still standing behind Dorn, but he was pressing both his hands against the overhead to keep himself in place.

“We are still within design limits,” said Dorn, his eyes on the control console's screens.

Yeager pointed out, “But we're approaching those limits pretty damned fast.”

Deirdre had wormed her feet back into the deck loops, but she still hung on to one of the handgrips on her console as
Faraday
arrowed down, down, deeper into the dark and hotter depths. Beyond the shaking that rattled the bridge she could feel the vessel tossing up and down, like a raft in heavy surf, lurching and yawing. There's a rhythm to it, she realized as she tried to fight down the pain that burned inside her. It must be the rhythm of the leviathan's flippers, like the oars of an ancient galley.

“Only minor problems so far,” Dorn said. “Structural integrity is still sound. Temperature within acceptable limits. Life-support systems performing nominally.” Still, his voice sounded strained to Deirdre.

“My back pain is worse,” said Yeager. “And I'm getting seasick.”

Deirdre nodded in sympathy. She felt it, too. Nausea. And pain. The tightness in her chest was a hot burning knot that was growing worse each minute. It's the pressure, she told herself. How much can I stand?

She glanced across toward Andy. He was rubbing the bridge of his nose again. His headache must be getting worse, she thought. We're all suffering from the pressure buildup. But the expression on Andy's face was far from misery. He was smiling faintly, that absurd lopsided smile of his.

“How far down is this critter taking us?” Yeager demanded.

“As far as it wants to,” Corvus snapped.

Dorn said, “We're approaching one thousand kilometers' depth. That's the vessel's nominal limit. If we exceed design limits we'll have to disengage and return to a safer depth.”

Corvus shot him an annoyed look. To Yeager, he said, “Max, that design limit isn't absolute, is it? You built a safety factor into it, didn't you?”

“Yeah,” Yeager said, halfheartedly.

“How deep can we really go?”

Yeager growled, “How high is up?”

“Fifteen hundred klicks?” Corvus demanded. “Can we go that deep?”

Yeager shook his head.

Deirdre thought, Andy's changed. He was crushed when his DBS equipment didn't work, but now he's taken charge. He's determined to communicate with the leviathans, one way or another.

The pounding was getting worse. The bridge was rattling so hard now that the displays on Deirdre's console screens were blurring. Are the electronics failing or is it just my eyesight? she wondered.

She called to Dorn, “Are your screens blurry?”

The cyborg turned his head toward her, its human side set in a grim rictus that almost matched the metal half. “You're having a problem with your vision?”

Squinting at the fuzzy screens, Deirdre said, “I … I don't know if it's me or the displays.”

“The system monitors show no indications of failure,” said Dorn.

“It must be my eyesight, then,” Deirdre replied.

“Vibration's getting worse,” Yeager said, pointing a shaking finger at the monitor screens.

“Everything is still within design limits,” Dorn insisted. Then he added, “Barely.”

“The equipment's within design limits,” Yeager countered. “But we're not.”

*   *   *

Leviathan swam deeper, seeking the Kin but being careful not to dive too swiftly. Leviathan thought that the alien was probably fragile, so it had to descend slowly, gently. After all, the alien is a creature of the cold abyss above, Leviathan reasoned. This region is foreign to it.

What if it can't live in the warm domain of the Symmetry? Leviathan wondered. It doesn't belong in our region. It isn't part of the Symmetry, it's an alien.

Then a new thought: Does the alien have a Symmetry of its own? It must have! It comes from the cold abyss above; there must be an alien Symmetry up there somewhere, a region where the alien lives with its own kind.

This was something to think about: another Symmetry. An alien Symmetry. Why would the alien leave its own place and invade ours?

Leviathan had no answer. It hoped that the Elders would know—or at least learn what the answer might be.

We must bring the alien to the Elders. Leviathan confirmed its earlier decision. The Elders must see this creature, signal with it, learn from it.

Fighting down its inner impatience, Leviathan swam still deeper, cautiously moving slowly, gently, so that the alien would not be harmed. Or frightened.

*   *   *

“Andy, are you all right?” Yeager asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm okay,” Corvus replied as he swayed in the foot loops, his eyes closed, both hands massaging his forehead.

“You don't look so good,” said Yeager.

“I've got the mother of all sinus headaches, that's all.”

Yeager nodded, then clasped Dorn's metal shoulder. “The crew's going to hit failure mode before the equipment does, pal.”

Dorn said nothing; the cyborg didn't take his eyes from the screens of his control console.

“Did you hear me, robot?” Yeager snapped. “We can't go much deeper. We're all gonna crack up!”

Deirdre saw the fear in Yeager's face and understood what he was trying to do. Max is scared, she realized. He wants to turn back but he's too timid to say it, so he's blaming it on our physical condition.

Corvus said tightly, “I can take it. I'm not going to crack.”

“Not till your head explodes,” Yeager growled. He turned toward Deirdre. “Dee, how are you?”

The pain in her chest was like a knife twisting inside her, but Deirdre said, “I'm okay.” She was surprised at what an effort it took to gasp out the two words.

Corvus slid over to her. Bobbing in the liquid before her he asked in a near whisper, “Are you really okay, Dee?”

“Yes,” she said tightly.

“If it's too much for you we can go back up.”

“And leave the leviathan?” Deirdre asked. “Quit the mission?”

Andy's gentle blue eyes looked sad, but he said, “There'll be other missions, Dee. You're more important than anything else.”

“But Andy,” she said, panting from the pain, “we've come … all this way…”

Corvus turned toward Dorn. “Take us up.”

The cyborg looked over his shoulder at Corvus.

“Up! Disengage and get us the hell out of here!”