Leviathans of Jupiter

* * *

“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!”

“Are you certain—”

Hunched over from the pain in her chest, Deirdre caught a glimmer from her sensor screens.

“Look!” she gasped. “More of them!”

OBSERVATION BLISTER

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Grant Archer turned and saw Zareb Muzorewa stepping into the glassteel bubble of station Gold’s observation blister.

“Hello, Zeb,” Archer said softly.

The transparent compartment was flooded with light from Jupiter. The planet was so large that it encompassed their view, a mammoth swath of gleaming colors spreading as far as their eyes could see, many-hued clouds racing along in turbulent ribbons, a wide circular storm system spiraling far off to their right.

“Come to see it for yourself, have you?” Muzorewa stood several centimeters taller than Archer, a broad- shouldered, muscular figure next to the compactly built station director.

“This is as close as I can get.”

Muzorewa nodded. “We’ve been closer.”

“And we’ve got the scars to prove it,” Archer said, tapping his thigh.

Muzorewa took in a deep breath. “Well, you’ve done it. You’ve proved that they’re intelligent. The data from the capsule shows that the leviathans can communicate.”

“I haven’t done it,” Archer said. “I just helped to set things up so that they could do it.”

“You’ll get a Nobel out of this.”

“Not me. Them.”

That brought a smile to Muzorewa’s deeply black face. Archer smiled back at the scientist, both men basking in the glow from the giant planet.

“Well,” Muzorewa said, “at least you’ll be named chairman of the IAA governing council.”

“God forbid!” Archer blurted, shaking his head. “What would I want that for? Go back Earthside to sit at a desk and spend my life in conference rooms? No thanks. I’ll stay right here.”

“But everyone thinks—”

“Zeb, I was never interested in the IAA position, no matter what others may have said. Why would I leave here, just when things are getting really interesting?”

Muzorewa fell silent for several moments. Then, his eyes on the swirling splendor of the giant world, he murmured, “I wonder what they’re seeing now, at this moment. What are they doing right this instant?”

THE KIN

“More of them!” Deirdre repeated.

Andy Corvus gaped at the screens of her console. Wordlessly, Dorn put the sensor views on his control console’s screens.

“Look … at … that,” Yeager breathed, drawing out each word.

The screens were filled with leviathans; the huge, massive creatures were surrounding Faraday, gliding up on all sides. Deirdre stared at them, feeling like a little child in the midst of fairy-tale giants. They were truly enormous, their immense bodies decked with rows of eyes that all seemed to be looking straight at her. Bright splashes of color flashed across their flanks: vivid blues and greens, hot reds and oranges, brilliant whites.

“God almighty,” Corvus whispered.

Unbidden, the words of an old poem rang in Deirdre’s mind: “And we are here as on a darkling plain … where ignorant armies clash by night.”

As they stared at the leviathans they barely noticed that the vessel’s shaking, jarring ride had smoothed. Faraday was still riding up and down, still shuddering, but the vibrations were much gentler now, almost pleasant.

“There’s dozens of ’em,” Yeager said, his voice filled with awe.

“More like a hundred,” said Corvus, staring at the screens. “Look at the size of them!”

Checking the data bars on her screens, Deirdre saw that even the smallest of the leviathans was more than ten times bigger than their vessel.

“They’re talking to each other,” she said as the gigantic creatures flashed multicolored signals to each other. The images changed so rapidly that she could make no sense of them.

“Maybe they’re talking to us,” said Corvus.

Yeager shook his head. “How can we make sense out of it?”

“The computer will slow down the imagery,” said Dorn. “Perhaps enough for us to understand them.”

“Should we signal back to them?” Deirdre asked.

“Replay their images,” Corvus said. “Show them that we’re receiving their messages, even though we don’t understand them.”

* * *