The Jupiter Theft

“How long do you think you can keep going on those things Janet gave you?”

“Long enough.”

“All right. I need all the help I can get. But you’ll kill yourself.”

“Commander,” Ruiz said, his eyes bright with speed, “that madman took Maybury with him because of me! Estupido! I had to make speeches! Why didn’t I just go along quietly and try to slow him down?” He shook his head and immediately winced with pain.

So Ruiz was Jameson’s first recruit.

Dmitri was his second. The young biologist had impulsively followed Ruiz’s example. He admired the old man. And perhaps he wanted to prove to Jameson that he was a man of action. Jameson hid his misgivings and thanked him.

Then Maggie had thrown her arms around him and announced that she was going too.

“I thought you were trying to talk me out of it, like Janet.”

“That was before I knew you were really going! You’re not going to leave me behind!”

“Good girl, but—”

“I won’t stay behind with all those sheep!” she said fiercely.

That hadn’t endeared her to the others. But Jameson had to admire her independent spirit. He felt a little ashamed of himself. He’d been one of the sheep himself, for too long. It was Maggie’s example, with her rebellious heritage from the New England Secessionists, that had opened his eyes and given him the resolve to resist the Kleins and the authority they represented.

He finished tying up the bundles and handed them out, giving the lightest one to Ruiz. “Just a moment,” he said. “I just want to say good-bye to Boyle.”

Boyle was breathing deeply and rhythmically. He looked somehow shrunken between the two blankets. There was a makeshift screen around him: sheets hung from ropes that were strung between the abstract branches of the iron trees.

“He doesn’t know you’re here,” Janet said. “I put him under.”

“When are you going to operate?”

“Soon. I’m boiling the instruments now. I’ll have to make do with what was in the medical bag.” She laughed uneasily. “I’ve never performed an amputation before. In fact, I haven’t practiced medicine since my internship. Just administrative psychiatry. Qing-yi’s going to help me. Did you know that she was a chijiao yisheng— what they call a barefoot doctor—in Kweichow Province before she qualified for the space program? She doesn’t have a medical degree, but she’s performed more operations than I have.”

“Is he going to be all right?”

“He’ll be fine. He has the constitution of an ox. And lots of willpower; he’ll make himself a crutch and be hopping around in no time. Maybe some day…” She hesitated. “The Cygnans must know about regeneration—you saw that assistant. If we can get a dialogue going with them … Tod, won’t you stay?”

“Chances are, I’ll be back before you know it. If not…” He shrugged. “Look, you can’t depend on one man with absolute pitch. We humans are ingenious creatures. It can be done with computer-generated sound and translating interfaces. There are some good electronics people here, and if you can actively enlist the Cygnan’s interest … Do it for the captain, Janet. And for your children.”

He turned toward Boyle. “So long, Skipper,” he said. “Good luck.”

Incredibly, from some iron resource of will, Boyle’s eyes flicked open. Jameson sensed that he was fighting the drug. “Good luck, boy,” he whispered. “It’s up to you.” His eyes closed, and he was breathing deeply again.

“He didn’t know what he was saying,” Janet said.

“Yes he did,” said Jameson, and walked away quickly. Ruiz, Dmitri, and Maggie picked up their bundles when they saw him coming. Jameson shouldered his own parcel, slipping one arm through the loop at the knot, and moved past the clustered people at the gate without looking at their faces.

A dozen yards past the thick bars, he paused to look back. They were already pushing at the gate, sliding it shut. It fell into place with a solid thunk. The animals had locked themselves back in their cage.

“Wait a minute,” Dmitri called.

“Come on!” Jameson said. “There isn’t time for you to stop and look at specimens.”

“They’re trying to attract our attention,” Dmitri said.

Ruiz looked at the cage behind the wire mesh barrier. “He’s right,” he said. “Those creatures are intelligent.”

Jameson turned around and went up to the barrier for a closer look. It was the cage that held the feathery humanoids. The pixieish little creatures were swarming frantically over the bars, making urgent gestures with their delicate four-fingered hands.

“They’re cute,” Maggie said.

“They’re carnivores,” Dmitri said. “Look at those little pointed teeth.”

“Like a kitten’s!” Maggie responded indignantly.

“We’re carnivores too,” Ruiz said. “Gives us something in common with them.”

Jameson looked the creatures over. They were fluffy and flamingo-pink, with huge round violet eyes that gave them an astonished expression, like a tarsier. They had button noses and dainty underslung jaws that, head on, gave them an appealingly chinless appearance, like pink teddy bears. They sported tufted tails, which they kept winding around their waists or necks like feather boas.

And they had stacked a little pile of artifacts against the bars for demonstration purposes. A pair of little felt boots, too short for their feet until you noticed the four holes for toes to protrude through and rest on the projecting sole. A filigreed cup that could not have held anything, and seemed to have no purpose except to be beautiful. A miniature rake that was obviously a grooming comb.

“They had those ready to show us,” Ruiz said. “They were waiting.”

As if on cue, the two elfin beings went through a swift and well-organized pantomime. They became Klein murdering Tetrachord, and Triad streaking for the safety of the human compound. Then they took turns becoming Jameson and his three companions emerging, imitating posture and body language with amazing accuracy despite the differences in body structure. Finally, with unmistakable gestures, they begged to be taken along.

Jameson looked sorrowfully at the sheet of clear, almost invisible glass that sealed off the cage, between mesh and bars. There was no telling what kind of atmosphere the creatures breathed.

Feeling clumsy by comparison, he made a series of gestures to tell them that it would be fatal for them to breathe the Cygnan air.

The fuzzy little beings gestured back, more urgently, pantomiming the idea that they could breathe outside the glass case.

“What do you think?” Jameson said.

“They’re bright,” Ruiz said. “Bright and quick. They want out, and they seem to know what they’re doing. I feel sorry for them. Too bad we can’t help them.”

Jameson made up his mind. “I have a hunch they’ll be useful,” he said. “They’ve been prisoners of the Cygnans a lot longer than we have. They may know a thing or two.”

Ruiz was doing arithmetic in his head. He nodded agreement. “They’ve been on this ship a minimum of ten years subjective time, even assuming that the Cygnans picked them up on their last stop. And that their last stop was during the mid-twentieth century, when Cygnus X-1 was discovered—and the Cygnans would have been detected as well, if Cyg X-1 weren’t masking the final leg of their approach.”

Dmitri was looking worriedly at the extra gate and the glass. “The security precautions are extraordinary,” he said. “The Cygnans must consider them to be dangerous beasts.”

“They’re intelligent beings,” Jameson said, “who wear shoes and who while away the time while they’re locked up by carving ornamental cups.”

He pried at the wire mesh with his bare hands. The mesh was a warning, not a barrier, and it was intended for the one-third-g strength of Cygnans, not human muscles. With Ruiz and Dmitri helping him, he was able to tear an opening wide enough to squeeze through.

The glass was unbreakable. After a moment’s examination of its perimeter, Jameson found the round opening of a Cygnan keyhole. He fished in his pocket for the cylindrical key he’d taken from one of Triad’s pouches.