Leviathans of Jupiter

“Five percent,” Dorn acknowledged, wondering how far they would go—how far he could take it.

* * *

Sitting in a comfortably upholstered chair in Archer’s office, Katherine Westfall watched the wall screen display with sheer fascination written clearly on her modeled features. The cyborg was sitting at some sort of console, manipulating keypads with his human hand and his artificial one. He appeared to be in a swimming tank of some sort: The watery light glimmered off the metal side of his face.

“He’s actually breathing that liquid?” she asked, in a voice filled with wonder.

“He is indeed,” said Archer, sitting next to her. “The liquid is loaded with oxygen, and he can breathe it just as normally as we breathe air … almost.”

Westfall shuddered inwardly at the thought of it. But she kept her voice even as she asked, “And all the crew members will have to breathe it?”

Archer nodded. “It’s because of the pressure down at the depths where the submersible will be operating. Immersing the crew in the perfluorocarbon allows them to withstand much greater pressures than if they were in air, even pressurized air. With the perfluorocarbon every cell in their bodies becomes pressurized. In air, their body cells would be crushed.”

With an effort, Westfall took her eyes from the screen and turned to Archer. “That’s rather inhuman, don’t you think?”

The scientist spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “It’s the only way we can get people down that deep. Lord knows we’ve searched for other possibilities. Prayed for them, even.”

Arching a pencil-thin brow, Westfall said, “The Lord hasn’t seen fit to answer your prayers.”

“He works in mysterious ways,” Archer replied softly.

“And you’re determined to send people down there again, after all these years.”

“We’ve learned as much as we can with robotic probes. If we’re going to make meaningful contact with the leviathans—”

“Why is that so important?” she demanded.

Archer clearly looked surprised. “Why? Because they’re an intelligent species.”

“You can’t honestly believe that those beasts are intelligent.”

“Why not? Do you think God isn’t big enough to create more than one intelligent species?”

“But … you don’t know it for certain. You’re assuming it. There’s no real evidence that they’re intelligent.”

A slow smile spread across Archer’s bearded face. “You’re perfectly right, Mrs. Westfall. I’m following a hunch. I have some reasons for my hunch, but they’re mostly subjective.”

“So?”

Still smiling, Archer said, “Mrs. Westfall, most people think that science is a strictly rational, unemotional business. All data and numbers, no human feelings at all. Well, that’s dead wrong. Do you want to know how science really works?”

Westfall smiled back at him, thinly. “Do tell.”

“A scientist gets a hunch. An insight. An idea that he knows how something works. He might spend the rest of his life trying to prove that he’s right. His best friends might spend the rest of their lives trying to prove that he’s wrong! It doesn’t matter, in the long run. In the long run, what they uncover—the guy with the hunch and the others who disbelieve him—what they uncover is new facts, new observations, new measurements. Everybody learns. In the long run it doesn’t matter if the fellow’s hunch was right or wrong. What matters is trying to prove it, or disprove it. That’s where the new understandings come from.”

Westfall stared at him for a long, silent moment, then said in a voice as sharp-edged as a stiletto, “And it doesn’t matter how many people you kill along the way.”

* * *

“It is uncomfortable at first,” Dorn admitted. “But you adapt to it quickly enough.”

Deirdre shook her head. She had met Dorn for dinner, after spending more than an hour in Westfall’s suite, telling her everything that had transpired in their meeting with Dr. Archer, answering her pointed questions as well as she could.

“They want me to go on the mission,” Deirdre said.

Dorn looked up from his cup of chilled soup. “You?”

“Andy thinks I could make contact with the leviathans,” she said.

Dorn said nothing. She couldn’t tell from his utterly blank expression what he was thinking, but she thought he might be trying to control a sudden anger.

Then she saw Corvus carrying a dinner tray toward them. “Here he comes now,” she told Dorn.

Corvus slid into the chair between the two of them and plunked his tray on the table. “Hi!”

Dorn rumbled, “Deirdre tells me that you want her to go with us in the submersible.”

“Right.” Corvus nodded happily. “Dee’s got the knack. She’s the best one to try to make contact—”

“No,” said Dorn. It sounded like a funeral bell tolling.

Corvus’s brows hiked up. “No?”

“You will not risk Deirdre’s life on this mission into the ocean.”

“Who made you mission commander?” Corvus replied, his face going serious. “You’re going, aren’t you? I’m certainly going. Why can’t Dee go along with us?”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“Wait a minute,” Deirdre interrupted. “I have something to say about this, you know.”

Dorn looked implacable. “It’s too dangerous for you.”

“But not for you?”

“What happens to me doesn’t matter. But you have your whole life ahead of you.”

“Dorn, you’re very sweet,” Deirdre said, placing a hand on his human arm, “but this is my decision to make, not yours.”

“Besides,” Corvus added, “it’s not all that dangerous. Uncomfortable, yeah, breathing that liquid gunk. But Max says the mission shouldn’t be really dangerous. His ship is perfectly safe … as long as we stay within its limits.”

Dorn looked from Corvus’s slightly unbalanced face to Deirdre’s calm beauty and then back to Corvus again.

“Then please explain to me,” he said, very firmly, “why Max is not here having dinner with us.”

MISSION CONTROL CENTER

Linda Vishnevskaya had allowed Max Yeager to sit at one of the consoles. It was better than having him hover over her, breathing down her neck.

The control center was deserted except for the two of them. Nothing had been heard from Faraday since the unexpected data capsule had popped out of the clouds the day before. Another capsule was expected at noon today.

Yeager sat impatiently at the console, reviewing all over again the data that the last capsule had carried. The sharks’ attacks had ended when Faraday backed away. The vessel was safe as long as it kept away from the predators.

How far away? Yeager asked himself. How close can she get before those damned monsters attack her again? They didn’t do any damage, but she’s not designed to be a punching bag for those monsters. She can take the g forces of flying through the atmosphere and dropping into the ocean, but that bludgeoning from the sharks is different. If they keep battering at her like that something’s going to shake loose sooner or later.