Leviathans of Jupiter

wary, almost suspiciously, at the scientists flanking him on either side. At least Yeager looked presentable; he had shaved and put on some fresh clothes.

Katherine Westfall sat at Archer’s right; she seemed mildly bored. Three of her aides were seated along the wall behind her.

“Let’s come to order, please,” Archer said, tapping the tabletop with a fingernail. The various conversations stopped; all heads turned toward him.

“We’re here to review the results of Faraday’s mission,” Archer said. Making a slight bow toward Westfall, he added, “And we’re honored by the presence of a member of the International Astronautical Authority’s governing council.”

One of the scientists clapped her hands lightly and immediately the rest of them joined in. Westfall smiled demurely and raised her hands in a modest signal to silence them.

“Faraday returned three days ago,” Archer resumed, “apparently undamaged. We’ll review the significance of the data it carried back with it, but first I want to ask Dr. Yeager how his examination of the vessel’s systems has gone.”

Yeager had indeed shaved and scrubbed for this meeting. His long hair glistened as if he’d just stepped out of a shower. He was wearing a spanking new tunic and slacks of a golden brown sandy hue, yet they somehow looked wrinkled and baggy on him as he got up from his chair.

Pointing a palm-sized remote at the wall screen to his right, Yeager said, “I could spend a few hours going over all the details.” The screen showed schematics of Faraday’s layout. “But the long and the short of it is that the ship performed well within specifications. All systems worked as designed; even though she took a bit of a battering from the sharks, there was no significant damage.”

“Significant damage?” Westfall picked up on the word.

Yeager forced a smile for her. “By that I mean there wasn’t any damage at all. All systems worked fine. She went down to her design limit depth—”

“How deep is that?” Westfall asked.

“One thousand kilometers below the surface,” Yeager replied. A little sheepishly, he added, “Actually, she bottomed out at nine hundred and fourteen klicks.”

“The vessel worked as designed,” Archer said, cutting off any further dialogue. “Thank you, Dr. Yeager. Your ship performed beautifully.”

Max grinned even more widely and sat down.

“However,” Archer went on, his expression turning more serious, “we have less than satisfactory results from the mission.”

Before Yeager could react Archer explained, “I mean that Faraday spent most of its time in the ocean searching for the leviathans, and almost as soon as it found them, the ship left and returned here.”

“It followed mission protocol!” Yeager objected. “She was programmed to return at a specific time and that’s just what she did.”

“Precisely,” said Archer.

Michael Johansen raised a long-fingered hand and said, “It’s no reflection on you, Max. The bird left just as things were getting interesting.”

Yeager muttered something too low for the rest of them to hear.

Westfall asked, in her soft little-girl voice, “What do you mean, just as things were getting interesting?”

Johansen turned to her. “Let me show you.” He clicked his own remote and the wall screen darkened.

“More contrast,” Johansen murmured. The screen brightened somewhat, showing the shadowy figures of leviathans gliding easily through the depths.

“The leviathans weren’t in their usual feeding location,” said the lanky Johansen, getting up from his chair like a giraffe climbing to its feet. “Most of the time Faraday was down there was spent searching for the creatures.”

“And being attacked by the sharks,” Yeager added.

With a nod toward the engineer, Johansen said, “Yes, but the primary objective of the mission was to observe the leviathans. By the time Faraday found them it had to leave the scene and return here.”

“As it was programmed to do,” Yeager insisted.

Archer stepped in. “As it was indeed programmed to do. No one’s faulting the vehicle or its performance, Dr. Yeager.”

“Yeah, but I see a lot of unhappy faces along this table,” Max grumbled.

“That’s not your fault,” Archer soothed. “The problem is that the vessel was following the program we wrote for it, without the capability to change that programming in the face of unexpected events.”

Yeager nodded, but still looked unhappy.

“We did learn quite a bit,” Archer continued. “The leviathans have left the feeding area where we’ve always found them before.”

Johansen interjected, “The stream of organics flowing in from the clouds above the ocean has been interrupted, probably by the impact of Comet McDaniel-Lloyd last month.”

One of the biologists, a blocky-sized woman with a military buzz cut, said, “So they went searching for another stream to feed on.”

“Exactly,” said Johansen.

Archer pointed out, “Faraday found a larger grouping of sharks than we’ve ever seen before.”

“And they attacked the vessel,” said Johansen.

“No damage,” Yeager said.

The buzz-cut biologist pointed out, “The sharks seemed to be exhibiting territorial behavior. Once the ship moved away from them they stopped attacking it.”

“So what have we got here?” Archer mused aloud. “The comet impact disturbs the stream of organics falling into the ocean. The leviathan herd moves off to find a new feeding area. And the sharks come together in the biggest grouping we’ve ever observed.”

“And drive away our vessel,” the biologist added. “Territorial behavior, pure and simple.”

“I don’t know if it’s pure or simple,” Archer countered, with a placating smile, “but it’s definitely behavior we’ve never observed before.”

“The leviathans also exhibited new behavior,” Johansen pointed out. The screen showed one of the gigantic creatures swimming away from the rest of the herd, going off alone. The sharks immediately darted after it.

Then the screen went blank.

“What happened?” Westfall asked. “What did they do?”

“We don’t know,” said Archer. “That’s the point where Faraday left the area and returned here.”

“As programmed,” Yeager said.

“It’s too bad the ship was programmed to leave when it did,” Johansen said, looking at Archer rather than Max. “Just when things were getting interesting.”

Archer nodded. Glancing at Westfall, he said, “This clearly shows the limit of robotic missions. If there had been a crew aboard the ship they would have stayed to observe these new behaviors. They wouldn’t have left because of a preprogrammed schedule.”

“If they had enough supplies on board to remain,” Westfall countered.

“Yes, of course,” Archer agreed. “But the point is, there’s a limit to what we can accomplish with robotic missions. We need to get people down into that ocean again. We need crewed missions.”

Everyone around the table looked toward Westfall. She sat in silence for several long moments, apparently deep in thought. Archer saw the tip of her tongue peek out from between her barely parted lips.

Calmly, deliberately, Archer said to her, “If we’re going to learn more about the leviathans, if we’re ever going to find out if they’re intelligent and perhaps make meaningful contact with them, we’ve got to send crewed missions down there.”

“In spite of the dangers,” Westfall murmured.