Leviathans of Jupiter

“Can do, Frankie old chum. No problem.”

As Devlin began to move back toward the kitchen, Torre clutched at the sleeve of his stained chef’s jacket.

“Those nanos I gave you … what did you do with them?”

Putting on an innocent expression, Devlin said, “Oh, them? I took ’em myself.”

“Yourself?”

“Yeah. They’re harmless, aren’t they?”

“Well, not altogether…”

“You mean they’re not harmless?”

Torre whispered harshly, “I told you they can act on the gastric juices in the stomach.”

“Yeah, yeah, but it’d take them forty-eight hours to show any symptoms.”

“They’re not symptoms!” Torre snapped. “Not unless something goes wrong.”

Devlin patted him on the shoulder. “Now what could possibly go wrong, chum? Huh?”

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

Deirdre watched, wide eyed, as the sharks seemed to leap closer in her console’s central screen. She tapped at the keypad symbols and slaved her sensor display to one of the screens on Dorn’s console so he could watch what she was viewing without turning to look at her console.

Andy was frozen in place behind Yeager, who was bending slightly forward, just to Dorn’s left.

“Hold on,” Dorn said calmly. “This might get violent.”

Deirdre wormed her bare feet more firmly into the deck loops and grasped the handgrips on her console.

Faraday was hurtling toward the band of sharks. Deirdre counted six of them on her console screen, bulleting single-mindedly toward the remnants of what had been a huge leviathan.

That’s their food, she thought. We’re trying to stop them from eating. We’re interfering in the natural order of this world. But then she looked again at Andy’s face, his soft blue eyes wide, his cute lopsided grin replaced by open-mouthed anxiety. Andy’s here to study the leviathans, Deirdre told herself. If we let the sharks eat this one we’ll have to go deeper and try to find another.

Max growled, “Get ’em, Dorn. Blast right into them.”

Instead of being wary of attacking the sharks, Max was suddenly belligerent, aggressive.

“Bang into my baby, will you?” Yeager snarled, his voice deepening into an oath of vengeance. “We’ll show you!”

Dorn glanced over his shoulder at Yeager and shook his head.

The sharks suddenly seemed to become aware of Faraday charging at them. They veered from their course and split up, heading in all directions. Several of them raced out of the screen’s view. Faraday zoomed past them, then Dorn swerved the ship into a tight turn. Deirdre swayed so hard one of her hands slipped free of the grip on the console’s face.

They were heading back toward the sharks, which appeared to be milling about confusedly. Then a pair of them turned toward Faraday.

“They’re going to ram us!” Corvus yelped.

“The hell they are,” Yeager growled, leaning over Dorn’s shoulder, his finger extended, ready to press one of the console’s keypads.

Dorn slapped his hand away. “I’ll handle it,” he said, without looking up from his screen.

The sharks were on a collision course, so close their streamlined bodies filled the screen. Deirdre braced for a crash.

“Now!” Yeager bellowed, and Dorn mashed his prosthetic hand on the keypad that fired the electron guns.

Deirdre’s screen filled with a blue-white flash that almost blinded her. Blinking tears away, she saw both sharks thrashing, convulsing.

“That got ’em,” Yeager exulted.

But not for long. The sharks writhed and flailed erratically for a few minutes, then straightened out and began to swim normally again.

“Where are the others?” Corvus asked.

The screen’s view widened to show the other sharks gobbling at the dismembered pieces of the leviathan. Deirdre noticed that several of the pieces had come together; the creature was already rebuilding itself.

Without a word Dorn arrowed the ship toward the greedily feeding sharks. They sensed the danger and broke off, splitting up into separate pairs. They run in pairs, Deirdre thought. They never move alone.

Again Faraday charged at the confused sharks. This time all four of them converged on the ship, hurtling toward it at frightening speed.

Dorn waited until Deirdre was certain they would collide with the sharks, then hit the electron gun button again. Again the blue-white flash and again the sharks twisted away, dazed.

But only temporarily. Within minutes the six of them had reorganized and were swimming normally once more. Dorn maneuvered Faraday between their formation and the reassembling pieces of the leviathan.

* * *

Consciousness returned to Leviathan slowly. At first it could sense nothing but the unutterable pleasure of fissioning. No organized thoughts, no memories, no fears: nothing but the sensual delight of creating two from one.

Then recombination. The ancient rhythm of joining, of coming together, of connecting. Brain and gills. Mouth parts and inner organs. Sensor members and strong, steadfast flagella.

Almost complete. Leviathan remembered who it was, remembered the Symmetry and the Kin and—the darters.

Another member of the Kin swam nearby. It was Leviathan also. They flashed recognition images to each other, orange and pale yellow. The Symmetry had been preserved. The budding was complete. Now there were two where only one had existed before.

But what of the darters?

Like awakening from a dream, Leviathan began to search about itself. The darters were moving in when the dissociation began. We were in danger. How…?

Leviathan and its replicate sensed the darters out there, close enough to stir the water with their thrashing. And something else.

The alien. That strange spherical hard-shelled alien was charging at the darters. At them! It was between the pack of darters and the Leviathan and its replicate, attacking the predators. Or were the darters attacking the alien? Leviathan saw harsh blue-white sparks flash in the water and the darters raced away from the alien, one of them convulsing wildly as the others backed off.

The alien is protecting us! Leviathan realized. But now the darters were attacking it. The alien needed protection now.

Without needing to communicate with its replicate, Leviathan drove straight at the darters, its replicate at its side. Simultaneously they bawled the undulating note that rose and fell in perfect unison, the bellowing overpowering profoundly deep bass note that reverberated through the water like the voice of doom.

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