Jupiter Project

boiled over each other, racing around the planet. Below the ammonia clouds I could see were thousands of klicks of methane crystals, hydrogen, ice, sulfur fumes, thunderclaps, and lightning storms as big as the continent of Asia—a cauldron of instant death for any man who went there.

The lion: Jove contains seventy percent of all matter in our solar system, outside the sun. Even this far out, it filled the sky. Down below the equator churned the Red Spot. A swirling, awesome storm, bigger than a dozen Earths. Each of Jupiter’s bands is a deep layer of gas, spinning at its own speed as the planet whirls. Each has its own grainy, gaudy texture. Here and there a fat storm filled a whole band, rolling like a ball bearing between the bands above and below. Yellow-green lightning forked between purpling clouds.

“Ahem!” A woman cleared her throat next to my ear. “I don’t think you boys should have the first look at everything.”

“We got here first,” Zak said reasonably.

“Rushed up here before we had barely gotten under way, you mean,” the woman said, pushing in front of us at the rear viewscreen. She was as old as my mother and not half as good looking.

Zak opened his mouth to say something and I muttered, “Come on, it’s not worth it. We’ve got all day.”

We moved over to the forward viewscreen.

“Are you boys going to block everything?”

“We’re watching—” I said.

“Well, really, I think you should be grateful your parents even let you go on this trip alone. If you can’t keep your manners—”

“Our parents haven’t got anything to do with it.” Zak said. “It’s Laboratory regs, once we’re above sixteen.”

“Humf! We’ll see what the Captain thinks about two young—”

“Oh. forget it,” I said. “Come on, Zak.” I didn’t know the woman. She must have come in on the Rambler’s last flight.

On my way back to my seat I noticed the air pressure building and popped my helmet seal. I cocked my helmet back and sat down, wondering what I was going to do until we touched down on Ganymede.

Zak went in search of something to read; all our study materials were in our luggage. He came back with two chips of Earthside magazines.

I clicked one in my LCD and read at random. One article was about the staggered working hours in the cities and how much it unsnarls the traffic tie-ups. There was a 3D picture of the subway “packers” of New York—men hired to shove people into the already crowded subway cars, so they can carry a few more. That one earned a double take.

The next article I read was a fashion tip for men: Handy Hints to Get the Right Tint. It had a 3D of a man wearing a maroon coat with an ascot, painting his fingernails.

I asked Zak if he thought Commander Aarons edited the copy that came through the laser beam from Earth.

“Why should he?”

“Well, it seems to me Earth comes off pretty badly in these magazines.” I said. “I mean. I’d almost suspect somebody was trying to keep us from getting homesick.”

Zak put aside his poetry magazine. “Just what is it—oh, I see. Painting fingernails is for women, right?”

“Yes.”

“Who says so?”

“Why—well, my father doesn’t do it. Neither does yours.”

“Yes, they are rather conservative, aren’t they? After all. Matt, the Lab is a backwater. An anomaly.”

“How do you mean that?”

“We’ve got something to do, out here. You follow little green blips in Monitoring, I talk to computers— everybody’s got a job. Even that brat back there—” he gestured behind us, where a baby was yowling—“will have something to do in a few years. Cleaning out the scum in the hydroponics tanks. I hope.”

“So? They have work on Earth, too.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” He pointed a professorial finger at me. “They’ve got jobs, yes. The government sees to that. Plenty of them. But there’s not much work.”

“You lost me again.”

“How would you feel if you had to sit in an office every day, passing pieces of paper from one cubbyhole to another?”

“Bored, I guess. It would be like going to one of their schools all day.”

“Probably so. It makes you feel pretty useless. That’s the point. People like to see their work doing something; they want to see a final product. A chair, maybe, or a bridge, or a 3D.”

“Uh huh.”

“But that’s all done by machines. The men just push buttons and move paper around.”

“And paint their fingernails,” I said scornfully.

“Sure. Because they’re bored. They’re not doing anything they think is significant. Oh sure, the government says paper-passing is productive labor, but there’s so much make-work people know it’s a sham. That doesn’t jibe with their ego, their self-image.”

“Uh-ho, here we go again.”

“Okay, I’ll skip the jargon. The point is, they’re trying to show their individuality and worth through something other than their work. It’s like birds displaying colored feathers.”

“Expressing themselves.”

“Right. Only, out here, we’ve really got something to do. Fads don’t catch on here. We’re a different culture, really. You wouldn’t look down on a Fiji islander just because he wasn’t wearing a Brooks Brothers suit, would you?”

“No, but—”

“Anyway, Commander Aarons doesn’t have time to worry about what you read.” Zak said triumphantly.

I was still trying to straighten out that jump in the subject when Yuri came clumping over.

“Have you thought about what you are going to do in your recreation time?” he said.

“Sure,” Zak said. “Just what we usually do—stay away from the crowd.”

“Crowd?” Yuri said, his thick forehead wrinkling.

“That’s what we’re out here for, lummox,” I said. “To get away from metal walls and people.”

“I usually try to get in shape. You know, run a few klicks and play some volleyball.”

“Fine. Go ahead.” I said.

“What else is there?” he persisted.

“I usually go out in one of the Walkers. The men at the base are always happy to get some help.” Zak said.

“Same for me,” I said.

“What for?” Yuri asked.

“My friend.” Zak said, “you are no doubt aware of the Ganymede atmosphere project? The base there spends most of its time building new fusion plants, to generate power. The power is used to break down the rocks into basic carbon compounds, water, and oxygen. They’re slowly building up an atmosphere that we can breathe. Only, it’s a complicated business. They need to know how the air and the temperature is changing all over Ganymede, not merely around the dispersed fusion plants.”

“So they’ve put out recorders and pocket laboratories, all over Ganymede.” I said. “Every now and then somebody has to go out and collect the data or make a repair.”

“It’s a fairly dull job if you happen to live on Ganymede all the time,” Zak said. “A tour of the ice fields can get monotonous. But to people like us, it’s a chance to get out and see things. So I volunteer, every recreation period.”

“I see,” Yuri said. “You little squirts are always into something, aren’t you? Me, I’m going to stick to my athletics. It might come in handy.” He looked at me significantly.

“See you around,” I said. Yuri took the hint and walked away. I went back to my magazine.