Jupiter Project

“Shoot the Council!”

Commander Aarons smiled wryly. “Impractical, I am afraid. Anyone else?”

Mrs. Moto stood up. “We are citizens of many different countries. Could we not appeal through our geographical representatives?”

“We are only a few more than twelve hundred people. Madam.” Commander Aarons said. “We carry very little political clout.”

“Senator Davidson has always supported the Lab. We can appeal to him,” a voice said.

A man stood and waved for attention from the Commander. When he got it he said. “Judging from a few hints in the legislative reports we get sandwiched into the news from Earth, Senator Davidson fought for us and lost. He has relinquished his position on the Advisory Board.” The Commander nodded. “Anyway, a senator is a creature half-man and half-horse. Normally the top half is a man. You can’t expect them to set sail against the prevailing winds.”

Some people nodded; others looked glum.

A woman stood. “Yes, Mrs. Schloffski?” the Commander said and I recognized her from the Sagan.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said dramatically, “I have been sorely distressed at the things said here tonight. Murder and insurrection have been advocated. I think it is time the saner, wiser heads in this Laboratory are heeded—goodness knows we have not been listened to enough in the past. In all honesty, I feel that if the Commander and his staff had sought out proper council among the Laboratory members we would not be having such difficulties now. I have always thought—”

“Do you have a point, Mrs. Schloffski?” Commander Aarons said mildly.

“Of course I do. I wanted to say that, once the Council has spoken, we should all be good enough citizens to recognize that fact and act accordingly. Certainly there is no one else to blame than ourselves for the fact that we have found so little of lasting scientific interest out here—”

“Who says?”

“How would you know?”

“—far from our natural home.” She glared at the hecklers. “I believe there are a number of women who followed their husbands out from Earth and feel that they have sacrificed enough. The living conditions here are wretched. I imagine there will be many of us who will be glad to go home.”

Mrs. Schloffski sat down. Her husband, sitting next to her, said something. She snapped at him and he opened his mouth and then closed it again. After that he was quiet.

“Commander?” my mother said, standing. “I would like to speak for the women I know. We are not ready to go Earthside until our jobs are finished here. We will stand by our husbands even if we don’t have clean, ironed sheets every day.”

There was a burst of applause. Several hands were waving for attention. The Commander picked my father’s.

“Something bothers me about your wording, Commander. You said everyone returns on the Argosy?”

“Correct.”

“I don’t believe the Can’s fusion plant and electrical generators can be left to automatic control; it’s too risky. We will have to shut them down before we go.”

“What’s your point?” someone in the audience said.

“Without current our superconducting magnets will not work.”

There was a murmur as a few people saw what Dad was driving at. Commander Aarons frowned and unconsciously tugged at his moustache.

“Without the magnets,” my father went on, “the Can won’t be completely shielded from the Van Allen belt radiation. High-energy electrons and protons will pass into the Laboratory. Within a year they will create enough radioactive isotopes to make the living quarters here uninhabitable. The isotopes will be distributed randomly around the Lab, in the walls and deck. The Lab will be unlivable.”

The crowd was silent for a moment. An engineer said, “You mean men couldn’t come back, ever? The Can would be contaminated?”

“It looks that way.”

“Doctor Yakana is in charge of radiation control. Doctor, do you agree with Dr. Bohles?”

A lanky man near the front nodded.

“Those Earthside flea-brains!” someone shouted.

“Commander!” one of the ship’s officers said. “Did the Council say they were abandoning the Lab?”

Aarons sighed. “My orders say ‘The facility will be reactivated when fiscal policy permits.’ That’s all.”

“When they speak in Latin it’s always a brush-off,” Zak said to me. The crowd was muttering, restless.

A ship’s officer stood up. He was Lt. Sharma, a heavy, dark man from Calcutta who ranked middle-high on the squash roster.

“Sir, I think most of us have had enough of ISA,” he said. “Right?” He turned to the audience and they answered with a storm of clapping.

“There’s one thing the Council forgot. We don’t have to cooperate! They can’t force us. Who is going to send armed men all the way out to Jupiter?”

“I say we stay!” another voice said. “Refuse to board the Argosy. We’ll thumb our noses at ’em.”

Lt. Sharma shook his head. “Lord preserve me from my friends. That isn’t what I meant. Not all of us can live out here indefinitely—we need trace elements in our diet, spare parts for the life system and a hundred other things.”

“Okay, how long can we stick it out?” someone said.

“I am not qualified to say,” Commander Aarons said. “You three”—he pointed out two bridge officers and the supervisor of Maintenance Division—“put your heads together and give us a guess.”

The three women met in an aisle and murmured together for a moment while everybody watched. They nodded. “A little less than two years before we have serious trouble,” one of them said.

“Thank you. I am no politician or economist, but I do not believe Earth’s troubles will clear up in two years. The Council will not be able to send more ships by that time. And if we rebel now I know they’re not going to be in the mood, anyway.”

Lt. Sharma looked exasperated. “Sir, that is not what I had in mind.”

“Oh?”

“Most of the Can’s population must return Earthside. We’ll never survive, otherwise. But we don’t have to leave the project deserted. Leave behind a skeleton crew to keep the superconductors working, so that someday men can come back.”

Mr. Moto stood up. “That sounds fine to me. We should leave a few scientists, too, to keep watch on Jupiter. Even simple, close-up observations covering the time the rest of us are gone will be immensely important.”

“I volunteer,” Mr. Jablons said.

“Me, too!”

“Single personnel should have preference.”

“That’s unfair!”

“Merde!”

“You can’t—”

“Ich muss—”

“Quiet!” Commander Aarons tugged at his moustache. “All that will be decided later.” He gazed slowly around the bowl. “I think we are all far too disturbed and hot under the collar to make reasonable judgments right now. I urge you all to think this matter through carefully; your lives may depend on it.

“I ask you then to go home and discuss it among your families. In a few days we will meet again. Good evening.”

There was a burst of applause as he left the podium.

Jenny and Zak and I got out ahead of the crowd and headed for my home. People were pretty stunned. It