Jupiter Project

hand.

The final cover came off easily. Then I saw what was wrong.

The space between anode and cathode was filled with some sort of oil.

I thought back. Oil? That didn’t make sense. I was sure it wasn’t there when I installed the cup. It wasn’t oil, anyway. It was more like sticky dust. I poked a finger into the gap. Some of the stuff stayed on my glove; some more drifted away into space.

I swore. An electrical failure I could understand, but this was out of my department.

What about that old Faraday cup I’d replaced? I hadn’t even looked at it. I’d just let it drift away from the satellite, since I didn’t have any further use for it. Maybe that one had this gunk in it, too.

One thing was certain: I wasn’t going to fix it out here. I took out a plastic sheet and wrapped up the part, dust and all.

I got back in the Roadhog, waved good-bye to Fourteen and fired the ion engine.

The work had made me hungry again. I ate some rations and then finally answered my radio.

“Matt?” It was Mr. Jablons.

“Who else?”

“I thought you might like to know that Satellite Seventeen’s cup cleared up a while ago. There appears to be some saturation phenomenon operating.”

“Oh, great. You mean if I’d left the cup on Fourteen alone it would fix itself?”

“Probably. Are you bringing it in?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll need a look at it anyway. A device that fails only when you need it isn’t much use. I’ll meet you at the lock and get right on the problem.”

“Fine.”

After some chatter about the radiation, which was rising again, I switched over to the bridge. They estimated that if the storm followed the same pattern as it had earlier, I wouldn’t get too much of a dosage.

It was a race to get me back to the Can as soon as possible. I was in the fastest possible orbit right now, so there wasn’t much to be done.

“Connect me with Zak Palonski, would you?” I said. While I waited, my headphones beeping and clicking, I reviewed what I’d been thinking about the last few hours. This wasn’t going to be easy to say.

“Matt? Boy, when you go overboard you do it in a big way.”

I grimaced. “Yeah. I—I went crazy back there, Zak. Once I got away from the Can and cooled off, I could see that. And why. It’s related to something you told me, once.”

“You mean about that fight back when you were a kid? And Yuri?”

“Right. I’ve gotten them all scrambled up, Zak. That eight-year-old Matt Bohles got so damned scared he was frantically glad to get away from Earth. I mean, I must’ve identified those bullies with the way all Earthside was going to be. I cried every night for weeks after that fight, you know.”

“So the little kid thought all the rest of life was going to be getting pushed around, bullied.”

“Yeah.” I smiled to myself, thinking back. “Yeah, I can still remember some of those feelings, now that I understand. When we got out to the Can it was—wow!—like being reborn. Everybody was nice. The bigger kids didn’t gang up on me.”

“You could be the smart guy without getting punished for showing off. You didn’t have to be a phony tough guy.”

“Yeah—say! How come you know all that?”

“Hell, you think you’re so different? We’re all kids from pretty highbrow families. We all had those fears.”

“Then why—?” I sputtered.

“I noticed some funny symptoms when Yuri started hassling you. I mean, I figured we kids were all over that stuff by now—but you didn’t seem to be. The way I see it, something about Yuri—his size, maybe—made you regress, go back to the behavior pattern you had in that Earthside playground. You couldn’t deal with him. You retreated into—”

“Dammit! Why didn’t you tell me? I—”

“I didn’t know. It was just a hunch. Young Freud, remember? I had to give you a chance to work it out yourself, even though I could see something was bothering you, and it was getting worse. Just telling you wouldn’t have worked either. You had to come on it yourself or it wouldn’t ring true. Remember when you had that dream on Ganymede and I started in on you?”

“Zak the head-shrinker, yeah.”

“You brushed me off.”

“Yeah.” I said quietly.

We were silent for a moment. I could hear Zak breathing into his mike. “Hey, look,” he said awkwardly. “What was it some philosopher said?—‘Self knowledge is usually bad news.’ But that’s not necessarily so.”

I nodded. “Right. Right. Now that I see it. I think I can deal with it. I’m scared of going Earthside. I like it out here. It’s safe.” I laughed recklessly. “No schoolyards for the big kids to beat me up in.”

“I figure you’ll make it, Matt,” Zak said warmly. “I really do.”

“I’d better.” My sudden elation fizzled out. “Aarons will ship me Earthside for sure.”

“Huh? Why?”

“I went berserk. Zak. Crazy. Unstable. I swiped this shuttle, risked my life, broke regs, beat up Yuri… God, that felt good…”

“I see your point.” Zak said sadly. “I know you’ll be okay now, but Aarons doesn’t have any choice.”

“Yeah,” I said. I looked down at Jupiter, endlessly spinning, and felt a bone-deep weariness. “I’m washed up, Zak. This time I’m really finished.”

“Matt?”

“Huh?” I felt drowsy. “Yes?”

“We’ve got trouble.” It was Dad.

“I’m only thirty-three minutes from ETA. What could—”

“That’s the point. We’ve just picked up a big flare on the south pole. Some extraordinary activity.”

“Meaning—?”

“Looks like a burst of high energy stuff, headed out along the magnetic field lines. The whole Jovian magnetosphere is alive with radio noise. And higher than the normal radiation flux, of course.”

“Will it catch me?”

“Looks like it.”

“Damn.” I bit my lip.

“Your fuel is—”

“I’ve already checked. Just enough to brake, maybe a fraction over.”

“I see.” A silence.

I frowned, calculating. I gave the idea about five seconds of solid thought, and then I knew: “Give me a new orbit, Dad. I’m firing along my present trajectory, as of—” I punched the stud—“now.”

A solid kick in the small of my back.

“Wait, Matt, we haven’t computed—”

“Doesn’t matter. Sooner I get going, the more seconds I’ll shave off my arrival time.”

“Well…yes.” Dad said slowly.

I held my thumb on the button, eyeing my fuel tank. Burn, baby. Go! But not too much—

I raised my thumb. The pressure at my back abruptly lifted. “What’s my mid-course correction?” I barked.

“We—we plot you into a delta-vee of zero point three seven at five minutes, forty-three seconds from now.” Dad’s voice was clipped and official. “Transmitting to your inboard on the signal.”

I heard the beep a second later. I was on my way. The new course correction