gliding by below. I windmilled my arms, bringing my head toward the pancake. I snatched downward. Grabbed it. Held on for the jolt—
When my arms felt like a bundle of knots, I knew I had it. I flailed wildly and got my other hand onto it. My arm was numb. I dumbly watched pieces of
“Matt! You okay?”
“I… I think so.”
“Don’t waste time! Get over to the lock!”
“Yeah…sure… Maybe the team can…”
“It’s faster if you follow the emergency line to the ten-A lock.”
“Oh…okay.”
I started hand over fist along the skin of the pancake, working my way toward the bright blue emergency line twenty meters away.
Inside Lock ten-A I sagged against the bulkhead and listened to the hiss of air flooding in around me. I looked down. My adhesive patch looked like somebody had been trying to snatch it bald. There were cuts and nicks all over my suit. I still had the goddam Faraday cup sealed in the carry-bag on my left leg. My leg ached there; it must have banged against me. But through the clear plastic the cup didn’t look damaged. I thought.
I waited for the lock to cycle. I was wrung out, depressed. I half expected to be met by the ship’s officer who would put me in handcuffs.
But then the lock swung open. The tube outside looked like a subway car. People were jammed in. They waved and beamed as I stepped forward. I popped my helmet and a warm rush of noise poured in.
“Matt!” My mother wrapped her arms around me and cried.
Dad was there, smiling and frowning at the same time, shaking hands with me.
People were swarming around, touching me, helping me off with my suit.
Mr. Jablons appeared at my elbow, “Welcome back.” He took the Faraday cup in its wrapper. “Good luck with the boss, too.” His eyes twinkled and he gestured with his head at Commander Aarons, who was talking to an officer down the corridor.
“How do you feel, Matt?” I turned the other way and saw Jenny.
“Great.”
“I hope you—”
“Forget it. I’m immortal,” I said gruffly. I didn’t mention that for some reason my knees felt weak. And nobody commented on what a dumb fool stunt I’d pulled.
Commander Aarons scowled over at me. “No,” I heard him say. “I will talk to him later. Let the doctors have a look first.”
A hand took my elbow roughly and guided me through the crowd. I winked at Jenny, hoping I looked self- confident.
There were two medical attendants with me. They hustled me into an elevator and we zipped inward five levels. I was in a daze. A doctor in a white coat poked at me, took a blood sample, urinanalysis, skin sections—and then ordered me into a ’fresher.
I got a new set of standard ship work clothes when I came out, and a light supper. My time sense was all fouled up; it was early morning, ship’s time, but my stomach thought it was lunch. And I felt like I was a million years old.
After that they left me alone.
Finally someone stuck his head in a door and motioned me into the next room. The doctor was in there, reading a chart.
“Young man,” he said slowly, “you have given me and your parents and a lot of other people a great deal of trouble. That was an extremely foolish gesture to make. These past few days have been hard on all of us, but such heroics are not to be excused.”
He looked at me sternly. “I imagine the Commander will have more to say to you. I hope he disciplines you well. By freak chance, you seem to have avoided getting a serious dosage of radiation. Your blood count is nearly normal. I expect it will reach equilibrium again within a few hours.”
“I’m okay?”
“That is what I said. Your—”
There was a knock at the door. It opened and a bridge officer looked in. “Finished. Doctor?”
“Nearly.” He turned to me. “I want you to know that you came very close to killing yourself, young man. The background level out there is rising rapidly; it very nearly boiled you alive. Commander Aarons will make an example of you—”
“No doubt.” I got up. The Doctor pressed his lips together into a thin line, then nodded reluctantly to the officer. We left.
“What now?” I said in the tube outside. “The Commander’s office?”
“Nope. Mr. Jablons’.”
“Why?”
They don’t let me in on their secrets. The Commander is there now. He sent me for you. If it was up to me I’d have you thrashed, kid.”
I didn’t say anything more until we reached the electronics lab. There weren’t any more convenient excuses. No dodges, no explanations. I had pulled off a dumb stunt and saved my neck only by smashing up
I slumped as I walked beside the bridge officer, my shoulders sagging forward. My conversation with Zak drifted through my head.
Fuzzy thoughts floated by. The corridor seemed to ripple as I followed the bridge officer. I felt like some Earthside dope-o on mindwipe.
I took a deep breath and my head cleared a little. The bridge officer scowled at me. I tried to give him a smile with some bravado in it. It didn’t work. We reached the electronics lab.
The Commander himself opened the door and waved the bridge officer away. He didn’t look angry. In fact, he hardly saw me as I came in and closed the door. He was gazing off into space, thinking.
Dad and Mr. Jablons were sitting at one of the work benches. Dr. Kadin was working at a high-vacuum tank in the middle of the room. His hands were inserted in the waldoes and he was moving something inside the tank.
Dad looked up when I came in. “Ah, there you are, Mr. Lucky.”
“Huh?”
“Look in the tank.”
I walked over and looked through the glass. The Faraday cup was inside. Some of the sticky dust had been taken out with the waldo arms and scattered over a series of pyrex plates. The plates were spotted with green and blue chemicals and one of the plates was fixed under a viewing microscope.
“That contaminant you found inside the cup wasn’t dust, Matt,” my father said. “It is a colony of—well, something like spores. They are still active, as far as we can tell.”
Dr. Kadin turned and looked at me. “Quite so. It would seem, young Mr. Bohles, that you have discovered life on Jupiter.”
Chapter 14
Suddenly everybody in the room was smiling: Mr. Jablons laughed. “When they write this up in the history books, they’ll have to record that blank look of yours, Matt.”
