Jupiter Project

There are those in ISA who believe you have been altogether too arbitrary already in your policies. I would expect —”

Aarons stood up. “That, sir, is too much. Your faction is well known to me. I hear about your maneuverings constantly. But you do not have to insure the safety of this Laboratory. Your only obligation is to complain.”

“I think that is a totally unfair—”

“To hell with your idea of fairness.”

“—and your own attitude will be well documented, I assure—”

“Your son is inexperienced at long flights outside the Can. He is unqualified,” Commander Aarons said stiffly.

“No more so than others. I feel he is owed—”

“I will not have you strong-arming me with your ISA connections. Out!”

“What?” Dr. Sagdaeff looked surprised. “You cannot insult a senior member of the staff by ordering him to —”

“Out! Or do I have to assist you to the door?”

Yuri’s father froze for a moment, reassessing the situation. It obviously hadn’t gone the way he thought it would. “I hope you realize—”

“Out!”

Dr. Sagdaeff stood slowly and turned toward the door.

“Oh, yes.” Aarons said, a little of the steam leaving his voice, “I suppose I do owe you the favor of being the first to hear the announcement. Dr. Sagdaeff. Seeing as how you are a senior member of the staff and all that.” He smiled without mirth. “I had chosen the replacement before you even came to see me. I made the decision before you could try to put your political spin on it, you see. What Sagan needs is somebody with experience on shuttle-type craft.”

He pointed at me. “And there he is.”

Chapter 16

It took two more days to outfit the Sagan for an extra-long flight. I spent most of the time working with Mr. Jablons on the Faraday cups. The biologists were concentrating on the spores themselves so much, nobody had taken the time to figure out how we found them in the first place.

After some tinkering, we figured out why the cup on Satellite Seventeen had cleared up after it had left the region above the poles. It turned out that the spores had their charge bled away after a few hours of contact with the grid and plate. Simple electrical conduction. When their charge vanished they were no longer attracted to the grid, so they gradually drifted out and away into space.

But the biologists had the limelight. Everybody wanted details and everybody had a half-baked theory. Dr. Kadin held a seminar that packed the auditorium. Earth kept the laser comm net saturated with questions, and they televised Dr. Kadin’s talk for prime-time showing Earthside.

In the question session afterward, somebody asked why the older cup I had replaced hadn’t shorted out, too. I had to admit I didn’t know. Maybe the cups didn’t have exactly identical electrical characteristics. Or maybe only a few of the storms carried spores. I had no idea. As the scientists say when they want to wriggle out from under, that aspect of the problem will be left for future research.

I trained for my job. We were taking along a shuttlecraft that had been in storage. It was outfitted with better detectors and special equipment, hydraulics and electron-beam cutters and omnisensors. We would carry it out on the hull of the Sagan. I was to be the pilot. I named it Roadhog. Sentimental, I guess.

There was a big, noisy crowd saying good-bye at the main lock. Somebody was taking 3D scans for Earthside media hype. I said good-bye solemnly to my mother and waved at friends. Zak thumped me on the back, grinning.

“Hold the fort.” I said. I grabbed Jenny and gave her a long kiss that unfocused her eyes. I shook hands in a manly, exaggerated way with Zak. Then I lugged my gear out to the Sagan.

It took three days to reach J-11. We maneuvered into a parallel orbit thirty klicks away from it and the scientists got busy peering at it in the optical, infrared, UV, and beyond. J-11 was an unappetizing lump of rock, a flying mountain. Jagged peaks caught the sunlight and pooled the low spots in shadow. The whole thing was barely thirty klicks across at its longest dimension. There were no snowdrifts or clumps of ice clinging in dark corners, just cratered granite-gray rock. That suggested it had not condensed out of the primordial soup around Jupiter. It was probably a captured asteroid, tugged into orbit by tidal forces long ago.

We saw no swarms. Nothing on J-11 moved. So the next step was a close reconnaissance—and I got to go.

I suited up and went out onto the hull to check out Roadhog. Maybe it should have been Roadhog II, but that would’ve been pretentious. I clumped around in magnetic boots. Commander Aarons came out to look things over. I repped and verified all systems. He waved to the exploration party of eight that I was to ferry over. They climbed on and belted in.

This was where Roadhog was essential. We couldn’t risk taking the Sagan in close to J-11; any small error in jockeying around could smash the ship into a peak. In the Roadhog a small party could slip down into the fissures and get a good look if they needed to.

Lt. Sharma was in charge. His orders were to nose around and report back. The civilian head of the group was my father, one of his jobs, I was sure, would be keeping an eye on me. After all, I was the kid who disobeyed direct orders and stole a shuttle.

We took our time crossing the thirty kilometers. Jenny and I had fitted extra seats on Roadhog back at the Can and now the exploration party was belted into them behind me. What with equipment lashed to every available pipe and strut, we looked like a gypsy wagon.

Jupiter hung off to the left. This far out it didn’t fill the sky any more; its orange bands were creamy and smooth, with no detail, and Ganymede was a frozen silver dot at its side. The scenery hadn’t really changed that much, considering that we were twenty-two million kilometers from the Can.

J-11 was tumbling slightly and I had to correct several times before we were hanging steady over one spot on its surface. I nudged us in slowly, watching the shadows below shift as the tiny moon rotated in the sunlight.

Nobody said anything; most of them were busy taking pictures and watching their meters. After I fixed our relative position there wasn’t much to do; J-11’s gravity was so weak it would take years to draw us in.

After several minutes I said, “Dad?”

“Yes. son?”

“See that crater down there? The big one, between the twin peaks?”

“Ummmm, yes. What about it?”

“For a minute there I thought I saw a bright flash, like metal reflecting the sun, right down at the bottom.”

“I can’t see the bottom.”

“It’s in shadow now. The rock must be dark there, anyway; I couldn’t see anything even when the sunlight was slanting down into it.”

“Let’s go in closer,” one of the other men said. I looked at Lt. Sharma, who was sitting next to me. “Go ahead,” he said.

I nudged the Roadhog nearer. The crater grew. I was busy watching our trajectory and didn’t look up until someone yelled, “Hey! There’s a hole in it.”

He was right. The “crater” was a bottomless pit, several miles across. Where you would expect to see a flat floor there was nothing, just blackness. Utter, eerie blackness.

There was a lot of chatter over suit radio. I tuned it out and concentrated on my piloting. Every few minutes