Jupiter

“How deep do you plan to go?”

“Deep enough to find whatever those things are that we saw swimming on the first mission.”

“Do you really think they’re alive?” Grant asked.

Muzorawa turned from the wallscreen to look at Grant. “How high is up?” he asked.

Grant understood. Don’t ask useless questions. The first mission had detected objects in the ocean. This new mission would try to determine what those objects might be. Until they got more data, questions about the nature of the objects could not be answered.

But then Muzorawa nodded, ever so slightly. Barely a dip of his chin. “I believe they are alive, yes. But that is only a belief, a matter of faith—or perhaps it would be better to say a matter of hope. Until we obtain hard evidence, that is all we have to go on: our individual faith, our hopes, our fears.”

“Fears?”

“Oh, yes. Fears.” Muzorawa pointed to the big wallscreen. “There are many people who fear what we might discover underneath those clouds.”

Grant blinked with surprise. “Who? Nobody here on the station, is there?”

“Probably not,” Muzorawa replied. “Wo has screened all the personnel here rather thoroughly.” He hesitated, thinking over his next words, then said, “He was afraid of you at first, you know.”

He was afraid of me?”

Smiling, “Certainly. He feared you were an agent from the Zealots, come to spy on his work.”

“The Zealots?”

“The ultraconservatives. They are always among us, those who fear new knowledge. Nearly a thousand years ago they destroyed a great Persian astronomer and mathematician: Omar Khayyam.”

“Omar… I thought he was a poet.”

Muzorawa shook his head slowly. “His quatrains were a hobby. He was a scientist. He understood that Earth goes around the Sun three centuries before Copernicus. For that the mullahs destroyed him. To this day no one knows where he lies buried.”

“Ultraconservatives,” Grant muttered. “Zealots.”

“In my part of the world they call themselves the Sword of Islam. You have them among your New Morality, don’t you?”

“But I’m not one of them!”

“Dr. Wo wasn’t sure of you. That was why he gave us orders to keep sensitive information from you.”

“But why would the New Morality, or the Zealots, or whatever, want to spy on him?” Grant hated himself for saying it, for lying to his friend and mentor. But I’m not a Zealot, he told himself. I’m not working for fanatics. I’m not!

Muzorawa gripped Grant by the shoulder. “My friend, there are powerful forces among the Zealots who fear new knowledge. They do not appreciate our studies of extraterrestrial life-forms.”

“I know some of the more conservative Believers are uncomfortable with the idea of alien life,” Grant admitted. “But—”

“If they are uncomfortable with alien bacteria and lichen,” Muzorawa interrupted, “how do you think they feel about meeting intelligent aliens?”

“Intelligent?”

“The possibility exists.”

Grant’s inside felt suddenly hollow. “Intelligent creatures? You mean, here, on Jupiter?”

“The possibility exists,” Muzorawa repeated.

“But there’s no evidence …”

“You haven’t seen any evidence. Dr. Wo still does not trust you as fully as that.”

“The things you saw in the ocean?”

“He believes,” Muzorawa said.

“Intelligent?”

“There isn’t enough data even to confirm that they are living organisms. But the director believes they may be not only living but intelligent.”

Understanding flooded into Grant’s mind. “That’s why he brought in the dolphins. And Sheena!”

“To study nonhuman intelligence. Yes. To help us in the effort to communicate with the Jovians.”

“All this … based on his belief? On his hunch? His guess?”

“Belief is a very powerful force, my friend. More powerful than you can imagine. Copernicus believed the Earth revolves around the Sun. Maxwell believed light is a form of electromagnetic radiation, based on nothing more than the coincidence of numbers in his equations.”

“And the Zealots believe that God created us in His image. Extraterrestrial life threatens that belief.”

“And intelligent extraterrestrial life demolishes it.”

Grant countered, “But we’ve known about the Martians for decades now.”

“They are extinct,” Muzorawa said. “And they can be explained away by the faithful.”

With a nod Grant conceded the point. His own father firmly believed that the long-vanished Martians had actually come to Earth and that Mars had been the original Garden of Eden. All the archeological evidence showed that such an idea was nonsense, it was impossible, but that is what the faithful believed. What they wanted to believe, Grant knew.

“Intelligent extraterrestrial life,” Muzorawa went on, “that in no way looks like us, is a frightening idea for many people, in many religions.”

“God created man in His image,” Grant muttered.

“If we find intelligent life that does not resemble us…”

“It disproves Scripture,” Grant concluded.

“That is why the conservatives everywhere have opposed space exploration. That is why they opposed using telescopes to search for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations.”

“And Wo thought I might be one of them, just because I’m faithful to my religion.”

“I think he trusts you now.”

Grant nodded uncertainly. “Maybe.”

“He has taken you under his wing, hasn’t he? He’s working with you on your thesis.”

Grant nodded again, but he thought, A man like Wo is smart enough, devious enough, to keep me under his wing so that he can keep a close watch on me. Maybe he knows about Beech. Maybe he knows I’m supposed to be spying on him.

Beech. Grant saw in his mind’s eye the solemn, intense, tawny-eyed face of Ellis Beech. Him, a fanatic? Grant wondered. It couldn’t be. Ellis Beech was just a functionary, a bureaucrat, a man who sat behind a desk all day and shuffled papers. He couldn’t be a Zealot. He just couldn’t be!

Precisely at that moment, the overhead speaker of the station’s intercom system blared, “GRANT ARCHER, REPORT TO THE DIRECTOR’S OFFICE IMMEDIATELY.”

Startled, Grant thought, By the Living God, the man can read my mind!

COUNTDOWN

If Dr. Wo really could see what Grant was thinking, he gave no sign of it. His perpetual scowl seemed a bit less fierce than usual as he gruffly waved Grant to the chair in front of his desk. As always, the desk was bare, except for the vase of flowers—thickly lush peonies, this time—the only touch of color in the starkly functional office. Despite the almost stifling warmth of the room, Wo’s high-collared tunic was buttoned up to his throat, as usual.

“Dr. Muzorawa has told you that the mission is scheduled for launch in thirty days.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, sir,” Grant replied, thinking, He must have every lab and compartment in the station bugged.

“I have been reviewing your work on the ocean dynamics,” Wo said in his labored harsh whisper. “Tidal variations. Very interesting. That bears further study.”