Jupiter

were when Krebs fired off the data capsule.”

“What of it?” Wo snapped. “If Pascal is incapacitated, we must learn why.”

Incapacitated? Grant thought. What a bloodless way of putting it. Irene could be dead, for God’s sake.

A yellow light started to blink on Wo’s console: the communications indicator. He banged it with a heavy fist.

The wallscreen image immediately changed. It was Krebs again, but the picture was grainy, streaked with interference. But it was a real-time image; the submersible was in contact with the station again.

“We are forced to return to the station,” she said. “Please acknowledge.”

“Acknowledged,” Wo said, almost in a snarl.

“What is Dr. Pascal’s condition?” Buono asked.

Krebs blinked at the camera. “She is unconscious. We have placed her in her berth and put a breathing mask on her, to force extra perfluorocarbon into her lungs.”

Buono was working her keyboard swiftly, fingers almost a blur. Each of the crew had medical sensors fixed to their skin. Grant saw what he thought was an EKG trace on Buono’s console screen, but the green wormline tracing Irene’s heartbeat looked weak, irregular, to him.

“Put pressure cuffs on her legs and arms,” Buono ordered. “Keep the blood in her torso and head.”

There was a slight but noticeable delay in Krebs’s answer. Grant realized that Zheng He was still deep below the cloud deck.

“There are no pressure cuffs in the medical stores,” Krebs said.

Buono muttered something under her breath.

Grant leaned toward Frankovich and asked, “Is Irene going to die?”

Frankovich shrugged elaborately, said nothing.

Grant tried to look past Krebs’s dour, grim face to see the rest of the crew, but the camera was set at an angle that did not show them.

“Patti,” he called to the physician, “should you check on the monitors for the rest of the crew?”

Buono shot him a venomous glance. “And what good would that do?”

Grant had to admit she was right. There was nothing they could do to help the crew, not until they returned to the station.

“It’s all being recorded,” Buono added in a softer tone.

“Yeah, okay,” Grant said.

After more than six hours of communicating with Krebs, Wo told Grant, Quintero, and Ukara that they could leave the control center.

“But you are to consider yourselves on standby alert,” the director added. “Be ready to return to duty instantly.”

Slowly, tiredly, Grant slid out of his seat. Quintero sprang up, quick and lithe despite his bulk.

“Do you want me to bring you a tray?” Grant asked Frankovich.

“I’m not hungry,” he said.

“You’re going to be here for a long time,” Grant pointed out. “I’ll bring some sandwiches and something to drink.”

Frankovich conceded with a nod. “Maybe some fruit, too.”

“Right.” Grant started for the door.

“And remember,” Wo said sharply, “you are to discuss this incident with no one. No one! Understand me?”

The three of them nodded.

Grant headed for the cafeteria. He saw that it was early for dinner, yet a fair number of people were heading the same way he was. The line at the sandwich counter was short, though, and in quick order Grant filled his tray.

“Why so glum, chum?”

It was Tamiko Hideshi, grinning at him. It took Grant a moment to realize that, to all the hundreds of other people in the station, this was a perfectly normal workday. Nothing unusual was happening in their lives. Things were going along as always. They weren’t worried about a friend who might be dying in a ship beneath the clouds of Jupiter.

“Hi, Tami,” he said.

Nodding at his heavily laden tray, Hideshi said, “For a guy who’s stoking up for a picnic, you look awfully unhappy. What’s up with you?”

Grant shook his head. “I’ve got to get back to the control center.”

“The picnic’s in there?”

He stepped past her, offering over his shoulder, “It’s no picnic, believe me.”

RETURN

Even though he had been relieved of duty, Grant stayed in the control center, at his console. Under Krebs’s command, Zheng He rose through Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere, a saucer-shaped aircraft instead of a submersible. Once above the clouds, Krebs lit the ship’s plasma rockets and Zheng He established itself in orbit, a spacecraft once again.

Buono never left her console. All the indicators from Pascal’s medical sensors showed that her condition was slowly deteriorating. It’s a race against time, Grant thought, to get her here where she can get proper medical care before she dies.

It took several orbits around the gigantic planet, many tense hours, before Zheng He was in position to start re-docking maneuvers. Krebs handled the tricky pas de deux flawlessly, and Grant thought he could feel the thump of the ship’s airlock connecting with the station’s access tube. It was nonsense and he knew it, but still he thought he caught a hint of a vibration down in his guts, a visceral affirmation that the crew had returned safely.

They loped down the main corridor, all pretense of secrecy forgotten, in their hurry to reach the access tunnel. Wo, in his powered wheelchair, scattered startled people like a bowling ball rolling through sentient pins capable of getting out of its way—just barely.

Despite himself, Grant grinned at the shouted curses and yells of anger that echoed along the corridor as he and the others sprinted after Wo’s speeding powerchair.

Wo was yelling into the chair’s built-in phone as he careened along the corridor. He was calling someone. Grant could make out the words “… security” and “… seal off the area …” Apparently the director wanted to make certain there were no gawkers at the access tunnel when they brought out the ship’s crew.

They skidded to a stop at the tunnel’s entry hatch. Sure enough, two burly security guards were standing there. And there were two more at the airlock hatch.

“You two get up to the entry area,” Wo commanded. “Clear the entire section of corridor between here and the infirmary.”

They hustled up the tunnel, leaving the five controllers and Dr. Wo facing the sealed airlock hatch.

“I’ve got to get in there,” Buono said, pushing herself up beside Wo in his chair. “The sooner—”

“You can’t go through,” the director said. “They’re in high-pressure fluid. You’re not equipped to breathe it.”

Buono’s jaw sagged open. “I’d forgotten …”

“They must be depressurized,” Wo went on. “The procedure will take several hours.”

“How will that affect Irene’s condition?” Ukara asked urgently.

Wo shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Who knows?”

“We know one thing,” Buono said gloomily. ‘The longer it takes to get her into the infirmary, the worse her chances will be.”

* * *