Then he wondered what the increasing pressure was doing to Krebs. Her condition was due to pressure- induced trauma to her brain. It would be worse as they descended deeper. Did she feel pain? Confusion? He shot a glance over his shoulder at her. Krebs seemed perfectly normal, floating in her usual spot up by the overhead, scowling at him.
“She’s following the currents of organic particles,” O’Hara said to Grant once they were back to the sleeping area.
“You can see them that clearly?”
With a smile Lane said, “In the sonar they show up like a whirlwind, except that they appear white as snow.”
Gesturing to the wallscreen of their common area, Grant asked, “Can you show me?”
O’Hara nodded and spoke into the screen’s microphone. “Display sonar imagery.”
The screen brightened to life, showing a stream of bright white swirling through the dark ocean. It’s just as Lane described it, Grant thought: a whirlwind of snow. He knew the white color of the imagery was an artifact created by the computer program. It made the organic particles easier to discern against the ocean background, easier to track. Lord, Grant thought, if I’d known about this I could’ve used the particles to map out the ocean currents.
With sudden enthusiasm, he stepped to the microphone and said, “Correlate sonar returns with mapping imagery.”
“Please provide more specific input,” the computer’s synthesized voice replied.
Grant ducked into his cubicle and stretched the length of his bunk to pull his palmcomp from its resting place on the shelf above his pillow.
“I’ll be at this awhile,” he said to O’Hara as he sat on the end of his bunk.
She shrugged and crawled into her own cubicle.
After a few minutes, Krebs appeared at the hatch, trailing her optical fibers from her legs, “You are supposed to be resting, Mr. Archer, not writing your thesis.”
“This isn’t my thesis, ma’am,” he said, totally missing her irony. “I’m setting up my fluid dynamics program to use the particle streams as tracers—you know, the way aerodynamicists use smoke particles in their wind tunnel tests.”
“You need your rest.”
“Yes’m. In a few minutes, please.”
Krebs watched him in silence for several seconds, then turned and floated back into the bridge. Grant was still working on the palmcomp when Muzorawa and Karlstad came in for their rest period.
“She wants you on duty,” Muzorawa said.
“In a minute,” Grant said. “I’m almost finished here.”
“Can I help?” Zeb asked, settling on the end of the bunk beside Grant.
“It would take longer to bring you up to speed than it will for me to finish this.”
Muzorawa laughed softly. “The cruel honesty of youth.”
Grant didn’t reply. He barely heard the older man. He hardly noticed when Muzorawa got up and went back to the bridge.
When at last he was finished and the program was running properly, Grant pushed himself up from the bunk and swam through the hatch. Muzorawa was at his console, fully linked up, with O’Hara beside him.
“Are you finished, Mr. Archer?” Krebs asked, dripping acid.
“Yes, ma’am. The program’s working fine now. Thank you for being so patient.”
“Thank Dr. Muzorawa; he is doing your work instead of enjoying his rest period.”
Grant fumbled with his optical fibers in his hurry to get linked. Zeb shot him an understanding smile.
“You have thoroughly messed up the work schedule, Archer,” growled Krebs. “I hope your inspiration improves the fluid dynamics program enough to compensate.”
Grant nodded, thinking, It does. It certainly does. But he knew enough to keep his mouth shut.
They passed seventy kilometers’ depth, following the spiraling flow of the organic particles, still diving deeper. Karlstad complained of a constant headache, O’Hara said she was starting to feel nagging pains in her arms and back, even Muzorawa said he was having some difficulty breathing. Grant’s own headache was still there, not much worse than earlier but certainly no better. Krebs said nothing, neither complaining about her own condition nor making the slightest comment on their gripes. She seemed utterly disdainful of their frailties; whenever she barked a command at him, Grant thought she was looking through him, not at him.
The ship creaked and groaned constantly now, making Grant wonder how deep they could safely go. He recalled that the ship’s design limit was ninety kilometers.
Ninety? Grant marveled. We’ve all got physical problems now, at seventy; how will we be when we’re twenty klicks deeper?
Still Krebs kept the ship descending.
“Do you realize where we’re heading?” O’Hara asked Grant during one of their reliefs.
He felt bone-tired; his throbbing headache was sapping his energy. Lane looked weary, too. She floated a few centimeters from the deck of their common area.
arms half bent before her.
“What do you mean?” he asked. What he really wanted was to crawl back into his berth and sleep for the four hours that were due him.
“The Spot,” Lane said.
That made Grant’s eyes snap wide. “The Great Red Spot?” His voice squeaked, even in the tone-deepening perfluorocarbon.
She nodded as she hooked a heel against the end of her bunk and forced herself down to a sitting position.
“We can’t be going into the Great Red Spot,” Grant said.
“That’s where the currents lead,” O’Hara said, “and we’re following the currents.”
“But she’ll turn off sooner or later.”
“She’s convinced that if there are creatures that eat those organics, they must follow the thickest streams of them. So we’re following the thickest stream and it flows into the Spot.”
“But she’ll veer off,” Grant repeated. “Before we get too close.”
O’Hara closed her eyes. “I suppose so. At the moment I don’t really care. All I want is a good sleep— and to wake up without this backache.”
Grant slid into his berth and fastened the mesh webbing that kept him from floating off the mattress while he was sleeping. It was like nestling into a cocoon, one of the few comforts on this mission. He fell asleep almost instantly.
And dreamed of being dragged into a never-ending whirlpool, crushed and drowned, his screams unheard, his pain unending.
TENACITY
“Approaching ninety kilometers,” said O’Hara, her voice edgy, tinged with strain.
Maximum design depth, Grant knew. He and Lane were on duty, Karlstad and Muzorawa in their berths. O’Hara looked tense, tired. She’s in pain, just like me, Grant thought. Like all of us. We’re all suffering. The pressure’s getting to us, physically and mentally.
“Level off at ninety,” said Krebs, “and maintain course.”
Continue following the stream of organics, Grant interpreted the order. Continue heading toward the Great Red Spot. At least we won’t go any deeper, he thought. We can’t. The ship can’t take it; neither can we.
There was still no sign of any Jovian creatures, great or small. The organic particles swirled and flowed through the great surging ocean, but there was no sign of creatures that fed on them. They had even driven all the
