Jupiter Project

Chapter 6

It was a long flight. Ganymede isn’t any further away from Jupiter than the Can—in fact, the two are in exactly the same orbit. But not at the same place in that orbit—the Can tags along after Ganymede, a million kilometers behind.

Sure, it would be easier to study Jupiter from an orbit closer in; near one of the smaller moons, like Io, say. But Jupiter’s radiation belts are too intense there, so we have to watch Jove from a safe distance. Even so, the Can still needs those pancake “lids” of water to screen out the hard radiation that sleets in on us. We got the water from Ganymede’s ice fields. Ganymede is our corner grocery store out here; anything we can’t mine out of its crust has to be boosted all the way from Earth.

Ganymede is so vital to us, I once got the idea that maybe we should move the Can, put it into orbit around Ganymede itself. Make ourselves into a sort of a moon around a moon, so to speak. My father sat me down and drew me some diagrams, and showed me that Ganymede would block out a lot of our transmissions to Earth, not to mention the telemetry from our satellites near Jupiter. And its reflected light would interfere with our telescopes. So the Can trails along behind Ganymede at a position called the Trojan Point, where its orbit is stable. And every flight between the two takes over eleven hours.

So I was dog tired when we got there. The Sagan makes few concessions to passengers; I was sore from my space suit and restless from doing nothing.

Most of our party was asleep when the blue and brown disk of Ganymede rolled into view in the forward port. Zak and I sneaked up to get a better look, even though the seat-belt light was on. I passed Yuri dozing in an aisle seat, no doubt reliving his triumph at squash. Well, I thought, he still had to play Ishi. I ignored him.

But he tripped me as I went by.

I stumbled slightly in the weak gravity and heard his hollow chuckle. “Still clumsy, eh Bohles?”

I knotted my fists and started to say something.

“Oh. mama’s boy is taking offense?” Yuri interrupted me. “Tsk tsk.”

“C’mon, Matt,” Zak said, putting a restraining hand on my shoulder. “Don’t bother.”

I didn’t say anything. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t come out sounding like I was whining. After a pause I turned and followed Zak down the aisle, seething. We looked out the forward viewpoint.

Blue ice and frost spread out from both poles of Ganymede. Around the equator was a thick belt of bare brown rock and river valleys. The rivers sliced through the rims of ancient craters. The valleys were choked with a pale ruddy fog; naked peaks jutted about it.

Thin atmosphere sang around the Sagan and we went back to our seats. In a moment our nose bit in and we settled into the long glide down.

We were here for two weeks of frolic away from cares, away from family, away from the Jovian Astronautical-Biological Orbital Laboratory. The family part is important: the psychers say it’s good for kids like us to get away from the loco parentis every half year. Keeps down the nervous wigglies in the Lab, makes it easier to live all together in one huge tin Can.

There was a sudden tug as Captain Vandez gunned her, a faint dropping sensation, and then a solid bump. I started unstrapping.

Zak snapped shut his book of poems—brushing up on the competition, he called it—and patted around for his glasses. With them on he looks like the kid computer ace he is; when he’s in his literary lion phase he pretends he doesn’t need them.

“Collect youah baggage on the ground,” came a shout over my suit radio. I motioned to Zak and we were the first ones into the air lock. It cycled and the hatch popped open.

I stared out at a range of steep hills, covered in white water frost. About five hundred meters away I could see the slight gray tinge that was the life dome, against a sky of black.

“Move it!” someone called over radio. I looked down and saw a man waving at the drop rope that hung by the air lock.

“Over you go. kid.” I heard Yuri’s voice behind me and somebody kicked me out into space. I grabbed for the rope, caught it with one hand. In Ganymede’s one-third g you don’t fall fast but I was still recovering when I hit the ground with a solid thump.

I took a few steps away from the rope and then turned back. Yuri was just finishing a smooth slide down.

“You’re still clubfooted, junior,” he said and I took a swipe at him. He dodged and it landed on his shoulder.

“Come on,” I said, setting my feet.

“Mad about a little roughhousing, smartass?” he said with mock surprise.

Somebody shoved me aside. I turned threateningly and saw it was the man who had secured the drop rope. “Break it up!” he snarled at me. “Get out of the way of the rope. You kids can play big men somewhere else.”

Yuri walked away. I tried to cool off and waited until Zak came down.

“He’s still riding you. huh?” he said.

“Looks like it.”

“Yuri hates you being brighter and quicker than he is. So he uses muscle instead. Don’t let him provoke you.”

I balled up a fist, “I’d like to—”

“Yeah, I know. But that’s playing his game.”

“So what? I can’t—”

“Listen, he’s got you going both ways. That guy didn’t see Yuri boot you out, he just heard you try to pick a fight. So Yuri got all the points in that scramble. Listen, next time just treat him okay. Maybe after this he’ll feel square with you.”

“Well…maybe.”

A winch was already lowering nets of baggage from the cargo lock. We walked over and helped two men unroll the net. Our cases were in it. We scooped them up and started toward the base buildings. They housed some of the fifty permanent staff members; the rest lived under the life dome, further away.

The Sagan’s jet splash had melted the ground and made a brown spot in the ghostly white. We trotted along, my suit chuffing away to fight off the cold. When the first expedition landed here the surface was at 150 degrees Centigrade below zero. The reclamation project has warmed things up, but not much.

We reached the administration building and banged on the lock. In a moment the green light winked on and we cycled through. We came out in a suiting-up room. I popped my helmet pressure and found the air was sweeter than I’d expected; they’re making improvements in the base all the time. We lugged our bags into the next room and found a man behind a counter with a clipboard.

“Your name—oh, Palonski and Bohles. Welcome back. Gluttons for punishment, aren’t you? I see you asked for a Walker again.”

“Better than refueling duty,” I said and he chuckled. Pumping water and ammonia into the Sagan’s tanks is the most boring job imaginable; you watch dials for two hours, spend five minutes switching hoses, and then sit two hours again.

He assigned us bunk numbers and let us go; the families with children would get a complete lecture on safety and a long list of things they couldn’t do. I’d heard the lecture ten times before and could probably give it about as well as he could.

We found our bunks and stowed our gear without wasting any time. We didn’t want the mob to catch up with us. As soon as things were squared away Zak and I beat it across the base and trotted over to the dome lock.

The dome is the whole point of Ganymede, for me. I was out of my suit and putting on tennis shoes almost before the air lock had stopped wheezing. I had to gulp a few times to adjust my inner ear to the dome’s pressure, but that was automatic. Anybody who has been in space learns to do that without thinking—or ends up with lancing ear pains when he forgets. Zak was just as fast, and we went through the door together.