Jupiter (27 page)

He threw himself on his bed and immediately fell into an exhausted, dreamless sleep. The next morning he took his shift at the mission control center and spent four hours looking at the silent consoles and dead wallscreen. Nacho Quintero relieved him, laughing about his latest prank: last night he'd sprayed epoxy on the cafeteria chair next to his own.

'Kayla sat in it and couldn't get out,' Quintero wheezed, laughing almost to the point of tears. 'She hadda unzip her coveralls and wiggle out of 'em. You oughtta see the underwear she's got!' He waved a big, meaty hand as if to fan himself.

As Nacho got up from his chair Grant said, 'I'll bet Kayla really loves you for that.'

Quintero's laughter doubled, and tears actually did leak from his squeezed-shut eyes.

'You shoulda seen it! She grabbed one of Red's fry-pans an' chased me halfway down to the aquarium!'

Grant made an amused face, mumbled the right words, and left Quintero still shaking with laughter. Once outside the control center, he headed for the fluid dynamics lab. It's time to get back to my thesis, he told himself.

He plopped down on one of the lab's little wheeled chairs and called up the three-dimensional map he'd made of the

Jovian ocean currents. But he could not concentrate on the work. Wo's confession of guilt, his near-paranoid fears of the Zealots, the others — Zeb, Lane and all — in the sub, probing the depths of the Jovian ocean.

And here I sit, worrying about my damnable thesis, he told himself.

Then another voice in his mind said, That's not what's bothering you.

I know, Grant admitted.

It was Sheena. Grant felt terrible that he had ruined Irene Pascal's experiment, and even worse that he had hurt the gorilla. It's like betraying a child, he thought. Sheena
trusted
me. And now she doesn't. How could she?

With a startled flare of recognition Grant realized that he had come to like Sheena as a friend, a two-year-old friend, perhaps, but the relationship between them had become important to him.

How can I rebuild that trust? How can I become her friend again?

He hauled himself to his feet. You can't do it here, he said to himself. You've got to go down to her pen and face her.

His fists clenched at his sides, his insides fluttering, Grant strode along the main corridor toward the aquarium. He passed dozens of people, scooters and coverall-clad technicians and administrators in their neatly-pressed shirts and slacks. All of them working on the studies of Jupiter's moons, all of them intent on their careers, their lives. There's only ten of us involved in the real work, Grant reminded himself. Eleven, counting Wo. None of these others knows what we're doing.

Or do they? he wondered. It's impossible to keep the deep mission totally secret. Certainly Red Devlin knows more about it than he should. Anybody can see that the submersible is gone.

Looking into the faces of the people as he passed them, Grant asked himself, Which one of them is a Zealot? Which one of them would kill us all, just to stop Wo's crazy notion that there's intelligent life down there. God, he's just as fanatical as any of them!

Grant found himself in front of the closed hatch that led into the aquarium. A new graffito had been scrawled in blood-red ink next to the keypad on the bulkhead:

If fish is brain food, why ain't we smart enough to get home?

With a sigh of understanding, Grant tapped out the entry code. The lock clicked and Grant pushed through. The aquarium was chilly and quiet. No one here. Grant walked slowly, hesitantly along the big tanks, seeing the gliding, gulping fish only out of the corner of his eye.

She ought to be around here someplace, Grant thought. She wouldn't be in her pen in the middle of the day.

But Sheena was nowhere to be found. With a sudden lurch in the pit of his stomach, Grant bolted from the aquarium and sprinted for the surgical laboratory, down by the station's infirmary.

'Sheena?' The lone nurse on duty at the infirmary glared at him. 'I wouldn't let that ape within fifty kilometers of here. Do you have any idea of what she did the last time we tried to work on her?'

Leaving the angry-faced nurse, Grant went to the first wall phone he could find out in the corridor and asked the computer where Sheena 'was.

'There is no listing under Sheena,' said the synthesized voice.

She doesn't have a phone, Grant realized. That was stupid.

Not knowing what else to do, Grant asked the phone for Dr Wo.

'The director is not to be disturbed, except for emergencies.'

'This is an emergency!' Grant snapped.

Wo's face immediately appeared on the phone's tiny screen. 'I am unable to take your call. Leave a message.'

Grant wanted to pound the wall with frustration. 'Dr Wo, I can't find Sheena! Nobody seems to know where she is.'

The screen went blank.

Security, Grant thought. I ought to notify security. If

Sheem's loose somewhere in the station… He hesitated. Security might panic. They might hurt her.

He made up his mind and strode through the corridor to the administrative area. I wonder who's on security this week. Maybe it's somebody I know.

It was a stranger sitting behind the minuscule desk of the security office. A tall, rangy man with a stubbly beard and dark tousled hair. He wore a zippered set of coveralls. Probably a technician of some sort, Grant thought.

'This may be silly,' he started, without introducing himself. 'But Sheena seems to be missing and—'

'The gorilla?'

'Yes. She's not in her—'

'This time of day she's usually taking her afternoon exercise in the gym. Did you look there?'

Grant gaped at him. 'The gym? No… I didn't know…"

The security officer punched at his phone keypad. 'Hey, Ernie, is the monkey in there with you?'

Grant couldn't see the phone's screen, but he heard the reply. 'Sure, she's playing with the—'

'EMERGENCY!' the overhead speaker blared. 'ALL MISSION CONTROL PERSONNEL REPORT TO YOUR STATIONS IMMEDIATELY!'

The voice was Dr Wo's. It sounded frantic.

Grant raced to the control center, thudded into Nacho Quintero when the two of them tried to get through the narrow aisle to the consoles at the same time. Ordinarily both of them would have laughed at their clumsiness.

'Watch it,
estupido
,' Quintero snapped.

Lard ass, Grant snarled silently.

Ukara and Frankovich were already at their consoles. The wallscreens were dark, and Grant saw that all the consoles were lifeless, as well. All except Wo's: his console was lit up like a Christmas tree — almost all green lights, although there were several amber and one glaring red.

'Where is Dr Buono?' Wo demanded, his rasping voice trembling slightly.

'Here,' the physician called as she hurried through the doorway to sit at her console.

'We received the following message from Captain Krebs,' Wo said, his fingers deftly tapping on his keyboard.

Everyone's console lit up. Grant was grateful that the propulsion and power systems seemed to be in no trouble. Two amber lights, the rest solidly green.

Krebs' face appeared on the wallscreen, five times bigger than life, strained, etched with anxiety. Or maybe fear, Grant thought.

'Dr Pascal has collapsed,' Krebs reported with no preliminaries. 'She complained of a chest pain and then lost coordination of her limbs. Within ten minutes she doubled over, vomited bile, and lost consciousness.'

Grant glanced at Patti Buono's console. The physician was frowning worriedly as more and more of the lights on her board flared a sullen, glowering red.

'Transmit her complete medical readouts,' Buono called out. 'The patient may be undergoing cardiac—'

'She can't hear you,' Wo snapped. 'This is a recording from a data capsule.'

'How long ago was the message recorded?'

Wo glanced at his console screen. 'One hour and seventeen minutes ago.'

'Are they heading back?'

'I don't know,' Wo answered, shaking his head slowly. 'I would presume so.'

'Then there's nothing we can do until we hear from them again.'

'You can diagnose Dr Pascal's condition!'

Buono bit her lips. 'The data given here isn't enough for an effective diagnosis. Besides, if we can't communicate with them, what's the use—'

'What has happened to Pascal?' Wo demanded.

The physician's eyes flared angrily. But she turned back to her console lights and said, 'It looks like cardiac arrest, but it might be an infarction or something else altogether. I just can't make a definitive diagnosis on this meager data!'

'What has caused her to collapse?' Wo insisted.

'I don't know!'

'Could it be from the high pressure they are exposed to?'

'Yes,' Buono said. It sounded almost desperate to Grant. 'Or it could have nothing to do with the pressure.'

'Pah!' Wo smacked his hands on his emaciated thighs in frustration.

'Life support systems are all in the green,' Frankovich reported, trying to relieve the tension. 'At least, they 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' 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' 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 working day. 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.'

Even though he had been relieved of duty, Grant stayed in the control center, at his console. Under Krebs' 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.