Jupiter Project (11 page)

I sat down next to Yuri. We were making good time across a flat, black plain. There was an inch or so of topsoil—dust, really—that puffed up around the Cat’s feet as they stepped. The dust comes from the cycle of freezing and thawing of ammonia ice caught in the boulders. The process gradually fractures the Ganymede rock, breaking it down from pebbles to shards to BB shot to dust. In a century or so somebody will grow wheat in the stuff.

Some of the soil is really specks of interplanetary debris that has fallen on Ganymede for the last three billion years. All over the plain were little pits and gouges. The bigger meteors had left ray craters, splashing white across the reddish-black crust. The dark ice is the oldest stuff on Ganymede. A big meteor can crack through it, throwing out bright, fresh ice. The whole history of the solar system is scratched out on Ganymede’s ancient scowling face, but we still don’t know quite how to read all the scribblings. After the fusion bugs have finished, a lot of the intricate, grooved terrain will be gone. A little sad, maybe—the terraced ridges are beautiful in the slanting yellow rays of sunset—but there are others like them, on other moons. The solar system has a whole lot more snowball moons like Ganymede than it has habitable spots for people. Just like every other
age
in human history, there are some sad choices to make.

Yuri sidestepped a thick-lipped crater, making the servos negotiate the slope without losing speed. He had caught the knack pretty fast. The bigger craters had glassy rims, where the heat of impact had melted away the roughness. Yuri could pick his way through that stuff with ease. I leaned back and admired the view. Io’s shadow was a tiny dot on Jupiter’s eternal dancing bands. The thin little ring made a faint line in the sky, too near Jupiter to really
see
clearly. You had to look away from it, so your side vision could pick it out. There was a small moon there, I knew, slowly breaking up under tidal stresses and feeding stuff into the ring. It’s too small to see from Ganymede, though. You get the feeling, watching all these dots of light swinging through the sky, that Jupiter’s system is a giant clockwork, each wheel and cog moving according to intricate laws. Our job was to fit into this huge cosmic machine, without getting mashed in the gears.

I yawned, letting all these musings drop away, and glanced at the control board. “You do a full readout this morning?”

Yuri shrugged. “Everything was in order last night.”

“Huh. Here—” I punched in for a systems inventory. Numbers and graphs rolled by on the liquid display. Then something went red.

“Hey. Hey. B and C tanks aren’t filled,” I said tensely.

“What? I put the system into filling mode last night. The meter read all right this morning.”

“Because you’ve got it set on A tank. You have to fill each independently, and check them. For Chrissakes—!”

“Why is that? Was that your idea? It’s stupid to not combine the entire system. I—”

“Look.” I said rapidly, “the Cat sometimes carries other gasses, for mining or farming. If the computer control automatically switched from A to B to C, you could end up breathing carbon dioxide, or whatever else you were carrying.”

“Oh.”

“I showed you that a couple days back.”

“I suppose I forgot. Still—”

“Quiet.” I did a quick calculation. With only a third of our oxy capacity filled—correction, we’d used some already—and on our present course—

“We won’t make it to our next station,” I announced.

Yuri kept his eyes on his driving. He scowled. “What about our suits?” he asked slowly. “They might have some air left.”

“Did you recharge yours when you came back in?”

“Ah…no.”

“I didn’t either.” Another screw-up.

I checked them anyway. Not much help, but some. I juggled figures around on the clipboard, but you can’t sidestep simple arithmetic. We were in deep trouble.

Yuri stepped up the Cat’s pace. It clanked and bounced over slabs of jutting purple ice. “I conclude,” he said, “that we should call the base and ask for assistance.”

I frowned. “I don’t like to do it.”

“Why? We must.”

“Somebody will have to fly out here and drop air packs. There’s always some risk, because even Ganymede’s thin air has winds in it. We don’t understand those winds yet.”

“I see.” Yuri gave me a guarded look. “An extra mission. It would not sit well with Commander Aarons, would it?”

“Probably not.” I could tell Yuri was thinking that when the report came to be written, he’d get the blame. “But look, the real point is that somebody back at base would have to risk his neck, and all because of a dumb mistake.”

Yuri was silent. The Walker rocked on over the broken ground. A thin pink ammonia stream flowed in the distance.

“You may not like it,” he said, “but I do not intend to die out here.” He reached for the radio, turned it on, and picked up the microphone.

“Wait,” I said. “I may…”

“Yah?”

“Let’s see that map.” I studied it for several minutes. I pointed out a spot to Yuri and said, “There, see that gully that runs off this valley?”

“Yes. So what?”

I drew a straight line from the gully through the hills to the next broad plain. The line ran through a red dot on the other side of the hills. “That’s a way station, that dot. I’ve been there before. We’re slated to check it in two days, on our way back. But I can reach it by foot from that gully, by hiking over the hills. It’s only seven kilometers.”

“You couldn’t make it.”

I worried over the map some more. A few minutes later I said, “I
can
do it. There’s a series of streambeds I can follow most of the distance; that’ll cut out a lot of climbing.” I worked the calculator. “Even allowing for the extra exertion, our oxy will last.”

Yuri shrugged. “Okay, boy scout. Just so you leave me enough to cover the time you’re gone, plus some extra so a rocket from the base can reach me if you crap out.”

“Why don’t you walk yourself?”

“I’m in favor of calling the base right now. But I’ll wait out your scheme if you want, right here, without budging an inch. I don’t like risks.”

“There’s a chance that rocket plane might foul up and crash, too. At least my way we can do something to help ourselves and not sit around on our hands waiting for assistance.”

“Those are my terms, Bohles. If you go, you go alone.”

I grimaced. It was a lousy, stinking mess with no good solutions. “Look, Yuri…” I began.

“Stuff it, Bohles. I will not try a crazy scheme for the sake of your pride.”

“
Pride?
” I said between clenched teeth.

Yuri leaned back casually in the pilot’s chair. “You have absolutely got to be in first place. You’re Matt Bohles, mama’s little boy. Always have to win. Hell, look what you do on vacation—run around doing the dog work for the base.”

“I do it because I like it.”

“Then you’re dumber than you look, goody-boy.”

“You stupid son of a bitch—”

“No melodramatics, kid.” He looked at me carefully, calculating, but I was too angry to think what that meant. “Come on, we’re wasting oxygen. What is going to win: common sense or pride?”

“You frapping bastard—”

“Eh, goody-goody?”

I was boiling. I should’ve smacked him, but when I raised my hand something inside me cringed. I saw that dazzling noon sunshine, the dry schoolyard, that gang beating me—

I stopped.
I’ve got to get away
, I thought. I didn’t stop to think that Yuri was herding me just the way he wanted to.

I turned and yanked my suit off the cabin wall. I didn’t think. I acted.

The cold seeped into my legs. Pink slabs of ice, gray rock, black sky—and always the thin rasp of my breath, throat raw from coughing. My helmet air was thick and foul. I stumbled along sluggishly.

Pride.
The anger boiled up in me again and I quickened my pace.
Pride.
I’d fix that bastard. I’d show him I was braver than he was, and smarter, not afraid of anything. I’d—

The gravel slipped under my boot and I nearly lost my balance. A small landslide eroded away the footing I had. I couldn’t stop to rest—I had to keep moving up the slope, even though my breath was ragged and I was sweating.

Seven klicks, yeah. A short hop. I felt like it had been seven years since I left the Cat, and still I hadn’t started down the incline onto the plain.

I struggled up the side of what seemed to be a sand dune, my breath tearing at my throat. The streambed shown on my map had vanished and I was pushing on over broken, hilly terrain. Every fifteen minutes I checked in with Yuri, but I was damned if I was going to ask him for help. Pride goeth before a fall, ha ha. And my throat hurt, my nose dribbled, my eyes stung. Everything tasted oily—air, rations, water.

The stones and sand gritted against my boots, slipping away, robbing me of balance and speed. I toiled up the incline, angling across. A few boulders buried in the silt helped. I could pull myself up with them for support. The gray line that was the top drew gradually nearer as I lurched along, cursing my own stupidity. It promised nothing—a few random rocks were perched there, sheltering patches of snow.

Then I reached it.

And looked beyond, down the face of the hill. The blue way station beckoned serenely in the distance. It was two kilometers away down a broad swath of bare rock. I could reach it in half an hour.

I’d won.

Won what? I thought. For who?
Why did I do this
?

So I got extra oxy from the way station, rested, ate, and hiked back. It was an anticlimactic return—Yuri hardly said anything. I told myself he felt embarrassed.

I didn’t feel particularly comfortable with him, to say the least. I did a lot of hiking out to visit sensor packages, glad to be on my own.

By sundown Wednesday we were heading south and angling back toward the base. There’s no true night on Ganymede because Jove hangs there, beaming down a hundred times brighter than Earth’s full moon. After all, it fills 250 times as much of the sky as Luna does from Earth. So night is really a sort of yellowish twilight; the jagged valleys turn beautiful and spooky all at once. All they need is a moaning wind and an abandoned castle or two, to complete the eerie picture.

We shambled into the base late Thursday night, a little behind schedule and tired. Zak was standing outside waiting for us, along with the mechanic who would check out the Cat to be sure we hadn’t hot rodded her to death. Mechanics are like mother hens, clucking over their machines. This one poked around for half an hour before he gave us an okay. Neither Yuri nor I mentioned the problem with the air tanks; someone would wonder why we hadn’t reported it earlier. I had already had enough red tape for one day.

I told Zak about it, though, over supper.

“It saddens me, Matt boy, to see you picking up bad habits. The rule book plainly says that such little dramas should be reported.” He gave me an appraising look. “On the other hand, creative rule-bending is an art form we must all learn, sooner or later.”

“Looking back on it,” I said, “I’m not so sure I did the right thing.”

“Look upon it as a valuable learning experience,” Zak said grandly.

“My conscience bothers me.”

“Oh? What’s it feel like? I had mine taken out, along with my appendix.”

“I suspected as much.”

“I think I can lay your pangs to rest, Matt. Yuri reported the whole thing, after the fact.”

“Huh?”

“I was on radio watch, remember? Let me consult the Encyclopedia of All Knowledge—” he picked up the binder lying on the bench next to him—“and all will be clear.”

“What’s that?”

“My diary. You can’t read upside-down writing. I take it? Good, my secrets are safe.” He opened the binder and ran a finger along to the right entry. “Ah, yes. You called me, said nothing worth immortalizing with a note. Um. Then Yuri called—said you were outside, visiting a sensor package—and asked to speak to Captain Vandez. On a private line.” He raised an eyebrow. “Interesting.”

“So Yuri reported it anyway. I didn’t think he had it in him.”

“Nor I. Maybe he’s not such a rat after all.”

“Um. No comment.”

“Cynic.”

“Um.”

I managed to get in a morning’s skiing before the
Sagan
lifted off. It was fun to feel a chill wind whipping by my ears, lean into a turn and slash a trail across a hillside. Everybody was out in the dome for a last bit of exercise and we all got into an immense snowball fight an hour before liftoff. After I caught two in a row down the back of my collar I surrendered and went back to pack.

Liftoff was uneventful. By the time Captain Vandez let us out of our seats Ganymede was shrinking rapidly and neither Zak nor I could make out much surface detail. Far away we could see some of the other moons. Io is an orange pizza, volcano-pocked. Europa has a planet-sized glacier and crinkly ridges as tangled as spaghetti. Callisto is a shotgun pattern of overlapping craters. There are thirty-nine Jovian moons in all bigger than ten kilometers across, and lots smaller than that. By the time early expeditions reached J-8 they were tired of the whole business and nobody has even landed on the last four relatively large ones. No reason to—anybody who cares can see them close up if he can get time on the Lab’s big telescope, the Far Eye.

I woke up just before the
Sagan
docked at the Lab. Zak had fallen asleep in the middle of composing a poem and gave every appearance of being no longer in the land of the living. He had sprawled out over two seats and was teetering on the edge, about to fall into the aisle. I elbowed him awake and we queued up at the air lock.

The
Sagan
was moored above the top of the Can. When I came out of the lock I was looking down the bore of an enormous gun—or at least, that’s the way it seemed. I was faced down, looking through the hollow center section of the Can—the ship bay. I could see red and white stars out the other end, and the dark outlines of shuttles and skimmers floating around the axial cylinder, being serviced.

I hooked on to a throw line and scooted across to the personnel lock, the same one we’d come out nine days before. The week on Ganymede had given me a touch of groundhog legs—a sense that there really ought to be an up and down, so that I kept looking around for a reference. Going through the personnel lock fouled me up even further, because for a moment I was convinced that I was falling down it. Don’t ask me to explain why; it’s just a reflex, like sneezing. Zak felt it. too; he started spinning his arms for balance the second he came through the lock, which just made him tumble until he stopped it.