Leviathans of Jupiter (3 page)

She had been born Kate Solo, named thus by the mother who'd been abandoned by the man she had thought loved her. Growing up in the underground warrens of Coober Pedy, in the heart of Australia's forbidding outback, little Kate swiftly learned that determination and courage could make up for lack of money and social position. While her mother slaved away in restaurant kitchens, Kate strove to be the best student in the region's far-flung electronic school system, consistently at the head of her digital classes, even if she had to cheat a bit now and then. She won a university scholarship by the time she was fifteen and moved to Sydney. With her mother.

It was at a party on campus that she met Farrell Westfall, twenty-seven years her senior, quite wealthy from old family money. He was a university regent, she an economics major in her second year of study. “Go for the gold,” her mother advised her.

Kate married Westfall before she graduated, and lived in a fine house hanging over the rocks on a rugged beach north of Sydney. With her mother.

Kate Solo became Mrs. Katherine Westfall. He was more interested in polo than the business world; she was determined to make certain that the family fortune she had married into was not dissipated in the ups and downs of the global economy—or by the importunings of her husband's lazy and whining relatives. She guided her feckless husband through the booms and busts of the next quarter century, and by the time he died of an unexpected massive coronary she was one of the wealthiest women in Australia. By the time her mother died, a decade later, Katherine Westfall was one of the wealthiest women on Earth.

She shared her wealth ostentatiously and was ultimately rewarded with a membership on the International Astronautical Authority's governing council. The directors of the IAA expected their new member to be flattered and malleable. They planned to use her as a public relations figurehead: a handsome, philanthropic woman who could speak the usual platitudes about the importance of scientific research before government councils and influential donors.

They did not realize that Katherine Westfall had her own agenda in mind. “Get to the top,” her mother had often told her. “Whatever you do, get to the top. You're not safe until you're on top.”

So Katherine Westfall initiated a subtle yet relentless campaign to be elected chairman of the IAA's governing council. From that position no one could challenge her, she would never have to worry about falling back into obscurity.

There were others who coveted the chairmanship, of course, but Katherine realized that her most dangerous rival was a man who claimed he had no interest in the position whatsoever: Grant Archer, director of the research station out at Jupiter. Archer was a danger to her, Katherine knew, despite his protestations of modest disinterest. He had to be stopped.

Halfway through dinner in the captain's quarters, Guerra asked her, “But why Jupiter, if I may ask? Why don't you start with the research bases on Mars? After all, that's where the most interesting work—”

She didn't wait for him to finish. “The leviathans,” she said, her voice still muted but quite firm. “The leviathans are on Jupiter. Nothing else in the entire solar system is so interesting, so … challenging.”

Captain Guerra's shaggy brows knit. “Those big whales? What makes them so interesting to you?”

Katherine Westfall smiled sweetly, thinking that if Archer could prove that those Jovian creatures were intelligent, the IAA would offer him their chairmanship on a silver platter.

To Guerra, however, she said merely, “The scientists want an enormous increase in their budget so they can study those creatures. I've got to pay them the courtesy of visiting their facility in person to see what they're doing.”

To herself she added, I've got to stop them. Cut them off. Bring Archer down. Otherwise I won't be safe.

LEVIATHAN

Leviathan glided among the Kin along the warm upwelling current that carried them almost effortlessly through the endless sea. But the food that had always sifted down from the cold abyss above was nowhere in sight. All through Leviathan's existence, the food had been present in abundance. But now it was gone. The Elders flashed fears that the Symmetry had been disrupted.

At least there was no sign of darters, Leviathan's sensor parts reported. They watched faithfully for the predators. As a younger member of the Kin, Leviathan was placed on the outer perimeter of the vast school of the creatures, constantly alert for the faintest trace of the dangerous killers.

Even so, a deeper part of its brain puzzled over the strangeness. Could the Symmetry truly be broken?

More than that, something new and different was imposing on the Kin. Something alien. Strange, cold, insensitive creatures had appeared in the world. Tiny and solitary, they came from the cold abyss above, cruised off at a distance from the Kin, then disappeared up into the cold again. Uncommunicative creatures, smaller than one of Leviathan's flagella members. When Leviathan and others of the Kin had flashed a welcome to them, the aliens blinked in gibberish and then fled.

Troubling. It disturbed the Symmetry, even though the Elders maintained that such pitifully small creatures could pose no danger to the Kin. They do not eat of our food, the Elders pictured, and they do not attack us. They can be safely ignored.

But then the flow of food from the cold abyss above had faltered and finally stopped. Leviathan wondered. Could the aliens be the cause of the break in the Symmetry?

Leviathan remembered back to the time when one of those aliens had seemingly helped Leviathan itself when it had wandered far from the Kin and was attacked by a pack of darters. The predators were tearing at Leviathan when this tiny, dark, hard-shelled alien had come to its aid. By the time the Kin reached Leviathan and drove off the darters, the alien was dying, sinking toward the hot abyss below.

Leviathan had tried to communicate with the alien, to thank it, but all the pictures Leviathan displayed on its flank went unanswered. Fearing that the alien would dissociate itself as it sank into the hot depths, Leviathan nosed beneath the pathetically tiny creature and lifted it on its back toward the cold abyss from which it had come.

Leviathan's reward for this kindness was a spray of painful heat as the alien apparently gathered its last strength and flew upward, never to be seen again.

That was more than two buddings ago, Leviathan remembered. In that time, other aliens had invaded the Symmetry. Invaded. That was how Leviathan thought of them. Strange, cold, hard-shelled creatures that flashed colored images that made no sense at all. They came down from the cold abyss, loitered near the Kin for brief periods, then returned whence they came.

Aliens, Leviathan thought. Not darters or the filmy tentacled creatures that dwelled on the edges of the cold abyss. Creatures the like of which none of the Kin had ever seen before. Not even the hoariest of the Elders had any idea of what they might be.

Aliens. The thought troubled Leviathan. Perhaps the Elders were correct and these aliens could be safely ignored. But why were they here, disrupting the Symmetry? What did they want of Leviathan and its Kin?

Were they responsible for the interruption of the food flow, for the disruption to the Symmetry?

INFIRMARY

As Deirdre slowly undressed in the tiny privacy cubicle of the ship's infirmary she heard her father's warning in her mind. The gnomish little ship's doctor certainly didn't look like a smooth-talking bloke, but Deirdre wondered if this medical examination was nothing more than an excuse to see her naked. Peering at the cubicle's overhead panel of lights, she could not see any obvious signs of a camera. But still …

She piled her clothes and underwear neatly on the little stool beside her and slipped into the shapeless green medical gown that was hanging from a peg on the bulkhead. It barely reached down to her thighs. Then she hesitated. If he's watching me, she thought, he'll know that I'm finished undressing.

Nothing. Not a sound from beyond the flimsy partition. Deirdre stood there for as long as she could stand it, then cautiously slid the partition aside and stepped back into Dr. Pohan's office.

He wasn't even there. Surprised, she didn't know what to do. She felt slightly ridiculous in the flimsy medical gown. It was a dull olive green, not good for her complexion, she thought.

“DEPARTURE IN FIVE MINUTES,” announced the speaker set into the overhead.

The corridor door slid back and Dr. Pohan came in again, his wrinkled bald face quite serious.“The scanner was off-line,” he said, apologetically. “I had to get a technician to reboot it.”

Deirdre nodded and unconsciously tugged at the hem of her absurdly short garment.

The doctor led her down the corridor past three closed and unmarked doors, then pulled open a fourth. It was another small compartment with a glass booth standing in its middle. White medical cabinets lined the walls.

Dr. Pohan gestured to the booth. “Kindly step inside. This will only take a moment.”

Wordlessly, Deirdre entered the booth. The doctor shut its transparent door, then went to one of the cabinets. When he opened it, Deirdre saw that a control panel was inside, rows of switches and dials surmounted by a circular display screen.

“Please stand still and hold your breath,” the doctor called, his back to Deirdre.

She heard a faint buzzing, then a single pinging note.

“Very good,” said Dr. Pohan, turning back to her. “You can come out now.”

“That's it?” she asked as she stepped out of the booth. “That's the test?”

“Complete three-dimensional body scan,” the doctor said, bobbing his head. “Now all we need is a blood sample.”

He went to another cabinet, rummaged in a drawer, and pulled out a medical syringe. “This won't hurt a bit,” he said.

Deirdre thought otherwise, but she held out her bare arm for him to puncture.

“DEPARTURE IN SIXTY SECONDS,” said the overhead speaker.

*   *   *

“MAIN DRIVE IGNITION.”

Australia
's departure from Ceres was barely noticeable. Fully dressed once again, Deirdre felt a slight jar, nothing more. But then she realized that she was beginning to feel heavy, almost sluggish. The ship's building up to one
g
, she told herself as she followed Dr. Pohan back to his office. It's going to be like this all the way out to Jupiter.

Deirdre sank gratefully into the chair in front of the doctor's desk. Dr. Pohan was smiling pleasantly at her as he tilted slightly back in his chair. The tips of his curling mustache almost reached the crinkled corners of his eyes, she saw.

“You have been a good patient, Ms. Ambrose.”

“What happens now?” she asked.

With a slight shrug, the doctor replied, “Now we wait for the computer to analyze your scan and blood test. That might take a few hours. You are free to go.”

“Go? Go where?”

Dr. Pohan glanced at his wrist, then answered, “It's almost the dinner hour. Go to the ship's lounge. Meet your fellow Jupiter-bound passengers. Your luggage has been delivered to your stateroom, of course.”

Deirdre felt puzzled. “But I don't know where the lounge is. I don't even know where my stateroom is. I've just come aboard—”

“Of course,” said the doctor. “This is all new to you, isn't it?”

With a preening brush of his curly mustache, the doctor rose from his desk and took Deirdre by the hand. She got to her feet, towering over the diminutive Asian, and let him lead her to the corridor door.

“That way,” said Dr. Pohan, pointing down the passageway to the right. With his other hand he fished a remote control box from his tunic pocket.

“Main lounge,” he said to the palm-sized remote.

A series of yellow arrows began flickering along the deck tiles.

“Follow the arrows,” Dr. Pohan said. “They will lead you to the lounge.”

“But my stateroom?” Deirdre asked.

“Oh, just ask any of the map displays in the passageways. They'll show you. It's simple.”

Deirdre nodded, but she felt more confused than reassured.

SHIP'S PASSAGEWAY

Feeling disconcertingly heavy, Deirdre followed the blinking arrows along the passageway, then turned down a shorter segment that ended at the double doors of an elevator. The doors slid open as she approached them. Without her saying a word or touching a button, the doors closed silently and Deirdre felt the elevator dropping. Before she could catch her breath the cab stopped so abruptly that her knees buckled slightly. The doors slid open again.

Another corridor, with more yellow arrows beckoning her onward. There were other colored arrows, too, she saw: red, blue, green. They must lead to other parts of the ship, she thought. Maybe one set of them will guide me to my quarters.

Like the passageway upstairs, this corridor curved noticeably. The corridors run along the outer perimeter of each level, Deirdre figured. The offices and other compartments are built around the core. Wishing she'd spent more time in the centrifuge back home, Deirdre plodded along the passageway.

She hadn't gone more than a dozen steps when she saw a tall, lanky fellow standing up ahead of her, all arms and legs, scratching his thick strawberry red thatch of hair and looking very puzzled.

He was peering at the various blinking arrows on the deck, Deirdre saw.

“Are you lost?” she asked.

He twitched with surprise. “Oh! Hi!” he said, in a squeaky, high-pitched voice.

“Are you lost?” Deirdre repeated.

With another scratch of his bushy red mop he said, “I'm trying to find the main lounge.”

“Oh, that's easy,” said Deirdre. “Just follow the yellow arrows.”

“That's just it,” said the lanky fellow. “Which ones are the yellows? I'm color blind.”

“Color blind?” Deirdre had never heard of such a thing.