Portal-eARC (14 page)

“Oh, I
can
, but I can’t do it
here
. Now that I’ve got her down to her prior level, I find I’m going to have to haul
Athena
all the way back up the bore, move her over quite a distance—probably as far as we can practically manage it—and start her up again. Which means that until we get that done, we don’t even have her supplemental power running some of the systems, so we’re totally on batteries now.”

“Hm. I’m presuming that’s the
bad
news, A.J., so I’m also assuming there’s good news somehow involved in this move?”

“Yes, though it’s mostly for the beautiful and talented Helen Sutter-Baker.”

“There’s
more?”
He felt a grin spreading involuntarily across his face at hearing the excited joy in Helen’s voice.

“
Lots
more, near as I can tell. I used the instruments on
Athena
to do some quick near-range sensing and there’s a whole bunch of material scattered in a layer about, oh, a meter thick maybe, stretching out some distance from the bore. How far a distance I can’t tell, and if we’re still here when
Athena
reaches that level again we’ll probably have to let her keep going rather than keep relocating her, even if there’s even more stuff in her new position.”

“My god. Let me see! Come
on
, A.J.!”

“Why,” Madeline asked, as he transmitted the preliminary data to Helen to digest, “didn’t you notice this
before
you sent
Athena
back down? Couldn’t the Locusts have sensed it?”

He felt his cheeks go uncomfortably hot. “I…didn’t think of it. She wanted me to retrieve it, so I sent the
Locust
down, had it get the fossil, then ran
Athena
back down as fast as I could so we got the water flowing again…and then of course this happens.”

“Understandable,” Madeline Fathom said, but her tone carried an unspoken “but I expected better from you” that made him wince. She continued, “A.J., can we afford that move? Sorry, Helen, but we
are
talking about survival-oriented equipment and limitations here, and we’ve already been without
Athena
’s water and significant auxiliary power generation for quite a bit already.”

“But—” A.J. could hear Helen stop herself with an effort, take a breath. “I understand.”

“Well…we’ve already set
Athena
up once successfully. We’ve seen the little snags that we need to watch out for and how to start her. There’s enough power reserves so we’ve got plenty of time to do this. My only real concern is backing her up that far; we’ve already seen on this run backwards that the tunnel doesn’t stay perfectly suited to her, so she’s going to have to do backwards melt too. She’s designed for it, of course, but then she was also designed to deal with rocks and stuff herself, and we know how well THOSE gadgets are working. It went pretty smoothly
this
time, but every time I shift her gears I’m afraid something’s going to go wrong. I’m
still
wondering if it’s something in
Athena
, or one of our systems, that’s causing those occasional readings of water vapor in miniscule amounts.”

“Hmm.” The deceptively delicate blonde rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Taking the other tactic, can you and Helen—with your Locusts, naturally—actually make some significant additional scientific progress down there? Without
Athena
you’ll have no way to get to the other specimens, would you?”

A.J. shook his head. “Not true. The Locusts can drill, bore, or even melt their way through obstacles. Just not hundreds of feet of obstacle, like
Athena
. Remember that when I designed them, the idea was that we might have to use them to explore and even extensively sift through remains of a base, as well as having them do heavier lifting type work or fast surface searches. They’ve got a lot of versatility, and since we patched together all our solar cells into a really large array, I’ve got independent power to keep them charged in rotation. So Helen will have her metallic grad students to do the gruntwork under her direction, and it shouldn’t—I hope—cost us much except the time to re-set. And of course we’d have to be willing to let Helen have the time to run it and study stuff.”

“Hold on,” Joe’s voice came. “I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade here, but I’d like to point out that I’m not sure the whole idea makes sense. If there’s a whole layer out there, you’re still going to have to drill through it the next time, and as you point out, every time we do something with Athena other than keep her running, we don’t know whether one of those unknown glitches is going to get us in the nether regions.”

A.J. could
just
hear a strangled sound, something like a cross between a whine and a grunt, which undoubtedly came from Helen desperately restraining her impulse to argue. He winced with sympathy for her; this was a technical and survival issue and she knew that would trump anything she had to present directly, but this was still
her
profession. As Madeline began to speak, he sent her a quick hug-and-heart icon.
I love you.

“I can’t argue the basic concern, Joe. I share it. On the other hand, it
was
my idea to emphasize that we do some science while we’re here, and that was really the purpose of
Athena
as well. Helen, I know you want to say something; do you have anything that might have a bearing on the argument?”

He heard his wife take a deep breath. “Yes, I do, actually. First—as you say, it was your idea that we do science while we’re here, and this is, in fact, the
only
science I’m really qualified for.

“Second, we have no idea what the extent of the layer is. It could be that it’s just a very small preserved pocket, say the remains of a small ship, or a warm-ice bubble that sort of petered-out most of the way to the surface ages ago.” A.J. could tell she’d been studying some of the ice-geology associated with models of Europa; he hadn’t even
known
about the idea of warm ice somehow moving up through cold ice before they got here, and even now the idea seemed pretty strange. “Third, if we just keep going, without relocating, I don’t get to study
any
of it because there isn’t
room
for me to do so behind
Athena
. So if we’re going to study any of this at all, why not pull up Athena, move her as far as we practically can, and then not only do I get something to work on, but we get another sample point giving us a starting idea of the size of this layer?”

“Well,” Maddie said after a moment, “Those are reasonable points. A.J., how long
should
it take for you to get
Athena
back to the surface and ready for relocation?

A.J. thought for a moment.
Let’s see…The probe’s got a couple hundred meters to go. I
could
just try to winch it up as fast as possible, but I’m sure there’s places the ice has deformed, especially with the pretty-much-constant quakes, so I should probably have it do the climb itself in active mode. It got jammed three times when I tried the fast winch last time, and that wasted hours. Climbing up in active mode’s a lot faster than full-bore icemelting but still not fast, about a meter a minute. Assume it doesn’t run into anything that actually makes it stuck, which it shouldn’t, that’s a little less than four hours. Then I have to shut the reactor down, make sure it’s cool, lock her into transport mode…
“Say, maybe six hours?”

“And if we move it as far as we can, set up, and begin drilling…that’s going to be at least that long, I’d think,” Maddie continued, thinking out loud. “So we’re talking basically two work days for you and one work day for several of the rest of us doing the setup.”

“That shouldn’t be a big deal, should it?” Brett asked sensibly from nearby. “We’ve made progress reworking the pieces of
Nebula Storm
we could repair as she lies, you’ve surveyed a good place for the centrifuge, and my modeling work’s almost done. Until Horst and the others get back with
Munin
, there’s not that terribly much for us to do other than basic maintenance and such.”

“Hm.” Madeline stared into apparent space, consulting some things on her own VRD, and then nodded. “I agree. We have the resources currently, if an emergency presents we should still be able to survive until
Munin
can make it, and—as I had said myself—we’re supposed to try to be doing science while we’re here. A.J., get it going.”

“Yes,
ma’am
!”

Chapter 18.

“…and the rest will be up to Dr. Glendale. You all understand the timing and the necessities of the situation, Maddie.” The well-loved face had a few more lines, but the iron was still in Director Hughes’ voice—along with the underlying affection. “If you can maintain your timetable, while there will be questions about the official version of events in Jupiter system, the co-operation of Ares, the IRI, and the EU will be able to keep them to a murmur, I think. Maneuvering the right people into a position of potential vulnerability will take some delicacy, but I’m doing the best I can to make sure that the revelation of your
other
survivor, and the story he’ll have to tell, will have the necessary effect.”

Maddie nodded, knowing that the Director wouldn’t be able to see it but still feeling as though she was being briefed on an operation. She touched a button and paused the playback, smiling fondly. For just this short time, it was like being back in his office, back in her old job, and even though she had come to realize how very, very bad it would have been to stay in that line of work much longer, it was one of the most comforting feelings in the world to hear that voice, dryly outlining the latest developments and making sure she was prepared.

Keldering and Hughes, with their various contacts, had managed to verify what Madeline and Hohenheim had both suspected: the ultimate decisions which had led to
Odin
being armed and Fitzgerald being placed aboard lay with the ESDC and, specifically, Chief Operations Officer Goswin Osterhoudt. Multiple other people of course were involved, but only a few of them were the ones
responsible
, those who had made the decisions, arranged the double and triple blinds that hid everything, the amazingly deft and complex alterations of design that had—for the most part—hidden the entire installation of four capital-class coilgun cannon, loading mechanisms, and even ammunition and components from shipyard and inspection personnel alike.

At that thought, she shook her head again in chagrined disbelief mingled with unwilling respect.
Why can’t people with such talent focus on something
constructive
?

Of course, she knew—none better—the answers, the real answers, to that question, and those answers were the reasons she had worked for Hughes for most of her life.
To put a stop to them
.

She touched the button again and Hughes came back to life on her VRD. “I’ll send a summary with the details as soon as you’re prepared for departure.” He leaned forward, in a posture that caused her, too, to lean forward tensely. “Be careful, Maddie. There is of course no way that Osterhoudt and his people believe the official story is believed by anyone close to you; they
know
you know the truth. They must for the moment assume that you are keeping quiet because working with the EU is so much more advantageous than getting into a fight with the ESDC and potentially embarrassing and alienating your current allies.

“Once you are back in the Inner System, they know that may change drastically; right now, you need everyone working together, but when you are safe? Perhaps not. You
may
of course continue in that vein, but you and I know very well how this sort of person thinks, how they work. They will assume the worst, and act, if they think acting will do them any good.”

“I know, sir,” she said, “but by that point they may well realize that there’s no way we kept everything secret from key people—such as yourself—and decide that their best chance is to push on the political angle to keep from being prosecuted.As Hughes continued, she felt her face go from fond relaxation to the controlled coldness of HIA Agent Madeline Ariadne Fathom.
He’s completely correct. People like Osterhoudt, despite being utterly brilliant, are at the same time terribly, terribly stupid in their arrogance.

There was a short moment when fondness returned, at the very end: “…but I have faith you’ll all come through this, and at the end you and the General will bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. I’ll make sure everything’s in place, Maddie, if I have to go back into the field one more time before I retire.” He smiled. “A welcome-home present to my favorite ex-agent.”

She deliberately held onto the smile for a few moments before activating private channels. “A.J., Horst, Mia, General, secure conference, as soon as possible.”

“Secure…okay, hold on,” said A.J.’s puzzled voice. Similar questioning tones came from the other two, but within five minutes all four confirmed they were on.

“Very well, Agent Fathom,” the General said, with only a trace of humor at the use of her old title, “We are all in conference, if you can put up with a few seconds delay.”

“I can. I’m calling this conference between us four because at this point I do not know if there is any particular reason to include any others.” She summarized most of the update she had gotten from Director Hughes. “The Director has delayed his retirement to make sure this gets done,” she continued.

“Hold on, won’t that draw attention to him, make people wonder what he’s up to?” A.J. asked.

She smiled tightly. “Oh, undoubtedly. On the other hand, he’s planned to retire at least four times, and backed out every time before, so this isn’t really going to surprise anyone. More important, though, is that we’re going to be in a lot of potential danger once we start back.”

The General’s image responded a moment later with a raised eyebrow. “Danger? Do you imagine they will, what, be preparing to fire a larger coilgun at us? That would be complete madness, would it not?”

“A coilgun, yes, that would be completely insane,” Fathom agreed. “They aren’t that stupid, unfortunately. Just as unfortunately, they
will
almost certainly be very arrogantly stupid in other ways. General, correct me if I’m wrong, but Mr. Fitzgerald had his own control protocols for the
Odin
, including the weapons but also other systems, yes?”