Saturn (14 page)

Eberly asked Jaansen to sweep his apartment for bugs at least once a week.

"Are you really worried that Wilmot is spying on you?" the tall, pale Norseman asked as he walked across the bedroom, electronic detector in his hand.

Eberly, shorter, darker, replied, "It's what I would do if I were in his place."

"Are you bugging his office?" Jaansen asked, with a smile.

"Of course."

"Well, in three days we fly past Jupiter," said Jaansen. "It's a milestone."

Eberly agreed with a curt nod. "I'm more interested in what happens inside the habitat than outside."

Jaansen, ever the engineer, pointed out, "We'll be taking on fresh fuel. Without it we won't be able to get to Saturn."

"I have other things on my mind. More important things."

"Such as?"

"The coming elections."

Jaansen clicked off the detector and announced, "You're all clean. No cameras, no microphones, no electrical power drain anywhere, down to the microvolt. Nothing that shouldn't be here."

"Good." Eberly walked him back into the sitting room and gestured him to the sofa.

Sitting himself in the easy chair, Eberly said, "Sooner or later, we must get the people to vote on a new constitution and new leaders."

Jaansen nodded, tucked the detector into one pocket and pulled out his inevitable handheld computer from another.

"I've been thinking about the elections," Eberly said.

"They're a long way off."

"Less than a year now. We must prepare for them."

Jaansen nodded, fiddling with his palmcomp.

"The scientists will vote for one of their own, probably Urbain."

Another nod from Jaansen.

"They form a sizable bloc of votes."

"Not a majority, though."

"Not of themselves," said Eberly. "But suppose the engineers and technicians vote with them?"

Recognition dawned on Jaansen's face. "That could be a majority. A solid majority."

"Therefore we must somehow split the engineers and technicians away from the scientists," Eberly said.

"How can we do that?"

Eberly smiled. "Let me explain what I have in mind."

Edouard Urbain tried to control the trembling he felt inside him as he stared out the observation port. The giant planet Jupiter, no more than a bright star only a few days ago, was now a discernable disk even to the naked eye, obviously flattened at its poles, streaked with muted colors from bands of clouds racing across the face of that enormous world. Four tiny stars flanked the disk: the moons that Galileo discovered with his first telescope.

Tucked into a close orbit just above those multihued clouds, Urbain knew, was the research station
Thomas Gold.
I could have been there, he told himself for the thousandth time. I could have been leading the teams studying the life-forms on Europa and Jupiter itself. Instead I am here in this glorified ark, stuck in along with renegades and madmen like this Gaeta fellow.

He knew it was his imagination, but Jupiter seemed to be getting larger as he watched. No, we are not that near to it yet, Urbain said to himself. Three days from now, that is when the spectacle will occur.

Habitat
Goddard's
complement of scientists and their equipment was far smaller than Urbain had asked for. The university consortium was unwilling to send their best people on a multiyear voyage out to Saturn. Let them sit on their thumbs while the habitat lumbers its way out to that distant planet? No, never. Urbain recalled the face of the consortium's chief scientist with perfect, painful clarity:

"We can't tie up our best people for several years like that, Edouard. You take a skeleton team out to Saturn. Once you're established in orbit about the planet, we can shoot our top researchers out to you on a torch ship, get them there in a month or two."

The implied insult still burned in Urbain's heart. I am not one of their top people. A lifetime of work on Mars and the Moon, three years in orbit around that hellhole of Venus, a life dedicated to planetary science, and all they think me capable of is playing nursemaid to a skeleton crew of also-rans.

It rankled. It cut. His wife had refused to come with him; instead, she sued for a divorce. She had warned him, over the years, that he was foolish to ignore the political aspects of his career.

"Make friends," Jeanmarie had told him, over and again. "Play up to those who can do you good."

He could never do it. Never play that game. He had done good work, solid work, perhaps not the level that wins Nobel Prizes, but important contributions nevertheless. And now this. The end of the road. Exiled to Saturn. I'll be retirement age by the time I can work my way out of this habitat.

I should have paid more attention to Jeanmarie. I should have heeded her advice. I should have paid more attention to the New Morality counselors. They pull the strings behind the scenes. Mediocre Believers get promotions while honest researchers like me are left behind.

A wasted life, he thought.

Yet, as he looked out at Jupiter glowing like a beacon in the dark depths of infinite space, the old excitement simmered within him. There's a whole universe out there to explore! Worlds upon worlds! I won't be able to study Jupiter or its moons, but I'll be at Saturn before any of the others. I'll be directing the first real-time probes of Titan's surface.

He thought of the tracked rover vehicle that his staff was building. It will roam across the surface of Titan and obtain more data about that world in a few weeks than all the scientists back on Earth have been able to amass in their lifetimes. Before the bright youngsters get there on their torch ships I'll already be getting data from Titan. And from the cloud deck of Saturn. And the ice rings.

Perhaps my life won't be a waste, after all, thought Edouard Urbain. Perhaps this time I'll hit the jackpot. Perhaps there is a Nobel Prize waiting for me in the future, after all.

Perhaps, he even thought, Jeanmarie will return to me.

In the workshop where he and his team labored, Manny Gaeta was walking Kris Cardenas around his EVA suit. Von Helmholtz and his four technicians stood at the benches that ran along two walls of the chamber, watching their boss and the nanotech expert as they slowly paced around the heavy, bulky suit, like shoppers inspecting a new outfit built for Frankenstein's monster.

She had arrived at the lab carrying a small briefcase, which she had left on the floor by the door as soon as Gaeta came over to greet her. The technicians stayed well clear of it.

Now she and Gaeta stared up at the suit, looming head and shoulders above them, gleaming in the light from the ceiling lamps.

"It's big," Cardenas murmured. With its helmet and jointed arms, it reminded her of a medieval suit of armor.

"It's gotta be big," Gaeta said as they paced slowly around it. "Lots of gear inside."

"You've got room in there for a cafeteria," she joked.

With a rueful grin, Gaeta answered, "Nope. Just enough room inside for me to squeeze in. The rest is packed with sensors, cameras, VR transmitters, servomotors to move the arms and legs, radiation armor, life support systems
—
"

"Systems? Plural?"

"You bet. Redundant systems are the only way to go. One craps out, you can live on the other."

Cardenas peered at the gleaming armor's bright finish. "Is this cermet?"

"Partly," said Gaeta. "Lots of organometallics in it, too. And semiconductor surfaces, protected by borosilicates and Buckyfilament shields."

"How do you put it on?"

He walked her around to the suit's back. "You climb in through the hatch."

Cardenas broke into a laugh. "Like the trapdoor in old-fashioned long johns!"

Gaeta tilted his head to one side. "I never thought of it like that, but yeah, you're right. Kinda like that."

Sobering up somewhat, Cardenas said, "Could you show me how you get into it?"

"Sure. You want to go in? It's okay, I can help you."

Cardenas shook her head. "No. You get into it." Nodding toward the briefcase she had left by the door, "Then I can take samples of whatever residues you leave on the outside."

"Samples?"

"If you want nanomachines specifically tailored to clean up your residues, I have to know exactly what they are, down to the molecular level."

Gaeta nodded his understanding. "Okay." He called to von Helmholtz, "Yo, Fritz, I gotta get inside."

Von Helmholtz and the four techs started for the suit. The chief technician hesitated, though, and asked, "Dr. Cardenas, will you need your case?"

"Yes I will, thank you."

He brought the briefcase to Cardenas while two of the technicians began unsealing the suit's hatch and the other two booted up the monitoring consoles standing along the far side of the lab.

"You plan to go outside when we pass Jupiter?" Cardenas asked Gaeta as von Helmholtz handed her the briefcase.

"Yep. We'll have a couple hundred million VR viewers sharing the experience as we zip past Jupiter. Should be fun."

"Flying past Jupiter as seen from outside. I'd like to experience that myself," Cardenas said.

The technicians swung open the hatch in the back of the suit and Gaeta stepped to it. Over his shoulder he told Cardenas, "Sure, why not? Fritz can fix you up with a VR rig, can't you Fritz?"

"It would be an honor," said von Helmholtz. Cardenas couldn't decide if he meant it or he was being snotty.

She watched as Gaeta hiked one leg up over the rim of the hatch, grabbed the sides with either hand, and then pulled his other leg in. His head disappeared into the darkness inside.

She heard a thud, then a string of muffled Spanish curses.

"It's pretty tight in there," one of the technicians said, grinning at her.

Gaeta called, "Okay, I'm set." The techs closed the hatch and sealed it shut.

Walking around to the front of the suit, Cardenas had to crane her neck to see Gaeta's face through the heavily tinted visor of the helmet.

The right arm of the suit stirred into motion with a buzz and whirr of servomotors.

"Hello, Kris," boomed Gaeta's voice, amplified powerfully, as he waved at her. "Wanna dance?"

But she was already on one knee, opening the briefcase that carried her analysis tools, all business.

The cafeteria was bustling and noisy with the clatter of silverware and a hundred buzzing conversations. Ilya Timoshenko ignored the lines of people waiting at the various counters, preferring to punch out his lunch selections from the automated dispensers. He had filled his tray with a McGlop sandwich and a bowl of steaming soup; now he stood before the beverage dispenser.

"Decisions, decisions."

Timoshenko turned his head to see that it was Jaansen, one of the top engineers, standing next to him, tall and lean and pale as the winter sun.

Without a word, Timoshenko slid his plastic cup beneath the cola nozzle and leaned on the button. Then he walked away, looking for a table where he could be alone. As he unloaded his tray, though, Jaansen walked up to the table, carrying a salad and a glass of milk.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" Jaansen asked, already putting his sparse lunch on the table. "I need to talk with you."

Timoshenko said, "About what?" Jaansen was one of the bosses, several rungs up the ladder above him.

"Politics," said Jaansen as he pulled out his chair and sat down. Suddenly Timoshenko had no appetite. He sat facing the pale Norseman. "I have no interest in politics."

"You did once. You were quite an activist."

"And look where it's got me."

Jaansen waved a hand vaguely. "This isn't so bad, is it? If you have to be exiled, this is better than most places."

Despite himself, Timoshenko asked, "Were you exiled?"

"No, I chose to come here. For me, this is an opportunity to be in charge of a major engineering operation."

"To be a boss, you mean."

"You could be a boss, too," Jaansen said. "The biggest boss of all."

Timoshenko scowled at him.

"I mean it, Ilya. You could run for the office of chief administrator, once the new constitution is put into effect."

"You're joking."

"I'm serious. You could run, and you could win. All the engineers and technicians would vote for you. That's a major bloc of votes."

"Why would they vote for me?"

"Because you're one of us. Everybody knows you and respects you."

Timoshenko grunted derisively. "I have very few friends. Hardly anybody knows me, and those who do don't like me very much. I can't say that I blame them, either."

Jaansen would not be put off. Pulling his palmcomp from his tunic pocket he began tapping out numbers as he spoke.

"Politics boils down to arithmetic," he said, pecking away. "You are much more respected by your fellow workers than you think. They'll vote for you in preference to Urbain, and
—
"

"Urbain? He'll be running for office?"

"Of course. He's head of the science department, isn't he? The scientists think they own this habitat. They think we're all here to serve them. Of course he'll run. And he'll win, unless you can rally the engineers and technicians."

Timoshenko shook his head. "I have no interest in politics," he repeated. But he stayed and listened and looked at the numbers Jaansen was pecking out on his palmcomp.

Half an hour later, on the other side of the crowded, noisy cafeteria, Edouard Urbain was trying to finish his lunch and get back to his office. The cold potato soup was a poor imitation of vichyssoise. He hadn't had a decent meal since leaving Montreal. Wilmot has no interest in cuisine, of course. Once I become chief administrator I will see to it that the cooks learn how to cook.

There were a thousand things to do; construction of the roving vehicle was running into difficulties and the Jupiter encounter was almost upon them and this man Eberly wanted to draft a constitution for the habitat and make himself the chief administrator. Impossible! Urbain told himself as he sipped the unappetizing soup. This is a scientific mission, the entire purpose of this habitat is science. A scientist must head the government.

"Are you as excited as I am?"

Urbain jumped as if someone had poked him. Looking up, he saw the chief engineer, the Norseman Jaansen, smiling gently at him. Reluctantly, Urbain gestured him to the empty chair on the other side of his table.

"Excited?" he asked as Jaansen took the proffered chair.

"About the Jupiter flyby."

"Ah, yes. I suppose I am," Urbain muttered as he spooned up the last of the mediocre soup. Then he noticed that Jaansen was empty-handed. "Aren't you having lunch?"

"I've already eaten," said the engineer. "I was on my way out when I saw you sitting alone."

Urbain preferred to eat alone. But he said nothing and reached for his cup of tea. They served wine, of a sort, in the restaurants. The cafeteria did not.

Jaansen said, "I can't think of anything but the flyby. And the refueling procedure. I've checked everything associated with the procedure a dozen times, but still I can't help worrying that I've forgotten something."

"That is why we create checklists," Urbain said tartly.

Jaansen smiled. "Yes, I know. But still..."

Urbain finished his tea. "If you'll pardon me," he said, starting to push his chair back from the table.

Jaansen touched his sleeve. "Do you have a minute? There's something I'd like to discuss with you."

"I must get back at my lab."

Jaansen nodded, his ice blue, pale-lashed eyes looking disappointed. "I understand."

Nettled, irritated at the pang of guilt he felt, Urbain conceded, "A minute, you say?"

"Maybe two."

"What is it?" Urbain asked. He leaned over to pull his tray from beneath the chair and began placing his dishes on it.

"I need your help. Your guidance."

"About what?"

The engineer glanced around almost furtively before replying, "You know that the chief of Human Resources is forming a committee to draft a new constitution for us."

"Yes, so I have heard."

"And once the constitution is put into effect, we will vote on a government."

Urbain nodded as he asked himself,
What is he driving at?

"I presume that you will head that government," Jaansen said.

"Ah, yes. I suppose I will."

Looking quite earnest, Jaansen asked, "Are you prepared to make such a sacrifice? It will be a heavy responsibility."

Urbain began to reply, hesitated, then formed the words in his mind before answering, "I have thought about this quite seriously. It is a serious responsibility, you are entirely correct there. But since this is a scientific endeavor, it must have a scientist at its head. As chief scientist, I really have no choice in the matter. I must accept the responsibility."

"Assuming the people elect you," said Jaansen.

"Of course they will elect me. Who else could they vote for?"