Cold as Ice (37 page)

Everything slowed to a tenth of its usual speed.
Primary explosion
. . . (still going on, an erupting volcano a few feet away) . . .
thump
. . . (that had to be the disintegration of the whole pressurized container) . . .
shiver
. . . (the resonance shook the interior of the suite) . . .
roar
. . . (long-sustained, shattering) . . .

Jon watched shards of black ceramic, propelled by a shock wave of superheated steam, fly and splinter against the walls of the living room and kitchen. Hundreds more of them, small and as sharp as needles, flew into the bedroom through the open door.

It was like the signal of an immense starting gun. Before the reverberations were over, Jon and Wilsa were through the bedroom door and racing out into the living room.

Speed was the only thing that mattered now. The three men had been lucky; none of the fragments had touched them. But when Jon turned as he left the bedroom, he saw that they had not moved a millimeter.

Stunned with surprise? Let's hope so.
Surprise was all that he and Wilsa had going for them.

But it was enough. They were through and out. When he turned to slam the door, still not one of the three men had moved. He spun the ciphers, tugged to make sure that the door was locked, and followed Wilsa along the corridor.

As they turned the first corner a couple of people were approaching with confusion on their faces. Jon and Wilsa flashed past before any blocking move could be made. Once around the corner Jon grabbed Wilsa to slow her to a walking pace. But his own feet would not cooperate. They insisted on running at maximum speed, regardless of his efforts to act casual.

This part of the escape was something over which they had no control. But it was also the part about which Jon had been least worried. Anyone drawn by the explosion
could
try to stop them. But unless Jon and Wilsa were unlucky enough to run into Buzz Sandstrom himself, no one would have any reason to try. Buzz's orders for them to say nothing to anyone were working in their favor.

Fortunately, Mount Ararat was as deserted as usual. Once clear of the corridor leading to the guest suites Jon forced himself to a more moderate pace. It made no difference, since they met no one on their way to the exit leading up to the spaceport.

"I know you think there's no ship available," said Wilsa as they scrambled into surface suits. "But it would be stupid not to take just a
peek.
We might get lucky and make it clear off Europa."

But luck, for the moment, had run out. The saucer of the Mount Ararat spaceport was bare of ships. They hurried over to the covered area that housed the ground cars and found that it, too, was a disappointment. Most of the cars were being recharged, and only one was present in the garage. Fortunately, it had ample power to take them to Blowhole.

"Think positive," said Wilsa as they climbed aboard. "Once we grab this one, nobody can follow until they can get their hands on a recharged car. I was worried that we'd be caught before we reached the
Spindrift
, because we daren't drive as fast as an experienced Europan. But now we'll be all right."

All right?
Jon wondered. It depended on how you defined the expression. It was probably not worth mentioning the fact that Buzz Sandstrom, angry before, would be foaming at the mouth when he learned about their escape and run for Europa's surface. He would be after them in minutes, and it was hard to believe that he would not catch them.

"How long before you'll be missed on Ganymede and someone comes after you?"

"I have a concert on Callisto in five days. If Magnus Klein doesn't hear from me in three, he'll stage a personal Europan invasion. And Tristan will lead the landing party, because I promised to call him when I arrived here, and I didn't. How about you?"

"Just Nell Cotter." He laughed. "I shouldn't say 'just.' You know Nell. She'll eat Sandstrom alive if he tells her we've been lost."

As he spoke, he kept peering at the path ahead of the car. They were beelining for Blowhole at top speed. Then it occurred to Jon that rather than instigating a pursuit, it would be far more logical for Sandstrom to call ahead and arrange for somebody to block their path. Now, too late, Jon wished that he had not been so explicit about his wish to consult the onboard data bank of the
Spindrift.

He had plenty of opportunity for brooding. Once over the lip of the Mount Ararat spaceport, the car seemed to drive itself. The path ahead was clearly illuminated by Ganymede and Callisto, high in the sky, and the sparkling ice-road was marked by the old imprints of other ground cars making their way to and from Blowhole. Jon had only to keep an eye on the power supply, follow the powdery grooves across the gently rolling ice, and worry about a welcoming committee at the end of the road.

"Problem," said Wilsa suddenly. She must have been doing her own share of nail-biting, because while Jon was driving, she had been scanning the horizon in front of them at high magnification.

"Cars?"

"No. But we're close enough to Blowhole that I ought to be able to see the
Spindrift.
I can't."

"Maybe it's partway down the ice ramp." But Jon did not believe it. The
Spindrift
held the rest of the evidence, with its log showing just what life forms had been collected at the Europan hydrothermal vent. Destroy those records, and destroy Jon himself, and who could prove that the Europan life forms were not native to this world? To provide a proof, someone would have to make another trip down into the depths and collect more samples. And Mount Ararat controlled all such access.

Wilsa was peering at the display on its highest magnification. "There
is
something at the top of the ramp. I don't think it's the
Spindrift
, though. It looks like the
Danae.
Same outline, same color."

"Any sign of people or cars?"

"Don't see them. Want to slow down until I'm sure?"

"Nah." Jon grunted, shook his head, and held the car at maximum speed. No matter what was waiting at Blowhole, he and Wilsa had nowhere else to go. He had seen what had happened to Camille Hamilton when she went wandering off to unfamiliar Europan ground.

A couple of minutes later he could confirm Wilsa's suggestion. It was indeed the
Danae
, sitting deserted on the open ice. He took a minute to stare around the Blowhole buildings for any sign of the
Spindrift.
No trace. But he fancied that he saw a dark dot far back along the icy road that led from Mount Ararat.

The decision to stick to maximum speed had been the right one. And forget any ideas of wandering around to find the
Spindrift.

"Come on. We may soon have company." Jon stopped the car, jumped out, and ran across to attach the launch grapples to the
Danae.

"If they've destroyed the
Spindrift
to get rid of evidence, that's good," said Wilsa. She was climbing aboard. "They won't be able to follow us down."

"Good for
you
," said Jon as he climbed after her. "The
Spindrift
isn't your ship. But it's been a home to me for the past seven years."

And never will be again.
Jon knew that, as clearly as he knew anything. Whatever happened next, his future did not hold another seven years on PacAnt 14. As for what it did hold—if he had any future for longer than a few hours . . .

He allowed Wilsa to occupy the pilot's seat while he checked the seals on the
Danae.
As they moved down the ramp he glanced up. Ganymede was in full phase, directly overhead.
That
was real safety, not the murky depths of the Europan ocean. But for the next day or two, he and Wilsa had no choice.

There was a slapping of small waves on the submersible's sides. Then they were under, drifting deeper through cold, clear water. Down, down, down. The familiar ambience of a deep-ocean vessel at once began to provide Jon with a sense of security. A
false
sense. He knew how dangerous that could be. Anyone who had been pursuing them knew that they were heading down Blowhole. Sonic detectors would track the
Danae
easily by its engine noise.

As the submersible approached the bottom edge of the Europan ice blanket, Jon held out a warning hand.

"No deeper. Hold us right here."

"Why?"

"Suppose they have the
Spindrift
in one of the hangars close to Blowhole? They'll follow right after us."

"So what? We can't stop them."

"I think we can—if we hurry."

He didn't have to ask her to change seats. With the unspoken understanding that they had shared since their first meeting, she was already moving aside. Jon took the controls, switched on all the vessel's lights, and inched toward the wall of Blowhole. On each trip to the deeps he had seen the massive heating units that kept the water column of Blowhole liquid, but he had not taken much notice of them. Now he had to make a close inspection.

There were three of them, secured to the lower edge of the ice blanket and forming a horizontal equilateral triangle. Jon homed in on the first one and saw that it was a set of nested black cylinders. The interior one was presumably the power unit, and he could see it vibrating slightly. The others were heat exchangers and pumps, used to provide an upward current of warmed water. The outermost cylinder, ten meters across, was crusted black with mineral deposits.

"There has to be a way to turn these things on and off from down here." Jon maneuvered the
Danae
delicately around the power unit. "And I'll bet it's direct, not through an electronic signal, because water cuts off radio signals. Do you see a switch or a lever or something?"

"Can't see much of anything at all. Too much crud." Wilsa, ignoring the display screens, had her nose pressed to the submersible's transparent window. "But that lump could be a switch. Can you knock off some of the muck?"

"I can try." Jon longed for the multipurpose remote handlers of the
Spindrift
, strong enough to cut metal, yet sensitive enough to thread a needle. All of the handling tools on the
Danae
were crude by comparison. He reached out with one of the two-fingered waldoes and scraped at the bottom of the power unit. Black flakes drifted away into the depths, and the formless lump took on a cleaner, knoblike shape. "I think you're right. It's some sort of key, or switch. Looks as though it ought to pull out when we get more scale off it."

But Wilsa's attention was elsewhere. Bigger flakes had been loosened, and the blue belly of the cylinder was now revealed. "Look at that!" She was pointing at a niche in the underside. "I think I'm seeing things."

Jon looked to where she was pointing. Cut deep into the metal of the inner cylinder, clearly visible now that the deposits were gone, was a stylized letter M.

"If you're seeing things, I'm seeing them, too. It's the Mobarak emblem. That's a Moby!"

"It sure is." Wilsa snorted. "How's that for irony? Everyone on Europa curses Mobarak's name, talks like he's the very devil—and they rely on the Mobies to keep Blowhole open!"

"It makes sense, though. Mobies are the best."

"Makes sense to
you
, Jon Perry, because you're logical. But anyone else in the system would agree with me that it's bizarre. I wonder if Buzz Sandstrom knows about this Moby."

"You can ask him yourself—after I'm safely away from Europa." Jon had returned to scraping at the switch. When he had cleared away as much scale as he could, he reached out with the clumsy two-fingered manipulator and tugged. There was no sound, but the vibration of the innermost cylinder ceased. "Success, I think. Two more to go."

"And then what?"

"And then, given a decent delay at the top before they can bring the
Spindrift
to Blowhole and launch it, we'll be snug where they can't reach us. The warm water from these power units is the only thing that keeps Blowhole open. The higher-up units are just circulating pumps. The temperature at the surface is down around seventy Kelvin. Water freezes while you watch. A few feet of hard ice is as good a barrier as steel. We'll have enough time to get far away, and we'll be safe enough when we come back, because it won't freeze at this depth for weeks."

As Jon spoke, he was maneuvering the ship to the other two power units in turn and repeating the procedure. They were also Mobies. While he did so, Wilsa was reexamining the
Danae
's control board.

"I didn't take much notice earlier, but some of these gauges have been changed."

"That's because the submersible has been changed, too." Jon, his task complete, set the
Danae
to descend at its maximum rate. "I knew they were doing this. The sensors and handlers are still primitive, but the hull has supposedly been strengthened enough to take the pressure at any depth in Europa's ocean. And that's good—because that's where we're heading."

"For the hydrothermal vents?"

"No. That's where Sandstrom's little helpers will be most likely to look for us if they enter Blowhole. I'm going to find us a hidey-hole as far away from the vents as we can get. Somewhere nobody has ever been."

In spite of his assurance that the
Danae
could now take any necessary pressure, Jon was watching the feedback from smart sensors scattered throughout the outer and inner hulls. As they plunged deeper, he was reassured by what he saw. At twenty kilometers and two hundred and seventy atmospheres of outside pressure, the strain gauges showed negligible hull deformation. The measured stresses were exactly what he expected.

The only trouble was that where the
Danae
could go, the
Spindrift
could follow—
if
Sandstrom could find a Europan who would be willing to pilot a ship down to a hundred kilometers and more. Because that's where Jon was going.

He smiled. Buzz would love to see them chased and caught. But would any Europan be willing to plunge into the deepest ocean? No one ever had, not in a century of exploration.

He angled the vessel away from a direct descent. If Sandstrom or anyone else from Mount Ararat did come looking, there was no point in making the search easier for them. The deepest known point of the Europan sea was far away on the other side of the planet, near the Sub-Jovian point, but according to the charts the
Danae
could reach places one hundred and eighteen kilometers below the ice layer by traveling no more than a couple of hundred great-circle kilometers. Jon felt sure that no one had ever even been anywhere near that region. It made an equation that he liked: Greater uneasiness in a pursuer = greater security for the pursued. Jon was starting to enjoy himself.