Jupiter (25 page)

'Whatever it is, it makes my blood run cold,' O'Hara said.

'You think it runs cold when she gives you the fish-eye,' Karlstad said, almost smirking, 'wait until you're immersed in that PFCL gunk. That'll chill your blood down to the marrow.'

For a long moment no one spoke a word. Grant knew what they were facing and shuddered inwardly.

'There's an IAA inspection team on its way here,' Frankovich muttered.

'I'd heard that,' said O'Hara. 'It's really true, then?'

Karlstad grumbled, 'That's why our woeful leader wants to get this mission off so fast. He's afraid the IAA officials will stop it, once they find out about it.'

'Why would they stop it?'

'Risking human lives.'

'Finding things they don't want to find,' Grant heard himself say.

The others all turned to him.

'They'll be here in ten days,' Grant added. 'You should be safely on your way by then.'

'Safely?' Karlstad sneered. 'I wish.'

Muzorawa said, 'Let us remember one thing: We will be exploring a region where no human has gone before. We will be searching for life on a world that is utterly alien to us. We will be seeking intelligent life, if it exists down in that sea. Those are good things to do, no matter how much discomfort we must endure.'

For a moment Grant thought that Zeb would say they were doing God's work. But the Moslem scientist stopped short of that.

Sitting at his console in the mission control center, Grant was almost quivering with anticipation. This morning the consoles were no longer connected to the simulator in the aquarium. Now, as he looked up at the big wallscreen, Grant saw the interior of the submersible itself.

It was empty, as yet. No, not really empty, Grant told himself. It's filled with that PFCL liquid instead of air. The crew will be breathing that soup, immersed in it, living in it for days on end, weeks.

'Ready for immersion procedure,' Dr Wo said, from his position at the central console, lapsing unconsciously into the clipped speaking style of the controllers.

The image on the wallscreen changed to show the airlock in the docking module. Krebs and the other crew members stood in a small huddle by the outer hatch. They each wore snug-fitting bodysuits, more for modesty than need, Grant understood. The leotards left their legs bare and he could see the studs of electrodes lining their flesh, like obscene metal leeches attached to their skin.

'We are ready,' Krebs said, peering directly into the monitoring camera. She had an odd way of staring, as if she were focusing only one eye on anything.

'Proceed,' said Dr Wo.

Starting with Muzorawa, the crew entered the airlock one by one. Surveillance cameras watched as the hatch sealed tight and the lock slowly filled with the thick liquid perfluorocarbon. It looked to Grant as if each of them was being deliberately drowned. Each one floated upward as the chamber filled, instinctively lifting their heads to suck in their last lungfuls of air. When the liquid finally filled the airlock, each of them spasmed with inborn reflex, eyes popping wide, mouths gaping and gasping, arms and legs flailing.

Grant had to force himself to sit still, to say nothing, as he watched his friends' desperate convulsions. This must be what it's like to watch an execution, he thought, his fists clenched, his own pulse racing hard.

Then, after what seemed like hours of struggle, each member of the crew began to breathe almost normally and opened the inner hatch of the airlock to swim into the sub's interior. Grant blinked with disbelief when he checked his console clock and saw that Muzorawa's reflexive struggles had lasted less than thirty seconds. The others did almost as well.

Krebs was the last to enter the airlock. She hardly struggled at all. In fact, Grant thought he saw a smile cross her heavy, gray-skinned face as the liquid closed over her head.

For most of the day the crew simply accustomed themselves to the submersible. Grant was surprised, as he watched the wallscreen display, at how cramped the interior was. Despite the outer size of the ship, the bridge was no bigger than the simulator in the aquarium had been. The galley was nothing more than a shoulder-tall console built into one of the bulkheads.

Of course, Grant realized. They won't be eating normally; they'll get their nutrition intravenously, through the ports in their necks.

Krebs had assigned each of them a privacy berth, where they could sleep and get away from the others for a while. They reminded Grant of the coffin-sized quarters he'd shared with Tavalera aboard
Roberts
.

Their voices were different: deeper, slower, as if someone were playing a recording at slower than normal speed.

No one left the control center for more than a few minutes. When noon came, Dr Wo told Grant to go to the cafeteria and bring back enough sandwiches and drinks for all five of them.

'Big appetite, mate,' Red Devlin wisecracked as Grant loaded his tray.

Grant merely nodded.

'What's goin' on, eh? Big doin's?'

'You might say that,' Grant replied as he hefted the tray.

'You need help with that?' Devlin called after him as Grant made his way past the incoming people and started down the main corridor.

'No thanks,' he yelled over his shoulder, nearly bumping into a technician coming up the corridor.

Feeling like a lackey instead of a scientist, Grant juggled the heavily-laden tray all the way back to the control center. This is why they call us scooters, he guessed.

As he slid back into his console chair, munching a sandwich, he saw on the wallscreen that Krebs was starting to organize the crew for linking electronically with the ship's systems.

Muzorawa had taken up his station at the control panel, with O'Hara and Karlstad flanking him. Pascal was nowhere in sight. Grant thought that Lane looked tense, perhaps worried. It was harder to read Zeb's expression; he seemed totally focused on the controls.

Four hairless humans, naked except for their skin-tight bodysuits, electrodes studding their legs. Hair-thin fiber-optic wires led from the implants to sets of plugs in the consoles. The wires seemed to float gently in the liquid-filled chamber.

Krebs hovered behind and slightly above the crew, like a levitating sack of cement, watching everything they did. Wires trailed from her stocky legs to a panel set into the ceiling above her.

'Remember,' she said, her voice oddly booming,'that once we are linked, the manual controls will be used only as a backup.'

The four crew members nodded. Grant found himself folding his hands in his lap, to keep them off the controls on his console. This is for real now, he told himself. This isn't a simulation anymore.

Dr Wo said, 'Proceed with systems linkup.'

It was eerie. Grant watched as, one by one, the crew members activated their implanted chips. Nothing seemed to happen. There were no sparks, no lights, no changes of expression on any of their faces. Maybe they stiffened a little, when the linkage first came through their nervous systems. He thought he saw a slight tic in Karlstad's cheek. But nothing more.

He forced himself to look down at his console. All the telltales were green: all systems functioning within their design parameters.

'Begin systems checkout,' Wo said. His voice seemed weak, breathless, as if he were excited.

'Systems checkout,' Krebs repeated.

It went very smoothly; flawlessly, Grant thought, except that Quintero, monitoring the sensor array, reported that coolant on one of the infrared telescopes was low. Karlstad was assigned to check it out after separation.

'It might be a leak,' Krebs warned.

'More likely, it merely was not filled properly to begin with,' said Wo.

Karlstad said, 'I'll attend to it. It's not vital, in any case. The backup is functioning in the green.'

Grant thought that Egon was showing some real professionalism. He hates being on the mission, but as long as he's in, he's going to conduct himself like a pro. Good for Egon!

The crew finished the checkouts and retired to their privacy compartments for the night. Dr Wo stayed at his console in the mission control center but allowed the other four controllers to leave for the night. Grant got up and left the cramped chamber, feeling tired and sweaty.

He argued with his conscience about going down to see Sheena. No, he decided. She'll still be flared up over the burnt-out electrode. Still associating me with pain and betrayal. The image of her rearing up in fury, fangs bared, made Grant's stomach twist. Better to let her cool off for a while, he convinced himself. I'll see her tomorrow night - or maybe after the ship's gone.

The entire next day was spent slowly ratcheting up the pressure inside the sub. Free to inspect the ship's schematics from his console in the control center, Grant saw that it was built of four separate hulls, nested inside one another, with high-pressure liquid between each of the hulls.

That's why it looks so small inside, he realized. The section where the crew worked and lived was only a tiny part of the submersible's total volume.

The reason for immersing the crew was to allow them to withstand the immense pressure of the Jovian ocean. The higher the pressure that the crew could take, the deeper the submersible could go into the Jovian ocean. So, under Wo's watchful eyes, the pressure of the perfluorocarbon mixture in the crew's space was gradually increased.

With all his lights green, Grant spent the time watching the crew on the wallscreen display. Lane looked a little apprehensive, he thought, although that might have been merely a projection of his own tension. Zeb was checking out the computer programs that digested the sensors' inputs. He looked as calm and at ease as always, methodical, capable. The only difference that Grant could see was that Muzorawa's trim beard was gone.

Patti Buono, at the medical console, peered fixedly at her readouts. 'Any discomfort?' she called out again and again. Karlstad complained of a headache. Pascal said she felt a tightness in her chest.

'Psychosomatic' Buono proclaimed. 'The monitors show blood pressure, heart rate, all your physical readings are well within normal range.'

Pascal, looking strangely gnomish without a wig covering her bald dome, turned to look into the camera. 'And just what is normal range under immersion?' she asked, her voice a deep baritone.

Krebs snapped, 'Stop this bickering.'

Pascal shook her head, but said nothing.

When the pressure reached ninety percent of the design goal, Krebs said, 'Hold it there for one hour. Give them a chance to adjust.'

Wo agreed, 'We will hold at ninety percent for one hour.'

The next morning, Buono asked each crew member how they had slept. The worst impact of the full pressurization, apparently, was that O'Hara suffered a slight nose bleed and Muzorawa - of all people - reported he had experienced a nightmare.

Buono had no interest in Zeb's dream; she concerned herself only with the crew's physical condition. After a careful check of her medical sensors, she pronounced the crew fully fit for duty.

'In that case,' Krebs announced, 'we are ready to begin separation sequence.'

'Wait,' said Dr Wo, raising one hand, palm out, fingers splayed. 'This is the proper moment to name the ship.'

'Name it?' Krebs stared into the camera. Grant could not tell from her frowning expression whether she was perplexed or irritated.

'Yes,' Wo replied, perfectly serious. 'On the first mission the ship had no proper name. That was unfortunate. The ship should have a name of its own, a name that will be propitious.'

Krebs' frown soured. Grant could see that she was annoyed with the director's sudden burst of Chinese superstition.

Unperturbed, Dr Wo announced, 'The name of this vessel will be
Zheng He
.'

No one said a word. They're all puzzled, Grant thought. What in the world does Zheng He mean?

At last Krebs said, 'Very well.
Zheng He
is ready for the separation sequence.'

'Proceed,' said Wo.

Grant felt a tightening in his chest. The ship's disconnecting from the station, going out on its own. They'll be heading down into Jupiter's clouds, and then deeper, into the ocean. If they get into trouble we won't be able to help them. They'll be on their own.

The separation sequence was automated. Grant could not hear the latches releasing or the connectors unsealing themselves. He watched the wallscreen, with quick glances at his console board to make certain all the propulsion and power systems were functioning properly.
Zheng He
disconnected from the access tube and used the station's magnetic shield to push it free of the great toroidal mass of Research Station
Gold
.

Grant almost smiled. That magnetic screen was intended to repel energetic subatomic particles that the Jovian magnetosphere sometimes spat out, during a magnetic storm. Now it was pushing a somewhat larger 'particle,'
Zheng He
, away from the station's hull.

The submersible and the station remained side by side, separated be a mere kilometer, for two orbits of Jupiter, slightly more than six hours. Grant watched the wallscreen that showed the sub, a tiny metallic lenticular shape against the gigantic, overwhelming background of Jupiter's tumultuous, turbulent cloud deck. The crew rechecked all the ship's systems. Then Krebs reported they were ready for entry into the Jovian atmosphere.

'Insertion burn,' Krebs ordered.

Grant saw a tiny flicker of light at one side of the saucer. For a heart-stopping moment he thought the insertion rockets had failed.
Zheng He
seemed to remain alongside them, hovering helplessly. But within a few eyeblinks he could see that it was indeed moving away from them, faster now, allowing Jupiter's powerful gravity to pull them along, down into those swirling clouds.

Dr Wo said something aloud, in Chinese. 'Good luck,' said Frankovich, his voice slightly husky. 'Safe journey,' Kayla Ukara called to the departing crew. Grant licked his lips. His throat was suddenly dry. Then he found his voice and said, 'Godspeed.'