Jupiter (35 page)

'Here, take a look.' Karlstad held the computer so Grant could see its glowing screen. His hands were shaking so much that Grant put his own hands over his to steady them.

'Wind speed's dying down, at least. It's just a tad under fifty-five hundred centimeters per second,' Karlstad muttered, tapping the screen with his forefinger. 'That's less than two hundred kilometers per hour. We're coming out of it.'

'I imagine she didn't expect the storm to be whipping up so much turbulence down at this low altitude,' Grant muttered.

'I wouldn't bet on that,' Karlstad grumbled. Then he said to the computer, 'Display exterior pressure gradients.'

The screen went blank for a moment.

'You're linked to the ship's computer?' Grant asked.

'What else?'

The screen showed a wildly undulating curve with a huge dip at its center.

'See?' Karlstad pointed at the graph. 'It's a small, compact storm. There's the eye. We're skirting through this region, here.'

'Why didn't Krebs avoid the storm altogether?' Grant wondered. 'We didn't have to go through any part of it.'

With a bitter smile, Karlstad answered, 'Like I told you, she's following the mission plan. We're supposed to be at this location, so we go to this location, no matter what the conditions outside.'

Grant shook his head. 'That doesn't make sense.'

'It does if you're a pathological anal-retentive, the way she is.'

'Maybe she just wants to get data on the storm,' Grant suggested. 'She's a scientist, after all. Nobody's gotten data from inside a Jovian cyclonic system. This is an opportunity.'

'The true scooter,' Karlstad sneered. 'Out to get the data, even if it gets us all killed.'

'The ship's not in trouble,' Grant said. 'Not really. We can ride through a storm like this.' But in his mind's eye he still saw Krebs' enraptured expression as the ship shuddered through the storm's fury. And remembered his own passion.

Karlstad's expression soured. 'I've gone through the ship's medical files.'

'Is there anything about her?'

'The personal files are all locked,' Karlstad said. 'Nothing in the open files much more than first-aid instructions and directions for cryogenic freezing in case of a major accident.'

'It was no help, then?'

'I think I can set a broken bone now, but no, there's nothing here that helps us determine what's ailing our squint-eyed captain.'

'It's just as well, I suppose,' said Grant. 'What would we do with the information if we had it?'

Karlstad pursed his lips briefly, then said, 'I'm not finished. The next time she takes a nap I'm going to access the station's medical files.'

'But she's cut off all communications with the station!'

With a careless shrug, Karlstad said, 'All I need is a quick squirt of data. A few picoseconds should be enough. She'll never know.'

'But they'll know on the station,' Grant said. 'They'll know that we're not out of communications contact. They'll know that the message she sent in the data capsule is a barefaced lie!'

Karlstad actually laughed. 'So what? Don't be such a straight-arrow, Grant. Besides, nobody's going to notice a picosecond burst from the ship. No human being will even be involved. It's just a medical query from our ship's computer to the station's medical computer, zap! That's all. They'll never even notice it.'

'You hope,' Grant said.

'Listen to me. Would you rather risk bending the captain's order against communicating with the station or risk riding down into that ocean with a crazy woman running the ship?'

The ship shuddered again. Grant thought he heard a hollow booming noise, like distant thunder.

'You can't say,that she's crazy.'

'Can't I? You think a sane person would deliberately drive us through a storm like this?'

By the time Grant reported for duty on the bridge the storm was mostly behind them. The ship still trembled from occasional gusts, but the big heart-stopping plunges and yaws had stopped.

Grant hooked up and linked with the generator and thrusters once more. Remembering what it was like to be connected while driving through the clouds, his cheeks reddened with shame. He glanced at Krebs, floating stern-faced behind him. She knows what it's like. She's connected with every system in the ship, not an electron vibrates in this vessel without her knowing it, feeling it. No wonder she doesn't want to disconnect. No wonder she avoids sleep.

Muzorawa and O'Hara unlinked and went to the food dispenser. Grant looked across at Karlstad, weaving slightly as he stood before his console, feet anchored in the floor loops.

'Dr Karlstad?' Krebs called. Grant felt an eerie tingle along his spine. Egon's right, he thought. It's as if she can't see us.

'Captain?' Egon replied.

Krebs focused her eyes on him. 'You will pilot the ship during this watch, in addition to monitoring the life support systems.'

'I'm honored, Captain.'

If Krebs caught the sarcasm in Karlstad's voice, she gave no sign of it. 'Mr Archer?'

'Yes, Ma'am!'

'You will monitor the sensors, in addition to the power and propulsion systems.'

'Yes, Captain.'

Grant began adjusting his console, using the touchscreens to tap into the sensor network. The data flowed through his implanted biochips, through his nervous system and directly into his brain. His heart fluttered beneath his ribs. Once again he could
see
the world outside the ship, hear the sighing wind whistling past, feel its fluttering flow along the ship's metal hull, touch the ocean waves as they undulated far below, taste the flavor of an alien breeze, rich with salts and compounds no human tongue had ever sampled. Lightning flared off on the horizon; Grant felt it as a tingle along his nerves. He did not need display screens or graphs or dials; Grant was not examining data, he was experiencing it, directly in the sense receptors in his brain, completely enveloped in the richness of this vast, unexplored world.

From deep inside his subconscious a voice spoke out: be careful. Don't let all this overwhelm you. You've got to maintain control, stay in charge of yourself. Don't get lost in the sensations.

How does Zeb handle all this? Grant wondered. How can he stand at his console hour after hour and not completely immerse himself in this experience? How can he stay rational and calm when he can be a Jovian, breathing their air, seeing through their eyes?

Teach my thy ways, O Lord, Grant prayed, and I will walk in your truth.

'She's asleep.'

Karlstad's whisper cut through Grant's inner turmoil. He blinked, turned to look at Egon, two consoles away.

It took a few heartbeats for Grant to remember where he was, who he was. With a shudder that was part lost joy, part desperate resolution, he forced the ship's sensations to a back corner of his mind.

'She's sleeping,' Karlstad repeated, hiking a thumb past his shoulder.

Grant saw that Krebs' eyes were closed. She was bobbing gently up by the overhead, still linked but apparently sound asleep. What dreams must she have, connected to the complete ship the way she is? Grant asked himself.

'Now's the time,' Karlstad whispered, tapping at his console screens.

'Don't do it!' Grant hissed.

Karlstad shot him a pitying look, his fingers still playing on the touchscreens.

Starving, dying, Leviathan drifted in the cold, empty abyss, high above its usual level in the ocean. It took an effort of will to hold its parts together, to prevent them from spontaneously disintegrating.

We must stay together, Leviathan kept repeating. If we break apart each component of us will die, whether we bud or not. We will become food for the scavengers who wait below in the hot darkness of the depths. Together we might survive. If we can stay together long enough we might find food.

But the ocean was cold and barren at this level. Legends pictured monsters up in this frigid emptiness, slithering beasts that preyed on each other and any of Leviathan's kind foolish enough to drift this high.

Leviathan thought that the legends were mere tales, stories flashed by Elders to frighten young ones away from climbing too far from the safe levels of the sea.

It is time for us to return to the warmer region, Leviathan knew. But it could not force its flotation members to contract. They no longer had the strength to expel the gas that filled them. It took energy to make their muscles contract, and starving members had no energy to work with.

Cold. Cold and empty. Leviathan could sense its control of its outer members begin to fade. A unit of armored hide peeled away spontaneously. Instead of the promised joy of budding, Leviathan felt a wave of uncontrollable grief wash through its mind. We are disintegrating. We will all die here, alone, never to bud, never to generate new life.

Unbidden, three of the flagella members broke loose, fluttering mindlessly in the frigid current. Leviathan realized that the end was near. Once the vital organ members dissociated, Leviathan's existence would be finished, without even the knowledge that its parts would generate new buds, create new members that would associate into offspring.

The Symmetry would be disrupted. The eternal cycle of life budding new life would end. It was not meant to be so, Leviathan knew. It had failed to maintain the Symmetry.

A sense organ shuddered, then began to quiver violently, the first step in its dissociation. There was nothing Leviathan could do to prevent it. Not now. And yet…

The sense organ suddenly stopped fluttering and became still. It flashed a picture to Leviathan's brain. A monster. A long, flat, many-armed creature was quietly slithering toward Leviathan, grasping its dissociated members in its wriggling tentacles and pushing them into a circular, snapping mouth ringed with sharp teeth.

For a flash of a second Leviathan thought its sensor member was hallucinating, hysterical on the edge of starvation and dissociation. But no, other sense members flashed the same picture. The creature was huge, almost as large as Leviathan itself, and it was nearly transparent, difficult to see until it was very close. It glided through the sea with hardly a ripple, making it impossible to detect at long range.

It was one of the mindless beasts that the old legends warned of. It was trailing Leviathan, gobbling up its members as they dissociated and drifted helplessly in the cold abyss.

It was heading for Leviathan itself, tentacles weaving, round tooth-ringed mouth snapping open and shut, open and shut.

Leviathan's first instinct was to flee. But in its weakened condition, could it outrun this scavenger? The monster slowed as it approached Leviathan, stretched out two of its longest tentacles and barely touched Leviathan's hide.

Pain! Leviathan had never felt an electric shock before, but the jangling, burning pain of the monster's touch made Leviathan recoil instinctively. The monster pursued leisurely, in no hurry to do battle with Leviathan. It seemed content to wait until more of Leviathan's members dissociated. It was more of a scavenger than a predator, Leviathan thought.

Weak, almost helpless, Leviathan studied the monster. Its main body was a broad flat sheet, undulating like jelly. That gaping mouth was on the underside; its top was studded with dome-like projections that must be sensory organs. Dozens of tentacles weaved and snaked all around the central body's periphery. Two of them were much longer than the others, and ended in rounded knobs.

Can all the tentacles cause pain when they touch? Leviathan wondered. Cautiously, it backed away from the creature. The monster followed at the same pace, keeping its distance, waiting patiently.

A new thought arose in Leviathan's mind. This monster could be food. The old legends pictured these beasts eating one another when they had no other food available. It wants to eat my members. Perhaps we could eat it.

But first, Leviathan knew, it would have to kill the monster. And to do that, it would have to avoid those painful tentacles.

If Leviathan had not been weakened and starving there would have been no contest. Leviathan's speed and strength would have made short work of this gossamer creature. Except for those pain-dealing tentacles. He must avoid them.

Leviathan conceived a plan. It was part desperation, part cunning. It called for a sacrifice.

Deliberately, Leviathan willed three more of its flagella members to dissociate. Faithful, mindless, they peeled away from Leviathan's body and began propelling themselves down toward the warmer depths.

The monster immediately dived after them, so fast that Leviathan realized his plan could not possibly work. But there was nothing else to do. He dived after the beast.

The monster's two longer tentacles touched the first of the flagella, instantly paralyzing it. They passed the immobilized member to the shorter tentacles so quickly that their motions seemed a blur to Leviathan. The tentacles, in turn, relayed the inert flagellum to that snapping, hideous mouth.

The two other flagella were instinctively fleeing, diving blindly toward the warmth of the lower levels of the sea. The monster pursued them singlemindedly. Which gave Leviathan its opportunity.

With its last reserves of strength Leviathan dove after the beast and rammed into it. Waves of concussion rippled through the jelly-like body of the monster; its tentacle writhed in pain.

Quickly, Leviathan fastened as many of its mouth parts as possible onto that broad, flat body. The monster's longer tentacles snaked back and stung Leviathan again and again, searching blindly for the parts where the armored hide members had dissociated and the more vulnerable inner organs were exposed.

Despite the pain that flared through it, Leviathan tore through the monster's body, its mouth parts crushing the beast's flimsy body. The monster's tentacles went limp at last and Leviathan fed on its dead body. It tasted awful, but it was food.

Feeling stronger despite the strangely acid sensation simmering through its digestive organs, Leviathan resumed its course around the great storm, heading for the deeper waters where — it hoped — it would find plentiful food and others of its own kind.