Jupiter Project (12 page)

We followed the line through a series of tubes and ended up in a big room so long the curvature hid the heads of people standing against the far wall.

“Ah, gentlemen. ‘And the hunter, home from the hill.’ Welcome back.”

I turned and found Ishi smiling at me.

“The first thing he does is quote a rival poet to me.” Zak said, and pumped Ishi’s hand when I was finished with it.

“You look thinner,” I said. “Working too hard?”

“What’s new?” Zak said.

“Not much. We lost another bathyscaphe-type probe in Jupiter’s atmosphere, but it found nothing new before it failed. And no, Matt, there has been little work for me. I do have to go out tonight to correct a drifting setting in a satellite, however.”

“Tonight? But that’s the amateur hour,” I said.

“Correct. I understand you will play guitar. I regret missing it.”

“Don’t,” Zak said. “I’ve heard him practice.”

“Oh, a music critic, too?”

“Come along, Ishi, such louts don’t recognize a renaissance man when they see one.”

“Wait, we have to get our luggage.”

The panel behind me slid aside and two men struggled in with a net of baggage. They unslipped a knot and the cases tumbled slowly out; in a one-tenth-g field nothing could be damaged. I located our bags near the top of the stack and started to reach for them.

“You boys are standing directly in front of my suitcases,” a familiar voice said.

“These are ours, lady,” Zak said.

“Don’t you think I know my
own
—Captain! Captain Vandez!”

“The Captain is not here, ma’m,” a man said.

“I demand—”

“Here’s your case, Zak,” I said. “Ishi—catch!” I threw him one of mine and snatched up Zak’s other bag.

“Don’t let them get away. They have one of my—”

I showed the man the names stenciled on the cases. He nodded.

“I know your names, boys! Don’t think you can—”

We circled around the pile and I scooped up my second case. The man was talking to her as we went out the door.

“Good grief,” Zak said, “who
is
that woman?”

“Mrs. Schloffski,” Ishi said. “It is rumored that her husband was appointed to the Laboratory through political influence.”

“The ISA has a lot to answer for,” I said.

“Matt!” My father had just come out of a side corridor. Jenny wan with him. We all shook hands and I kissed Jenny. She held the kiss a little longer than I expected. It was top quality goods.

“I’ve got to go pamper a shuttle right now,” Jenny said, an arm around me, “but when I come off my shift…”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll even give you preference over my guitar. I still have some practicing to do before tonight.”

“Well,” Jenny said, wrinkling her nose, “I suppose I will have to take what I can get.” She gave me a peck on the check and walked away.

“What next?” Zak said. “Now that Matt here has beaten off the hordes of panting women that follow him everywhere, what say we snag a milkshake and discuss the adventures of our brave heroes amid the terrible snows of Ganymede?”

“I’m afraid not,” Dad said. “Matt has to go home.”

“Oh,” Ishi and Zak said together.

“Well, next time,” Zak finished lamely.

“See you tonight,” I said. “Ishi, put our names in for time in the squash court. I’m going to beat you yet.”

Ishi smiled and waved good-bye. Dad and I made our way home through the tubes, talking about minor events that had happened in Monitoring while I was away. They were registering more and more of the unusual debris from outside Jupiter’s moon system. The chunks of rock usually spiraled in and entered Jupiter’s atmosphere near the poles.

“Could it be a meteor shower from the asteroid belt?” I said.

“That is one theory.” Dad said. He seemed distracted and didn’t add anything more.

Mom wasn’t there when we got home; Dad said she was in Hydroponics, working late. I unpacked, crammed my gear into the cubbyholes the Lab calls closets, and came back out to the living room. Dad was sitting at the dining table; his hands were clasped together.

“Sit down.”

I did.

“I talked to Commander Aarons about you yesterday. Captain Vandez mentioned you in his weekly report from Ganymede.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I must admit it surprised me. I did not think you would make such an error.”

“Huh?”

“I’m talking about the trouble you and Yuri had.”

“What trouble?”

Dad grimaced. “The air hose. Captain Vandez reported that you failed to attach it properly, did not notice the mistake, and almost killed both yourself and Yuri. And that you would not report the incident yourself—Yuri had to do it.”

“What!”

“It was a good thing Yuri managed to get to that way station. I realize the basic idea was yours, and Yuri reported that, which was a good thing. It made you look better in Captain Vandez’s eyes, so that he did not reprimand you in person. If Yuri had not gotten to that station in time, the Captain would have had to send a ship out to save you. Then it would have gone very badly for you. As things stand—”

“Dad!”

“What?”

“That’s a bunch of lies!”

“I am simply repeating what Commander—”

“I know, But it’s all wrong.
I
didn’t foul up the air hose. Yuri did it.”

“That isn’t the way it was reported.”

“But that’s the way it
was.
That goon didn’t—”

“Hummm. Wait a moment. Can you prove any of this?”

“Prove—? Well, no, I—”

“Yuri radioed in the report. You—according to Captain Vandez—never mentioned the subject afterward, when you were on the air. He thought you were simply too embarrassed to own up. Captain Vandez said he thought Yuri had been quite fair to you, considering, and he did not regard the matter as too serious.”

“Well,
I
do,” I said sharply. “Yuri turned in a false report.”

“What really happened?”

I told him. He wondered whether Zak could give any testimony that would back me up. I decided not; I had never said anything over the air that would prove my version of events.

“I hate to say this.” Dad said, “but it appears Yuri has the edge on you. He reported the incident. You did not. Silence on your part is hard to explain.”

“I know. That’s what I get for cutting corners on the regulations.”

“You should have reported in sick in the first place.”

“And I should have blown the whistle on Yuri when he gummed things up. I thought the job was more important than a bunch of rules.”

“The rules are there to insure your safety. All of us are living in a hostile environment. It pays to be careful.”

“I know, I know.” I sighed and leaned on the dining table, my face in my hands.

“Son, don’t take it too hard. I do not believe Commander Aarons considers it to be of overriding importance. It will not weigh too heavily when the decision is made about your staying on at the Lab. I’ll speak to him about the incident, anyway, and give your side of the story. That should count for something.”

“Thanks. Dad.” I looked around. “That’s why Mom’s not here, isn’t it? So you could talk to me.”

He nodded. “And to give you some quiet for your guitar practice. The show is only a couple of hours from now.”

“Right.” I made a weak smile and got up. I went into my room and sat on the foldout bed, resting my guitar on my legs. I practiced series of chords, to limber up my fingers, and then ran through the pieces I planned to play.

Inside, I was still reeling from what Dad had told me. Sure, I was never a bosom buddy of Yuri’s, but this—!

After a while I put the thoughts aside. It didn’t do any good to brood, and there was no point in being depressed during the amateur hour. I could rail against my fate after I was through playing. So I threw my shoulders back, shook my head to clear it, and played carefully through each piece, looking for errors or places where I allowed my fingers to slur over a passage, losing precision and blurring a chord here and there. If a classical guitarist plays a piece often enough without sharp concentration, he gets sloppy. The guitarist can become blind to his own work; the audience doesn’t, though. Segovia I’m not, but anything I played was going to be the best I could do.

Dad stuck his head in. “Supper?”

I shook my head. Then something nibbling away in the back of my mind made me say, “Dad? Remember the talk we had before I went to Ganymede?”

“Yes.”

“You said—or implied—the head of BioTech Division had advance information about the Lab maybe shipping us kids back. BioTech—that’s Yuri’s father, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s Sagdaeff. He has good political connections Earthside. I don’t understand politicians—never learned to smile without meaning it—but I think Sagdaeff wants to parley the rearrangement, if it happens, into a promotion for himself. Maybe he’s fishing for Aarons’ job.”

“Interesting,” I said thoughtfully. “Do you think there’s really going to be a scaledown, Dad?”

“I gave up reading tea leaves long ago,” he said. “I shouldn’t have told you this gossip, either. Back to the guitar, son.” He gave me a slap on the back. I realized he was probably trying to distract me from thinking about Yuri. So I started plucking and strumming again, and pretty soon I was immersed in the music.

Dad came back an hour later, whistling, to remind me that it was time to dress. I put on the only formal clothes I have: a black suit with broad lapels, cut back severely in the style of five years ago. Mom had let out the seams as much as possible but the inevitable had caught up with me; the pants pinched, my stockings showed stretches, and she’d had to piece the shoulders so I wouldn’t lose blood circulation in my arms. It didn’t matter much that the suit was hopelessly out of fashion on Earth—everybody else in the Lab was in the same boat, and anyway I liked the sequins on the cutaway lapels of the jacket.

Dad and I walked to the central auditorium, me lugging my guitar case. People were already filling the bowl of seats. Jenny was waiting outside. She squeezed my hand and wished me good luck and I made small talk. I didn’t want to tell anybody about the Ganymede trouble and at the same time I couldn’t think of anything else, so I must have sounded like a dodo. After a few minutes of monosyllables from me Jenny gave up and went to find a seat.

Backstage was a hubbub with people carrying props and sets around, women touching up their makeup and a few trying to learn their lines at the last minute. I found a corner to wait in and sat down.

I could hear Commander Aarons introducing the program; his deep voice boomed out over the crowd without need of a microphone. Almost everyone in the Can was there. The auditorium is pretty far inward toward the axis, so gravity there is only a small fraction of a
g.

The first act used that fact to advantage: it was a family team I’d watched before, performing ballet feats that would be impossible on Earth. They leaped and whirled and threw each other high in the air. It made you feel light and carefree yourself, just looking at them.

Mr. and Mrs. Bhadranin went on next. She plays tabula while her husband performs on the sitar, an Indian instrument. It was beautiful. Mr. Bhadranin let me fool around with his sitar once and I came away impressed; compared to it the guitar is a kazoo. Mastering the sitar is impossible—men simply devote their lives to it and try to achieve as much as possible. It’s not an instrument for a dabbler like me.

A bunch from Maintenance followed. They did an involved skit about how messy the other divisions of the Lab were. The skit ended with everybody being forced to live outside the Can because the interior was crammed with garbage. I suppose it was funny, because people laughed a lot. I wasn’t paying attention; I was going on next.

The skit ended. I picked up my guitar—I’d tuned it during the bursts of laughter—and stopped at the edge of the curtain for Commander Aarons to introduce me.

The Commander is a big, stocky man with a grizzled moustache and a lot of smile lines around his mouth. He keeps up his ruddy tan and always looks like he’s in perfect health. That’s why I noticed the difference this time. He was standing off to the side of the stage, talking to one of the Lab officers. The officer was still in uniform, as though he had just left the bridge. The Commander was scowling. His face had turned pale. He asked the officer a question, listened, and then looked across the stage at me.

He made a gesture for me to stay put. The Commander walked to the center of the stage and held up a hand. The crowd quieted.

“I am afraid the rest of tonight’s program will not be presented,” he said. There was a questioning hum from the audience.

“Tonight, while on duty and conducting satellite maintenance. Ishi Moto was killed by a small meteoroid. His death was instantaneous. The chunk of rock that struck him was only the size of a dime, but it was moving very fast.

“Ishi was a fine boy. I do not think it appropriate that we continue this program. Good evening.”

There isn’t much to say about the rest of that night. At first I could not believe it: as soon as the curtain was drawn I rushed over to Commander Aarons and asked, disbelieving, if I had heard him correctly. Hadn’t it been someone else, somebody with a name that sounded like Ishi?

Even as I said it I knew I was trying to run away from the truth, cover it up, pretend it wasn’t there. I turned away from the Commander and automatically, mechanically put my guitar back in its case. The air seemed heavy and warm.

I remember making my way out of the auditorium. I met my parents. I talked to Jenny. She was crying and I suddenly found that I was, too. Jenny and I stood in the middle of the crowd, crying and sobbing and holding each other, almost without knowing what we were doing. It was incredible. Ishi, gone. Forever.

After a few moments I recovered a bit. Zak was there; I hadn’t seen him before. He took Jenny away and I left with my parents. Suddenly I wanted to get away from that place and away from people.

We said nothing during the walk home. The terrible thing was that there was nothing to do. I guess there never is. Our society has no required ritual for friends and relatives of someone who has died. Instead, they sit and stare at each other and feel awkward, useless. They have no way to take the edge off their grief. I thought about that for a while until I realized that I was using the idea as a way to avoid thinking about Ishi, because that was too painful. And, of course, that thought made me feel even more rotten.