Leviathans of Jupiter (20 page)

“I appreciate your coming with me,” he said as he and Dorn headed along the passageway toward Dr. Archer's office.

The cyborg replied gravely, “I have nothing to do this afternoon. The medics are reviewing the data on the pressure tests they ran on me.”

Yeager had his pocketphone in one hand and every few steps glanced at the colored map it displayed to make sure they were on the right path. They passed a solitary woman in drab coveralls walking in the other direction. Up ahead a pair of men in virtually identical dark blue tunics and slacks were heading in the same direction as they. Yeager guessed that they too were looking for Archer's office.

The doors along the passageway bore small nameplates next to their keypads. This whole section of the station looked obviously older than the third wheel, worn, almost shabby. A quarter century of hard use, Yeager said to himself. It shows.

“May I ask why you want me to accompany you?”

Yeager was on Dorn's mechanical side. There was no discernable expression on the etched metal of his face, but the engineer heard the curiosity in his tone.

Feeling more fidgety as they got closer to Archer's office, Yeager admitted, “I … uh … I get kinda jumpy when a big shot like Archer calls me into a meeting. I'm a lot happier down in the labs, or getting my hands dirty on the hardware.”

“You want moral support,” Dorn said emotionlessly.

Yeager bobbed his head up and down. “Yeah. Something like that.”

Sure enough, the two suits ahead of them stopped at a door and tapped on it for entrance.

As the two of them stepped in, Yeager and Dorn got close enough to see Grant Archer standing inside, welcoming them.

Licking his lips nervously, Yeager said, “This is it.”

Dorn agreed with a solemn nod, and gestured with his human hand for Yeager to go in ahead of him.

The engineer hesitated. “Maybe we oughtta knock or something.”

Before Dorn could reply, Archer looked past the two arrivals and spotted Yeager just outside the doorway.

“Dr. Yeager,” he called. “Right on time. And you brought Dorn with you. Good!”

Archer came up and shook hands with Yeager, then with Dorn. Yeager saw there was no desk in the office, no hierarchical arrangement of any sort. Just an assortment of chairs that looked as if they'd been cribbed from a used furniture store.

“Make yourselves comfortable,” Archer said, taking one of the recliners. He introduced the two other men as Michael Johansen, head of the station's Jovian studies department, and Isaac Lowenstien, chief of the safety and life-support department.

Mike and Ike? Yeager asked himself. Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?

It wasn't. Johansen was tall, his long legs stretching under the coffee table in the middle of their chairs. He had a long, narrow face with sharp, angular features and a scattering of freckles so pale they were almost yellow. His hair was the color of straw and baby-fine, wispy. His eyes were steel blue. A Viking's eyes, Yeager thought. Piercing. No nonsense.

Lowenstien, on the other hand, was a small, swarthy, intense man with tightly curled midnight-dark hair, smoldering jet-black eyes and a six-pointed star tattooed on the back of his right hand. Refugee, Yeager recognized. Must be third generation: His grandparents probably got killed when Israel was wiped out. They never forget.

Both Mike and Ike were staring hard at Yeager, like a pair of police detectives about to grill a suspect. Yeager felt as if he were sitting on a hard cement block instead of a cushioned armchair. Perspiration trickled down his ribs. This is going to be an inquisition, he knew.

Archer was sitting straight up in his recliner. But he smiled easily as he said, “We're here to review the status of the submersible and see if it's ready for a crewed mission.”

Lowenstien immediately said, “The vehicle hasn't been flown yet. You can't risk a human crew in an untried vehicle.” His voice was sharp, cutting.

Before Yeager could object, Johansen clasped his bony hands around his knees and looked up at the ceiling as he said in a slow drawl, “We've obtained as much data as we can from uncrewed missions. If we're to make any progress in understanding the leviathans we need a human mission.”

Archer scratched at his trim little beard. “I find that I agree with both of you.” He turned to Yeager. “Dr. Yeager, what do you have to say?”

Max had to swallow hard before he could find his voice. So what do I have to say?

“As you know,” he began, stalling for time to arrange his thoughts, “I've spent the past five years in Selene designing the
Faraday
and supervising its construction.”

“From four hundred million kilometers away,” said Lowenstien.

“The data's the same, no matter what the distance,” Yeager shot back. “But, you're right, yesterday was the first time I've seen the ship firsthand.”

“And?” Archer prompted.

“She's a beauty,” said Yeager.

“Have you gone aboard it?” Lowenstien demanded.

“Not yet. But I checked out all her systems from the command center. She's ready to fly.”

Johansen said, “Then we should start the procedures to pick a crew.”

Lowenstien objected. “We shouldn't risk a crew until the vehicle has demonstrated that it's safe to operate.”

Archer said, “There's some urgency in this. We need to get a team down there before the IAA decides to hold us up.”

“For very valid safety reasons,” Lowenstien said.

“But if all the ship's systems check out,” Archer countered, “then why should we hesitate? This isn't the dark ages, when test pilots had to try out new aircraft because they didn't have computers to simulate their performance.”

“Simulations,” Lowenstien said, “are not actualities.”

Yeager said, “Now wait a minute. The whole point of this exercise is to send a human team down to the level where those giant whales live.”

“And get them back alive,” Lowenstien added. Johansen nodded.

“And get them back alive,” Archer said, “before the IAA steps in and strangles us with red tape.”

Johansen looked worried. “Do you think they would really try to stop us? Why?”

“We're risking human lives here,” Lowenstien said.

Archer said, “Mrs. Westfall seems to be afraid of that. She's just as much as told me that she'll do everything she can to stop us from sending a human team in.”

“May I say something?” Dorn asked.

They all turned toward the cyborg.

“I presume that I will be one of the crew,” he said.

“You don't have any scientific training,” Johansen objected.

“Yes, but I've had considerable experience piloting spacecraft.”

“Not the same thing at all,” said Johansen.

“And,” Dorn added, “I apparently am better able than others to withstand the pressures that the crew will face.”

That stopped them. For several moments the office was dead quiet.

Then Archer asked, “What is it you want to say?”

“I'm willing to ride in Dr. Yeager's vessel. I have confidence in his design.”

Johansen smiled palely at the cyborg. Lowenstien looked faintly disgusted.

“We appreciate your courage,” said Archer.

“Not courage,” Dorn corrected. “Curiosity. I want to learn about those gigantic creatures. I want to see them face to face.”

The discussion droned on for more than an hour. Johansen even began to argue that they should be spending more time on classifying the various species living in Jupiter's atmosphere, rather than focusing all their efforts on the leviathans. Yeager decided to head them off before they got themselves too deeply involved in what he considered to be a sideline issue.

“All right,” he said, his nervousness gone now that he knew what had to be done. “We send the vessel into the ocean on an automated mission. No crew. We put her through the exact conditions she'll have to face with a crew aboard. If she gets through that without a problem, then we'll be ready for a human mission. Right?”

Archer turned from Yeager toward Johansen and Lowenstien. Each of them nodded agreement. Johansen seemed reasonably compliant about the idea, Yeager thought; Lowenstien wary, almost suspicious.

KATHERINE WESTFALL'S QUARTERS

“So they're going to send the submersible down there unmanned?” Katherine Westfall asked.

Deirdre nodded. “That's the plan.”

Westfall had draped herself across the sitting room's chaise longue, clad in a skintight pair of glittering gold toreador pants topped by an emerald green silk jacket. Her sandals were crusted with gems: Deirdre wondered if they were real jewels. As usual, Westfall looked as if she had arranged herself to have her portrait snapped.

Sitting in an armchair facing her, Deirdre felt almost scruffy in her dark gray pullover blouse and lighter slacks. The coffee table between them was bare. Westfall had offered no refreshments of any kind for this midnight meeting.

“You're certain of this?” Westfall asked, almost accusingly. “This information is reliable?”

“I got it from Dr. Yeager, the man who designed the vessel. He'll be in charge of the mission.”

“I see,” said Westfall. A hint of a smile curled the corners of her mouth. “I presume you have Yeager suitably enamored of your charms.”

Deirdre almost laughed in her face, remembering how easy it had been to get information out of Max.

Dorn had told her about the meeting in Archer's office when he'd met Deirdre in the clinic for her immunization therapy. The cyborg didn't have to be there, the clinic had a sufficient sample of his blood on hand, but somehow he seemed to show up whenever Deirdre had to get her shots.

“I appreciate your moral support,” she'd said to him as they left the clinic.

“That seems to be my main function these days,” said Dorn. He told her about Max's need for support in the meeting with Dr. Archer.

Once she was alone in her quarters Deirdre phoned Max.

“I hear you had a big meeting,” she said to the engineer's image in her phone screen. “I hope it went well.”

Yeager put on a toothy smile. “I'll tell you all about it over dinner.”

“Fine,” said Deirdre.

Yeager looked surprised, but he broke into his usual leering grin and replied happily, “I'll pick you up at eighteen hundred hours. Okay?”

“Fine,” Deirdre repeated.

The station's galley was hardly a romantic trysting place, but Yeager found a table for two and spent most of dinner talking about the meeting and the decision to send
Faraday
into the Jovian ocean without a crew aboard.

“Can you do that?” Deirdre asked. “I mean, can the ship function without a crew?”

Yeager popped a forkful of apple tart into his mouth and nodded wordlessly as he chewed it quickly and then swallowed it down.

“She'll run fully automated,” he said at last. But his expression was far from happy.

“Is there something wrong with that?”

He looked down at his plate. Nothing there but crumbs. Without looking up at Deirdre he muttered, “I don't like it.”

“Your dessert?” She giggled. “You didn't leave much of it.”

“Not the dessert,” he said, meeting her eyes at last. “I don't like sending her down there alone. Without a crew.”

“Why not?”

He hesitated a couple of heartbeats, then explained, “She'll have to go down so deep we'll lose contact with her. We won't be able to run her remotely, from here in the station. She'll have to run fully automated, completely on her own. She'll be all alone down there!”

“But you said the ship's designed to operate that way, if it has to.”

Shaking his head, Yeager said, “Yeah, yeah, I know. Hell, I designed her! I know what she can do! I even set up a human analog file into her main program; silly thing to do, but I did it anyway.”

“A human analog program?”

“Yeah.” Yeager looked almost ashamed of himself. “Aphorism, adages … that sort of thing. So she wouldn't feel all alone down there.”

Deirdre smiled at him. “Max, you're just a big softie. That program isn't going to make the computer feel better. Computers don't have emotions.”

“I know. But I do.”

“The ship will do fine, Max.”

“I know. I know.”

“So what's the problem?”

“I just don't like it. I worry about her. I'd feel a lot better if I was there with her.”

“Golly, Max, you sound as if you're talking about a child of yours.”

“I am,” he said. “She's my baby, Dee. I'm scared for her.”

Once they'd left the galley and walked along the passageway toward their living quarters, Yeager fell silent. Deirdre thought that all his bluster and loud confidence in his design was really a front. He was worried that his vessel might fail, that it might never return from its uncrewed mission into the Jovian ocean.

Are his insinuations about me nothing more than bravado, too? she wondered. She realized that she was going to find out.

“Well,” she said, once they'd reached her door, “thanks for an interesting dinner, Max.”

His familiar lecherous smirk returned. “The night is young, fair one.”

Deirdre decided to follow her hunch. “That's true, it is.”

Yeager was a big, burly man, she realized. But his eyes were a meltingly soft brown. He stood before Deirdre, suddenly tongue-tied.

“Would you like to come in?” she asked, in a breathy whisper.

“I … uh…”

“I'm afraid I don't have anything to drink.”

“Yeah, well…”

“We could just sit and talk for a while. Or watch videos.”

Yeager licked his lips, shifting slightly from one foot to the other, like a little boy.

Deirdre stepped so close to him that her body touched his. “Or whatever,” she whispered.