Leviathans of Jupiter (27 page)

Deirdre shook her head. She had met Dorn for dinner, after spending more than an hour in Westfall's suite, telling her everything that had transpired in their meeting with Dr. Archer, answering her pointed questions as well as she could.

“They want me to go on the mission,” Deirdre said.

Dorn looked up from his cup of chilled soup. “You?”

“Andy thinks I could make contact with the leviathans,” she said.

Dorn said nothing. She couldn't tell from his utterly blank expression what he was thinking, but she thought he might be trying to control a sudden anger.

Then she saw Corvus carrying a dinner tray toward them. “Here he comes now,” she told Dorn.

Corvus slid into the chair between the two of them and plunked his tray on the table. “Hi!”

Dorn rumbled, “Deirdre tells me that you want her to go with us in the submersible.”

“Right.” Corvus nodded happily. “Dee's got the knack. She's the best one to try to make contact—”

“No,” said Dorn. It sounded like a funeral bell tolling.

Corvus's brows hiked up. “No?”

“You will not risk Deirdre's life on this mission into the ocean.”

“Who made you mission commander?” Corvus replied, his face going serious. “You're going, aren't you? I'm certainly going. Why can't Dee go along with us?”

“It's too dangerous.”

“Wait a minute,” Deirdre interrupted. “I have something to say about this, you know.”

Dorn looked implacable. “It's too dangerous for you.”

“But not for you?”

“What happens to me doesn't matter. But you have your whole life ahead of you.”

“Dorn, you're very sweet,” Deirdre said, placing a hand on his human arm, “but this is my decision to make, not yours.”

“Besides,” Corvus added, “it's not all that dangerous. Uncomfortable, yeah, breathing that liquid gunk. But Max says the mission shouldn't be really dangerous. His ship is perfectly safe … as long as we stay within its limits.”

Dorn looked from Corvus's slightly unbalanced face to Deirdre's calm beauty and then back to Corvus again.

“Then please explain to me,” he said, very firmly, “why Max is not here having dinner with us.”

MISSION CONTROL CENTER

Linda Vishnevskaya had allowed Max Yeager to sit at one of the consoles. It was better than having him hover over her, breathing down her neck.

The control center was deserted except for the two of them. Nothing had been heard from
Faraday
since the unexpected data capsule had popped out of the clouds the day before. Another capsule was expected at noon today.

Yeager sat impatiently at the console, reviewing all over again the data that the last capsule had carried. The sharks' attacks had ended when
Faraday
backed away. The vessel was safe as long as it kept away from the predators.

How far away? Yeager asked himself. How close can she get before those damned monsters attack her again? They didn't do any damage, but she's not designed to be a punching bag for those monsters. She can take the
g
forces of flying through the atmosphere and dropping into the ocean, but that bludgeoning from the sharks is different. If they keep battering at her like that something's going to shake loose sooner or later.

The sharks are looking for the leviathans, Yeager understood. Those big whales are the sharks' food. So if we can just trail the sharks for a while, we ought to come upon the leviathans. Sooner or later. Better be sooner. She's due to leave the ocean and fly back here in another thirty-two hours.

Yeager realized that Vishnevskaya was standing over him. He almost chuckled at the incongruity of their sizes. Standing, she was just about eye level with him while he was seated.

“When is the last time you had a decent meal?” she asked him.

Shrugging, “I dunno. I grabbed a sandwich a little bit ago.”

“That was this morning. It's now almost dinner time.”

“I'm not hungry.”

She wrinkled her nose. “When's the last time you took a shower?”

He frowned.

“Max,” she said, resting a hip on a corner of the console's desktop, “it's no use sitting here hour after hour. You can't help your baby. She's doing fine down there.”

“She might pop another capsule.”

Vishnevskaya leaned across the console's keyboard and clicked its power switch. The screens went dark.

“Whattaya—”

“Max, little father, I am pulling rank on you. As director of flight operations I order you to get the hell out of here.”

Yeager blinked at her. This tiny golden-haired pixie, standing with her fists planted on her slim hips, her violet eyes steady, unwavering …

“You're
ordering
me?”

“That's right. Leave the control center. Get yourself a decent meal. If anything happens I will call you immediately.”

“You're ordering me.” Max didn't know whether to laugh or scream at her.

“Out. Now.” She pointed toward the doors. As Yeager pushed himself up from the console's chair she added, “And take a shower!”

*   *   *

Faraday
glided through the dark, turbulent sea, keeping as far from the pack of predators as it could while still observing their position with its longest-ranged sensors.

The predators were moving purposefully, steadily, in one direction, massed into a column. Central computer's human analog program pulled up an image of an army of human soldiers marching along a barren, war-ravaged plain.

They could go faster, central computer concluded. In their attacks on
Faraday
itself they had certainly showed much more speed. But now they were coasting along almost leisurely as they moved ever deeper into the hotter depths. The safety program showed that the vessel was approaching the design limit on depth, but so far the increasing pressure and external temperature had not caused any problems. So far.

Suddenly the sharks veered off to the left. Sensors showed that a huge formation of leviathans was moving slowly out there, so far distant that it was difficult to discriminate individual bodies among the mass.

Why were the predators moving away from their prey? Central computer pondered this question for more than a full second, while simultaneously questioning the decision tree program about firing off another data capsule to report this unexpected behavior.

The decision tree concluded that the predators' behavior did not in itself warrant launching a fresh data capsule. But the priority directive flared in central computer's list of objectives: Observe the leviathans. With the predators distracted, even temporarily,
Faraday
obeyed its programming and sped toward the massive assemblage of leviathans. This was an opportunity that it could not resist.

*   *   *

Katherine Westfall tapped her foot impatiently on the plush carpeting of her sitting room. Those fools! She said to herself. Those doddering old fools!

The latest message from IAA headquarters on Earth had her seething with frustrated anger. The council was divided on the question of forbidding Dr. Archer to send a crewed mission into Jupiter's ocean. Split almost evenly down the middle, nine in favor of banning the mission, seven against the motion. Westfall's own vote would make it ten to seven, but the chairman of the council—a geriatric case who should have been put out to pasture long ago, in Westfall's view—ruled that the vote fell one short of the two-thirds majority needed for such a critical decision.

Two-thirds majority! Westfall wanted to throw something, she was so angry. She actually picked up a small decorative vase from the end table by the couch and raised her hand, but stopped herself.

The chairman was a scientist, she knew. Undoubtedly a friend of Archer's, or at least he's in sympathy with a fellow scientist's aim. Westfall shook her head. They don't care about who has to risk her life. Who might get killed. They're blind to the risks: All they want is to learn new knowledge, regardless of the costs.

She carefully replaced the vase on the end table and sat herself on the couch, trying to relax the tension that was knotting her like a rope.

And what do you want? she asked herself. Retribution for your sister's death? Don't kid yourself. You never really knew her. She's an excuse, not a reason. Why do you want to stop Archer? The answer flashed in her mind immediately: Because Grant Archer is in line for membership on the governing council. And once he's on the council he could swiftly rise to the chairmanship. He's that kind of person: quiet, unassuming, friendly—and single-minded in his determination to put science ahead of everything else. He won't seem to want the chairmanship, Westfall knew. He'll act surprised when they offer it to him. But he'll take it. Oh yes, he'll take it and run the council his way and I'll be just another member out in the cold, without any real power.

Westfall felt a pang of fear clutching at her innards. She remembered her mother telling her over and over, You're not really safe unless you're on top. You've got to be in command, otherwise they can walk all over you. Clenching her tiny fists, she told herself, I've got to stop Archer, one way or another.

She stared at the empty armchair across the coffee table. Only a few hours ago Deirdre Ambrose had sat in that chair and dutifully reported that Archer was encouraging her to become part of the crew that was going down into the ocean.

Westfall could see that Deirdre was clearly afraid of the idea. But they'll cajole her into going, she knew. They'll make it clear that if she wants any kind of a career in scientific research she'll have to do what they tell her. They'll kill her, just like they killed Elaine.

Suddenly Westfall broke into a smile. Of course! What a fool I've been, she said to herself. I've been battering at them to no avail. Archer is determined to send a crew into the ocean. He has his friends on the IAA council and elsewhere in the scientific community; they'll let him get away with it.

And when the mission fails, when those people in the crew are maimed or killed, Archer will be blamed for it. Of course! Westfall almost laughed aloud at the simplicity of it. Let him send them! He'll be writing his own resignation. They'll be killed and it will be easy to see that I've been right all along. Then they'll cancel all this nonsense of human missions into Jupiter's ocean. Then Archer will resign in disgrace—or be fired by the IAA council. Then I can cut their research budget down to where it should be and stop all this nonsense of trying to talk with those alien monsters.

Then I can be elected chairman of the council, as I should be.

She actually did laugh out loud. “And then I can purge the obstructionists off the IAA council! I'll fill the board with my own people and make those scientists dance to my tune!”

LEVIATHAN

Leviathan's sensor parts saw the lights flashing back and forth among the Elders, deep in the core of the Kin's spherical formation. None of its nearby companions lit up; whatever the Elders were discussing was not being transmitted to the others of the Kin.

The darters were still out there, trailing the Kin at a long distance, just barely within sensor range. They wouldn't attack the entire family of us, Leviathan thought. We could crush them if they tried to.

But hunger is a powerful force. Leviathan felt it gnawing at its own parts. If the Elders don't lead us to a new stream of food soon, Leviathan knew, members of the Kin will begin to dissociate, unable to control their starving parts. And once that begins the darters will swoop in and feast.

A message was flashing from one member of the Kin to another, making its way outward from the Elders toward the edge of their formation. When at last Leviathan saw the message glaring from the flank of its nearest fellow, it felt stunned.

The Eldest had decided to leave the group and go off alone to dissociate. Suicide, Leviathan knew. The darters would swarm all over it as soon as it separated itself from the Kin. But the Eldest was firm in its decision. It was willing to sacrifice itself so that the Kin could get away from the darters; willing to allow the predators to devour its parts while the rest of the Kin fled to safety.

Nothing like this had ever happened within Leviathan's memory. Leviathan protested, flashing a message urging the Elders to turn on the darters and drive them away. We are much stronger than they! Leviathan signaled. We can fight them without sacrificing any of our members.

But the Eldest signaled back, No. Better that one dies and the rest of the Kin survive. There must be new currents of food nearby. Find them while the darters are busy feasting. Grow strong and have many buddings.

Leviathan felt helpless in the face of the Eldest's decision. Suddenly its sensor parts shrilled an alarm. An alien! Leviathan's brain recognized what the sensors had detected. One of the strange, cold alien creatures was approaching the Kin. But this one was much larger than any of the previous aliens. Almost as big as a full-grown darter.

Leviathan flashed the information inward toward the Elders. Quickly their reply came back: Ignore the alien. It cannot help us or change what must be.

But Leviathan wondered, Is the alien helping the darters? Is the alien the reason why the food stream disappeared and the darters have grown so bold?

III

PREPARATIONS

If everything is under control, you are going too slow.

—Mario Andretti

IMMERSION CENTER

Deirdre had never swum before. Living in the
Chrysalis II
habitat, the nearest thing to a swimming pool had been an ancient bathtub that her father had imported at tremendous cost from London. The nearest lake or seashore was some three hundred million kilometers away, on Earth.

Even when she made contact with the dolphins she stayed out of the water, under Andy Corvus's encouraging direction. She experienced what Baby felt like swimming effortlessly through the big aquarium tank, but she had never gotten herself wet.