The Ganymede Club (2 page)

"Sure." Jason's voice showed that he gave the event the same low probability of occurring that she did. "I'll be waiting. But I won't hold my breath."

* * *

Close-up, Helene displayed more surface irregularity. The smooth ovoid visible from a distance became a wilderness of rocks that ranged in size from gravel and pebbles to white boulders taller than a human. The holes in the surface were less variable. None was narrower than a couple of meters, and none wider than twenty.

Athene had made her approach with due caution, while the
Marklake
hovered two kilometers away. Her suit video saw exactly what she saw and returned its images in real time to both the ship's central data files and Jason Cayuga's in-suit monitor. In spite of Simone Munzer's warnings there was nothing to suggest any cause for alarm.

Expedition protocol required that the landing itself be made with appropriate ceremony. Athene handled it by the book: "Recognizing the historic nature of this first human contact with another world, I, Athene Linda Rios, crew member of the Earth exploration vessel
Marklake
, on this fifteenth day of April, 2032, set foot on Helene, moon of Saturn, at fifteen hours and twenty minutes standard solar . . ."

Impatient as she was, she forced herself not to hurry through her final sentences. As she spoke she was inspecting the body below her. The planetoid turned slowly on its axis, with a period of seventy-eight hours, and solar illumination at the landing point was close to optimum for surface inspection. The sunlight was weak, one ninetieth of its intensity on Earth or the Moon, but it easily was enough for her to make out horizontal striations within the holes. She was itching for a closer look at the one nearest her. Nothing remotely like this had been encountered before in the Jupiter or Saturn systems, and although the Belt's mining colonies were notoriously secretive in dealing with the rest of the system, not a rumor of such banded holes had come from any of their many worlds.

". . . will be added to the shared resources of the Inner and Outer Solar System," she concluded. And then, without a pause: "Captain Jing-li, I request permission to explore the surface and structure of Helene."

"I oppose any notion of investigating the interior structure." Simone Munzer's voice, jarringly loud in her suit, cut in before Jing-li could reply. "I have been given no time to evaluate the records obtained so far. There is no urgency for such exploration. The surface of Helene is qualitatively different from any previously known, and the interior may present unknown hazards."

"It may." Betty Jing-li sounded calm as ever. "But chances are, it won't. May I remind you, Dr. Munzer, that the
Marklake
is, after all, an
exploration
vessel. We are fourteen months and a billion kilometers from home, and acceptance of a certain level of risk and a reasonable urgency in completing our mission are expected of us. Rios, you are authorized to proceed."

"Thank you, Captain."

"With suitable caution."

"Yes, Captain."

Athene was already moving. Jason found himself looking, through her telemetry feed, down a long narrowing tunnel illuminated by sunlight for its first thirty or forty meters.

"You can see the banding on the tunnel walls clearly now," said Athene's voice. "It's the sort of strata you might expect on a planet with sedimentary rocks, but of course that's out of the question here. I wonder if we're seeing the effects of zone melting and refreezing. The field is only a few thousandths of a standard gravity, but it might be enough. Of course, we still have to explain the source of heat for successive thawing. And the proportion of volatiles would have to be high. All right, I'm starting my descent. I'll be taking samples as I go."

The sunlight was gradually fading, direct illumination replaced by down-scattered light from the tunnel walls. The width narrowed steadily and then seemed to hold constant at about four meters. Soon the range data showed Athene at close to three hundred meters down. Still there was no sign of an end to the shaft. The descent continued in dead silence for another thirty seconds.

"I'm beginning to wonder if this thing goes right the way through to the other side," Athene said at last. She sounded different—breathless, slightly nervous, oddly distorted. The only illumination came from the lights in her suit. "No, it doesn't! The tunnel ends down there, with a different sort of formation. Strange. It looks like there's a milky layer of something across the end of it. See?"

Except that Jason didn't. The image in his suit monitor had been deteriorating for the past minute. Now it was a dim and grainy picture that flickered and faded as he watched.

He began, "I can't see what's—"

"No further, Rios." Jing-li cut in. "We're losing your signal. We shouldn't be having a problem at that depth, but we are. I want you to start back up again—now."

"Right. But I'm not getting . . ." The distortion was much worse: ". . . the over . . . up to the walls . . . coming . . ."

A long pause. Then, ". . . touch it . . ."

Faint crackling, like static—nothing more. Jason found himself unable to breathe. Captain Jing-li's voice, close and calm, cut in again: "I'm taking the
Marklake
to within two hundred meters. We'll be in position three minutes from now. Cayuga, what is your status?"

"I'm ready."

"Suit checked and sealed?"

"Yes."

"When I give the word, you head for the surface where Rios landed. Take a cable with you. Go into the hole, get her, come right back. Go slow. And no matter what you find, don't investigate. If you get stuck, signal along the cable. If you don't see her in the tunnel, come back. Costas and Munzer, into suits in case we need you. Dr. Polk, stand by for possible medical emergency."

Jason stood at the lock, waiting for the go-ahead from Captain Jing-li. It took forever to come. He was shivering in his temperature-controlled suit. He did not feel excited at the prospect of a major discovery. He did feel scared.

The cable attached to Jason's suit could stand a load of hundreds of tons, but it was light and perfectly flexible. He was scarcely aware of it as he drifted toward the waiting bulk of Helene. The Sun, off behind his right shoulder, seemed a remote and ineffectual spark of light. Saturn loomed as a half-disk to the left, the rings a thin bright line across the planet's equator. But it was Helene, the little planetoid that he had dismissed five days ago as insignificant, that now seemed to fill the sky. The pocked surface was fast approaching. The pinprick hole for which he was heading became a dark violet shaft, leading to unknown depths.

"Go into the hole, get her, come right back," he had been told.

If only he could.

"Go slow"—that was the hardest order to obey.

Jason took a deep breath and entered the tunnel. The light level dropped abruptly. His suit imagers compensated at once, and he could see far ahead. He peered down. There, no more than a few hundred meters away—he gasped with relief—he saw a familiar shape. Reflected light was gleaming from a white suit.

Athene.

"She's here," he said loudly. "Right in front of me. I can go down and get her."

He heard the sudden buzz of conversation in his radio link, and realized for the first time that no one had spoken since he left the
Marklake.

In the same moment he realized that Athene had remained silent, though he was right above her and must be outlined against the sunlit shaft. She ought to be able to see him. Also, the arms and legs of the suited figure were not moving, except that the whole figure was rising slowly up through the shaft. He felt overwhelmed by the implications.

Although his mind was stunned, he found that his body knew exactly what to do: He dropped farther, steadily and surely. In half a minute he was at her side. He saw, far below, the odd milky surface that she had talked about. There was no time to worry about that now. He attached a grapnel to her, then jetted the two of them gently up to the surface and toward the
Marklake.

"Polk to the air lock, if you please," he said, surprised at the calm tone of his own voice. "Dahlquist, prepare the emergency treatment facility. We have a medical problem."

And pray it was no more than that.

The
Marklake
loomed ahead. Jason used the grapnel to pull Athene close and move her in front of him into the lock. Her suit felt stiff and unbending, as though the body inside was already frozen to a final rigor. He peered in through the visor. Her face was pale, in places almost silvery. A trick of the sunlight, weak but at the same time harsh?

No time for a second look. He was in the air lock, cycling it at maximum speed. And Hamilton Polk was there, taking Athene's body from him, dismissing Jason with a casual, "Get your suit off. Then come back here."

Jason wanted to ask a question—
the
question—but he could not, because Jing-li and Munzer and Costas were hustling in, all talking, crowding him out. He went to the next cabin, stripped out of his suit at record speed, and squeezed back in through the door. He was just in time to hear Polk say, "A breach of suit integrity, can't say how it happened. Slits and tears, lots of them—see, here and here and here." Polk pointed to the suit's chest, arms, and upper legs. Athene's helmet was off, revealing her face—silent and pale and with faint, silvery blotches on her cheeks.

"We'll have to check every one of the suits," Polk went on. "They could all have the same potential problem."

Jason's question seemed unnecessary now. He had to ask it, anyway: "Is she dead?"

"I'm afraid she is." Simone Munzer had been standing next to Jing-li, and now she turned to him. He was glad to see that there was no trace of "I told you so" in her manner. "I'm sorry, Jason."

"But it's most peculiar," added Polk. The physician was bending low, peering at Athene's face. "Dead and already cooling. Yet it doesn't seem like a case of asphyxiation, which is what the suit punctures would suggest. Fascinating. Did you see anything strange, Cayuga, while you were in the interior?"

It had all happened too quickly, and Jason had been totally focused on what had to be done to rescue Athene. He shook his head.

"Of course, it may have nothing to do with her visit to Helene." Polk began to release the wrist seals on Athene's suit.

"We must prove that, one way or the other." Simone Munzer turned to Jing-li. "It's not like a normal ship fatality, where the body can go into sealed storage and await investigation until our return to Earth orbit."

"I agree." Jing-li's face was grim. The warning from the ship's anomalist—that Athene Rios should not explore the interior of Helene—was already in the ship's record. The official investigation would be unpleasant for Captain Betty Jing-li. "Dr. Polk, please prepare for and proceed with an autopsy."

"Already getting ready for it." The physician, unlocking Athene's ankle seals, seemed fully awake and enjoying himself for the first time in months. "But I'll need an assistant."

Athene had been his designated backup for medical emergencies.

"Of course." Jing-li turned to Luke Costas. "We will follow the usual—"

"If you please," Jason cut in. "I would like to help."

You interrupted a captain's order at your own peril, and Jason knew it. But Jing-li merely stepped closer, studied his face, and nodded.

"Very well. I understand. The autopsy will not be pleasant, they never are. If you have problems handling it—or yourself—tell me and I will arrange relief. Dr. Polk, please proceed. Dr. Munzer, I need to meet separately with you."

At her nod, Luke Costas turned and left the room. Jing-li and Simone Munzer followed, while Polk dispassionately watched them go.

"Wouldn't mind hearing that conversation," he said.

Jason believed him. Hamilton Polk disliked both women. He resented Captain Jing-li because she, a non-doctor, could give him orders, and he hated Simone Munzer because she ignored all his suggestions as assistant anomalist. She was also willing to challenge Jing-li where he dared not.

"What do you want me to do?" Jason didn't care to get into the middle of Polk's shipboard animosities.

"Finish getting Rios out of her suit. I'll go and prepare for the autopsy. When you're done, put the suit in a sealed container, then bring both it and Rios to the med center. We can't work here."

Polk's tone made Jason very glad that he had asked to be involved. As far as the doctor was concerned, Athene's body was no more than a piece of dead meat, to be examined with curiosity but no sympathy. Jason would treat her with proper reverence.

He waited until Polk had gone; then he began. With the helmet off and the suit's seals released, it was simple to open the front completely and ease the body free. He had to take hold of her hands and feet to do so. Athene had been barearmed and barelegged within the suit. Lifting her, he noticed that the odd body stiffness he had felt when he had removed her from the shaft on Helene was no longer present. Her flesh was soft and smooth, and much warmer than he had expected from Polk's comment. Her eyes were closed, her face calm. He wanted to believe that her death had been as easy and painless as her expression suggested.

He paused. There were silvery patches on her thighs and upper arms, and also on her hands. They were far more pronounced than those on her face. After a few moments he unzipped the front of her one-piece garment. It felt like an intrusion when he opened her clothing to examine her bare chest.

More patches, and brighter. He ran his fingers along a big one on her lower rib cage, and found it slick to the touch. He knew Athene's body well. There had been nothing like this, as recently as twenty-four hours ago.

Contamination.

He had not believed it until this moment, but suddenly he was sure of it. Simone Munzer had been right to warn, for something in the interior of the planetoid had entered Athene's body and killed her.

He had to get the corpse into a sealed container and report what he had found. But his fingertips were still on Athene's chest. Before he could remove them he felt a tremor, a movement.