Jupiter Project

Chapter 6

It was a long flight. Ganymede isn’t any further away from Jupiter than the Can—in fact, the two are in exactly the same orbit. But not at the same place in that orbit—the Can tags along after Ganymede, a million kilometers behind.

Sure, it would be easier to study Jupiter from an orbit closer in; near one of the smaller moons, like Io, say. But Jupiter’s radiation belts are too intense there, so we have to watch Jove from a safe distance. Even so, the Can still needs those pancake “lids” of water to screen out the hard radiation that sleets in on us. We got the water from Ganymede’s ice fields. Ganymede is our corner grocery store out here; anything we can’t mine out of its crust has to be boosted all the way from Earth.

Ganymede is so vital to us, I once got the idea that maybe we should move the Can, put it into orbit around Ganymede itself. Make ourselves into a sort of a moon around a moon, so to speak. My father sat me down and drew me some diagrams, and showed me that Ganymede would block out a lot of our transmissions to Earth, not to mention the telemetry from our satellites near Jupiter. And its reflected light would interfere with our telescopes. So the Can trails along behind Ganymede at a position called the Trojan Point, where its orbit is stable. And every flight between the two takes over eleven hours.

So I was dog tired when we got there. The Sagan makes few concessions to passengers; I was sore from my space suit and restless from doing nothing.

Most of our party was asleep when the blue and brown disk of Ganymede rolled into view in the forward port. Zak and I sneaked up to get a better look, even though the seat-belt light was on. I passed Yuri dozing in an aisle seat, no doubt reliving his triumph at squash. Well, I thought, he still had to play Ishi. I ignored him.

But he tripped me as I went by.

I stumbled slightly in the weak gravity and heard his hollow chuckle. “Still clumsy, eh Bohles?”

I knotted my fists and started to say something.

“Oh. mama’s boy is taking offense?” Yuri interrupted me. “Tsk tsk.”

“C’mon, Matt,” Zak said, putting a restraining hand on my shoulder. “Don’t bother.”

I didn’t say anything. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t come out sounding like I was whining. After a pause I turned and followed Zak down the aisle, seething. We looked out the forward viewpoint.

Blue ice and frost spread out from both poles of Ganymede. Around the equator was a thick belt of bare brown rock and river valleys. The rivers sliced through the rims of ancient craters. The valleys were choked with a pale ruddy fog; naked peaks jutted about it.

Thin atmosphere sang around the Sagan and we went back to our seats. In a moment our nose bit in and we settled into the long glide down.

We were here for two weeks of frolic away from cares, away from family, away from the Jovian Astronautical-Biological Orbital Laboratory. The family part is important: the psychers say it’s good for kids like us to get away from the loco parentis every half year. Keeps down the nervous wigglies in the Lab, makes it easier to live all together in one huge tin Can.

There was a sudden tug as Captain Vandez gunned her, a faint dropping sensation, and then a solid bump. I started unstrapping.

Zak snapped shut his book of poems—brushing up on the competition, he called it—and patted around for his glasses. With them on he looks like the kid computer ace he is; when he’s in his literary lion phase he pretends he doesn’t need them.

“Collect youah baggage on the ground,” came a shout over my suit radio. I motioned to Zak and we were the first ones into the air lock. It cycled and the hatch popped open.

I stared out at a range of steep hills, covered in white water frost. About five hundred meters away I could see the slight gray tinge that was the life dome, against a sky of black.

“Move it!” someone called over radio. I looked down and saw a man waving at the drop rope that hung by the air lock.

“Over you go. kid.” I heard Yuri’s voice behind me and somebody kicked me out into space. I grabbed for the rope, caught it with one hand. In Ganymede’s one-third g you don’t fall fast but I was still recovering when I hit the ground with a solid thump.

I took a few steps away from the rope and then turned back. Yuri was just finishing a smooth slide down.

“You’re still clubfooted, junior,” he said and I took a swipe at him. He dodged and it landed on his shoulder.

“Come on,” I said, setting my feet.

“Mad about a little roughhousing, smartass?” he said with mock surprise.

Somebody shoved me aside. I turned threateningly and saw it was the man who had secured the drop rope. “Break it up!” he snarled at me. “Get out of the way of the rope. You kids can play big men somewhere else.”

Yuri walked away. I tried to cool off and waited until Zak came down.

“He’s still riding you. huh?” he said.

“Looks like it.”

“Yuri hates you being brighter and quicker than he is. So he uses muscle instead. Don’t let him provoke you.”

I balled up a fist, “I’d like to—”

“Yeah, I know. But that’s playing his game.”

“So what? I can’t—”

“Listen, he’s got you going both ways. That guy didn’t see Yuri boot you out, he just heard you try to pick a fight. So Yuri got all the points in that scramble. Listen, next time just treat him okay. Maybe after this he’ll feel square with you.”

“Well…maybe.”

A winch was already lowering nets of baggage from the cargo lock. We walked over and helped two men unroll the net. Our cases were in it. We scooped them up and started toward the base buildings. They housed some of the fifty permanent staff members; the rest lived under the life dome, further away.

The Sagan’s jet splash had melted the ground and made a brown spot in the ghostly white. We trotted along, my suit chuffing away to fight off the cold. When the first expedition landed here the surface was at 150 degrees Centigrade below zero. The reclamation project has warmed things up, but not much.

We reached the administration building and banged on the lock. In a moment the green light winked on and we cycled through. We came out in a suiting-up room. I popped my helmet pressure and found the air was sweeter than I’d expected; they’re making improvements in the base all the time. We lugged our bags into the next room and found a man behind a counter with a clipboard.

“Your name—oh, Palonski and Bohles. Welcome back. Gluttons for punishment, aren’t you? I see you asked for a Walker again.”

“Better than refueling duty,” I said and he chuckled. Pumping water and ammonia into the Sagan’s tanks is the most boring job imaginable; you watch dials for two hours, spend five minutes switching hoses, and then sit two hours again.

He assigned us bunk numbers and let us go; the families with children would get a complete lecture on safety and a long list of things they couldn’t do. I’d heard the lecture ten times before and could probably give it about as well as he could.

We found our bunks and stowed our gear without wasting any time. We didn’t want the mob to catch up with us. As soon as things were squared away Zak and I beat it across the base and trotted over to the dome lock.

The dome is the whole point of Ganymede, for me. I was out of my suit and putting on tennis shoes almost before the air lock had stopped wheezing. I had to gulp a few times to adjust my inner ear to the dome’s pressure, but that was automatic. Anybody who has been in space learns to do that without thinking—or ends up with lancing ear pains when he forgets. Zak was just as fast, and we went through the door together.

To anybody living on Earth I guess the dome wouldn’t be a big deal. But to me—I came out the door and just stood there, sopping it up. Overhead the dome arches away, supported by the air I was breathing. It rises to 500 meters in height and is five kilometers in diameter; a giant, life-filled blister on Ganymede. Inside the blister is the only spot where a man can walk without a suit.

Zak and I trotted the klick to the ski shed. There is a funny nose-shaped hill under the dome, with one steep face and one shallow. We carried our skis up the difficult side and strapped them on. I stood looking out, surveying the land under the dome. Hills sloped into each other, making stream beds and narrow valleys. A late morning water fog rose from a marshland. Up near the top of the dome, so thin you had to have faith to see it, was a wisp of pearly cloud. Back at the edge, the way we had come, a few people were spreading out from the lock.

“Come on!” I said, and pushed off. We started slowly and then began to weave, making long undulating patterns down the hill face. You don’t get as much speed in a lighter gravity, but you can make incredible turns and prolong the ride.

We skied most of the afternoon, until there were too many on the slope. Then we took a hike around the dome to see what was new. The experimental farm had grown and most of the crops—adapted corn, root vegetables, apples—were doing well. The farm is the seed of what Ganymede will become, once the atmosphere project gets going, melting dirty ice to make air.

With the greenhouse effect warming things up and microorganisms giving off oxygen, eventually a soybean will grow somewhere and then—well, then colonists will be panting down our necks, wanting to get in. By then it will be time to push on…before they build a Hilton.

That is, assuming ISA didn’t send me back on the Argosy, I reminded myself.

That thought wasn’t so easy to brush aside. I tried pretty hard, though, the next two days. I climbed hills, skied and played soccer until my legs threatened to stop holding me up. When we got up in the morning Zak would just lie in bed groaning about his past sins, and wish for a chocolate sundae to tide him over until breakfast.

The third day we were skiing sort of halfheartedly, waiting for enough people to show up to make a soccer team, when I lost sight of Zak on the slope.

I turned uphill, came to a halt and looked around. There was nobody very near. I poled my clumsy way uphill and looked again. There was a small mound nearby I skirted around it to get a better view.

“Hey!” Zak said. He was lying in a small depression behind the mound. His skis were off and there was a brown gouge in the snow.

“Why didn’t you yell before?” I said, clomping over to him.

“I was embarrassed. It’s kind of dumb to take a fall on an easy grade like this.” He grinned sheepishly.

“Hurt anything?” I put out a hand to help him up.

“I don’t think—ow!”

“Sit back down. Let’s see.” I unwrapped his left ankle.

“How is it?” He blinked owlishly at his leg.

“Sprained ankle.” I started unclipping my skis.

“Will I be able to play the piano again, doctor?”

“Sure, with your feet, just like before. Come on.” I got him up and leaning on me. “Think you can walk?”

“Certain—ow!”

He did make it, though, to the bottom of the hill. From there I hiked back to the dome lock and got a small wagon usually used to haul things to the experimental farm. The base doctor walked back with me and bandaged up Zak’s ankle, making the same diagnosis I had, only using longer words.

I got him settled into his bunk. The doctor delegated me to bring him his meals and the first thing Zak asked for was a milkshake. I shrugged and went over to the cafeteria to weasel one out of the cook—no mean feat.

I asked the man tending counter and he told me it would be a few minutes—several people had lunch coming up. I stood aside to wait. The woman from the Sagan was next in line behind me. She asked for a cup of coffee and a vegetable roll and got it immediately. Then she leaned over to the counterman and said loudly, “These youngsters all want special favors, don’t they?”

I stood there trying to think of something to say until she flounced out. If it had been Zak, he would have come up with something cutting and brilliant, but I acted as though I had a mouth full or marbles, and my face burned with embarrassment.

“You’re the younger Bohles, aren’t you?” a deep voice said.

I looked up. It was Captain Vandez; he looked tired.

“Yes sir.”

“I heard about the Palonski boy just now. Unfortunate.”

“It isn’t anything major,” I said, “Zak will be walking by the time we ship home.”

“Good.” He nodded abruptly. “The base commander has you two slated to take the Walker out on a routine inspection tour starting tomorrow. I was afraid this accident might scrub it.”

“It will.”

“Not necessarily. Another boy volunteered for the job two days ago. I told him both places were filled, but now there is a spot vacant. You see, Bohles, base personnel are all assigned to other jobs now and we are a bit squeezed. If you don’t mind going out with another boy…”

“Who is he?”

Captain Vandez sighed and looked at a paper in his hand. “Sagdaeff. Yuri Sagdaeff.”

“Oh.” I gulped. “Could I let you know in a few minutes?”

“Of course. Take your time.”

I got the milkshake and put it in a sealed carrying box. I was still in my suit, so I put on my helmet and cycled through the cafeteria lock as fast as I could. Then I double-timed it through a low-lying pink haze back to our dorm.

When I told him Zak stopped slurping and made a raucous noise.

“That sneak!”

“Huh?”

“Remember when we told him about the Walker? I know just how his mind works. Sagdaeff thinks we’re making points by, doing the inspection tour. He wants his share.”

“What for?”

“Yuri wants to rack up points with Captain Vandez and hope the word gets back to Commander Aarons about what a sharp guy our Yuri is. He’s not dumb.”

“Aren’t you being a little cynical?”

“Every realist is at first called a cynic.” he pontificated.

“You don’t think I should go?”

“You’re just giving him a break. After all, you and I have been out in the Walker before, doing odd jobs. The guys here at the base know you’re not a Johnny-come-lately.”

“The work has to be done.” I said firmly. “The project is more important—”

“Okay, okay,” Zak said, rolling his eyes. “Go ahead. Tramp the icy wastes with Yuri for the glory of the ISA. I’ll stay here and write terrible things about you in my diary and starve to death.”

I gritted my teeth, thinking. I was nervous and jittery. A small voice was nagging me in the back of my mind. Don’t be a sucker, it said. It had some good arguments, too.

But I knew, finally, what was right. So I went back to Vandez and volunteered again.

“Look, we can’t all be like you,” I said to Zak, later.

“Uh huh.”

Zak wanted me to go out and see if any girls were around the base, just in case we’d missed any. To amuse him while I was gone, he said. “Didn’t you bring your tapes?” I asked him. “Just conjure up ol’ Rebecca. She’ll keep you delighted.”

“Don’t knock her, kid,” he said, smiling cynically. “She’ll make me a buck yet.”

“Uh huh,” I said, and went to sleep.

I woke up that night, sweating.

The dream had come back again. I’d thought it was gone for good, but no—my pajamas were soaked, my heart pounding. I was breathing in short, desperate gasps.

And I was in that sun-bleached Costa Mesa schoolyard again. The two Chicano kids had backed me up against a wall. They were elaborately casual, chewing gum, sneaking amused looks at each other.

“Smart kid. aren’t ya?” the biggest one said. He put his hand on my chest and gave me a light shove. I stepped back to keep my balance.

My lip trembled. “I’m not slow, if that’s what you mean.”

The big one looked over at his friend. “They always got somethin’ ta say. Little smartasses.”

The second kid punched me in the shoulder. I moved back and felt the rough brick wall behind me. There were more Chicano kids behind these two now; a crowd was gathering.

“He’s gonna fly off into space, too,” the big one said to the crowd. “Too good for us compres down here in the mud.”

“I don’t see any mud here.” I said, my voice sounded weak and distant. “Just dust.”

The big one whirled around, fists clenched, face reddening. “You’re always right, ain’t cha, kid? Mebbe you oughtta taste dust.”

He hit me in the face. I felt something break in my nose. Somebody punched me in the side. Suddenly everybody was shouting. I tried to take a swing at someone, anyone. The big kid cuffed my fist aside and slapped me again, laughing. There was a buzzing in my ears.

I tried to run. Something struck me in the stomach and I stumbled, reaching out. The crowd was all around me. They were thick and close and everywhere I turned arms pushed me away. They spun me around in a circle, taunting me, calling names.

I struck out blindly. I was crying, begging them, throwing punches in a red mist that smothered me. I heard them jeering. Something smashed me hard in the stomach. I went down.

The noise washed over me. Somebody kicked me and I felt a sudden stab of pain in my ribs. The dust clogged my nose. I choked.

The world seemed to blur and drift away. I grunted, clawing at the dirt, and rolled over. The jeering was a hollow echo, an animal chorus.

I felt a wetness on my lips. I licked at it, thinking my nose was bleeding. I felt a spattering on my face. Somewhere kids were laughing, jeering.

I licked my broken lips again. Then I caught it: the warm, acrid smell. The stench of urine…

“Matt! Hey, what’s the matter?” Zak was shaking me.

I realized I must have been moaning, half-awake. I gulped and deliberately slowed my breathing. “An old nightmare.”

“Must be pretty bad,” Zak said sympathetically.

At that moment I really needed a friend. So I told him about it. I’d never mentioned it before, even to my parents. But this time it was worse than ever before. I felt as if I had to tell somebody.

“Wow,” Zak said when I was finished. “That happened just before your family was selected for the Project?”

“It’s my last clear memory of Earth. I was eight.”

“The nightmare keeps coming back, huh? That explains a lot.”

“Explains what?”

“You’re known all over the Can as a monomaniac, a hustler. Working is your life, Matt. The psychers make you take time off, like the rest of us, sure. But even here on Ganymede—you were the one who got me into the Walker business, check? You’re always looking for a job, some way to distinguish yourself.”

“Well, of course,” I said irritably. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, nothing at all. But with you it’s a mania. You’ve got to succeed.”

“Uh, maybe…” I began to feel uncomfortable.

“Because if you don’t, you won’t become a JABOL staff member.” Zak paused, thoughtful. “You’ll be shipped Earthside. Back into that schoolyard in—southern California, wasn’t it?—with that zoo of welfare refugees. The heat, the dust, big guys picking on you…”

“Aw, crap. Stop playing Young Freud.”

“You don’t see it, do you? Ever wonder why you get so tense and irritable with Yuri?”

“Because he’s a bastard!”

Zak stared at me. “A big bastard, too, isn’t he? Lots bigger than you. A big kid,” he mused.

“Get this.” I said intensely, “that guy doesn’t scare me. It’s only, sometimes…sometimes I get mad.” I paused for a moment. I didn’t want to talk about this any more.

“Look. I’ve got to get some sleep.” I mumbled.

“Okay,” Zak said noncommittally.

I rolled over, face down into my pillow. Zak clicked off the light.

But I didn’t get much sleep that night.

The next morning I suited up and walked through the scattered buildings that make up the Ganymede base. The Walker was parked at the edge of the base: its mate was off on some other task.

It stood on six legs and was six meters tall. The living quarters were in the bubble set on top. The bubble had big, curved windows facing in all directions, with an extra large one set in front of the driver’s seat. Beneath it, almost lost in a jumble of hydraulic valves and rocker arms, was the entrance ladder.

The Walker was painted bright blue for contrast against the reddish-brown dirty ice of Ganymede. The antenna on top was green, for some reason I have never understood. Underneath the forward antenna snout was neatly printed Perambulatin’ Puss. Everybody called her the Cat.

“Morning!” I recognized Captain Vandez’s voice even over suit radio. He and Yuri walked up to the Cat from the other side of the base. I said hello. Yuri made a little mock salute at me.

“Well, you boys should be able to handle her,” Captain Vandez said. He slapped the side of the Cat. “The ole Puss will take good care of you as long as you treat her right. Replenish your air and water reserves at every way station—do not try to skip one and push on to the next, because you won’t make it. If you fill up at a station and then go to sleep, be sure to top off the tanks before you leave; even sleeping uses up air. And no funny business—stick to the route and make your radio contacts back here sharp on the hour.”

“Sir?”

“Yes, Bohles?”

“It seems to me I’ve had more experience with the Walker than Yuri, here, so—”

“Well, more experience, yes. You have taken her out before. But Sagdaeff practiced all yesterday afternoon with her and I have been quite impressed with his ability. He is older than you, Bohles. I think you should follow his advice when any question comes up,” he said impatiently.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t say anything.

Captain Vandez didn’t notice my deliberate silence. He clapped us both on the back, in turn, and handed Yuri a sealed case. “Here are your marching orders. Follow the maps and keep your eyes open. Good luck!”

With that he turned and hurried back toward the base. He was a busy man with a lot to do. I supposed I shouldn’t be too mad if he relied on the older of us two—usually, the kid who has been around a while longer can handle himself better. It was just that in this case I disagreed.

“Let’s move it,” Yuri said, and led the way to the ladder. We climbed up and I sealed the hatch behind us.

I was standing in the room that would be home for the next five days. It was crammed with instruments and storage lockers, except where the windows—ports, to use the right technical term—were. There were fiber optics in the floor so we could check on the legs. The sunlight streaming in lit up the cabin and paled the phosphor panels in the ceiling.

Yuri and I shucked our suits and laid out the maps on the chart table. I took the driver’s seat and quickly went through the board check. The lightweight nuclear engine mounted below our deck was fully charged; it would run for years without anything more than an occasional replacement of the circulating fluid elements.

“Why don’t you start her off?” Yuri said. “I want to study the maps.”

I nodded and slid over to the driver’s place. I clicked a few switches and the board in front of me came alive. Red lights winked to green and I revved up the engine. I made the Walker “kneel down” a few times—that is, lowered the bubble—to warm up the hydraulic fluids. It’s hard to remember that the legs of the Cat are working at temperatures a hundred degrees below freezing, when you’re sitting in a toasty cabin, but it can be dangerous to forget.

While I was doing this I looked out at the life dome rising in the distance. I could pick out people sledding down a hill and further away a crowd in a snowball fight. A scramble like that is more fun on Ganymede than on Earth; somebody a hundred yards away can pick you off with an accurate shot, because low gravity extends the range of your throwing arm. We don’t have anything really spectacular on Ganymede in the way of recreation—nothing like the caverns on Luna, where people can fly around in updrafts, using wings strapped to their backs—but what there is has a lot of zip. For a moment I wished I was out there, in that isolated Earthlike environment, tossing a snowball, instead of piloting a Walker up to the ice fields. I mulled over what Zak had said last night. Then I cut the thought short; it was too late to back out now.

I engaged the engine and the Cat lurched forward. The legs moved methodically, finding the level of the ground and adjusting to it; the gyros kept us upright and shock absorbers cushioned our cabin against the rocking and swaying.

I clicked on the Cat’s magnetic screen. The dome area has buried superconductors honeycombing the area, creating a magnetic web. As the Cat left the fringes of that field, we needed more protection from the steady rain of energetic protons. They sleet down on Ganymede from the Van Allen belts. A few hours without protection would fry us. Cat’s walls contain superconducting threads carrying high currents. They produce a strong magnetic field outside, which turns incoming charged particles and deflects them.

I took us away from the base at a steady thirty klicks an hour; it would be slower when we hit rough country. The morning sun came slanting in as we moved along the eastern rim of the valley; I switched on the polarizers in our windows to keep down the glare. Puss cast a shadow like a marching spider on the slate-gray valley wall.

Maybe I should explain about morning on Ganymede. It’s a complicated business. The hardest thing to adjust to when you first land here is the simple fact that Ganymede is a moon, not a planet. It’s tied to Jupiter with invisible gravitational apron strings that keep it tide-locked, one face toward Jupiter, always. Meanwhile it revolves around Jove and in turn the Fat One orbits around the sun. The situation is pretty much the same as the Earth-Luna system: Luna shows the same face to Earth and revolves around it in about twenty-eight days, so the lunar “day”—one complete day-night cycle—is twenty-eight days long. Ganymede revolves around Jove in a fraction more than a week, so its “day” is seven Earth days long; the sun is in the sky three and a half days, every week.

This makes a pretty complicated week, believe me. The base has legislated that sunrise occurs at Saturday midnight; it’s arbitrary, but it makes for a symmetric week and symmetry is like catnip to scientists. We were starting out Sunday morning and the sun would be in the sky until Wednesday afternoon.

All this time Jove squats square in the middle of the sky, like a striped watermelon. At the moment the sun was streaming through the ports of the Cat and I had to polarize them to cut the glare. Yuri looked up from his map and said, “By the way, that little maneuver back there didn’t slip by me.”

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb. I heard you try to talk Vandez into putting you in charge. It’s a good thing he saw through you.”

“Well, I don’t know,” I said slowly. “It seemed to me as long as you didn’t know much about a Walker you shouldn’t be running one.”

“What is there to know? I picked up all I need in a few hours. Here, get out of the seat.”

I stopped the Cat and, Yuri slid into the driver’s chair. We had reached the end of the valley and were heading over a low rise. Here and there ammonia ice clung to the shadows.

Yuri started us forward, staying close to the usual path. The whole trick of guiding a Walker is to keep the legs from having to move very far up and down on each step. It’s easier for the machine to inch up a grade than to charge over it.

So the first thing Yuri did was march us directly up the hill. The legs started straining to keep our cabin level and a whining sound filled the air. The Cat teetered, lunged forward, stopped and died.

“Hey!” Yuri said.

“You shouldn’t be surprised,” I said. “She’s just doing what any self-respecting machine does when it’s asked to perform the impossible. She’s gone on strike. The automatic governor cut in.”

Yuri said something incoherent and got up. I took over again and backed us off slowly. Then I nudged the Cat around the base of the hill until I found the signs of a winding path previous Walkers had left. Within fifteen minutes we were in the next valley, its hills lit with the rosy glow of the sun filtering through a thin ammonia cloud overhead.