by Ben Bova
Leviathans of Jupiter
( Grand Tour - 18 )
Ben Bova
In Ben Bova’s novel JUPITER, physicist Grant Archer led an expedition into Jupiter’s hostile planet-wide ocean, attempting to study the unusual and massive creatures that call the planet their home. Unprepared for the hostile environment and crushing pressures, Grant’s team faced certain death as their ship malfunctioned and slowly sank to the planet’s depths. However one of Jupiter’s native creatures—a city-sized leviathan—saved the doomed ship. This creature’s act convinced Grant that the huge creatures were intelligent, but he lacked scientific proof.
Now, several years later, Grant prepares a new expedition to prove once and for all that the huge creatures are intelligent. The new team faces dangers from both the hostile environment and from humans who will do anything to make sure the mission is a failure, even if it means murdering the entire crew.
Leviathans of Jupiter
by Ben Bova
But ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
—CHARLES DARWIN
To Barbara and Peter Brusco, with love.
THE BOUNDLESS SEA
It is an endless ocean, more than ten times wider than the entire planet Earth. Beneath the swirling clouds that cover Jupiter from pole to pole, that ocean has never seen sunlight, nor has it ever felt the rough confining contours of land. Its waves have never crashed against a craggy shore, never thundered upon a sloping beach, for there is no land anywhere across Jupiter’s enormous girth: not even an island or a reef. The ocean’s billows sweep across the face of the deeps without hindrance, eternally.
Heated from below by the planet’s seething core, swirled into frenzy by Jupiter’s hyperkinetic spin rate, ferocious currents race through this endless sea, liquid jet streams howling madly, long powerful wave trains surging uninterrupted all the way around the world, circling the globe over and over again. Gigantic storms rack the ocean, too, typhoons bigger than whole planets, hurricanes that have roared their fury for century after century.
Jupiter is the largest of all the solar system’s planets, more than ten times bigger and three hundred times as massive as Earth. Jupiter is so immense it could swallow all the other planets easily. Its Great Red Spot, a storm that has raged for centuries, is itself wider than Earth. And the Spot is merely one feature visible among the innumerable vortexes and streams of Jupiter’s frenetically racing cloud tops.
Yet Jupiter is composed mainly of the lightest elements, hydrogen and helium, more like a star than a planet. All that size and mass, yet Jupiter spins on its axis in less than ten hours, so fast that the planet is clearly not spherical. Its poles are noticeably flattened. Jupiter looks like a big, colorfully striped beach ball that’s squashed down as if some gigantic invisible child were sitting upon it.
Spinning that fast, Jupiter’s deep, cloud-topped atmosphere is swirled into bands and ribbons of multihued clouds: pale yellow, saffron orange, white, tawny yellow-brown, dark brown, bluish, pink and red. Titanic winds push the clouds across the face of Jupiter at hundreds of kilometers per hour. What lies beneath them? For a century planetary astronomers had cautiously sent probes into the Jovian atmosphere. They barely penetrated the cloud tops before being crushed by overwhelming pressure.
But the inquisitive scientists from Earth persisted and gradually learned that some fifty thousand kilometers beneath those clouds—nearly four times Earth’s diameter—lies that boundless ocean, an ocean almost eleven times wider than Earth and some five thousand kilometers deep. Heavily laced with ammonia and sulfur compounds, highly acidic, it is still an ocean of water. Everywhere in the solar system, where there is liquid water, life exists.
They also found that organic compounds form naturally in the clouds and precipitate down into the sea: particles constantly wafting into the restless ocean, like manna falling from heaven.
Eventually the scientists found that life exists in Jupiter’s boundless ocean, as well. Enormous creatures, as big as cities, cruise through those raging currents as easily as a lad poling a raft along a quiet stream on Earth, feeding themselves on the organics constantly drifting down from above. Lords of their world, these creatures exist where humans and their most inventive technology can barely penetrate.
The humans called them leviathans. And they wondered: Could these beasts be intelligent?
I
FUSION TORCH SHIP AUSTRALIA
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Ulysses
CERES ORBIT:
CHRYSALIS II HABITAT
Big George Ambrose was far from happy.
“I still don’t see why they need a fookin’ microbiologist,” he grumbled. “Bloody beasts on Jupiter are big as mountains, aren’t they?”
His daughter Deirdre nodded in agreement. The two of them were waiting in Chrysalis II’s departure lounge for the torch ship from the Earth/Moon system to dock at the habitat. No one else was in the departure lounge; no one else from the habitat was heading for Jupiter.
They did not look much like father and daughter. George was a huge bushy mountain of a man, with a tangled mop of brick red hair and a thick unruly beard to match, both bearing the first telltale streaks of silver. Deirdre was almost as tall as he, but seemed dwarfed next to him. She was strikingly beautiful, though, with wide innocent almond eyes that had a slight oriental cast to them and high cheekbones, thanks to her mother. She had her father’s strong jaw and auburn hair that glowed like molten copper as it streamed down past her shoulders. She was wearing a simple pullover blouse and comfortable slacks, but they couldn’t hide the supple curves of her ample figure.
“You’ll miss my retirement party,” George growled.
“I’m sorry about that,” Deirdre said. “But they promised me a full scholarship to the Sorbonne if I’d put in a year at the research station in Jupiter orbit. A full scholarship, Daddy!”
“On Earth.”
“Yes! On Earth!”
George shook his shaggy head. “Earth’s a dangerous place. Too many people. All sorts of diseases and maniacs runnin’ around.”
“Daddy, it’s Earth!” Deirdre exclaimed. “It’s civilization. It’s culture. I don’t want to spend my whole life cooped up in this habitat. I know you love it, but I want to see the real world!”
George muttered something too low for his daughter to catch.
George Ambrose had been director of the rock rats’ habitat orbiting the asteroid Ceres for the past quarter century. He had helped build the original Chrysalis for the miners and prospectors who combed the Asteroid Belt in search of the metals and minerals that fed the human race’s expansion through the solar system. He had directed the building of Chrysalis II when the rock rats’ first habitat had been destroyed in the Asteroid Wars.
And he had presided over the trial of the mercenary killer who had wiped out the original habitat.
Now he stood with his only daughter scowling at the display screen that spread across one entire bulkhead of the departure lounge. It showed the long, sleek torch ship from Earth making the final delicate maneuvers of its rendezvous with the slowly revolving wheel of the habitat. George saw tiny puffs of cold gas squirting from the ship’s maneuvering rockets: thruster farts, he said to himself.
Like most of the habitat, the departure lounge was strictly utilitarian: a row of hard benches ran along its facing gray bulkheads, the scuffed, dull heavy steel hatch of the airlock between them. No windows; the only
outside view was from the wide display screen that stretched above one of the benches.
Across from the wall screen, though, was a mural that Deirdre had painted as a teenager, a seascape she had copied from memory after studying a docudrama about Earth’s oceans. Deirdre’s murals decorated many of the otherwise drab sections of the habitat: Even the crude, gaudy daubings she had done as a child still remained on the otherwise colorless bulkheads of Chrysalis II. They were little better than graffiti, but her father would not permit anyone to remove them. He was proud of his daughter’s artistry, which had grown deeper and richer as she herself blossomed into adulthood.
But George was not admiring his daughter’s artwork now. Still staring at the display screen, he impatiently called out, “Screen, show Ceres.”
The display obediently shifted from the approaching torch ship to show the cratered, dusty rock of the asteroid around which the habitat orbited. Largest of the ’roids in the Belt, Ceres was barely a thousand kilometers across, an oversized boulder, dusty, pitted, dead. Beyond its curving limb there was nothing but the dark emptiness of infinity, laced with hard pinpoints of stars bright enough to shine through the camera’s protective filters.
Big George clasped his hands behind his back as he stared at the unblinking stars.
“I only came out here to get rich quick and then go back to Earth,” he muttered. “Never thought I’d spend the rest of my fookin’ life in the Belt.”
Deirdre gave her father a sympathetic smile. “You can go back Earthside any time you want to.”
He shook his shaggy head. “Nah. Been away too long. I’d be a stranger there. Leastways, I got some friends here.…”
“Tons of friends,” Deirdre said.
“And your mother’s ashes.”
Deirdre nodded. Mom’s been dead for nearly five years, she thought, but he still mourns her.
“You can visit me on Earth,” she said brightly. “You won’t be a total stranger.”
“Yeah,” he said, without enthusiasm. “Maybe.”
“I really have to go on this ship, Daddy. I’ve got to get to Jupiter; otherwise I won’t get the scholarship.”
“I could send you to school on Earth, if that’s what you want. I can afford it.”
“That’s what I want,” she said gently. “And now I can get it without putting the burden on you.”
“That ship’ll be burning out to Jupiter at one full g, y’know,” George said. “Six times heavier than here.”
“I’ve put in tons of hours in the centrifuge, Daddy. I can handle it. The station orbiting Jupiter is one-sixth gravity, just like here.”
George nodded absently. Deirdre thought he had run out of objections.
They felt the slightest of tremors and the speaker built into the overhead announced, “DOCKING COMPLETED.”
George looked almost startled. “I guess I never thought about you leavin’.”
“I’d have to go, sooner or later.”
“Yeah, I know, but…”
“If you don’t want me to go…”
“Nah.” He shook his head fiercely. “You don’t want to get stuck here the rest o’ your life, like me.”
“I’ll come back, Dad.”
George shrugged. “It’s a big world out there. Lots of things to see and do. Lots of places for a bright young woman to make a life for herself.”
Deirdre didn’t know what to say.
His scowl returning, George said, “Just don’t let any of those sweet-talkin’ blokes take advantage of you. Hear?”
She broke into a giggle. “Oh, Daddy, I know how to take care of myself.”
“Yeah. Maybe. But I won’t be there to protect you, y’know.”
Deirdre grabbed him by his unkempt beard with both hands, the way she had since she’d been a baby, and pecked at his cheek.
“I love you, Daddy.”
George blushed. But he clasped his daughter by both shoulders and kissed her solidly on the forehead. “I love you, Dee Dee.”
The airlock hatch swung open with a sighing puff of overly warm air. A short, sour-faced Asian man in a deep blue uniform trimmed with an officer’s gold braid stepped through and snapped, “Deirdre Ambrose?”
“That’s me.”
“This way,” the Asian said, gesturing curtly toward the passageway beyond the airlock hatch.
George Ambrose watched his only child disappear into the passageway, the first step on her journey to Jupiter. And then to Earth. I’ll never see her again, he thought. Never.
Then he muttered, “I still don’t see why they need a fookin’ microbiologist.”
FUSION TORCH SHIP AUSTRALIA
Suppressing an impulse to look back over her shoulder for one last glimpse of her father, Deirdre stepped carefully along the curving tube that connected the Chrysalis II habitat to the fusion ship. She could feel her pulse thumping along her veins. Chrysalis II was all the home she had ever known. She was heading into the new, the unknown. It was exciting—and a little scary.
The tube felt warmer than she was accustomed to. Its walls glowed softly white, as if fluorescent, with a spiral motif threading along its length. The flooring felt slightly spongy to her tread, not hard and solid like the decks of the habitat. She knew it was her imagination, but somehow she felt slightly heavier, as if the docked torch ship had a stronger gravity field than the habitat she was leaving.
She heard the airlock hatch clang shut behind her and a moment later the crabby-looking little ship’s officer scurried past her without speaking a word and disappeared around the curve of the tube. He’s not very friendly, Deirdre thought.
When she got to the end of the tube he was standing there, by the ship’s gleaming metal airlock, glaring at her with obvious impatience.
“Embarkation desk,” he said, jabbing a thumb past the hatch.
Deirdre stepped through the open hatch into a compartment of bare metal bulkheads, not much bigger than a closet. There were three ordinary-looking doors set into the bulkhead opposite her. She hesitated, not sure of which door she was meant to take.
“Right-hand side,” the officer snapped from the other side of the hatch, pointing again.
Deirdre opened the door and immediately saw that the torch ship’s interior was colorfully decorated. The compartment’s walls were covered with brightly patterned fabric. The overhead glowed with glareless lighting. The deck was thickly carpeted in rich earth tones of green and brown. Carpets! she thought. Incredible luxury, compared to Chrysalis II’s utilitarian décor. And this is just an anteroom, she realized.
In front of her there was another door, marked EMBARKATION RECEPTION. Deirdre tapped on it, and when no one answered, she cautiously slid it open.
A man in a white uniform was sitting behind a metal desk in the middle of the compartment. The bulkheads on both sides glowed pearl gray: smart screens, Deirdre recognized. Behind the seated officer another wall screen displayed a scene of golden-leafed trees, a forest of Earth, heartbreakingly beautiful.
The man got slowly to his feet. He, too, was Asian, and no taller than Deirdre’s chin. He smiled and made a courtly little bow, fists clenched at his sides.
“Welcome to Australia,” he said. Gesturing to the gracefully curved chair of leather and chrome in front of the desk, he invited, “Please, Ms. Ambrose, be seated and allow me to introduce myself: I am Dr. Lin Pohan, ship’s medical officer.”
Dr. Pohan was as small as the surly officer who had ushered Deirdre aboard the Australia. He was almost totally bald, except for a fringe of dull gray hair, but a luxuriant mustache of silver gray curled across his face. His skin was spiderwebbed with creases, and as he smiled at Deirdre his eyes crinkled with good humor. He looked like a wrinkled old gnome to Deirdre. She realized this man had never taken rejuvenation treatments. She had learned in her history classes that some people on Earth shunned rejuv on religious grounds. Could he be one of them?
“I’m pleased to meet you,” she said, a little hesitantly.
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Dr. Pohan bobbed his head up and down, then replied, “We must go through the formalities of checking your boarding file and medical record.”
“That should all be in your computer,” Deirdre said.
“Yes, of course. But then I’m afraid I must subject you to a complete physical examination.”
“But my medical records—”
“Not good enough,” said Dr. Pohan, almost jovially. “You see, we have had a death aboard ship on our way out here from Earth. It is my duty to make certain we don’t have any others.”
“A death? Someone died?”
“One of the passengers. Most unusual. And most puzzling. If I can’t track down the reason for it, we will not be allowed to disembark our passengers. We will have made the long voyage to Jupiter for nothing.”
CAPTAIN’S QUARTERS
Australia was a passenger vessel, designed to carry paying customers swiftly from the Earth/Moon system out to the rock rats’ habitat in orbit around the asteroid Ceres. It was built like a slim tower, with a dozen decks between the bridge in the ship’s nose and the fusion propulsion plant at its tail. Unlike the cumbersome ore ships that plodded across the inner solar system, Australia drove through space under constant acceleration, usually at one Earth-normal gravity or close to it, accelerating half the distance, then flipping over and decelerating the rest of the way. Except for the brief periods of docking or turn-around, the passengers would feel a comfortable one g environment for the entire voyage. Comfortable, that is, for those who were accustomed to Earth-normal gravity.
This trip was special, though. Instead of terminating at Ceres and then heading back Earthward, Australia was going on to the research station in orbit around the giant planet Jupiter, a journey that would take an additional two weeks from Ceres.