Cold as Ice

by Charles Sheffield

  Mord scratched his nose thoughtfully, a gesture that made Bat wonder how much physical sensation could be built into a simulation. Did Mord itch? Did he–Bat could no longer think of the simulation as it–feel pain? Did he dream, in some cool swirl of maverick electrons?

  "I think I've done my bit," Mord went on. "It's time for a little bit of the good old quid pro quo before you get more from me. You promised me some dirt. Remember?"

  "It will be provided. But you must tell me the preferred form of input."

  "Well, not like this, that's for sure. With all due respect to flesh–and you got a lot of it–when you have attosecond circuitry, like me, you chafe a bit when your data's fed to you at human speeds. Just give me a nice, broadband bus, and watch me guzzle. I'll help myself. Then we can talk some more about Pallas."

  "At once." Bat reached for his control keyboard. "If you will permit one more thought before data transfer begins . . . I cannot help wondering if you have continuous consciousness. Or are there periods when you are turned off?"

  "Getting a bit personal, aren't we?" Mord grinned. "No, I don't have continuous consciousness. What do you think I am? I need my beauty sleep, just like any other normal person." He raised his hand. "But right now I feel a data attack creeping up on me, so adios. See you in a while. And hey, Mega-chops, as one freak to another—lose some weight."

  * * *

  It was ridiculous to resent the insults of a mere simulation. The measure of Mordecai Perlman's success was the irritation that Bat felt at Mord's comment. But Bat knew that he should not be annoyed; Mordecai Perlman's success might be crucial to his own.

  He crouched in his chair, his cowled robe pulled round his body. There had been definite progress: biological weapons on Mandrake.

  And all destroyed? Bat might have accepted that were it not for Yarrow Gobel. The inspector-general was doing well, already advanced to maybe ten years old. He was extravert, bubbling over with rebellion and wild ideas, and physically fit. Bat wondered at what age Gobel had been when his personality changed from would-be explorer and soldier of fortune to the cautious, sober monitor of fiscal irregularities.

  The attack on Gobel—on Bat himself—was proof that everything that had happened on Mandrake was not far off in the faded past. It was making a difference here and now, on Ganymede. Why, and how? Mandrake had been a center for biological experiments, intended to create new weapons for use in the Great War. Even, perhaps, Yarrow Gobel's "secret weapon." What relevance could that possibly have for today?

  "Most of them were destroyed." Bat was muttering to himself. He had been awake for twenty-seven hours, and he was approaching exhaustion. "But what if an experiment, or its creator, survived?"

  Then there would be a reason for that person to cut off any investigation likely to lead toward him—or her. Which raised the next question: Who in the Jovian system today could have been active on Mandrake at the time of the Great War?

  Bat could not answer that. Not until he had slept. Tomorrow, with further help from Mord, he might find another angle of attack.

  But the information he had already received was enough to set in train a new line of thought. The phrase "survival pod" carried its own psychological weight. A person hearing the term automatically thought "survival of people." But nothing required that a pod had to be used for such a purpose. Suppose that the pods had been used for something very different—say, as protected environments for something small, like microorganisms? Then the usual cutoff time beyond which the pod would be unable to support life was meaningless. The pod trajectories should have been examined not for the span of a mere month or two after the Pelagic's destruction, but for their course over the years.

  The programs to propagate those trajectories forward through time were already set up in Megachirops' file. Bat gave the command to execute them over an increased time range, and asked the same question as before: Were any survival pods picked up consistent with those orbital paths?

  He did not have to watch the computations proceed. The results would be awaiting him when he awoke. He went to lie down, a mound of exhausted flesh pillowed and draped sybaritically in cushions and sheets of black silk.

  His thoughts moved to Mord, to a Mordecai Perlman stripped of all material attributes, freed of all material needs, divested of all material pleasures. What was left? Thought, and the joys of pure intellect.

  That would not suffice for Bat. Certainly not now, with thirty kilos of live lobster from Yarrow Gobel's sea farm still crawling in the Bat Cave tanks. To wait or not to wait? And for how long? Today's Gobel was disgusted at the very idea of eating something that he said looked like an enormous diseased insect. Yet it seemed unfair to feast on the gift without the participation of its donor . . .

  Bat yawned, hugely.

  Intellect was surely not everything. Not yet.

  But someday, perhaps, when appetites waned and the burdens of aging flesh increased . . . well, then it might be enough . . . for Megachirops.

  Bat slept, in curious contentment, while at the far end of Bat Cave tireless programs stepped a set of orbits forward through time from the destruction of the Pelagic. Possible fits were sought with the coordinates and velocities of pods recovered from space. And, at last, times and places of matches were recorded.

  They were the simplest of routines, these programs, without the ability to be surprised or delighted at anything they found.

  That pleasure would be reserved for Bat, upon his awakening.

  17

  De Profundis

  Jon Perry and Wilsa Sheer returned to a different world.

  They had left the surface of Europa and entered into the black pupil of Blowhole with the communications unit of the Danae set to maximum volume. They had not realized that it was even turned on, because Europa's ice blanket provided a quiet radio environment. The signal bands had been inactive when they were above the surface, and once beneath it all messages were damped to nothing by the surrounding water.

  They had spent two days exploring the upper layers of the Europan ocean. Peaceful and productive days for Wilsa, frustrating days for Jon. It was galling to be confined to the "continental shelves" of Europa, above the ten-kilometer level, when he knew that the interesting part of the seabed, with its black and grey smokers, was dozens of kilometers deeper.

  Yet he recognized the importance of this preliminary dive. He had to learn how well his experience gained on Earth applied to Europa; and he had to develop a feel for the important variables: the rate at which pressure increased with depth; the range of visibility through the clear, salt-free water; and the characteristic shape of submarine features. The last was surprisingly similar to Earth's. The undersea reefs and mountains of Terra, buoyed by surrounding water, often rose close to vertical from the deeps. Jon saw structures in the Europan ocean that he could swear he had met before on the PacAnt Ridge.

  And then, at last, it was time to put surface suits on and ascend through Blowhole's narrow cylinder of warmed, open water to the icebound Europan surface. The final climb was made in total and uncanny silence. Neither Jon nor Wilsa felt like talking as the Danae rose under its own buoyancy, all of its engines off.

  The blurt of sound that burst from the communications unit as the submersible rose the final few meters to the top of Blowhole and the antennae of the Danae cleared the waterline was enough to make Wilsa clap her hands over her ears. She was super-sensitive to sounds, and that loud, discordant noise hurt.

  The monitor showed half a dozen messages, either being sent or in waiting mode on the emergency frequency. A man's voice, vaguely familiar but so grossly distorted by amplification that it could not be understood, was blaring from the speakers.

  Wilsa turned and shouted to Jon in the pilot's seat, "What's going on?"

  He shook his head and reached out to reduce the channel gain. As the Danae moved higher in the water and grapnels took hold to drag it up the smooth ascent ramp to open ice, a new, faint and far-off voice sounded fro
m the speaker.

  "Moving into fixed altitude, height twenty-four-fifty. We'll need a beacon direction before we can do a surface triangulation. Please confirm."

  "Sorry, but we've lost it again," said the louder voice that they had first heard. "Hold on. It's the right distress signal, I'm sure of that. But it's being broadcast into a narrow solid-angle, and I think we've moved out of the cone. Maybe we have enough data anyway."

  "That's Tristan!" said Wilsa. "Tristan Morgan. What can he possibly be doing on Europa?" And am I somehow responsible for it?

  "Not on it. Above it." Jon pointed to the three-dimensional display that showed signal direction. "He's flying—in bound orbit, for a guess.'"

  "We're picking it up now, too," said yet a third voice. "You're right, there's a sharp cut-in, from no signal to maximum strength. The car must be stuck in a steep-sided surface pocket, with the ice cutting off the beam. Stand by for range data."

  "Receiving," said Tristan. And then, seconds later, "Hold on. We have a preliminary data reduction and a signal origin. It's much closer to Mount Ararat than we expected. We compute only twenty-five kilometers' linear distance—less than five from Blowhole. Is anyone at the station there?"

  "No, damn it." The fourth voice was Buzz Sandstrom's, as angry as ever. "I sent everybody ranging way out, because we thought that's where the car was going to be found. Get an exact fix while I start bringing them back."

  Jon glanced at Wilsa and flicked the transmission switch. "This is Jon Perry and Wilsa Sheer on the Danae. We don't know what's happening, because we've just come up Blowhole. But it sounds like you have a problem. Can we help?"

  A wild babble emerged from the speaker. "One at a time." Tristan's voice cut through the rest. "Perry, we have an emergency on the surface just a few kilometers from you. Mount Ararat, is there a spare ground vehicle at Blowhole?"

  "There are a couple." It was a fifth voice, and remarkable for its calm. "Dr. Perry, this is Hilda Brandt. Camille Hamilton became stranded on the surface almost forty-two hours ago. We have finally determined her location, but her physical condition is unknown. The ground cars are straightforward to drive. You are closer than anyone else."

  "Right. We're on our way." Jon was nodding to Wilsa and lifting the seal of the Danae. "Just tell us the direction. I'll call you as soon as we're inside a car."

  "No. You will need more than the direction. Surface travel on Europa is always tricky, and it can be dangerous. Do not begin to drive until we provide you with detailed navigational data."

  Her orders sounded like overprotection to Jon. The ground vehicle was as simple to drive as Hilda Brandt had promised. But within the first few minutes, he learned why she had insisted on providing navigation details. Travel through Europa's interior ocean called for no more than awareness of depth and pressure, plus avoidance of the upper and lower bounding surfaces of ice and seabed. Travel on the surface, though, was wholly controlled by gravity. Even on so small a world as Europa, it was not safe to plunge a car down near-vertical slopes or to risk being stuck in narrow-sided and bottomless crevices.

  Jon did not try to second-guess the instructions coming through the communicator. He followed exactly as directed the sinuous lines of ice ridges and crept slowly along bleak and sheer-sided valleys. Five linear kilometers stretched to more than twice that in ground travel before Sandstrom's gruff voice was saying, "Slow now, and very cautious. We can't guide you beyond here. According to our data reduction, the distress signal from Camille Hamilton's car is coming from no more than a hundred meters ahead of you."

  "Stay right there, Jon." Wilsa opened the door and stepped out onto the ice. She pointed at two parallel tracks, etched deep into the spongy surface and dark-shadowed under the slanting sunlight. "It's getting softer. Don't move forward until I tell you that it's all right. This surface is strong enough for me, but I'm not sure about the car."

  She walked cautiously forward. Already she could see something in the ice ahead, a rectangular block of darkness that reflected no light at all. The tracks of the ground car became deeper. She went more slowly, and in the final twenty meters to the hole she dropped to hands and knees to spread her weight. The terrible cold seemed to instantly suck away warmth through her suit. Half an hour of this and she would freeze.

  She crept forward to the edge of the hole and found herself peering down into a gloomy cavern. She waited impatiently, until her eyes had partially adjusted. At the bottom of the cavern, five or six meters below her, she could at last make out the outline of a ground car. Nothing moved.

  "I've found it." Wilsa began to wriggle her way back from the edge.

  "I'll pass the word," said Jon. And then, "They ask, is she inside?"

  They don't mean that. They mean, is she alive? "I can't tell." Wilsa paced cautiously back to the car. She could see her outgoing footprints in the grainy surface, but they were only a couple of centimeters deep.

  "I'm going to take a look." Jon was climbing down to the surface to meet her, a towing cable over one shoulder and a portable communication unit in his hand. "If you'll come with me, and lower me down . . ."

  "No." Wilsa turned and led the way. "You're twice my weight, and you've got Earth muscles. I go down. You stay on top and pull me out when I tell you."

  He nodded, and they walked forward in silence to a point half a dozen paces from the hole. There he stopped and handed Wilsa the looped cable. "I'd love to see what's down there, but two of us might be more load than the rim can take. I'll step back a few meters for safety, then you go ahead. Keep me informed through your suit phone. I'll pass the word to the others."

  Both of them knew what Wilsa was likely to find down there. But she did not think at all that Jon was shirking an unpleasant duty. He could have one of his own, just as distasteful. If they were right and Camille was dead, it would be Jon's task to inform the waiting searchers, in orbit and at Mount Ararat.

  Wilsa noosed the cable around her waist and under her armpits, nodded to Jon, and walked steadily to the hole. She sat down, made sure that he had a firm hold on his end of the cable, then slid in one movement over the edge. The rough cable fibers scraped and cut into the ice, lowering her in a series of jerks until she landed a couple of feet from the car.

  The light within the ice cavern was that of a pearly, blue-tinged twilight, quite enough to see by once she was used to it. Wilsa took a deep breath. She didn't like the thought of what came next, but there was no point in delay. She stepped over to the car, reached up for the roof hatch—the main door was blocked by the ice wall—and slid it back. As she had feared, the driver's seat was occupied. Slumped back in it was a still, human form wearing a surface suit.

  Wilsa climbed inside, leaned close, and swore. The inside of the suit helmet carried a coating of ice crystals. She reached out and squeezed a forearm. It was as solid and unyielding as stone.

  "She's here, Jon." Wilsa was amazed at the steadiness of her voice. "And I'm afraid that she is dead. Frozen. Tell them the bad news while I put the cable around her. When I give the word, lift her out."

  "Put it around both of you. I can manage the load."

  "I'm not sure you can." Wilsa had been making a closer inspection of the body. It was that of a hugely fat person,swollen and grotesquely misshapen as though it had been inflated like a balloon. The corpse did not appear to be that of a normal woman who had simply frozen to death. "Lift her up first, then we'll worry about me. The car can stay here until a party comes out for it from Mount Ararat."

  She placed the looped cable gently around the body, making sure that nothing caught when Jon began to lift. He grunted with surprise at the weight, but pulled steadily. Wilsa watched the body rise, catch for a tricky moment on the underside of the hole, then roll like a ridiculous balloon clown up over the lip.

  After it disappeared there was a long, long wait, which Wilsa passed by examining the status indicators of the car. It was ironic; there was enough power to take it back to Mount Ararat ten times over. B
ut the energy for the heaters was totally exhausted. All of the car's food was gone, and most surprising, so was all of the water.

  "Just a few moments more." Jon's voice sounded puzzled in her suit radio. "Is there anything in the car that might positively identify the body as Camille Hamilton?"

  Wilsa found that question baffling. One person had been lost out on Europa, one person had been found—who the devil else could it be? "I don't see anything." She stared at the control panel. "The computer is still turned on, and there are data modules in place. But I can't see any form of individual identification. Why do you ask?"

  "I just described her appearance to Mount Ararat. They say it sounds all wrong. Camille Hamilton was thin, thin and blond and fragile. I can't see her hair color, because of the ice inside the helmet. But you saw the body, and nobody could say it was thin. It's huge."

  "I'm ready to come up." Wilsa did not want to talk anymore. She did not know Camille Hamilton, but the identity of the body was not the important thing. The touch of marble limbs, which only one day ago had been part of a living, breathing woman . . . that was too much, whoever she had been.

  The drive back to Mount Ararat was dreadful. All of the pleasure and contentment that Wilsa had experienced while cruising the deep ocean had vanished. She sat close to Jon, aware at every moment of the journey that a bloated, icy tragedy lay only a few feet behind them. Jon had wanted to open the suit helmet, to look at the face within and try to confirm the corpse's identity. Wilsa would not allow it. The idea that the woman's face, even in death, should be exposed to the sleeting downpour of ions was too much. Wilsa kept thinking of Mozart's funeral, Mozart dead at thirty-five, of the dreary ride to the pauper's grave, the lid-slipped coffin, the endless December rain driving into the open, mute mouth.

  Wilsa kept the cabin temperature sweltering hot, as though further cold could do more harm to those rigid limbs. And still she shivered.