by Ben Bova
“Your honors!” the Blonde cried, her hands flying to her face. But I was close enough to see that her cheeks weren’t blushing and there was pure murder in those deep blue eyes.
The chief judge threw her hands in the air. “Mr. Gunn, if you cannot or will not restrict your testimony to the facts of this case, we will hold you in contempt of court.”
For just an instant the expression on Sam’s face told me that he was considering a term in the penal colony as better than certain bankruptcy. But the moment passed.
“Okay,” he said, putting on his most contrite little-boy face. “I’ll stick to the facts—if I’m not interrupted.”
The Blonde huffed and stamped back to the prosecution table.
AS I SAID, the computer analyses showed that I had to zoom out to the Jupiter system at three g’s, grab some oxygen from Ganymede, restock my fusion fuel and reaction mass by scooping Jupiter’s atmosphere, and then race back to the Twins—again at three g’s. Three point oh two, to be exact.
It was trickier than walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls on your hands, blindfolded; more convoluted than a team of Chinese acrobats auditioning for the Beijing Follies; as dangerous as—
(“Mr. Gunn, please!” wailed the chief judge.)
Well, anyway, it was going to be a female dog and a half. Riding for several days at a time in three g’s is no fun; you can’t really move when every part of your body weighs three times normal. A hiccup can give you a hernia. If you’re not extremely careful you could end up with your scrotum hanging down to your ankles. I always wear a lead jockstrap, of course, but even so ...
(I thought the judges were about to have apoplexy, but Sam kept going without even taking a breath, so by the time they were ready to yell at him he was already miles away, subject-wise.)
I cranked my reclining command chair all the way down so it could work as an acceleration couch. I couldn’t take the chance of trying to raise my head and chew solid food and swallow while under three gee’s, so while the acceleration was building up I set up an intravenous feeding system for myself from Jokers medical systems. The ship has the best medical equipment this side of Lunar University, by the way. That was pretty easy. The tough part was sticking the needle into my own arm and inserting the intravenous feed.
(Half the courtroom groaned at the thought.)
And then there was the waste elimination tubing, but I won’t go into that.
(More groans and a couple of gargling, retching sounds.)
I welded the computer keyboard to the end of my command chair’s right armrest even though the computer was fully equipped with voice recognition circuitry. Didn’t want to take any chances on the system—as ultra-sophisticated as it is—failing to recognize my voice because I was strangling in three gee’s.
By the time Jokers acceleration passed two gee’s I was flat on my back in the couch, all the necessary tubes in place, display screens showing me the ongoing analyses of this crazy mission. I had to get everything right, down to the last detail, or end up burning myself to a crisp in Jupiter’s atmosphere or nose-diving into Ganymede and making a new crater in the ice.
“YOU KEEP SAYING Ganymede,” the Toad demanded. “How did you end up at Europa?”
“I’m coming to that, oh saintly one,” Sam replied.
I HAD TO drag Clementine along with me, because I was going to need the ores she’d managed to store in her holds before her super-duper computer fritzed. Those chunks of metal were going to be my heat shield when I skimmed Jupiter’s upper atmosphere. I just hoped there was enough of ‘em to make a workable heat shield.
The way the numbers worked out, I would accelerate almost all the way to the Jupiter system, then flip around and start decelerating. I’d still be doing better than two gee’s when I hit Jupiter’s upper atmosphere. Even though the gases are pretty thin at that high altitude, I needed a heat shield if I didn’t want Joker to get barbecued, with me inside her.
So even though I was flat on my back and not able to move much more than my fingers and toes, I had plenty of work to do. I couldn’t trust Clementine’s smartass computer to handle the heat shield job; her computer was too glottle-stop sophisticated for such a menial job. I had to manually direct the manipulators to pull chunks of ore from her holds and place them up ahead of Joker by a few meters, all the time lying on the flat of my back, spending most of my energy just trying to breath.
Believe me, breathing in three gee’s is not fun, even when you’re on a padded couch. The g force is running from your breastbone to your spine, so every time you try to expand your lungs to take in some air, you’ve got to push your ribs against three times their normal weight. It’s like having an asthma attack that never goes away. I was exhausted before the first day was over.
It would’ve been better if I could’ve just pumped some sedatives through the IV in my arm and slept my way to Jupiter. But I had to build up the heat shield or I’d be fricasseed when I hit Jupiter’s atmosphere. I tapped into the best reentry programs on Earth as I put together those chunks of metal. They had to be close enough to one another so that the shock waves from the heated gases would cancel one another out before they got through the spaces between chunks and heated up Joker.
“YOU DID THIS while on the way to Jupiter?” asked the other woman judge. “While accelerating at three gravities?”
Sam put his right hand over his heart. “I did indeed,” he said.
The woman shook her head, whether in admiration or disbelief I couldn’t figure out.
“A question, please?” asked the Beryllium Blonde from her seat at the prosecution table.
For the first time, the chief judge looked just a trifle annoyed. “There will be ample time for cross-examination, counselor.”
“I merely wanted to ask if Mr. Gunn was aware of the embargo on unauthorized flights into the Jovian system imposed by the Interplanetary Astronautical Authority.”
AWARE OF IT? —Sam replied—I sure was. I sent out a message to the research station on Europa to tell ‘em I was entering the Jupiter system on a mission of mercy. I set my comm unit to continue sending the message until it was acknowledged. They ignored it for a day and a half, and then finally sent a shi—an excrement-load of legalese garbage that took my computer twenty minutes to translate into understandable English.
(“And what was the message from Europa?” the chief judge asked.)
Boiled down to, “Keep out! We don’t care who you are or why you’re heading this way; just turn around and go back to where you came from.”
I got on the horn and tried to explain to them that I was trying to save the lives of two women and I wouldn’t disturb them on Europa, but they just kept beaming their legal kaka. Either they didn’t believe me or they didn’t give a hoot about human lives.
Well, I couldn’t turn around even if I’d wanted to. My flight profile depended on using Jupiter’s atmosphere to aerobrake Joker, swing around the planet, and make a slowed approach to Ganymede. So I programmed my comm unit to keep repeating my message to Europa. It was really pretty: we’re both hollering at each other and paying no attention to what the other guy’s hollering back. Like two drivers in Boston yelling at each other over a fender-bender.
But while I’m roaring down toward Jupiter I start wondering: why does DULL need the whole Jupiter system roped off, when all they’re supposed to be studying is Europa? I mean, they looked at Jupiter’s other Galilean moons and didn’t find diddly-poo. And if there’s any life on Jupiter it’s buried so deep inside those clouds that we haven’t been able to find it.
Why embargo the whole Jupiter system when all they’re supposed to be studying is Europa?
The question nagged at me like a toothache. Even while I was putting my makeshift heat shield together, I kept wondering about it in the back of my mind. I kept mulling it over, using the question to keep me from thinking about how much my chest hurt and wondering about how many breaths I had left before my ribs collapsed.
> Once the heat shield was in place—or as good as a ramshackle collection of rocks can be—I could devote my full attention to the question. Mine, and the computer’s.
One thing I’ve learned over the years of being in business: when you’re trying to scope out another company’s moves, follow the money trail. So I started sniffing out the financial details of Diversified Universities & Laboratories, Ltd. It wasn’t all that easy; DULL is a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization; it isn’t publicly owned and its finances are not on public record.
But even scientists like to see their names in the media, and corporate bigwigs like it even more. So I started scrolling through the media stories about the discovery of life-forms on Europa and DULL’s organization of a research station on the Jovian moon.
I learned two very interesting things.
The cost of setting up the research operation on Europa was funded by Wankle Enterprises, Incorporated, of New York, London and Shanghai.
It was Wankle’s lawyers—including a certain gorgeous blonde—who talked the IAA into placing the whole Jupiter system, planet, moons, all of it, under embargo. No commercial development allowed. No unauthorized missions permitted.
Make that three things that I learned: The IAA’s embargo order has some fine print in it. DULL is allowed to permit “limited resource extraction” from the Jupiter system as a means of funding its ongoing research activities on Europa. And guess who got permission from DULL to start “limited resource extraction” from Jupiter and its moons? Wankle Enterprises, Inc.
Who else?
THE SPECTATORS STIRRED and muttered. The judges were staring at Sam with real interest now, as if he’d suddenly turned into a different species of witness. All five of the prosecution attorneys—including the Beryllium Blonde—were on their feet, making objections.
“Irrelevant and immaterial,” said the first attorney.
“Rumor and hearsay,” said number two.
“Wankle Enterprises is not on trial here,” said number three, “Sam Gunn is.”
“He’s trying to smear Diversified Universities and Laboratories, Limited,” number four bleated.
The Blonde said, “I object, your honors.”
The chief judge raised an eyebrow half a millimeter. “On what grounds, counselor?”
“Mr. Gunn’s statements are irrelevant, immaterial, based on rumor and hearsay, an attempt to shift the focus of this trial away from himself and onto Wankle Enterprises, and a despicable attempt to smear the good name of an organization dedicated to the finest and noblest scientific research.”
The chief judge nodded, then glanced briefly at her colleagues on either side of her. They both nodded, much more vigorously.
“Very well,” she said. “Objection sustained. Mr. Gunn’s last statement will be stricken from the record.”
Sam shrugged philosophically. “None of those three facts can stay on the record?”
“None.”
“I found out something else, too,” Sam said to the judges. “A fourth fact about DULL.”
“Unless it is strictly and necessarily relevant to this case,” said the chief judge sternly, “it will not be allowed as testimony.”
Sam thought it over for a moment, an enigmatic smile on his Jack-o’-lantern face. Then, with a shake of his head that seemed to indicate disappointment but not defeat, Sam returned to his testimony.
0 KAY, I’LL SAVE the fourth fact for a while and then we’ll see if it’s relevant or not.
Where was I—oh, yeah, I’m dropping into Jupiter’s gas clouds at a little under three g’s, the insides of my chest feeling like somebody’s been sandpapering them for the past few days.
I put in a call to. the Twins, telling them to hang in there, I’d be back with all the oxygen they needed in less than a week. I didn’t tell them how awful I felt, but they must have seen it in my face.
It took about eleven minutes for my comm signal to reach them, and another eleven for their answer to get back to me. So I gave them a brave “Don’t give up the ship” spiel and then went about my business checking out my heat shield—and DULL’s finances.
Cindy and Mindy both appeared on my comm screen, wearing less than Samoan nudists at the springtime fertility rites. If my eyeballs hadn’t weighed a little more than three times normal they would’ve popped right out of their sockets.
“We truly appreciate what you’re doing for us, Sam,” they said in unison, as if they’d rehearsed it. “And we want you to know that we’ll be especially appreciative when you come back to us.”
“Extremely appreciative,” breathed Cindy. Mindy?
“Extraordinarily appreciative,” the other one added, batting her long lashes at me.
I was ready to jump off my couch and fly to them like Superman. Except that the damned gee-load kept me pinned flat. All of me.
Everything would’ve worked out fine—or at least okay—if my swing through Jupiter’s upper atmosphere had gone as planned. But it didn’t.
Ever see an egg dropped from the top of a ninety-storey tower hit the pavement? That’s what Joker was doing, just about: dropping into Jupiter’s atmosphere like a kamikaze bullet. I had to use the planet’s atmosphere to slow down my ship while at the same time I scooped enough Jovian hydrogen and helium isotopes to fill my propellant tanks. With that makeshift heat shield of rocks flying formation in front of Joker all the while.
Things started going wrong right away. The heat shield heated up too much and too soon. Jokers skin temperature started rising really fast. One by one my outside cameras started to conk out; their circuitry was being fricasseed by white-hot shock-heated gases. Felt like I was melting, too, inside the ship despite the bridge’s absolutely first-rate climate control system.
The damned heat shield started breaking up, which was something my hotshot computer programs didn’t foresee. I should’ve thought of it myself, I guess. Stands to reason. Each individual rock in that jury-rigged wall in front of me was blazing like a meteor, ablating away, melting like the Wicked Witch of the West when you throw water on her.
(The chief judge frowned, puzzled, at Sam’s reference but Weatherwax gave a toad-like smile and even nodded.)
I would’ve peeled down to my skivvies if I’d been able to, but I was still plastered into my reclined command chair like a prisoner chained to a torture rack. Must’ve lost twenty pounds sweating. Came as close to praying as I ever did, right there, zooming through Jupiter’s upper atmosphere.
The camera on Jokers ass end was still working, and while I sweated and almost prayed I watched Jupiter’s swirling clouds whizzing by, far, far below me. Beautiful, really, all those bands of colors and the way they curled and eddied along their edges, kinda like the way—
(“Spare us the travelogue,” said the Toad, his bulging eyes blinking with displeasure. The chief judge added, “Yes, Mr. Gunn. Get on with it.”)
Well, okay. So I finally pull out of Jupiter’s atmosphere with my propellant tanks full and Jokers skin still intact—barely. But the aerobraking hadn’t followed the computer’s predicted flight path as closely as I’d thought it would. Wasn’t off by much, but as I checked out my velocity and position I saw pretty damned quickly that I wasn’t going to be able to reach Ganymede.
Joker had slowed to less than one g, all right, and other than the failed cameras and a few strained seams in the skin the ship was okay. I could sit up and even walk around the bridge, if I wanted to. I even disconnected all the tubing that was hooked into me. Felt great to be free and able to take a leak on my own again.
But Ganymede was out of reach.
Now the whole reason for this crazy excursion was to grab oxygen to replenish the Porno Twins’ evaporating supply. I checked through the computer and saw that the only ice-bearing body I could reasonably get to was—you guessed it—good ol’ Europa.
“MR. GUNN,” THE Toad interrupted, his voice a melancholy croak, “do you honestly expect this court to believe that after all your derring-do,
Europa was the only possible body that you could reach?”
Sam gave him his most innocent look. “I’m under oath, right? How can I lie to you?”
The chief judge opened her mouth as if she were going to zing Sam, then she seemed to think better of it and said nothing.
“Besides,” Sam added impishly, “you can check Jokers computer logs, if you haven’t already done that.”
The Beryllium Blonde called from the prosecution table, “A point of information, please?”
All three judges smiled and nodded.
Without rising, the Blonde, asked, “There are twenty-seven moons in the Jupiter system, are there not?”
“Twenty-nine,” Sam snapped, “including the two little sheepdog rocks that keep Jupiter’s ring in place.”
“Aren’t most of these moons composed of ices that contain a goodly amount of oxygen?”
“Yes they are,” Sam replied before anyone else could, as politely as if he were speaking to a stranger.
“Then why couldn’t you have obtained the oxygen you claim you needed from one of those other satellites?”
“Because, oh fairest of the sadly mush-brained profession of hired truth-twisters, my poor battered little ship couldn’t reach any of those other moons.”
“Truly?”
Sam put his right hand over his heart. “Absolutely. Joker was like a dart thrown at a dartboard. I had aimed for a bull’s-eye, but the aerobraking flight had jiggled my aim and now I was headed for Europa. Scout’s honor. It wasn’t my idea. Blame Isaac Newton, or maybe Einstein.”
The Blonde said nothing more, but it was perfectly clear from the expression on her gorgeous face that she didn’t believe a word Sam was saying. I looked up at the judges—it took an effort to turn my eyes away from the Blonde—and saw that none of the three of them believed Sam either. Mentally I added the possibility of perjury charges to the list Sam already faced.
IT WASN’T MY idea to hit Europa—Sam insisted—but there wasn’t much else I could do. Sure, I had my tanks full of propellant for the fusion torch, but I was gonna need that hydrogen and helium for the high-g burn back to Vesta and the Twins. I couldn’t afford to spend any of it jinking around the Jupiter system. I was pointed at Europa when I came out of Jupiter’s atmosphere. Act of God, you could call it.