Jupiter Project

by Gregory Benford

  “Oh, okay,” I said. “I’ll have lunch first.”

  “Got a minute?” he said quickly. He waved toward his office. I nodded and followed him into the cramped little room. Somehow Dad always looks bigger in his office, even though he’s only a few centimeters taller than me. The medical people say I’ll probably dwarf him in a few more years, since the low-g environment will make all us kids taller. But Dad’s over two meters now, without an ounce of fat, and he looks like he wrestles bears for a living. He sat down and put his feet up on his desk—no small trick, in that room—and I folded a straight seat out from the wall to perch on.

  “I wanted to talk before you go rushing off to Ganymede. You leave in a day or two, isn’t that right?” He frowned, as though thinking to himself.

  “Yes, but I’ll only be gone a week.”

  “There are a few things you ought to know before then, and I think you’d better hear them without your mother around.” He gave me a wry grin. “Sometimes she takes the edge off what I want to say.”

  “Uh huh.”

  He tugged at his long sideburns. “I’ve been hearing some pretty high quality scuttlebutt. Talk about cutting corners on Lab operations, minimizing expenses—but serious, this time, dead serious. I think there’s something behind it. Things are brewing back Earthside. I suspect a few insiders guessed early, several months back. That would explain some of the maneuvering going on in the higher echelons of the Lab.” He stared off into space. “In particular, the adroit sidestepping by a certain figure in Bio-Tech…”

  “You’re leaving me behind. Dad. What’s happening?”

  “Sorry. Let’s see—in, ummm, about six months you’ll turn eighteen. I suppose you have considered what that means?”

  “Sure. I’ll be voting age. Only there’s nobody to vote for, out here.”

  He smiled wryly and then frowned. “There’s more than that, I’m afraid. Below eighteen, a boy dips into the knowledge and history the human race has accumulated, even though mankind’s history is mostly a series of regrettable errors. After eighteen, you’ve earned the right to make your own mistakes.”

  “Fine. I’m ready.”

  “Well…” Dad looked uncomfortable. “I have been wondering if you might make your first big mistake if you elect to remain here at the Laboratory.”

  “Huh? You don’t mean I should go back?”

  “A solid grounding at Caltech will stand you better in the long run than what you can pick up casually here.”

  “I don’t want that. For Chrissake—”

  “Calm down. Sit.” I noticed that I had gotten to my feet without being aware of it. I sat.

  “I am only making a few observations,” Dad said mildly. “What you do is your business—or will be, six months from now. You are officially a minor until age eighteen. That means you are a member of our family and a student. After that, where you live and what you do is strictly between you and the Laboratory administration.”

  “Yes.” I said. I value my independence as highly as anybody, but it sounded as though Dad was practically throwing me out.

  “But you’ll always be my son.” He smiled. “You know you’re welcome in our home. I’m just telling you, now, that it’s time to start thinking about the future.

  “I have thought about it. I’m going to stay here,” I said, setting my shoulders.

  “Now, don’t go all stiff-necked on me.” He grimaced and scratched his bald spot. “Have you figured out which job slot you’re going to apply for?”

  “Oh, well, probably for watch officer in Monitoring.”

  Dad smiled faintly. “I am sure your mother would be happy to know you freely elect to continue working in dear-old-Dad’s section. What do you really want to do?”

  “Uh, something outside, probably. Low-g work.”

  “Not a bad choice. Just let me give you a little advice. Whatever you want, use the remaining six months to improve your qualifications for the job. I don’t believe staying on at the Laboratory is going to be a simple matter for you kids.”

  “Why?”

  “The Project can’t support a Laboratory staff that continues to grow. The Earthside administrators agreed to send complete families out here only because they are socially more stable than groups of singles. There were a lot of other arguments—and good ones—against shipping an eight-year-old kid like you off to Jupiter.”

  “I pulled my weight!” I said indignantly.

  “I agree. But some children have to be sent back when they come of age, or the Can will pop its seams in a few more years. And remember, appropriations for space research have leveled off. Commander Aarons is looking for ways to trim our costs.”

  “Somebody will get to stay.”

  “Certainly. I am merely pointing out that it might not be you.”

  That worried me. Dad always says that worry is just wasted energy. It wasn’t like him to cry wolf.

  I glanced at him. He was gazing distantly at a big display screen on the office wall. It showed the placement of all tugs, shuttles and general traffic around the Lab, color-coded in orange and blue according to priority.

  “Dad?”

  “Yes?”

  “I guess you’re trying to tell me it’s not obvious that I’m supervaluable to the Lab.”

  “Something like that.”

  “There are a lot of smart kids about my age. I guess I’d better shift into high gear,” I said slowly.

  Dad sat upright and looked at me steadily. “The competition is not going to be easy, and you’re all trying for the same brass ring,?” he said seriously.

  “Great. I’ll give Commander Aarons a demonstration of what I can do,” I said grimly. “But what were those rumors you mentioned?”

  “Forget them for now. Maybe I can tell you more later. Right now you’d better grab lunch.”

  “Okay,” I said reluctantly.

  Dad stood up and handed me a thick pamphlet. “When you have the time, read this.”

  I looked at the cover. It showed two guys talking earnestly under a tan palm tree. It was a catalog for Caltech.

  And that unnerved me more than anything he’d said.

  Chapter 2

  The foldout tables in the rec room were mostly filled, but I saw Jenny Fleming and Zak Palonski at a large table in the corner.

  “Can I join the great debate?” I asked Jenny. She smiled and moved over to give me room, straightening the collar on her orange blouse and fiddling with her braids. Yes, braids—pretty unfashionable, back Earthside. Makes her look younger than she is, when everybody knows a mature, mysterious look goes over better Earthside this season. But braids also keep your hair from straying inside a spacesuit helmet.

  “My, you do look a little peaked, Matt.” Zak said. “I trust you trounced Yuri?” Zak has unruly black hair and is a touch fat. He was rapidly finishing off a plate of goulash.

  “‘The vanquished have no tongues,’ my son,” I said, quoting a line of his own poetry at him.

  “Then I must play Yuri for the championship?” I hadn’t noticed Ishi Moto was in the cafeteria line behind me; he had come over to the table just in time to hear the news.

  “Right. Watch out for—” Then I stopped. Better to tell him later, in private. “—his dink shot. It’s subtle. Our last game was a breathtakingly narrow twenty-one to thirteen.”

  “I shall prepare,” Ishi said in a way that implied a lot. Ishi is always calm and it’s hard to read that politely expectant look he has. You have the feeling he’s sitting back, watching the circus around him with a slightly amused interest, unhurried, enjoying it all. He chuckles at things a lot and there’s a bemused twinkle in his eye when he talks.

  “Why didn’t you challenge me?” Jenny said brightly to me. “I’m out of practice.”

  “Why?” Zak said. “Working too hard?”

  “My shuttle needs some repair.” Jenny said. “I’ve been overhauling it with the help of some people in maintenance.”

  “Why sh
ould that take all your time?” I said.

  “It is a long task,” Ishi said, “and it must be done as quickly as possible. There are only two shuttles assigned to satellite maintenance. That is the minimum number possible under the safety regulations, since there must always be a backup shuttle in case the first fails while on a mission.”

  “Yours is still operating, Ishi?” Zak said.

  “Yes. I have not been out, though. There have been no malfunctions among the data satellites while Jenny has had the Ballerina in the shop.”

  “Ballerina, is it?” I said. “I thought you’d named her Winged Victory.”

  “After that meteorite damage last month. I’m surprised you didn’t make it Victory Winged,” Zak said.

  Jenny wrinkled her nose at him and turned to me. “I like Ballerina better, and since I was sprucing her up—”

  “Fine,” I said. “Be sure to change the entry in the Lab log, or twenty years from now a little man in a black suit will come around and ask you to cough up for a misplaced orbital shuttle.”

  “I know enough to do that,” Jenny said flatly. She straightened her braids again.

  I remembered the sandwich I had made, and dug in. The bread wasn’t made from wheat, of course, but from a sort of half-breed seaweed that grows better in low-g hydroponics tanks. After nine years I’ve almost convinced myself I like the seaweed better. Almost.

  Zak launched himself into a monologue about a poem be was writing, using terms I couldn’t follow. Zak is the local Resident Character, junior grade: he’s short, intense, and talks faster than most people can think. Faster than he can think, sometimes.

  “Hey, Zak,” I said through a mouthful of sandwich, “have you thought about sending those poems back to Earth? You know—to build up a following?”

  “Ah, sir,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “You reveal your abysmal ignorance of literary economics. Poetry, my friend, is unprofitable. It’s not worth the price of a ’gram to tightbeam it to Earth.”

  “Ummm,” Jenny said, “that doesn’t sound like the Zak I know. Why write poetry if there’s no percentage in it?”

  Zak looked shocked, and he was almost a good enough actor to be convincing. “Mademoiselle,” he said, “underneath this simple workshirt beats the heart of an artist. You—”

  “Your heart is on the left-hand side,” Ishi said mildly.

  “Oh. Yes. Jenny, you malign—”

  “Spare us your sensitivity,” I said. “Anyway, Ishi, the human heart is in the middle of the chest. It only sounds like it’s beating on the left side.”

  Jenny leaned across the table—which wasn’t hard, considering how small everything is in the rec room—and stared Zak in the eye. “Okay. Zak. I’ll accept the assumption that you have non-larcenous impulses, despite evidence to the contrary. But I’ve seen you scribbling away in a notebook, and there has got to be money in it somewhere. ’Fess up.”

  “Oh, you mean my diary,” said Zak.

  “Diary?” Even Ishi was surprised.

  “Sure. I’ve been keeping one ever since I got here, seven years ago.” Zak looked around at us, surprised. “You mean you three don’t have diaries?”

  We all shook our heads. “Why bother?” said Jenny.

  “Thou art innocent of the profit motive? Well,” Zak said, shaking his head, “I hope you children have someone to lead you around by the hand when you get back to Earth.”

  “What profit is there in a diary?” Ishi asked.

  “Think about it,” Zak said, running his finger absentmindedly around the inside of his milkshake glass and then licking it. “Here we are six hundred million klicks away from Earth, orbiting the biggest planet in the system. The Lab is the farthest outpost of mankind. Don’t you think people back on Earth will read an account of life out here, written by—”

  “A brilliant young poet?” finished Jenny.

  Zak smiled. “Well I won’t say that. But you never know what a publisher will put in his advertising…”

  I finished my coffee. “Say, Zak,” I said, “have you managed to tear yourself away from your diary to write that script for the skit you’re putting on? Deadline’s coming up.”

  “Sure. Almost finished. I’m wondering if there are enough of us to fill all the roles, though.”

  “Why not expand the cast?” Jenny said.

  “Count me out.” I said. “I’m playing a guitar solo.”

  “Spoilsport—say, here’s someone you can conscript now. Yuri.”

  I turned, and Yuri Sagdaeff was sitting down next to me.

  “What’s all the gab about?” Yuri demanded.

  “Are you anything in the next amateur hour?” Jenny asked him.

  “Nope. I don’t plan to.”

  “I’ve got a part in my play that would fit you admirably, Yuri,” Zak said.

  “Like I said, I don’t plan to. I haven’t got the time,” Yuri said, arranging the food he’d brought with him. He looked at me. “I don’t believe you have the time either, Bohles. Not if you’re going to ever play better squash.”

  “I‘ll struggle along somehow,” I said.

  “You seem suddenly quite interested in squash.” Ishi said. His face was a model of oriental inscrutability.

  “I am.” Yuri said, taking a mouthful of peas. “I just didn’t get around to it before now.”

  “You were big on chess two months ago, weren’t you, Yuri?” Jenny said.

  “Sure.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Zak said, “I’m a bit rusty, myself. Care to try a game, Yuri?”

  “No. I don’t play chess anymore.”

  “What? So soon?” Jenny said.

  “You are a man of sudden interests,” Ishi said.

  “Come on, Yuri, you needn’t be afraid of losing to me,” Zak said.

  “It’s not the losing. I’m just through with chess.”

  “Umm.” Jenny said. “Did you finally get out of that trap Mr. Jablons had you in?”

  Yuri smiled slightly. “Of course. And I checkmated him in three more moves. That gave me the championship of the Lab.”

  “Verrry smart, Yuri,” Zak said. “Quit while the competition is still looking at your heels.”

  “You’ve got me wrong,” Yuri said, waving a hand. “I just get bored with the same old thing, is all. Besides, I’ve got too much work to do. I can’t keep up with everything.”

  “Your group is sending down more probes?” Ishi said.

  Yuri nodded earnestly, glad to get the attention off himself. “We’re trying to get all the new data we can, in time to be sent back on the Argosy.”

  That’s what we were all working toward: the arrival of the Argosy, the mammoth ion rocket driven by nuclear power that was our only link with Earth, outside of laser beam. The economics of interplanetary travel are inescapable. It costs a fortune to push a pound of payload from Earth to Jupiter, struggling up out of the gravitational “hole” that the sun makes.

  The whole process takes seven months and the Argosy’s sister ship Rambler follows at the next economical conjunction of Earth and Jupiter, thirteen months later. That means we get a visit every thirteen months. It seems pretty seldom to us, but ISA—the International Space Administration—counts its pennies. We aren’t likely to get more.

  “Doesn’t that put the Atmospheric Studies group ahead of schedule?” Jenny said.

  “A little,” Yuri admitted. “The series we’re planning will just about use up all our liquid oxygen reserves.”

  “That’s not very smart,” Zak said.

  “Not smart to get no results, either,” Yuri said.

  “What if some emergency turns up?” Jenny said. “You won’t have any high-performance chemical fuel left.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “I don’t get it. Why—”

  “Yuri’s talking about those boosters he slaps on the ion rockets that drop our probes into the Jovian atmosphere,” Zak said. “You need the boosters when those bathyscaphes start fighting the winds
, down there in the clouds.”

  Jenny pursed her lips. “I still wonder about the wisdom of gobbling up that liquid oxygen.”

  “Who approved the LOX?” Ishi said politely.

  “My father backed it and Aarons went along.” Yuri said. “Not that Aarons could’ve stopped it. My father carries a lot of weight these days.”

  I was going to ask what he meant by that, but a better idea occurred to me. “Sounds foolhardy to me,” I said with deliberate mildness. “Particularly since those bathyscaphes haven’t turned up a speck of living matter after years of trying.”

  Yuri’s face tightened. “Look, junior, the day Atmospheric Studies gets a package far enough into the water clouds, below the ammonia layers, that’s the day this whole game pays off. We’re the business end of the Lab. Anything we need, we get first priority.”

  “My my.” I felt my temples throbbing. “I didn’t know I was dining with royalty.”

  “Yuri—” Jenny began in a conciliatory tone.

  “Never mind, Jenny,” I said, standing up. “I’ve got better quality guff to listen to. Ishi, you going my way?”

  Ishi hesitated a moment and then nodded. “I do have to leave.”

  “Let’s hoof it,” I said, and we left the rec room.

  We took a drop tube from J deck downward toward A. It was hard to talk while we held onto the conveyor belt loops, so I spent the time figuring how I could’ve slipped the needle into Yuri better, really gigged him.

  We got off at D deck and took a shortcut I knew—in fact. I’d helped assemble that section out of the Argosy’s leftover fuel storage drums years before. We kids get used for low-g work a lot, because we seem to have better reflexes—and what else could we do out here, anyway, without a gold-plated PhD?

  “You seemed tense back there, Matt,” Ishi interrupted my thoughts. “You wanted me to leave with you. Is there something—?”

  So I told him about Yuri’s squash tactics. Ishi seemed to already know half of what I said; very little gets by him on any level, however subtle. When I was through Ishi nodded and said mildly that he would deal with Yuri when the time came. I chuckled inwardly, thinking with relish about Yuri’s impending doom. Ishi would do something crafty but completely fair, absolutely above board—and I’d enjoy every delicious moment of it. Then Ishi said, “You seem more disturbed by this than I would expect, Matt. Is there something about Yuri that bothers you?”