Jupiter Project

by Gregory Benford

  “Fine.”

  After some chatter about the radiation, which was rising again, I switched over to the bridge. They estimated that if the storm followed the same pattern as it had earlier, I wouldn’t get too much of a dosage.

  It was a race to get me back to the Can as soon as possible. I was in the fastest possible orbit right now, so there wasn’t much to be done.

  “Connect me with Zak Palonski, would you?” I said. While I waited, my headphones beeping and clicking, I reviewed what I’d been thinking about the last few hours. This wasn’t going to be easy to say.

  “Matt? Boy, when you go overboard you do it in a big way.”

  I grimaced. “Yeah. I—I went crazy back there, Zak. Once I got away from the Can and cooled off, I could see that. And why. It’s related to something you told me, once.”

  “You mean about that fight back when you were a kid? And Yuri?”

  “Right. I’ve gotten them all scrambled up, Zak. That eight-year-old Matt Bohles got so damned scared he was frantically glad to get away from Earth. I mean, I must’ve identified those bullies with the way all Earthside was going to be. I cried every night for weeks after that fight, you know.”

  “So the little kid thought all the rest of life was going to be getting pushed around, bullied.”

  “Yeah.” I smiled to myself, thinking back. “Yeah, I can still remember some of those feelings, now that I understand. When we got out to the Can it was—wow!—like being reborn. Everybody was nice. The bigger kids didn’t gang up on me.”

  “You could be the smart guy without getting punished for showing off. You didn’t have to be a phony tough guy.”

  “Yeah—say! How come you know all that?”

  “Hell, you think you’re so different? We’re all kids from pretty highbrow families. We all had those fears.”

  “Then why—?” I sputtered.

  “I noticed some funny symptoms when Yuri started hassling you. I mean, I figured we kids were all over that stuff by now—but you didn’t seem to be. The way I see it, something about Yuri—his size, maybe—made you regress, go back to the behavior pattern you had in that Earthside playground. You couldn’t deal with him. You retreated into—”

  “Dammit! Why didn’t you tell me? I—”

  “I didn’t know. It was just a hunch. Young Freud, remember? I had to give you a chance to work it out yourself, even though I could see something was bothering you, and it was getting worse. Just telling you wouldn’t have worked either. You had to come on it yourself or it wouldn’t ring true. Remember when you had that dream on Ganymede and I started in on you?”

  “Zak the head-shrinker, yeah.”

  “You brushed me off.”

  “Yeah.” I said quietly.

  We were silent for a moment. I could hear Zak breathing into his mike. “Hey, look,” he said awkwardly. “What was it some philosopher said?—‘Self knowledge is usually bad news.’ But that’s not necessarily so.”

  I nodded. “Right. Right. Now that I see it. I think I can deal with it. I’m scared of going Earthside. I like it out here. It’s safe.” I laughed recklessly. “No schoolyards for the big kids to beat me up in.”

  “I figure you’ll make it, Matt,” Zak said warmly. “I really do.”

  “I’d better.” My sudden elation fizzled out. “Aarons will ship me Earthside for sure.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “I went berserk. Zak. Crazy. Unstable. I swiped this shuttle, risked my life, broke regs, beat up Yuri… God, that felt good…”

  “I see your point.” Zak said sadly. “I know you’ll be okay now, but Aarons doesn’t have any choice.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I looked down at Jupiter, endlessly spinning, and felt a bone-deep weariness. “I’m washed up, Zak. This time I’m really finished.”

  “Matt?”

  “Huh?” I felt drowsy. “Yes?”

  “We’ve got trouble.” It was Dad.

  “I’m only thirty-three minutes from ETA. What could—”

  “That’s the point. We’ve just picked up a big flare on the south pole. Some extraordinary activity.”

  “Meaning—?”

  “Looks like a burst of high energy stuff, headed out along the magnetic field lines. The whole Jovian magnetosphere is alive with radio noise. And higher than the normal radiation flux, of course.”

  “Will it catch me?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Damn.” I bit my lip.

  “Your fuel is—”

  “I’ve already checked. Just enough to brake, maybe a fraction over.”

  “I see.” A silence.

  I frowned, calculating. I gave the idea about five seconds of solid thought, and then I knew: “Give me a new orbit, Dad. I’m firing along my present trajectory, as of—” I punched the stud—“now.”

  A solid kick in the small of my back.

  “Wait, Matt, we haven’t computed—”

  “Doesn’t matter. Sooner I get going, the more seconds I’ll shave off my arrival time.”

  “Well…yes.” Dad said slowly.

  I held my thumb on the button, eyeing my fuel tank. Burn, baby. Go! But not too much—

  I raised my thumb. The pressure at my back abruptly lifted. “What’s my mid-course correction?” I barked.

  “We—we plot you into a delta-vee of zero point three seven at five minutes, forty-three seconds from now.” Dad’s voice was clipped and official. “Transmitting to your inboard on the signal.”

  I heard the beep a second later. I was on my way. The new course correction would bring me into the Can with minimum time.

  “How much did I pick up?”

  “I make it seven, no, seven point four minutes.”

  “That enough?”

  “It’s close. Damned close.”

  “Better than frying.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Yeah. I know. What’s my reserve?”

  “None.”

  “What?”

  “None. It will take just about every gram of fuel to get you to the top of the Can, instead of flying by at several klicks further out. You may have a few seconds of juice left at the bottom of the tank, but it can’t be more than a small fraction of what you need.”

  “Geez.”

  “Son. you’ll come into the top pancake.”

  “With no brakes.”

  “Right.”

  “Damned magnetosphere. What’s causing all this, Dad? I mean—” I pounded my gloves on the steering column—“why in hell does the solar flux have to stack up on us just when Jupiter is throwing out this crap? What’s happening at the poles?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve never seen—”

  “I know that. But, but—” Then I shut up. I was just whining, and I knew it. The universe plays for keeps. It doesn’t give a damn if you’re a screwed-up kid who has gone off on a dumb stunt. Whining wouldn’t help.

  The minutes crawled by I made the course correction and watched the Can grow from a bright dot into a slowly spinning target. I fidgeted. I planned. I talked to Dad, but there wasn’t much to say.

  I had somewhere between zero and maybe ten seconds of burn time left. Not enough to slow me down much.

  I climbed over the rig, detaching every unit and pouch and box that I could shove overboard. The less mass I had, the more braking I could get out of those few seconds of impulse.

  I took the Faraday cup and put it in my carry-bag, tucked on the inside of my left leg so nothing could easily bump it. They’re mechanically pretty strong, anyway.

  Then I looked at the stars for a moment, trying to think. I had to stay calm and I would have to move fast. I kept thinking that there had to be some way out of this.

  The bridge was sending a team out to help. There wasn’t much they could do, of course. There wasn’t much time to deploy a shuttle and boost it out to meet me, match velocities and make a pickup.

  The Can arced across from my left, swelling. I swung my scope forward. I cou
ld make out the pancake. I was coming in almost edge-on. Were those specks moving? Maybe they were the team that was waiting for me. Or maybe just my imagination.

  “Thirty seconds.” Dad’s voice was stiff, tight.

  The silvery skin of the Can looked like a Christmas tree ornament. Funny, how I’d never noticed that before. The big cylinder grew and grew against the flat black of space. Stars beamed silently at me. The pancake was spinning serenely, faster than the Can. It was just a big bag of water, but at these speeds—

  I saw the idea at the last possible moment. If I ran into the right side of the pancake, its spin angular momentum would be directed against me. But on the left side, the spin would be with me. The relative velocity between Roadhog and the pancake would be less. So if I could—

  I spun the attitude jets to the right. The pancake was growing, dead ahead. How much should I give it?

  Too much and I’d miss entirely. Miss, and shoot past the Can. And the radiation would fry me. When they finally fetched me back home and cracked my suit, I’d look like a potato chip.

  But if I gave it too little, the shock of impact would shatter Roadhog and me along with it.

  I fired the jets. One second, two, three—

  I cut it off. We glided leftward. The pancake was a huge spinning sack of water, and I was flying toward it and now laterally across it, closing fast—

  —too fast—

  I saw specks of light. People. Waving. The pancake became a vast spinning plain. I came shooting toward the edge of it. I could see the thick organiform skin sliding away below me, moving the same direction as Roadhog, but slower. We were vectoring down into the plane, like a needle falling toward a spinning record—

  There was shouting in my suit phones. I ignored it. I had been so worried about hitting the pancake, but now I wanted to hit it, wanted it so bad I could taste it.

  I had the engine into braking mode already. But when should I fire? Distances were hard to judge. I could see stenciling on the pancake’s skin now, numbers shooting by below. Closer. Closer—

  I jammed a thumb down on the firing stud. One, two…five seconds. The silvery wall of the pancake edge rose up before me. blotting out the stars. Seven—Eight—

  Dead. The engine gurgled to a stop.

  The pancake was turning, sliding away. But I was catching up with it. And suddenly I saw that the physics wasn’t as simple as I thought. Once I hit the organiform, what would keep me there? There was no gravity. I would rebound from the pancake and go tumbling off into—

  But I could use the friction of the grainy organiform. And maybe grab a handhold. Maybe—

  My adhesive patch. It would help hold me to the rough surface. I reached up toward my neck and yanked down. Then I slapped my knee with the tab and—

  We hit.

  The forward strut caught the pancake skin. It dug in.

  I ducked my head and wrapped my arms over my neck. Standard position. A shock ran through Roadhog. I felt a grinding tremor—

  A pipe smacked me in the ribs. I slammed into something that gave slightly. All around me bright, glittering debris was tumbling, like a luminous shower. Sparkling bits of Roadhog plunged by me. Soundless. Soundless, and tumbling.

  I rolled over and over, along the face of the pancake. My adhesive patch caught, gave way, caught, gave way, making a small ripping sound inside my suit. It kept me on the pancake, reduced the recoil momentum, but it wasn’t slowing me down much.

  I snatched at a handhold. Caught it. Lost the grip. The organiform is rough but flexible. I rolled, arms curled over my head, legs out straight. A waterfall of junk was tumbling with me. My right side and arm hurt, but there was no jabbing pain. Maybe the organiform had cushioned me enough; maybe nothing was broken.

  The adhesive patch was snatching at the organiform, holding me to it. But I wasn’t stopping. I was rolling in a soundless shower. Outside my helmet was a blur of gray organiform, then a blur of black sweeping by, then organiform again. If it went on I would roll off the top of the pancake and out into space.

  I brought my arms down, dug in with my elbows. At once I got a jarring and my arm twisted painfully. I tried again. Another wrenching jolt, a flash of pain in my shoulder.

  If I wasn’t careful, I’d push too much against the pancake and knock myself off entirely, out into space. I fought against the sickening revolution and tried to scan the pancake skin ahead. I was near the edge. Friction with the pancake was trying to swing me around, give me some angular deflection. But ahead of me I could see pieces of Roadhog flying off into the blackness.

  Ahead, something—A blur. No, a bump. A set of handholds in the plastiform.

  It came looming up. I thrashed toward it. The white bumps shot toward me. I kicked in their direction without thinking. I began to rise off the pancake. I was rebounding off. I snatched—Missed. Another handhold came gliding by below. I windmilled my arms, bringing my head toward the pancake. I snatched downward. Grabbed it. Held on for the jolt—

  When my arms felt like a bundle of knots, I knew I had it. I flailed wildly and got my other hand onto it. My arm was numb. I dumbly watched pieces of Roadhog disappear over the side, spinning away into the darkness.

  “Matt! You okay?”

  “I… I think so.”

  “Don’t waste time! Get over to the lock!”

  “Yeah…sure… Maybe the team can…”

  “It’s faster if you follow the emergency line to the ten-A lock.”

  “Oh…okay.”

  I started hand over fist along the skin of the pancake, working my way toward the bright blue emergency line twenty meters away.

  Inside Lock ten-A I sagged against the bulkhead and listened to the hiss of air flooding in around me. I looked down. My adhesive patch looked like somebody had been trying to snatch it bald. There were cuts and nicks all over my suit. I still had the goddam Faraday cup sealed in the carry-bag on my left leg. My leg ached there; it must have banged against me. But through the clear plastic the cup didn’t look damaged. I thought. Well, that’s what this was about, right? It looked like pretty small stuff.

  I waited for the lock to cycle. I was wrung out, depressed. I half expected to be met by the ship’s officer who would put me in handcuffs.

  But then the lock swung open. The tube outside looked like a subway car. People were jammed in. They waved and beamed as I stepped forward. I popped my helmet and a warm rush of noise poured in.

  “Matt!” My mother wrapped her arms around me and cried.

  Dad was there, smiling and frowning at the same time, shaking hands with me.

  People were swarming around, touching me, helping me off with my suit.

  Mr. Jablons appeared at my elbow, “Welcome back.” He took the Faraday cup in its wrapper. “Good luck with the boss, too.” His eyes twinkled and he gestured with his head at Commander Aarons, who was talking to an officer down the corridor.

  “How do you feel, Matt?” I turned the other way and saw Jenny.

  “Great.”

  “I hope you—”

  “Forget it. I’m immortal,” I said gruffly. I didn’t mention that for some reason my knees felt weak. And nobody commented on what a dumb fool stunt I’d pulled.

  Commander Aarons scowled over at me. “No,” I heard him say. “I will talk to him later. Let the doctors have a look first.”

  A hand took my elbow roughly and guided me through the crowd. I winked at Jenny, hoping I looked self-confident.

  There were two medical attendants with me. They hustled me into an elevator and we zipped inward five levels. I was in a daze. A doctor in a white coat poked at me, took a blood sample, urinanalysis, skin sections—and then ordered me into a ’fresher.

  I got a new set of standard ship work clothes when I came out, and a light supper. My time sense was all fouled up; it was early morning, ship’s time, but my stomach thought it was lunch. And I felt like I was a million years old.

  After that they left me alone.

 
Finally someone stuck his head in a door and motioned me into the next room. The doctor was in there, reading a chart.

  “Young man,” he said slowly, “you have given me and your parents and a lot of other people a great deal of trouble. That was an extremely foolish gesture to make. These past few days have been hard on all of us, but such heroics are not to be excused.”

  He looked at me sternly. “I imagine the Commander will have more to say to you. I hope he disciplines you well. By freak chance, you seem to have avoided getting a serious dosage of radiation. Your blood count is nearly normal. I expect it will reach equilibrium again within a few hours.”

  “I’m okay?”

  “That is what I said. Your—”

  There was a knock at the door. It opened and a bridge officer looked in. “Finished. Doctor?”

  “Nearly.” He turned to me. “I want you to know that you came very close to killing yourself, young man. The background level out there is rising rapidly; it very nearly boiled you alive. Commander Aarons will make an example of you—”

  “No doubt.” I got up. The Doctor pressed his lips together into a thin line, then nodded reluctantly to the officer. We left.

  “What now?” I said in the tube outside. “The Commander’s office?”

  “Nope. Mr. Jablons’.”

  “Why?”

  They don’t let me in on their secrets. The Commander is there now. He sent me for you. If it was up to me I’d have you thrashed, kid.”

  I didn’t say anything more until we reached the electronics lab. There weren’t any more convenient excuses. No dodges, no explanations. I had pulled off a dumb stunt and saved my neck only by smashing up Roadhog.

  I slumped as I walked beside the bridge officer, my shoulders sagging forward. My conversation with Zak drifted through my head. Self-knowledge is usually bad news. Yeah. I thought back over what had been happening to me, the way one moment I’d act reasonably mature, and then the next minute I’d come on like some twelve-year-old. I hadn’t dealt with Yuri. I hadn’t straightened out my feelings about women, I hadn’t even been able to take looking like a failure in Mr. Jablons’ eyes…