Tales of the Grand Tour

by Ben Bova

  I started to reply, then sensed Rodriguez standing behind me.

  “She threw you off the bridge, too?”

  He grinned at me. “My entry station is up forward with the life-support technician.” He squeezed past me and started along the passageway.

  The trouble was, I had no official entry station. If we went strictly by the rules I should’ve slid into my berth and stayed strapped in there until we jettisoned the heat shield. But I had no intention of doing that.

  “Is there room for a third person up there?” I asked, trailing after Rodriguez.

  “If you don’t mind the body odors,” he said over his shoulder.

  “I showered this morning,” I said, hurrying to catch up with him.

  “Yeah, well, it’s gonna get a little warm up there, you know. You’d be more comfortable in your berth.”

  I lifted my chin a notch. “You don’t have to pamper me.”

  Rodriguez glanced over his shoulder at me. “Okay, you’re the boss. You wanta be in the hot seat, come on along.”

  Striding down the passageway behind him, I asked, “How are you and Duchamp getting along?”

  “Fine,” he said, without slowing down or looking back toward me. “No problems.”

  Something in his voice sounded odd to me. “Are you sure?”

  “We’ve worked things out. We’re okay.”

  He sounded strange . . . cheerful, almost. As if he was in on a joke and I wasn’t.

  We passed Marguerite’s tiny lab. The accordion-pleat door was folded open and I could see her standing in the cubicle, her head bent over a palm-sized video camera.

  “You’ll have to strap down for the entry,” Rodriguez told her. “It’s gonna get bumpy for a while.”

  “I’ll help her,” I said. “You go ahead and I’ll catch up with you.” Mr. Gallant, that’s me.

  Rodriguez looked uncertain for a moment, but then he nodded acceptance. “The two of you have got to be belted in for the entry. I don’t care where, but you’ve got to be in safety harnesses. Understood?”

  “Understood,” I assured him. Duchamp had made us practice the entry procedures at least once a day for the past two weeks.

  “ENTRY BEGINS IN EIGHT MINUTES,” the countdown computer announced.

  Marguerite looked up from her work. “There. The vidcam’s ready.”

  She pushed past me and started down the passageway to the observation blister, the camera in her hand.

  “Aren’t you going with Tom?” she asked.

  “I was,” I said, “but if you don’t mind I’d rather stay with you.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Rodriguez gave me the feeling I’d just be in his way up there.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I know when I’m being condescended to,” I insisted.

  “Tom’s not like that.”

  We reached the blister, a metal bubble that extended outward from the gondola’s main body. Three small observation ports studded its side, each window made of thick tinted quartz. Four padded swivel chairs were firmly bolted to the deck.

  “You won’t see much through the tinting,” I said.

  Marguerite smiled at me, and went to a small panel beneath the port that slanted forward. Opening it, she snapped her camera into the recess. Then she shut the panel again. Three tiny lights winked on: two green, one amber. As I watched, the amber light turned red.

  “What’s that?” I asked, puzzled. “I thought I knew every square centimeter of this bucket.”

  “God is in the details,” Marguerite said. “I got Tom and my mother to allow me to build this special niche here. It’s like an airlock, with an inner hatch and an outer one.”

  “They allowed you to break the hull’s integrity?” I felt shocked.

  “It was all done within the standard operating procedures. Tom and Aki both checked it out.”

  Akira Sakamoto was our life-support technician: young, chubby, introspective to the point of surliness, so quiet he was almost invisible aboard the ship.

  I was still stunned. “And the camera’s exposed to vacuum?”

  She nodded, obviously pleased with herself. “The outer hatch opened when the inner one sealed. That’s why the third light is red.”

  “Why didn’t anybody tell me about this?” I wasn’t angry, really. Just surprised that they’d do this without at least telling me.

  “It was in the daily logs. Didn’t you see them?” Marguerite turned the nearest swivel chair to face the port and sat in it.

  I took the chair next to her. “Who reads the daily reports? They’re usually nothing but boring details.”

  “Tom highlighted it.”

  “When? When was this done?”

  She thought a moment. “The second week out. No, it was the beginning of the third week.” With an impatient shake of her head, she said, “Whenever it was, you can look it up in the log if you want the exact date.”

  I stared at her. She was smiling impishly. She was enjoying this.

  “I’ll fry Rodriguez’s butt for this,” I muttered. It was a phrase I had often heard my father growl. I never thought I’d say it myself.

  “Don’t blame Tom!” Marguerite was suddenly distraught, concerned. “My mother okayed it. Tom was only doing what I asked and the captain approved.”

  “ENTRY IN SIX MINUTES,” came the automated announcement.

  “So you asked, your mother approved, and Rodriguez did the work without telling me.”

  “It’s only a minor modification.”

  “He should have told me,” I insisted. “Breaching the hull is not minor. He should have pointed it out to me specifically.”

  Her roguish smile returned. “Don’t take it so seriously. If Tom and my mother okayed it, there’s nothing to worry about.”

  I knew she was right. But dammit, Rodriguez should have informed me. I’m the owner of this vessel. He should have made certain that I knew and approved.

  Marguerite leaned over toward me and tapped a forefinger against my chin. “Lighten up, Van. Enjoy the ride.”

  I looked into her eyes. They were shining like polished onyx. Suddenly I leaned toward her and, reaching a hand behind the nape of her neck, I pulled her to me and kissed her firmly on the lips.

  She pushed away, her eyes flashing now, startled, almost angry.

  “Now wait a minute,” she said.

  I slid back in my chair. “I . . . you’re awfully attractive, you know.”

  She glared at me. “Just because my mother’s letting Tom sleep with her is no reason for you to think you can get me into your bed.”

  I felt as if someone had whacked me with a hammer. “What? What did you say?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Rodriguez and your mother?”

  The indignation in her eyes cooled a bit. “You mean you didn’t know about them?”

  “No!”

  “They’re sleeping together. I thought everyone on board knew it.”

  “I didn’t!” My voice sounded like a little boy’s squeak, even to myself.

  Marguerite nodded, and I saw in her expression some of the bitterness her mother exuded constantly.

  “Ever since we left Earth orbit. It’s my mother’s way of solving personnel problems.”

  “ENTRY IN FIVE MINUTES.”

  “We’d better strap in,” Marguerite said.

  “Wait,” I said. “You’re telling me that your mother is sleeping with Rodriguez to smooth over the fact that she’s captain and he’s only second-in-command?”

  Marguerite did not reply. She concentrated on buckling the seat harness over her shoulders.

  “Well?” I demanded. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I shouldn’t have mentioned it,” she said. “I’ve shocked you.”

  “I’m not shocked!”

  She looked at me for a long moment, her expression unfathomable. At last she said, “No, I can see that you’re not shocked.”r />
  “I’m accustomed to men and women enjoying sex together,” I told her.

  “Yes, of course you are.”

  Then a new thought struck me. “You’re angry at your mother, is that it?”

  “I’m not angry. I’m not shocked. I’m not even surprised. The only thing that amazes me is that you can live in this crowded little sardine can for week after week and not have the faintest inkling of what’s going on.”

  I had to admit to myself that she was right. I’d been like a sleepwalker. Or rather, like a clown. Going through the motions of being the owner, the man in charge. All these things happening and I hadn’t the slightest clue.

  I sagged back in my padded chair, feeling numb and stupid. I started fumbling with my safety harness; my fingers felt thick, clumsy. I couldn’t take my eyes off Marguerite, wondering, wondering.

  She looked back at me, straight into my eyes. “I’m not like my mother, Van. I may be her clone, but I’m nothing like her. Don’t ever forget that.”

  “ENTRY IN FOUR MINUTES.”

  Orbiting Venus’s hot, thick atmosphere at slightly more than seven kilometers per second, Hesperos fired its retrorockets at precisely the millisecond called for in the entry program.

  Strapped into the chair in the observation blister, I felt the ship flinch, like a speeding car when the driver taps the brake slightly.

  I leaned forward as far as the safety harness would allow. Through the forward-angled port I could see the rim of the big heat shield and, beyond it, the smooth saffron clouds that completely shrouded the planet.

  Except the clouds were no longer smooth. There were rifts here and there, long streamers floating above the main cloud deck, patterns of billows like waves rolling across a deep, deep sea.

  Marguerite was turned toward the port also, so I could not see her full face, only a three-quarter profile. She seemed intent, her hands gripping the arms of her chair. Not white-knuckled, not frightened, but certainly not relaxed, either.

  Me, I was clutching the arms of my chair so hard my nails were going to leave permanent indentations in the plastic. Was I frightened? I don’t know. I was excited, taut as the Buckyball cable that had connected us to the old Truax. I was breathing hard, I remember, but I don’t recall any snakes twisting in my gut.

  Something bright flared across the rim of the heat shield and I suddenly wished I were up on the bridge, where I could see the instruments and understand what was happening. There was an empty chair up there; I should have demanded that I sit in it through the entry flight.

  The ship shuddered. Not violently, but enough to notice. More than enough. The entire rim of the heat shield was glowing now and streamers of hot gas flashed past. The ride started to get bumpy.

  “Approaching maximum gee forces,” Duchamp’s voice called out over the intercom speaker in the overhead.

  “Max gee, check,” Rodriguez replied, from his position up in the nose.

  It was really bumpy now. I was being rattled back and forth in my chair, happy to have the harness holding me firmly.

  “Maximum aerodynamic pressure,” Duchamp said.

  “Temperature in the forward section exceeding max calculated.” Rodriguez’s voice was calm, but his words sent a current of electricity through me.

  The calculations have an enormous safety factor in them, I tried to reassure myself. It would have been easier if the ship didn’t feel as if it were trying to shake itself apart.

  I couldn’t see a thing through the port now. Just a solid sheet of blazing hot gases, like looking into a furnace. I squeezed my eyes down to slits while the battering, rattling ride went on. My vision blurred. I closed my eyes entirely for a moment. When I opened them cautiously, I could see fairly well again, although the ship was still shuddering violently.

  Marguerite hadn’t moved since the entry began, she was still staring fixedly ahead. I wondered if her camera was getting anything or if the incandescent heat of our entry into the atmosphere had fried its lens.

  The ride began to smooth out a bit. It was still bumpier than anything I had ever experienced before, but at least now I could lean my head back against the padded headrest and not have it bounce so hard it felt like I was being pummelled by a karate champion.

  Marguerite turned slightly and smiled at me. A pale smile, I thought, but it made me smile back at her.

  “Nothing to it,” I said, trying to sound brave. It came out more like a whimper.

  “I think the worst is over,” she said.

  Just then there was an enormous jolt and an explosion that would have made me leap out of my chair if I weren’t strapped in. It took just a flash of a second to realize that it was the explosive bolts jettisoning the heat shield, but in that flash of a second I must have pumped my entire lifetime’s supply of adrenaline into my blood. I came very close to wetting myself; my bladder felt painfully full.

  “We’re going into the clouds!” Marguerite said happily.

  “Deceleration on the tick,” Duchamp’s voice rang out.

  “Heat shield jettison complete,” Rodriguez replied. “Now we’re a blimp.”

  Rodriguez was inaccurate, I knew. A blimp has a soft envelope; ours was rigid cermet. It wasn’t often I could catch Rodriguez in a slip of the tongue. I threw a superior smile to Marguerite as I popped the latch on my safety harness. The instant I stood up, though, Hesperos shuddered, lurched, swung around crazily, and accelerated so hard I was slammed right back into my chair.

  The superrotation.

  The solid body of the planet may turn very slowly, but Venus’s upper atmosphere, blast-heated by the Sun, develops winds of two hundred kilometers per hour and more that rush around the entire planet in a few days. In a way, they’re like the jet streams on Earth, only bigger and more powerful.

  Our lighter-than-air vessel was in the grip of those winds, zooming along like a leaf caught in a hurricane. We used the engines hanging outside the gondola only to keep us from swinging too violently, otherwise we would have depleted our fuel in a matter of hours. We couldn’t fight those winds, we could only surf along on them and try to keep the ride reasonably smooth.

  Truax, up in a safe, stable orbit, was supposed to keep track of our position by monitoring our telemeter beacon. This was for two reasons: to stay in constant communications contact with us and to plot the direction and speed of the superrotation wind, with Hesperos playing the same role as a smoke particle in a wind tunnel. But Truax hadn’t deployed the full set of communications satellites around the planet by the time we got caught in the superrotation. Without the commsats to relay our beacon, they lost almost half our first day’s data.

  And if anything had gone wrong, they wouldn’t know it for ten–twelve hours.

  Fortunately, the only trouble we had was a few bruised shins as Hesperos lurched and swirled in the turbulent winds. It was like being in a racing yacht during a storm: You had to hold on to something whenever you moved from one place to another.

  It was scary at first, I admit. No amount of lectures, videos, or even VR simulations can really prepare you for the genuine experience. But in a few hours I got accustomed to it. More or less.

  I spent most of those hours right there in the observation blister, staring out as we darted along the cloud tops. Marguerite got up and went back to her lab; crew members passed by now and then, stumbling and staggering along the passageway, muttering curses every time the ship pitched and they banged against a bulkhead.

  At one point Marguerite came back to the blister, a heavy-looking gray box of equipment in her hands.

  “Shouldn’t you be checking the sensors up forward?” she asked, a little testily, I thought.

  “They’re running fine,” I said. “If there were any problems I’d get a screech on my phone.” I tapped the communicator in the chest pocket of my coveralls.

  “Don’t you want to see the data they’re taking in?”

  “Later on, when the ride settles down a little,” I said. It had always
nonplussed me that many scientists get so torqued up about their work that they have to watch their instruments while the observation is in progress. As if their being there can make any difference in what the instruments are recording.

  Marguerite left and I was alone again, watching the upper layer of the cloud deck reaching for us. Long, lazy tendrils of yellowish fog seemed to stretch out toward us, then evaporate before my eyes. The cloud tops were dynamic, bubbling like a boiling pot, heaving and breathing like a thing alive.

  Don’t be an anthropomorphic ass, I warned myself sternly. Leave the similes to the poets and romantics like Marguerite. You’re supposed to be a scientist.

  Of sorts, a sardonic inner voice scoffed. You’re only playing at being a scientist. A real scientist would be watching his sensors and data readouts like a tiger stalking a deer.

  And miss this view? I answered myself.

  We were dipping into the clouds now, sinking down into them like a submarine sliding beneath the surface of the sea. Yellow-gray clouds slid past my view, then we were in the clear again, then more mountains of haze covered the port. Deeper and deeper we sank, into the sulfuric-acid perpetual global clouds of Venus.

  The ride did indeed smooth out, but only a little. Or maybe we all became accustomed to the pitching and rolling. We got our sea legs. Our Venus legs.

  It was eerie, sailing in that all-enveloping fog. For days on end I stared out of the ports and saw nothing but a gray sameness. I wanted to push ahead, to go deeper, get beneath the clouds so we could begin searching the surface with telescopes for the wreckage of my brother’s vessel.

  But the mission plan called for caution, and despite my eagerness I understood that the plan should be followed. We were in uncharted territory now, and we had to make certain that all of Hesperos’s systems were performing as designed.

  The mammoth cermet envelope above us had been filled (if that’s the right word) with vacuum. Its hatches had been open to vacuum all the time of our flight from Earth orbit, then sealed tight when we entered Venus’s atmosphere. What better flotation medium for a lighter-than-air vessel than nothingness?