“In fact, unlike what most people think, such a life is far from convenient,” says the female administrator, who is glad to talk with the rare visitors. “Other than water and ice, we have nothing. Everything else has to be delivered via Io or Callisto, and the sale of water barely covers expenses, so we aren’t as rich as everyone thinks. Fortunately, we ourselves can now grow most of the food; thank you for the land.”
Those same eighteen thousand tons of premium grade soil on LED ZEPPELIN were destined for Europe: after receiving the precious cargo, the colonists expected to get rid of the terrible ghost of scurvy, constantly looming at their doors.
“Since there is no sense in putting greenhouses on the surface, greenhouses will be built in giant ice caves, where constant temperature and humidity will be maintained. The sowing will begin in a month. But, I think you came here for something more than talking about agriculture.”
Of course, the Bolsheviks are most interested in the Ocean Palace, about which Olga and Anastasia have heard since childhood. Chernova, who has already visited Europe, will also be seeing the Palace for the first time, since during those years when she was here before, the wells didn’t pass half of the glacier.
“I can assure you that you will have something to look at.”
While at first glance it appears to be a typical dome, the Ocean Palace is a unique structure—at the moment, it is the first and only museum of extraterrestrial life.
In a huge ice aquarium, a school of pale gray fish, which could be mistaken for herring, is slowly swimming. Only these aren’t herring—they’re local fish caught in the ocean by robot hunters. The Bolsheviks approach the aquarium, and for a while they gaze intently at the fish—it is not every day that you see an alien. On closer inspection, unique local features are visible—long, thin fins emitting a dim light.
"Are these fins electrically sensitive?" Elena asks, trying to attract the fish by tapping Morse code with her fingernail; the herring doesn’t react.
“Yes, in view of the total absence of light, almost all local species have the ability to conduct electricity, which serves as an additional means of touch. These fish live in the upper layers of the ocean, at the edge of the glacier, and feed on plankton. These are one of the first species we caught; that's why they have the honor of opening the exposition.”
“If they eat plankton, then there must be someone who eats them?"
“Of course; the food chains of our ocean are similar to the terrestrial food chains in many ways, except that there are no marine mammals or amphibians. Specifically, these herrings are very much in love with that handsome guy.”
The guide goes to the next aquarium, where an immense blue-green manta ray lies motionless at the bottom, whose earthly relatives Olga saw in the Shanghai zoo. It periodically opens its gill slits, like the air intakes of a jet aircraft, and a long needle-like tail shakes briefly.
“It’s a very dangerous local predator, keeping most of the fauna of the upper part of the ocean in fear. He not only tracks his prey with electricity, he also kills with electricity—the current strength of this power engineer is almost forty amperes. If you didn’t know that it’s actually an alien, you could take it for an ordinary earthly fish. Surprisingly, ocean life on Earth and Europe are sometimes very similar, although there are significant differences.”
Passing through the deserted halls of the museum, Olga watches hundreds of representatives of the living world, located thirty kilometers under their feet, from tiny crustaceans to huge predatory fish with snake-like bodies. Algae, corals, mollusks, astounding jellyfish, and other marine life are found in the local aquariums and are studied and even bred for food consumption—several species of fish are recognized as fit for humans, and now in the museum, she can eat the aliens, having tasted local delicacies.
Having bought a bag of expensive smoked fish, Olga goes to the viewing room, where she can watch the ocean in real time through the cameras on automatic science stations and submarines that plod along in the dark abyss.
There is absolute darkness, but not like in space—it seems that a little more and the pressing blackness will break through the lenses and flood everything around her. Olga is connected to the camera of an underwater hunter, walking seven hundred meters under the glacier; under her is another ninety-five kilometers of dark fresh water.
The girl raises the lens and peers into the icy ceiling. She sees glowing clouds—large clusters of plankton drifting on the surface. A flock of herrings and a few bright flashes—an electric ray fell out hunting. The U-boat changes course and abruptly falls, for a couple of minutes descending for five kilometers.
She sees nothing for a few seconds, then she sees several distant lights—many forms of life here have their own lighting. Having connected the audio channel, Olga plunges into the world of sounds, trying to guess what is behind every whistle or click. Ahead, a huge shadow flashes, and the underwater robot turns on a powerful searchlight, catching a fish the size of a sperm whale. The "sperm whale" clearly clicks a huge jaw, dotted with five rows of sharp teeth, and the robot carefully turns on the electric shock, after which the machine and the fish disperse, each going their own way.
“So, let's see what happens at the bottom.”
At her disposal is a short film made by an experimental deep-water robot, the first to reach the ocean floor. Most of the data are classified, but a few minutes are public.
The temperature at the mouth of the underwater volcano reaches thousands of degrees, but the water doesn’t evaporate due to astronomical pressure. The lights of the craters burn the darkness with a red glow, and periodically, geysers shoot white flashes; thick black clubs come out of the cracks in the rocks. There are so many diverse living organisms that the girl has never seen, even in the archival records of the Red Sea, even before it was hopelessly poisoned with radioactive waste. Everything is moving; it's hard to find a point in space where there wouldn’t be one form of life or another.
“Well, how do you like this magnificence?”
Chernova is standing next to her, silently watching the underwater world.
“From a biologist's point of view, how great is the probability of finding other such places?”
“Exceptionally high. As you see, all that is needed for life is water and heat, no matter where—on Earth or Europe. Callisto has the same ocean, and when the drillers pass through the glacier, I'm sure something alive will be found there. If in our solar system alone life exists simultaneously on one planet and two satellites, then what is an accurate conclusion, given that there are at least three hundred and fifty billion stars in our galaxy alone?”
“The universe is full of life?”
“You bet!”
* * *
Vacation is over; things have been done. Tatyana has successfully completed her trade, and the Republic has already received money; the issue of purchasing weapons has been resolved. Eight ships of the Traveling Band are again loaded with water ice and ore; they will go to Earth as part of a large caravan, without fear of attacks. For the first time in seven months, the Bolshevik remains alone.
An ancient naval song dispels the silence in the compartments; Olga absentmindedly listens, pondering the current situation. Leaving Ganymede, the Bolshevik, contrary to her expectation, didn’t quickly gain speed, but abruptly turned off the Jupiter-Mars route, and it is already the third day heading on a new course, moving away from big roads at low speed. Something is up, but what exactly isn’t yet clear.
The recording stops; silence reigns for a few seconds, then Klimov's voice is heard.
“Crew—attention, get ready for a boarding fight!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: NAUGHTY GIRL
“Welcome!
The locks click loudly, and the hatch opens; Olga has boarded the captured ship, and the Burglar follows behind. Having gone through a short tunnel, she finds herself in a lock chamber, where she is awaited by Wolff and Anatoly.
“The Naughty Girl greets you
; catch the map.”
A three-dimensional ship model flares before her eyes, two decks above the control room. The boatswain pointed to the only lamp that is on.
“Just in case, we have de-energized most of the boat. If necessary, supply as much electricity as you will need, only where necessary.”
“Thank you. Are you leaving me?”
“Yeah, why should we sit on mines? Well, good luck.”
Having trimmed the hatch, and having held the Red Star with a look, Olga goes to the control room. The Burglar, a robot-spider with high legs, follows her, slowly unwinding the coil of a thick cable. Twice, Olga comes across hastily sealed bullet holes; in one place, the tunnel walls have melted from the bursting of the thermite grenade—eloquent traces of the recent battle. A corpse in a black bag is fastened to the ramp, and another bag lies near the far turn.
“Uncle Joe, can you see me?”
“Clearly. Go to the ninth door.”
“I see. Turn off the light.”
The dim illumination is extinguished completely, and a cosmic darkness surrounds her, which is vainly trying to disperse through the round porthole. Olga lights a small red lamp on her shoulder and slowly opens the door to the ninth cabin.
In the center stands a powerful cutter, next to a pair of closed tool boxes. There is nothing else here; the Marines removed everything, even the wood paneling. She sees several phosphorescent marks on the opposite wall.
“Joseph, I turned off the radiotelephone. Any further communication is only through the cable line. The Burglar is ready to go.”
“That’s good; I've already started to get bored.”
Entering the Matrix, Olga begins to work. She unpacks the atmospheric generator and fine-tunes it, then tests the cutter. Having finished the equipment check, she applies a thin layer of Teflon lubricant to the floor—even in zero gravity, the lubricant adheres perfectly to the floor, and the girl watches closely to make sure that no bubbles or oiled areas remain.
“Set the grips exactly on the marks.”
Voronov fastens six ceramic claws to the wall, then, after extinguishing the bulb, erases the remains of the phosphorescent paint, except for the only red mark.
“Uncle Joe, check it out!”
The brain of the Bolshevik examines the cabin through Olga’s eyes, reading thousands of necessary parameters.
“Done; start the drill.”
The last, most difficult part: Olga places a black cylinder resembling a silencer of an old gun on the wall, then stretches a thin wire to the connector on the left-hand side.
“Ready, set, go!”
Nothing happens; the drill works imperceptibly—the nanorobots move forward, one after another overcoming the sheets of high-grade armor. Completely disconnected from the outside world, Olga directs the scouts through the atomic structure of steel and ceramics, like a squadron of submarines, accurately bypassing possible traps and remembering the charge of explosives a meter above her head.
The last millionths of a millimeter, time stops for Olga, and the surrounding world loses all meaning, overshadowed by one goal—to secretly penetrate the hardware compartment. With the last move forward, like a small step, the nanorobots found a change in density, temperature, and chemical composition. She's inside, and she's still alive.
“Data . . .”
Olga turns off the Matrix, again looks around the cabin, and slowly and neatly removes the drill. She’s done what she came for and now leaves, removing all traces of her presence.
“Yuri, drive the limo.”
Five minutes later, Voronov sits in the shuttle, examining the Naughty Girl through the porthole. It's not just an old ship; it's a real space legend, and the legend is gloomy and mysterious.
“She's the Naughty Girl now, originally Marlene Dietrich; she left the stocks in 2037,” Wolff explained. “One of the first private long-distance passenger ships, a first-class cabin, was carrying rich passengers on the Earth-Mars line. In 2049 it was lost, presumably because of a collision with a meteorite swarm. In those years the warnings often came too late. The search failed, and the passengers and crew were declared dead. And then, after the war, among the inhabitants of the Belt, rumors spread that this ship was seen here and there, but already under other names, with other masters.
There was no collision; this was one of the first cases of space piracy. The Marlene Dietrich changed owners and names a dozen times until she became the Naughty Girl. Note the fact that she has an official registration number in the Supernova Insurance Registry, with full documents, although all interested parties know what kind of ship she is. And then we fly to Ganymede, and we see this suspicious person in a private parking lot, which the already familiar Syndicate uses for transportation when an official ship with real papers is needed. It was a sin not to take this opportunity.”
“And I thought, why does our cashier need such protection?”
Olga recalls the landing on Ganymede, trying not to give any indication of how much she was offended by the fact that she wasn’t a part of the operation, like the rest of the crew. While she was skiing, climbing mountains, and watching volcanoes, the Marines also had their own fascinating adventure.
Tatyana, when landing on Ganymede, was accompanied by a detachment of Marines, carefully playing the role of bodyguards. The masquerade was a success—landing under the guise of collectors, the Marines marched through the glaciers, passing unnoticed for a hundred kilometers to private parking, and then boarded a pirate ship, following the principle of “robbing loot.” However, Klimov didn’t intend to confine himself to the simple capture and destruction of an enemy transport; the Naughty Girl would have a more important role.
“We want to visit the Syndicate's base in the Belt. But we aren’t welcome there; therefore, we’ll use this frisky mare, because she has a pass. There remains an issue—it’s necessary to take her under our control; she kicks constantly.”
Seizing an enemy ship is a habitual job for Marines, but here, everything is more serious than the Bugsy Siegel boarding. Capturing an enemy ship should be done quietly, so that no one learns about it, and this is very delicate. The Syndicate provided many protective measures to ensure that the capture of any of their ships didn’t go unnoticed, and now the Bolsheviks have to bypass all these traps.
That's what the captain told them about the boarding battle—they would have to overcome the resistance of the Naughty Girl’s processor, which constantly tried to get rid of the violators. The Marines managed to capture the ship, destroying the crew in a fleeting battle, and Joseph managed to disable the brain of the Naughty Girl, taking control. The ship started at the appointed time and lay down a reverse course, but most of the defense systems are still functioning. The engine room and the central post are mined; any careless movement or incorrect order threatens to destroy the ship. In addition, the backup processors stubbornly refused to be disconnected. Every six hours, a request comes in from the Syndicate's base, and each time, Uncle Joe breaks through the complex passwords to give the correct answer. The probability of error in this radio game is high; the slightest mistake and the whole operation will break wide open—the enemy will learn that the Naughty Girl has changed owners.
Constantly at risk, the Bolsheviks managed to remove most of the mines without blowing up the ship, and now they need to deal with the processor. They can’t disconnect it from the outside and just have to pull the processor out of the socket, for which it’s necessary to open the hardware compartment.
The main computer can be accessed through the technological hatch in the control room, but this is not an option—the hatch is mined. So, they need to cut through the outer armor and remove the processor.
“Let's start.”
The Burglar raises the cutter and comes to the wall. Olga, watching this process through the eyes of the robot, sees how the narrow tip rests against the gray ceramic armor. Another second and the cabin is filled with a low pulsing whistle; the temperature and pressure se
nsors drastically increase.
“Turn on the kettle.”
Uncle Joe called the cutter a “kettle” for its method of work. Analyzing the protection, he determined that the hardware compartment can’t be opened with a conventional burner or laser. The armor is cut by a directed jet of water vapor, fed under enormous pressure and capable of overcoming the resistance of even the most durable materials.
“It will take an hour or two, so just relax, folks . . . ”
Wolff and Anatoly play poker, and Olga spends time watching the “Flying Circus”—George Carlin and other fun people from a hundred years ago—while anxiously anticipating the explosion that will certainly happen if the Burglar is even a little mistaken directing the steam jet. Having finished viewing, Olga has time to take a nap before she is awakened by comrade Peters.
“It seems ready.”
The hermetic cabin reminds her of a steamer—the warmth and moisture have nowhere to go, and the lenses are closed by clouds of water vapor. Nevertheless, the Burglar signals that everything is in order; they can continue to work.
“Start the cooling!”
The atmosphere generator cools the cabin and takes away the excess moisture; the thermometer and the barometer are swiftly going down. Ten minutes later, an Antarctic climate is established inside the cabin—zero humidity, low pressure, and a temperature of negative eighty-nine degrees Celsius. The composition of the atmosphere has changed dramatically; it is no longer Earth's air, precisely in accordance with the reconnaissance drill penetrating into the hardware compartment and exploring the composition, temperature, and pressure behind the armor. For the sake of the needed data, Olga risked her life, playing cat and mouse with the protection systems of the Naughty Girl.
The armor can’t be cut with a laser or a burner because of the thermal detonators, so they have to cut the steel and ceramics with a stream of water vapor, while carefully monitoring the temperature. The sensitive radio detonator will blow if it senses any suspicious noise on the air, which is why the Burglar supports communication over a shielded cable. Magnetometers react to conventional steel tools, which mean that everything must be demagnetized beforehand. Climatic protection inside the hardware compartment will detect the slightest change in temperature, pressure, or humidity when removing the cover. Plus, there are sensitive gas sensors that use a certain chemical composition of air as a code combination.
The Blitzkrieg Page 20