by Laer Carroll
"OK, Tom, let's get this show on the road."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am. Initiating takeoff of lead ship Jupiter Exploration Task Force USSS New York."
Jane, as she had done several times before, pulled Robot and New York into a gestalt, the super-intelligent cyborg JANE. HER senses flowed throughout HER body made of metal, plastic, and organics including humans. Everything felt good as it had all times before except the very first powering-on of New York.
As before SHE viewed the Colorado Springs air base, the airport next to it, and all of the city. HER senses flowed ever further, taking in the country surrounding it and the skies above. Every powered-on machine for a thousand miles around and a hundred miles above SHE saw/heard/smelt/felt.
Further still the Goddess-like being rode the senses of the spaceship in which HER biological body resided. SHE KNEW space out to the Moon and beyond.
At regular intervals the Supplies Ship then each of the Super Scouts lifted off.
They rendezvoused at the World Space Station. Dozens of systems were checked, found to be in optimum order. None of the personnel were surprised. They'd trained for this for months now. They were among the best the Space Force employed.
Besides, their admiral was Jane Kuznetsov. With her in command they were invincible.
In the middle of the afternoon, Colorado time, JANE gave the order to make the first hop. One at a time four ships vanished from their universe.
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The trip to Jupiter was made with stops along the way, not to deliver anyone or anything or to pick them up but to test that all systems were working perfectly and perfectly together. The Moon, Venus, Mercury, Mars moved in their sedate orbits as four ships appeared out of hyperspace nearby. Locations were checked and found within expected limits. That fact shared among the ships, they disappeared yet again to rendezvous at the next stop on their way.
At Bastet City in the Asteroid Belt the small armada halted for a time. Assigned parking orbits, the ships stayed for nearly a week. Jane wanted all of her crew to get a taste of life in space if they didn't already have had it. She also wanted them to meet Cats and Lizards if they had not.
The resident Cats, over 2000 of them, welcomed the valiant explorers. So did the Lizards, some 900 of them.
Jane met with the leaders of the two groups of aliens on her second day at Bastet City. She wanted to know anything they could tell her about dealing with the Jovian intelligences that she didn't already know from the Galactic Encyclopedia.
A Lizard named Spider-Gwen, a male, was the head of the Lizards. He claimed to have experience with thirteen Jovian type intelligences.
"You have to remember that the several species are as diverse as those who inhabit the solid worlds." All "Jovians" were huge balloon-like creatures who floated near the top of the atmospheres of giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn. Such worlds did not have solid surfaces.
"So I can't give you any specifics about the ones who inhabit Jupiter. But generally they are many times smarter than we are and distant. None are malicious that I know of about but they will respond only to direct requests. If they respond at all."
The Cat aide to their leader, who was out of the city at the time, said, "They are very protective of the developing intelligences within their satellites, if there are any. Jupiter has one, the water people inside Europa. The Galactic Encyclopedia mentions them but says nothing about them. It does say that the Jovians have warned off approach to within a thousand miles of Europa."
Jane said, "I read that in the Encyclopedia. As I presume have the scientists on this expedition. Despite that they've requested we land them on the surface."
"What idiots," said Spider-Gwen. "Are you going to let them?"
"Hell, no. If they insist it I'm going to confine them to their rooms as crazies who might endanger the expedition."
The aliens all applauded this statement.
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The exploration group had one stop to make before visiting Jupiter space. Jane picked the Human Interstellar Confederation sentinel satellite most directly on the way to Jupiter.
Jane had the armada halt a hundred miles away from the satellite. It looked like any small pock-marked asteroid but was a hollow shell, a spaceship containing a dozen kinds of sensory equipment which could see as far as half the distance to the Alpha Centauri triple-star system. It also periodically broadcast a warning with several kinds of communication equipment in a variety of languages.
They all said the same thing: "This stellar system is part of the Human Interstellar Confederation. Hostile intrusion will be met with deadly force."
FORCE according to the Encyclopedia meant ships guided by Confederation Guardians, the Confed's police force. The largest of these ships was the size of a small moon and contained over 3000 ships of various sizes, some of them able to turn the surface of a planet to dust. Or do the same to a fleet of spaceships. They had already done so many times in the several thousand years of the Confed's history.
Jane did not seriously doubt the Encyclopedia's assertions. She WAS concerned that any help for Earth might not arrive in time.
Once on station Jane called Colonel Tom Shelton into the Admiral's Room. It was like the Captain's Room which Shelton occupied on the opposite side of the control room.
Both included a conference room, a living room, an office, and a bedroom. Only the conference room was large. The others were not cramped, but they were not large. Even a starship as large as the HQ Ship did not waste space.
"Outstanding job, Tom. Just as I expected. Now it's time for me to do some work. I'm going out to talk to the sentinels."
"Ma'am? I didn't know anyone could talk to them. I thought they just sent messages back to the UN."
"I was the first to communicate them when they were discovered. They accepted me as a sort of honorary citizen of the Confederation. As such they send me periodic updates and answer questions I have. Their answers don't contain a lot of information. They are robots after all and most of their flexibility is used on their jobs. Still, they might be able to give me something useful."
"Interesting."
"To talk to them I'll have to go alone. Prep the Admiral's launch, would you?"
"Aye, aye, Ma'am."
"If I don't come back alive, you're in charge of the expedition."
"Is there some chance of that?"
"None that I know of. But best to be prepared."
"Very well." He grinned. "Maybe I should have phrased that differently."
Jane grinned back. "Yes. Now I'm going to suit up. After you've ordered out the launch come back here and accompany me to the launch bay."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am."
The launch, named Walkabout, was one of the latest Scouts of the same design as Scout test 3 which Boeing had given Jane. She had then given it to the Academy. Walkabout had a top acceleration of 60 gravities and matching counter-gravity to protect its riders.
Jane had already tested it alone at its extremes--without counter-gravity. She could not move about at 60 gravs but she was perfectly comfortable. She kept having to upgrade her understanding of how tough her body was.
She'd also recently upgraded her understanding of how much power she could project from the built-in electrical power generator and storage battery which Robot had begun to grow a few years ago. So far she didn't have any reason to explode boulders with plasma bolts but it was nice to know she could if she needed to.
A half hour later she shook Shelton's hand and boarded the launch. She powered up the vehicle and announced she was ready to exit USSS New York.
"We're ready to see you off, General," came Shelton's answer on the launch's comm system."
"Good. Proceeding now."
The launch was ready. Jane gave the command through its console and the door on the surface of the New York opened to the tube in which the launch lay. The volume in front of and behind the launch was already evacuated so the launch was able to immediately move out of the tube.
&
nbsp; She merged with Robot and Walkabout to become JANE. HER insides felt in perfect order. SHE sedately exited the tube.
In space SHE felt the vacuum all around HER and all the energy coursing through it and the invisibly small and vanishingly few micrometeroids.
"Exit good," she informed the New York. "Moving out."
New York answered but JANE ignored the transmission. SHE oriented on the sentinel and moved toward it.
Fifteen minutes later SHE halted a hundred feet away from the sentinel. SHE got out of HER seat, took off HER spacesuit, and mounted it into its niche in the space behind the cockpit. Clad only in HER panties and bra SHE floated down the corridor and into to the air lock.
SHE evacuated the air. A force membrane came into existence around her less than a micrometer outside her skin. Her breathing ceased, unneeded.
SHE opened the outside airlock door and kicked HERself into space. Behind HER the door remained open.
A normally sleeping system woke in HER. SHE felt space around HER as if it was water. And from the soles of HER feet she could send a PUSH which moved her through space. From the palms of HER hands SHE could send the same PUSH against space. It was if SHE had space jets in HER feet and hands, but it was something fundamentally different.
This was not new to HER but SHE didn't get the chance to be alone in space often enough for the experience to be routine. SHE felt joy inside HER chest like some gentle force wanting to get out.
"Greetings, Citizen. How may we serve you?"
The message was auditory but sent directly through a part of Robot which was a hyperspace communicator.
Subvocally the superbeing JANE answered back.
"I have questions about the aerial life forms who float in the atmosphere of the gas giant we of Earth call Jupiter."
"We know little but it is freely available. Here it is."
What it sent HER was a link to the Galactic Encyclopedia. This Encyclopedia however was a more complete version than the publicly available one. Those had more summaries than details. This one was hundreds of times as big.
Rather than follow the link JANE began to swallow the Encyclopedia whole.
Almost three hours later the copying was complete.
JANE said, "Thank you. You have served me well."
"We are happy."
"Goodbye."
"Goodbye."
JANE was unhappy to leave space but took advantage of the short distance back to Walkabout to do a free-fall frolic, turning wildly end over end and spinning rapidly about HER major axis.
Inside the Admiral's launch SHE dropped wholly back into HER biological component and redonned her spacesuit. Then she secured herself into her seat and returned to the USSS New York.
<>
It took the five-ship squadron half a day to travel out to the orbit of Jupiter. Part of that time was needed to catch up to it as it was a quarter of its orbit further along than their starting location.
The ships came out of hyperspace three million miles from Jupiter. At the main view screen's magnification it appeared the size of a fist held at arm's length. The ships were behind it in its orbit and half a million miles "above" or north of the plane of the solar system's ecliptic. This let the watchers see more of the north side of the planet than the south side and see the rings.
The near side of the rings were tilted downward, the far side tilted upward and behind the planet.
The spacecraft were oriented so that the sunward side of the planet was to their left and lit. The side away from the sun was to their right and dark. The black arc of the planet's shadow seemed to cut out a part of the rings.
Visible in the rings were what looked like tiny pebbles. On the biggest view screen at the front of the control room names began to pop into existence near each pebble. It took several moments for many of those watching on repeater view screens to realize that those pebbles were moons a dozen to several dozen miles in diameter.
Jane in the Admiral's Room let the crew in the control room next door do their various status checks and double checks for several minutes. Then in her private link to Colonel Shelton she said, "Captain, pull the view out so that the four big moons are on screen, please."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am." Then in the background Jane heard him pass along the request.
The planetary view blinked. Jupiter and its rings were now smaller. The four large moons orbiting outside the rings could be seen. Labels named them: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto. In smaller text were numbers for their sizes, revealing that the two closer to Jupiter were near the size of Earth's Moon, the two further about half again that of the Moon.
Jane, through Robot monitoring the state of the five ships, could tell that the various crews were busy at their assignments. She turned her attention to the dozen head scientists seated around the table in her conference room. They were facing away from her, toward the large view screen mounted on the wall at the farther end of the room.
"Well," she said and paused for their attention to turn to her. "We've arrived and seem to be in good order. After we make various checks you can begin your investigations."
The scientists congratulated her and her crew for the excellent job they'd done getting the investigators in place then began to leave the conference room. One man stayed late: Dr. Otis Barnhardt.
"There is one matter that concerns me. My group is here to investigate Europa and particularly the life forms reported by the Encyclopedia. We feel it's ridiculous that we can't land on the surface just because some aliens say we can't. Surely we can ignore that silly limitation. After all, the aliens live in Jupiter's atmosphere. Europa is over 420,000 miles from the planet. They should have no say in what goes on outside the atmosphere."
"I'm afraid we can't ignore the stricture. The situation is analogous to that of Earth where a country has legal dominion over the ocean near shore."
"But that distance was just a few dozen miles, the distance of cannon shot. If a country cannot physically control an area, it cannot own it."
"Your arguments may be sound but I'm just a spaceship commander. My superiors insist I abide by the wishes of the Jovians. So I shall. Landing on Europa is forbidden."
"Ahh! I should have known better than to expect reason from the military mind!"
The investigator stamped out, or tried to. The tough padded carpet kept his steps silent.
Jane used Robot to wash away her annoyance. The Encyclopedia said the heavy-planet intelligences such as the Jovians were immensely intelligent and powerful. She did not want to test their patience, especially less than a million miles from their home.
<>
The day was busy with establishing a station for the task force in orbit around the largest of the Jovian moons, Ganymede. This was for several reasons. One of them was that the planet had long ago captured most of the rocky debris in the area and so cleaned the volume around it of potentially dangerous rocks.
Checks of the ships and their near neighborhood went on into the evening and throughout the night. By mid-morning of the next day the first of the investigations of the Jovian system began. This included launching hundreds of drones to approach and take observations of the planet, its rings, and the various moons.
Besides the several moons within the rings and the four large ones near but outside the rings, there were lots of smaller moons further away from Jupiter. There were over a hundred of those. The largest in size was Himalia at 110 miles in diameter and 7,000,000 miles from Jupiter. The smallest was Serengeti at two miles diameter and 17,000,000 miles from Jupiter.
Every night when Jane was presumably asleep she merged with Robot and then various drones. The superbeing thus produced was 60,000,000 wide and aware of all the space within HERself and the volume in toward the Sun and outward halfway to Saturn. This included the nearest Confederation sentinel.
SHE examined the orbiting robot for many thousands of milliseconds, coming to understand much of its workings. But not all. The technology of the Confed was aft
er all several thousand years old. It included some capabilities that SHE reluctantly classified as so close to magic as to make no difference.
The only part of HERself which SHE could not examine was Jupiter. It was a ball of nothing to HER several natural and esoteric senses. The only sensory input that showed something really was there were visuals coming from the several cameras trained on the planet or on something near the planet.
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Then one night about three months after the squadron's arrival at Jupiter space SHE felt in some way a person or persons looking at HER. The Robot part of HER detected no threat though JANE was not sure there was none. As multi-faceted paranoid as the protective robot was it was not omniscient.
WHO ARE YOU? came a voiceless voice.
MY NAME IS JANE. WHO ARE YOU?
Hundreds of milliseconds passed while the intelligence puzzled over what she had said and what it meant. It was if JANE had spoken in a language foreign to it.
Then a reply came. I/WE ARE THE SPEAKER/S FOR THE FLYERS OF THE OUTER SKY.
The Encyclopedia had images of several kinds of giant-planet floating intelligences. JANE sent a set which the Encyclopedia said was likely the closest to the Jovians, then asked if the images were like the speakers.
Several hundred milliseconds passed till an answer came.
THOSE ARE POOR IMAGES OF US BUT THEY ARE CLOSE ENOUGH. WHAT DO YOU DO HERE?
I/WE SEEK TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS PLANET AND ITS SURROUNDINGS.
Another long wait.
THAT IS PERMITTED. WE HAVE SEVERAL STRICTURES.
I/WE WILL ABIDE BY THEM. STATE THEM.
There were seven. All of them Jane would be sure to follow, especially STAY FAR AWAY from the Jovians flying in the upper atmosphere of the gas giant. And DO NOT LAND ON EUROPA.
When the "Speakers" were done JANE repeated HER intention to obey the restrictions on the investigators. At that the silent voice disappeared.
SHE felt joy swell in HER biological component's chest. SHE had actually spoken with a being or group of beings which was almost godlike in its intelligence! And as a peer although definitely not as an equal.
