Jupiter gt-10

by Ben Bova

  He stood trembling before his console, trying to regain control of himself, battling to keep the enormously seductive power of this illusion from deceiving him. It’s an electronic mirage, he told himself. You are nothing more than a man who is linked electronically to the machinery of this ship. Control yourself.

  Still, he trembled.

  Is this what wrecked the first mission? Grant asked himself. Is this linkage so overwhelming that someone ran amok with the ship’s systems? He had touched a place in his own mind where he had wanted to run wild with the plasma thrusters, tear away all restraints, push full throttle just for the sheer joy of power. Yes, he realized now. And if I’d done that, I would have killed us all.

  Still he trembled, but now it was with the understanding of the enormous dangers that dwelled within his own mind, his own soul. It’s the age-old war, he realized, the never-ending struggle between responsibility and pleasure, between good and evil. This ship is simply a new battlefield in that eternal war. As long as we’re human, the war goes on.

  But for an instant, Grant knew, he had been more than human. He still was. He still felt the pulsing power of the ship’s generator and plasma thrusters, they were still a part of him.

  I am the ship.

  Power requkes responsibility, he told himself. Extreme power requkes extreme care.

  BOOK IV

  Why dost Thou stand afar off, O Lord?

  Why dost Thou hide Thyself in times of trouble?

  —Psalm

  INTO THE CLOUDS

  “Disconnect,” Krebs ordered.

  Grant hovered uncertainly in the viscous perfluorocarbon atmosphere of the bridge, his feet anchored in the floor straps, his arms floating chest high, his mind battling against the seductions of power.

  “Disconnect!” Krebs insisted. “Now!”

  The flight plan was for them to orbit Jupiter at least twice, long enough to make certain that all the ship’s systems were indeed functioning properly. Only then would Krebs give the order to descend into the clouds.

  Grant turned off the linkage with all the reluctance of an addict withdrawing from his drugs. He was alone again, separate, nothing more than a blob of protoplasm inside a shell of flesh.

  “How do you feel?” Muzorawa asked as he slipped his feet free of the floor loops and bobbed gently in the viscous liquid.

  “A little shaky,” Grant admitted.

  Karlstad floated up to them. “I don’t see why we have to orbit around the damned planet like this. Why don’t we stay linked and get on with the job?”

  “You must rest,” Krebs answered from over their shoulders. “Eat. Take a nap. Staying linked with the ship for too long is not good.”

  O’Hara, still at her comm console, said, “Captain, Dr. Wo wants to speak to you on the private channel.”

  Krebs nodded and slipped a headset over her bald pate.

  “When does she sleep?” Karlstad whispered.

  Muzorawa nodded. “I don’t think she’s disconnected herself since we first linked up.”

  Grant shrugged and headed for the food dispensers. He felt jumpy inside, weary yet keyed up. Maybe a nap is what I need.

  It still made him squeamish to plug the feeding tube into the socket in his neck, but Grant did it. When the counter on the dispenser’s metal face clunked and the flow of liquid shut off, he pulled the tube free with a shuddering grimace.

  “What’s the matter, doesn’t it taste delicious?” Karlstad jibed.

  Grant headed for his berth without answering, leaving the three others huddled at the dispenser.

  Knowing that he’d have to be awake and alert in a few hours, Grant could not sleep. He kept thinking about the thrill of power he’d felt when linked to the ship. Will it get easier as we go on, he wondered, or will it become more seductive, more corrupting? God, help us! he prayed. Give us the strength to resist temptation.

  He thought about composing a message for Marjorie, even though he wouldn’t be able to send it until they returned from this mission. If we return, he found himself thinking. Then he heard the other three come into the catacombs, talking quietly, grumbling really, and finally slipping into their own berths.

  Grant gave them enough time to fall asleep, then crawled out of his bunk as quietly as he could and swiftly stripped off his tights and pulled a fresh pair from the storage bin in the common area. Wide awake, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to sleep, he slid the screen open and floated into the bridge.

  Krebs was sleeping, bobbing gently up near the overhead, eyes closed, a soft burbling noise that might have been a snore in normal air emanating from her half-open mouth. And she was still connected to the ship. Grant saw that the wires from the overhead compartment were still firmly linked to the electrodes in her chunky, hairless legs.

  She sleeps connected, Grant said to himself, wondering what that must be like. Then he wondered if that was a good thing. Is she addicted to it? He asked himself. Is that the joy she gets out of life?

  One by one Muzorawa, Karlstad, and O’Hara returned to the bridge, almost like sleepwalkers, and took their stations at their consoles. Krebs still snored gently, bobbing up near the overhead. Grant slipped his feet into the floor loops and saw that his console was showing all systems normal. Nothing but green lights. He ran a finger across the console’s central touchscreen to check the subsystems. He frowned, slightly nettled at the cumbersomeness of the manual procedure. If we were linked I could feel all the systems, I’d know how they’re doing with my eyes closed.

  But they would not engage the linkage unless Krebs gave the command, and she was still asleep, floating behind the four of them.

  “Well, at least we knows she sleeps,” Karlstad stagewhispered.

  “That’s good,” O’Hara whispered back. “Everyone needs to sleep sometime.”

  “You are eager to work.” Krebs’s cold, hard voice slashed at them. “Good.”

  Karlstad rolled his eyes toward heaven.

  “Connect your linkages,” Krebs commanded.

  Grant linked up smoothly this time, actually finishing before Karlstad. He felt a glow of anticipation warming him, saw that O’Hara looked the same way.

  “Engage linkage,” said Krebs.

  Again Grant felt the power of the fusion generator surging through him, felt the music of electrical currents racing through every section of the ship. The thrusters, he begged silently. Ignite the thrusters.

  Instead, Krebs patiently checked through the navigation system, waiting to reach the precise point in their orbit around Jupiter’s massive bulk where they were to insert the ship into its deorbit burn and plunge toward the hurtling, multihued Jovian clouds.

  “Approaching the keyhole,” Muzorawa called out.

  Without asking permission, Grant closed his eyes and linked momentarily to Zeb’s sensors and saw what they were showing: the racing multihued clouds of Jupiter, streaming madly as the planet’s tremendous spin whirled them into long ribbons of ocher, pale blue, and russet brown. Lightning flickered through the clouds, crackles of vast electrical energy. He felt the heat radiating up from those clouds, he heard the eternal wailing of winds that dwarfed the wildest hurricanes of Earth.

  And he realized that there was a storm, a vast swirling whirlpool of dazzling white clouds, screaming its fury in the area where they had expected to make their entry into the cloud deck.

  “The entry area’s covered with a cyclonic system,” Muzorawa said tightly.

  Grant opened his eyes. Zeb’s face was set in an expressionless mask. Turning, he saw that O’Hara and Karlstad both looked concerned.

  Krebs made a sound that might have been a grunt. Or a suppressed growl. “Very well. We’ll go on to the alternate injection point.”

  Grant glanced up at the main wallscreen display. It showed their orbital path against the swirling clouds. The alternate entry position was a quarter-orbit away. Closer to the Red Spot, Grant saw. Not close enough to be dangerous, he knew. Still, getting closer to that
titanic storm was unsettling.

  No one spoke for the forty-nine minutes it took to reach the alternate insertion point. Grant occupied himself by concentrating on the fusion generator; it was like standing by a warming, crackling fireplace on a cold winter’s day. Soon we’ll be in the clouds, he told himself. And then the ocean. That’s when we’ll see how accurate my mapping of the currents has been.

  “Automated countdown,” Krebs called out at last.

  Grant unconsciously licked his lips as the countdown timer began clicking off the seconds. For the first time since their immersion, Grant consciously thought about the taste in his mouth. It was odd, not unpleasant, but the perfluorocarbon liquid was unlike anything his taste buds had encountered in the past. He had no memory references for it, down at the cellular level where instinct lived.

  “Retro burn in ten seconds,” the computer’s synthesized voice called out. Despite himself, Grant trembled inwardly with the anticipation of the thrusters’ power.

  The thrusters blazed to life. Grant felt their strength surging through him like a tidal wave smashing down seawalls, trees, buildings, leveling hills, tearing away everything in its path. He gritted his teeth, fighting with every atom of his willpower against giving way to it. He was strong! So powerful that he could tear the ship apart with his bare hands. Eyes squeezed shut, he could see the blazing plasma hurtling from the thrusters, feel the energy streaming from the fusion generator as if it were his own arms, his own muscles driving the ship deep into the clouds of Jupiter, down into the unknown, beyond the reach of help or the understanding of the pitiful frail twolegged apes clinging to their cockleshell station in orbit around Jupiter.

  Outside, wind began to howl and shriek, as if protesting their entry into the atmosphere. Grant laughed inwardly. Come on, do your damnedest! he challenged Jupiter. The power of the ship’s thrusters was his own might, his own body standing against the fury of this alien world’s resistance. The ship staggered and bucked but it kept on its course, driving steadily deeper into the wild tangle of clouds. Grant felt like a pitiless conqueror forcing himself into a violently struggling woman. He was raping Jupiter, and no matter how the planet resisted he was too powerful, too ruthless, too driven to show mercy or restraint.

  Abruptly the thrusters shut off. Grant felt it like a blow to his groin. He gasped, almost retched. For an endless moment he stood swaying in his foot straps, arms floating before him, hands clenched into fists. He was aghast at his own thoughts, his own emotions. Guilt, shame, terror at the primitive savagery buried within him racked his soul. He could hear the wind shrieking louder as the ship’s furious, howling plunge through the deep Jovian atmosphere continued. He could feel the ship’s outer skin glowing with the white heat of friction.

  They were falling through the deep atmosphere now, dragged down by Jupiter’s powerful gravity, no longer conquerors but humble servants obedient to the planet’s massive pull.

  Forcing his eyes open, Grant looked across at the screens of Muzorawa’s sensor console and saw that they were plunging through a maelstrom of swirling clouds. Zeb himself stood transfixed before the screens, eyes staring, fists clenched at his sides, body rigid.

  Tentatively, furtively, without orders, he again linked with Zeb’s sensors and suddenly felt the blazing heat of their hypersonic entry into those thick, turbulent clouds. The ship was shuddering now, bucking like a pumpkinseed in a hurricane as it plunged deeper into the Jovian atmosphere, turning the tortured clouds around it into white-hot plasma, a howling, shrieking sheath of burning gases surrounding them, trailing back in their wake like the long glowing tail of a falling star.

  Grant wanted to shout defiance at the burning gases that sheathed the ship. You can’t hurt us! he snarled silently. You can’t do anything except what we want you to do, he told the giant planet. We’re using you, using your thick blanket of atmosphere to slow us down enough to enter your sea and learn your secrets.

  Jupiter thought otherwise. The ship lurched, plunged, slewed sidewise as a tremendous jet stream buffeted it. Grant swayed, tottered, his stomach going hollow within him. He would have sailed across the bridge if he hadn’t been anchored by the floor loops. As it was, he had to brace his hands against the console to prevent himself from being slammed into it.

  The ship slowed. Grant recovered his balance, glanced around, and saw that no one had noticed his near frenzy. Or if they had, they paid no attention to it. Zeb, Lane, Egon—all locked in their own private universes, all feeling, hearing, seeing, even tasting the sensations from the ship’s sensors and systems. Grant had tasted raw, primal power, and now he felt empty in its absence, deprived, sullenly angry. And afraid.

  “Approaching the bottom of the cloud deck.” Krebs’s voice sounded alien, distant, a disturbance in Grant’s universe of power and strength, like an alarm clock’s buzzing interference in a warm, exciting dream.

  The thrill of the thrusters’ surge was gone, but the fusion generator still sang its beguiling song of power, whispering to Grant of universes beyond the beyond, worlds to discover and conquer.

  “Look at that!”

  Grant could not tell who said it, but the words stirred him out of his nearly hypnotic trance.

  “Put it on the main screen.” That was Krebs’s voice, definitely. Even in the eerie distortions of this liquid gunk in which they lived, her thick harsh tone was unmistakable.

  The wallscreen above their consoles showed a wild cloudscape, as far as the scanners could see, a vast panorama of billowing clouds scudding along on powerful streams of wind that tattered and shredded them even as the alien invaders from Earth watched, wide-eyed. Clouds boiled up from far below, only to have their tops sheared off by the furious wind. High above it all, the sky was covered with its eternal cloak of colorful clouds, stretched across the world like a blanket, the colors of its underside strangely muted, pastel.

  The hydrogen-helium atmosphere was as transparent as … Grant almost giggled as he realized it was as transparent as air. It was thickly dotted with those fat billowing clouds scudding madly along, almost like fluffy cumulus of a tropical sky on Earth.

  Far below was nothing but haze. Grant remembered that Jupiter’s atmosphere gradually thickened until it became liquid, with no clear demarkation between air and sea. Somewhere down there the inexorable pressure thickened the atmosphere until it liquefied into a world-girdling ocean, its water corrosively acidic, heavily laced with ammonia and exotic compounds.

  Not like Earth, Grant said to himself. Not at all like Earth, where the oceans fill basins in the rocky crust and the gravity’s too light to squeeze the air into liquid. Not like Mars or Venus or even the Galilean moons, not like any of those balls of rock or ice. This is an alien world, different, totally different from anything we’ve ever seen before.

  Zheng He was shuddering now, bucking in the jetstream winds. Grant pictured the ship as a tiny sliver of a discus being tossed and tumbled by the ferocious currents of wind streaking across the face of Jupiter’s all-encompassing ocean.

  “Long-range sensors,” Krebs ordered.

  The wallscreen view abruptly shifted. Far off on the distant horizon Grant saw a dark, ominous tower of clouds flickering with lightning bolts, climbing like a wrathful giant out of the ocean and rising to the cloud deck high above.

  “That’s the Great Red Spot,” said Karlstad, his voice hollow with awe.

  Krebs ordered, “Thrusters on. Minimum cruise power.”

  The ship had been coasting since they had entered the clouds, using Jupiter’s thick atmosphere to slow them from orbital speed, turning velocity into heat as they rode through the thick cloud deck and down into the clear hydrogen-helium atmosphere, gliding across the skies of Jupiter.

  “Thrusters on, I said!” Krebs growled.

  Grant blinked and activated the thrusters with a thought. For good measure he pressed a fingertip against the touchpad on his console.

  This is dangerous, he realized, an awful lot of temptation t
o put into the hands of mortals. Feeling the surge of power building within his own senses, Grant told himself, I can control the engines with a thought. I can destroy us all with a foolish impulse.

  DEFIANCE

  Deeper and deeper into the Jovian atmosphere they plunged, farther into the all-encompassing haze that gradually thickened into the global sea.

  Still feeling the thrumming power of the ship’s generator, the muted thunder of the thrusters, Grant strained his eyes to pierce through the darkening haze that the wallscreen showed. There was nothing to see; not even the infrared sensors detected anything in the fog, yet still Grant stared hard at the screen. Partly he focused his attention there because it helped to keep him from falling completely under the hypnotic spell of the enhanced sensory systems in his implanted biochips. Like his father’s advice about impure thoughts, when he’d been a preteen first awakening to the seductions of the body: “Think about something else, son. Don’t dwell on the temptation.”

  Grant stared into the emptiness and tried to ignore the deep, unbidden, relentless urge to power up the thrusters and dive the ship straight down into the ocean that waited for them deep below.

  Where are the Jovian life-forms? he asked himself. Where are the medusas and those soarbirds that the probes found? And the algal colonies that float in the clouds? The sky here looks empty, barren.

  He realized that none of the others had spoken more than a few words since they’d linked with the ship’s systems. It’s working on them, too, Grant told himself. They’re just as absorbed by this electronic seduction as I am. Just because they’ve had more experience with it doesn’t mean it’s any easier for them to handle it.