Cold as Ice

by Charles Sheffield

  * * *

  It was two o'clock before Jon arrived at the studio building, exhausted but hungrier than he had been in months.

  That was no problem. No worries here about being late for dinner. He washed the smoke and grime from his face, inspected the seared palms of his hands, and went into the deserted canteen. He helped himself to sushi, plums, and bean curd, and took them to a table.

  He had to admit it. After years on the floating bases, the life-style of Arenas was a shock. He had thought at first that it was unique to the studios, but now he suspected that it was true everywhere: no set hours for meals, 'round-the-clock noise, and dress odd enough that everyone seemed to be in theatrical costume.

  Now that he thought about it, he realized that no one in Arenas had ever asked for his identification. And that was the least of it. Tonight he had limped home with torn and smoke-blackened clothing, seared black face and hands, and scorched hair, past hundreds of people. Every moment he had expected to be stopped and questioned. And no one had taken the slightest bit of notice. In this world, his disheveled appearance was still drab enough to excite no attention.

  He went back for a second helping of food. As he ate, nodding wearily over his plate, it occurred to him that there was a lesson here that he ought to be applying elsewhere. To be effective in Arenas, he had to operate differently. Studio-style. Nell Cotter style.

  Even at GOMS HQ?

  Hell, why not? He could not see that he had anything to lose.

  * * *

  He had been told to return to the GOMS Administrative Center at nine in the morning. He slept until ten, then visited the studio's costume department. The uniform he picked out was impressive in its suggestive but nonspecific authority. He added a short cloak and a stiff bell-shaped cap with a white peak, studied himself in the mirror, and cringed.

  It was the hat that did it. He looked like a military refugee from an overblown operatic production.

  He set off through the drizzly and near-deserted morning streets of Arenas and found that the few people whom he did pass took no notice of him. They looked blanched and weary in the pale light. Everyone was still recovering from the opening night of the Midsummer Festival.

  The guards at the GOMS Admin Center were in no better shape. They nodded as Jon marched past them with a quiet "Good morning." He reached the top floor and the office of the undersecretary and walked in without knocking.

  "I have an appointment. Is Posada here?" No title.

  "Is he expecting you?" The receptionist eyed the uniform uncertainly.

  "Yes." No explanation. Jon walked on past her toward the frosted glass door with the inset of ruby letters: MANUEL POSADA.

  "Your name?" asked the receptionist as he was opening the door.

  "Perry." He spoke haughtily over his shoulder as he went through. "You'll find me on the appointments list."

  The inner office was huge, skylighted, and filled with spiky potted plants. They formed an aisle that led to a conference table, beyond which was a monstrous desk of southern redwood. Behind the desk, and dwarfed by it, a short, black-haired man sat staring at a terminal and muttering under his breath. It was at least fifteen seconds before he swiveled the chair and scanned Jon from head to foot.

  "Yes?" The voice was unexpectedly deep and forceful.

  Jon looked at the wizened prune face and the cold, dark eyes and knew that the run was over. He was a junior research specialist in the office of an undersecretary. He removed his ridiculous hat and slipped off the cloak. "I'm Jon Perry. I was flown here from PacAnt Base Fourteen to see you."

  "Were you now? And do you usually dress like the head pimp of the Ruritanian Navy?"

  "No. Just to get in here."

  "Which you did. Guards, they're a damned waste of money. They don't do shit. You could have wandered in and shot me." Posada did not seem concerned. He nodded Jon to a chair and stood up. "Sit down. You were supposed to be here five days ago."

  "I was, sir. I couldn't get onto your schedule."

  "You're on it now. For ten minutes. Did anyone in PacAnt tell you why you're here?"

  "No, sir. They said they couldn't."

  "Craven bastards. Didn't want to sounds more like it. Let's get the bad news out of the way." Posada was facing away from Jon, pulling dead yellow leaves off the base of a spiny bush. "You don't have a research project anymore, Perry. Five days ago the funding for your PacAnt Fourteen submersible activities was zeroed out."

  He swung around. "I didn't initiate the action. It came from way up, above secretary level. I tell you that not because I'm passing the buck, but so you'll know it's a waste of time arguing the decision with me. But I'll answer questions."

  Questions. Jon had no questions, only shock and a bitter, deep anger. Zeroed out. Submersible activities canceled. The hydrothermal-vent program that had been his passion since he finished formal training was gone, cut off by the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen. No wonder he had been treated as a nonentity at GOMS headquarters.

  "You're using up your time." The deep voice broke into his trance. "Do you have questions?"

  "I thought I was doing a really good job."

  "That's not a question. You were, according to all reports." Posada waved to the terminal on his desk. "First-rate. Read your evaluations if you want to . . . but not on my time."

  "Are any other submersible projects being canceled?"

  "No."

  "So why me and my project?"

  For the first time, Posada's face carried a hint of sympathy. "If it makes you feel better, the decision was no criticism of you at all. Your project was a casualty of a dirty shore-politics squeeze. More questions?"

  "If my work is canceled, what happens to me?"

  "That's what I mean by politics. That's why I had you flown here. You've had the bad news. Now let's talk, and I'll tell you how you might come out of this as well off as before. Better, if you play it right. GOMS HQ has had a request concerning a Europan hydrothermal vent."

  "European?" The name summoned images of a blighted northern continent, where filter-masked bounty hunters tracked escaped teratomas across the dark ash.

  "Europan. The smallest of Jupiter's major satellites."

  "I know that."

  "Don't act insulted. A lot of PacAnt staff wouldn't know the moon from their own backside unless you put it a thousand meters down in the ocean. So you know that the sea on Europa has submarine hydrothermal vents, just like Earth's?"

  "Not like Earth's. A lot lower temperature."

  "Right. Any other differences?"

  "The Europan smokers are not very interesting, because they're lifeless. Like the whole Europan ocean."

  "Wrong. Not anymore. Or maybe not anymore. Did you ever hear of a Dr. Hilda Brandt?"

  "No."

  "Nor had I. But she's a big wheel in the Jovian system. Among other things, she's the director of Europan research activities. Six weeks ago she filed a restricted report with GOMS, announcing that life had possibly been discovered around a Europan hydrothermal vent. Native life." Posada cocked his dark head. "Do you believe that?"

  "I don't see why not." The technical question finally forced Jon's brain to begin working. "It would have a chemical energy base, probably sulfur, like the vents here on Earth. That close to Jupiter, there's plenty of electromagnetic and tidal energy to stir up the interior. The idea that there might be life on Europa has been around for over a century. But what does Brandt mean, possibly discovered?"

  "They don't possess the sophisticated water-submersibles that we have on Earth, so they've had to work with primitive divers and indirect evidence. Ever hear of Shelley Solbourne?"

  "Certainly." Jon wondered what was coming next. He remembered Shelley—only too well. Talented, hardworking, and super-ambitious, she had suffered the misfortune of being born beyond the north-equator margin. She had arrived in southern hemisphere civilization as a perennially discontented student, complaining that her birthplace had deprived her of the life to whic
h her talents entitled her. Ten years of job advancement and professional success ought to have worked the chip off her back. They never had. It had been two years since her volcanic outburst at Jon, but he would never forget it.

  All he had done was to point out to her that his start in life had been no better than hers. Nor had that of millions of other infants, growing up rootless, homeless, and parentless in the immediate postwar period. Southern hemisphere or northern, the number of kids who had had to find their own way to survival and education on a devastated Earth was uncountable. Jon's earliest memories happened to be of the southern hemisphere, which had not suffered "much" in the war (less than half of its population had been annihilated)—but he had no more idea than Shelley of where he was born, or when. If he had living relatives, he did not know who they were.

  He had been trying to give her reassurance, telling her that whatever she felt, there was a group of fellow sufferers who would give her support and sympathy. But she had taken it as an attack.

  "What are you telling me? That I have to live like a peasant and put up with shit like this"—she swung her arm around, to show the austere furnishings of PacAnt 14—"forever? Well, you can do that if you're fuck-face stupid enough. I deserve a better life. If you're ass enough to settle for a fish's existence, piddling around underwater for the next fifty years, then you can have it. You can have my share, too. All of it."

  "Clock's still running, Dr. Perry." Posada cut in on Jon's recollections.

  "Sorry. Yes, I know Shelley. Very well. She's on PacAnt Nine, up toward the Galapagos Islands."

  "Was, Dr. Perry. She was on PacAnt Nine. She quit a year ago and headed out for the Jovian system. She's the one who came up with evidence of Europan life."

  "Then it has to be taken seriously. Shelley Solbourne did the genome mapping for a dozen different hydrothermal life forms. She was one of PacAnt Nine's absolutely top people."

  "It is taken seriously. That's the reason Dr. Brandt contacted GOMS HQ. She's requesting the use of one of our deep submersibles to explore one particular Europan vent and confirm by direct observation that native life forms are present there."

  "The Spindrift?" Light was dawning in Jon's head.

  "You got it. And there's more. Brandt requested a submersible, and the decision was made—made higher up than me, as I said—to loan her the Spindrift. But the Europan science staff has no experience with manned deep-ocean exploration. So Brandt requested a Terran operator, too." Posada sat down opposite Jon, and he was actually smiling. "A first-rate operator, one who knows all about hydrothermal-vent life forms. And one who happens to be available right now."

  "Why not Shelley Solbourne? She's already there."

  "Not anymore. She did well for herself and came back to Earth a wealthy woman a few months ago. She bought a big villa in Dunedin, and she says she has no interest in leaving Earth again. So she's out. And I'm afraid you're in. Your name has already been mentioned and your credentials approved by Hilda Brandt. See what I mean about dirty political squeeze plays?"

  * * *

  Nell Cotter was still over at Stanley, impossible to reach. Jon desperately wanted her advice. He could have called one of his colleagues back on the PacAnt floating base, but they were as innocent of this sort of thing as he was. They lacked Nell's nerve and shore smarts.

  He kept trying. It took over twenty-four hours, and when he finally contacted her, it was early afternoon. She was formally dressed and at some sort of party. He could see bright-clad people in the background and hear dance music.

  She listened to his story in silence. At the end, when he said that he rather liked Undersecretary Posada, she shook her head.

  "Poison, sweetie, pure poison. Don't believe him for a second when he tells you orders are coming from higher up and he can't do a thing about 'em. Posada runs GOMS. He keeps the whole organization, top to bottom, inside his head. Did he know exactly who you were when you walked in unannounced? Thought so. The secretary—the guy above Posada—is just an Inner Circle figurehead, doesn't know oceans from motions." She studied Jon's blistered face. "Mind telling me how you got burned? You must have found a way of celebrating Midsummer Festival that's new to me." And then, when he had given her a terse description of the runaway float, "So you were the hero! Everyone in Arenas went mad trying to find you—'specially our people. In video, you just can't do Hamlet without the prince. Don't worry, I won't tell. And anyway, it's yesterday's news."

  "But what should I do—about Posada's proposition?"

  "My dear, that isn't a proposition. It's rape. You do what anyone does when being raped. You relax—just long enough for him to think he has you. Then you kick his balls off. Anyway, you really want to go. I can tell you do by the look on your face. You want to wander around that damned Europan ocean. So what do you have to lose? You should go back right now and tell Posada you'll take the job."

  "And how do I kick his balls off? He wants me to leave Earth and head for Ganymede in just three days."

  "We'll work on that when I get back. I'll be in Arenas tomorrow morning. But I have to run now. You go tell Posada the good news."

  Nell cut the connection and walked thoughtfully back to her table. Glyn Sefaris had arrived in her absence, barely too late for the reception. He had taken the place next to hers.

  "Trouble?" He was snub-nosed and boyish, with a close-cut cap of hair and a puckish face and manner. You had to look closely to see the fine wrinkles on the apple cheeks.

  "Not for me." She smiled at him in a superior way. "What would you say if I told you that I know who stopped the rogue float the night before last?"

  "I'd say, 'Well, fuck it, you're a day too late. No news value now.' Do you know?"

  "I do. It was Jon Perry. You worked with his footage on the underwater-vent sequence." She was sipping dark beer, watching him closely. "Remember?"

  "I do indeed. Enjoyed his shots. Pretty boy. Wouldn't mind a little of that myself."

  "How did his show go?"

  "Your show, dearie. Extremely well. Of course, I had to work it over a bit. Cut out a lot of the talky crap about chemosynthesis and photosynthesis, splice in some older material showing horrible-looking wriggly worms, add shots of the pressure gauges running up past maximum. Nice drama. Lucky touch, running into that undersea eruption."

  "If you want to call it luck."

  "I do. In fact, from a dramatic point of view, there was only one thing wrong with it." He was smiling seraphically. "If only the Spindrift's hull had collapsed under the force of the pressure wave and the video recording had had to be recovered from the bottom of the sea . . ."

  "Get screwed, Glyn."

  "I should be so lucky."

  "But the show's ratings were good?"

  "Better than good." He glanced at her warily. "All right, Nell. What's the pitch?"

  "How would you like to send your highest-rating star reporter on another assignment?"

  "News value?"

  "I'd bet on it. But don't ask me what it is, because I don't know yet. I'd have to be away for a while, and it would cost."

  "Numbers, dearie. I'm not Croesus. I need numbers. How long, and why would it cost?"

  "Weeks at least, probably more. I'd be going all the way out to the Jovian system. To Ganymede and Europa, maybe other places." She held up her hand. "I know. But don't cancel the play before you see the script. Let me talk for a minute."

  She talked for much longer than that, while Glyn Sefaris maintained a surprising silence. When she finished, he held that silence for another thirty seconds, pursing his lips and drumming his fingers on the table.

  "Jon Perry again," he said at last. "Let's get one detail out of the way. Are you screwing him?"

  "No."

  "Not yet, you mean. Better not wait too long—others are standing in line."

  "I have no intention of seducing Jon Perry, or of being seduced by him." (Below table level, Nell crossed her fingers.)

  "But you're certainly interested
in him."

  "Glyn, you don't understand. Perry is a man whom things happen to, and he comes through them without blinking. Back in PacAnt, he's called the Ice Man. I didn't understand why until we hit the seaquake. Then he wasn't scared—he enjoyed it. And look at what happened in the Arenas festival. He saw what was happening to that float when no one else did, saved it, and walked away as calm as you please. You admit that he looks good, and I think he has news value. Can't you see this making an exciting show, wandering the wilds of the Jupiter system?"

  "Don't press too hard, darling. It puts horrid frown lines on that lovely face."

  "But what do you say?"

  "I say you're a first-rate reporter. You're pushy when you're after a story, but not so pushy that you turn people off. And you have one great gift that can't be taught and that you did nothing to earn—you have a nose for action. You're a person that things 'happen to,' just like Perry."

  "So you agree I should—"

  "But"—he held up his hand to cut her off in mid-sentence—"you have one weakness. You like to tuck poor helpless males under your mother wing and protect them."

  "Jon Perry is as far from being a poor helpless male as you can get."

  "That's what you say. Every time. Remember Roballo?"

  "The only thing I did with Pablo Roballo—"

  "The only thing you didn't do with him—but let's not get into sordid detail. Just don't fall like that again. It's not good for you. If you go with Perry, watch those wild, runaway hormones. When will you leave?"

  Nell, her mouth already open to continue the argument, changed direction. "You mean you approve?"

  "When could I ever deny you anything? I said, when will you leave?"

  "In three days."

  "Then I'd better start the paperwork now." He stood up, glancing around the dining room. The place was empty except for a few other couples, deep in their own business discussions.

  "By the way." Sefaris turned back to Nell. "One other thing. Remember when you came here after you covered the Inner Circle's dinner for Cyrus Mobarak, and you asked me to put somebody onto finding out about a big new project that he'd mentioned? Well, it took a little while, but I got feedback this afternoon. It's real, and it might have big story potential. It's for huge fusion installations—no surprise there. But if he gets approval, they won't be for use on Earth. They'll be placed out on Europa. How about that?"