Cold as Ice

by Charles Sheffield

  "I need you, Dr. Hamilton. You will be without a job here in a few days, so the timing couldn't be better. There's nothing that would make me happier than for you to come with me to Europa. David, too—that goes without saying—if he'd agree." Mobarak shot an oddly pleading look at Lammerman, and Camille had a sudden insight that the relationship between the two men was nothing like as simple as it seemed. Was she no more than the bait to catch David?

  "I'd love to have you," he went on. "Both of you. And think of the opportunity, of what you'll be able to tell your children and grandchildren." He smiled, and the old, golden Mobarak was back full force. "How many people in the history of humanity can say they made a whole new world?"

  8

  The Galileian Suite

  The high-acceleration drive had been a direct result of the Great War, a classical spin-off of weapons development. Many scholars argued that if the high-gee drive had been available before the war began, the biggest-ever trauma of the human species might have been avoided.

  Their logic was simple and plausible: Prewar travel from Earth to the Outer System had been painfully slow. A trip to the Belt or to Jupiter, even with the best of gravity swing-bys to assist the low-thrust ion engines, had taken years. Tourist travel was quite unthinkable. The worlds of the solar system were far apart physically, and so they had grown far apart culturally and socially.

  But postwar travel, even with the high-thrust drive restricted to one gee for reasons of economy, had collapsed the scale of the solar system. With continuous acceleration, travel times grow only as the square root of distance. A trip from Earth to the Belt is not much longer than a trip to Mars. Jupiter is a week away, Saturn hardly more, even distant Neptune a fraction over two weeks. A unified system is again possible.

  If such unity had been feasible before the war, said the students of technology's effects on history . . .

  But perhaps they were indulging in no more than wishful thinking. For with travel made easy, psychological distance defined the new metric of the solar system. Local surroundings, local calendars, local day length—they all meant far more than absolute location. Easy travel might bridge the physical gap, but local environments guaranteed a steadily increasing social separation. And at the most basic level, the habitable worlds were just too different from each other.

  * * *

  Jon Perry and Nell Cotter had directly experienced the wide gap between worlds—psychological, social, and environmental—while arrowing from Earth to Ganymede in an interplanetary transit vehicle. The ITV was built for efficiency, not for comfort. It had no observation ports. The two passengers had embarked in Earth geosynchronous orbit, where Sol was a fiery white ball. Less than a week later they left the sealed box of the ITV for the surface of Ganymede, to find the sun dwindled to a fifth of its usual diameter, the tiny blazing disk insignificant. In Sol's place, the broad sprawling face of Jupiter, fifteen hundred times as big, hovered motionless above their suited bodies.

  Nell had mixed feelings when they disembarked. She had needed to get out of the ship, because she had been going crazy, boxed for seven days into a three-meter space with no way of escaping. It was all very well for Glyn Sefaris to make cracks before she left about an "interplanetary love cruise" for her and Jon Perry. A great idea, and Jon had shown signs in the final hectic day on Earth that he was ready for it as soon as they had a moment's spare time. But fat chance! Not with a bored ship's captain, flying a simple ITV trajectory that was hardly more than a straight line joining planetary destination, and hanging around her so close she could count his nose hairs. The ship had no privacy of any kind!

  The Spindrift had traveled with them. The submersible, which from the inside had seemed so small, now bulked huge. It had preempted most of the usual living space, and Jon's repeated advice to her—"Relax, we'll soon be there"—had made things worse. He was used to living in such a squeeze, and the ITV actually had a lot more space inside than any submersible. But Nell needed air, and space, and the breeze on her face.

  Which unfortunately she was not going to get, not for quite a while. She stared around at the rugged surface of Ganymede as she was decanted from the ITV, then spoke into her subvocal recorder. Well, my mistake. I was told "rock and cold and ice," and I said, "Right—just like Antarctica." But my brain betrayed me. This is a lot starker, a lot less benign. No rain or snow to eat away at inclines, no atmosphere to blur and soften edges. I can see ice all right, lots of it. But some of it isn't water-ice. It's frozen carbon dioxide and ammonia, bound to a solid form by cold beyond anything that Antarctica experiences, even in the deepest of bleak July midwinters, I'm feeling peculiar, too. Ready to float up, up, and away. Gravity here must be even less than on the moon.

  And there was other strangeness. Over to the left, gleaming at the foreshortened horizon in the eerie half-twilight, there was a great gash in the surface. It was the scar left by a stony meteorite, hitting Ganymede at close to grazing incidence. Logic told Nell that it had happened long, long ago, maybe a billion years in the past. But the outline of the furrow was so crisp, so sharp, that it looked as though it was new-formed this morning.

  And maybe another one just like it could arrive right now.

  Nell scanned the sky with her video camera. Another body was visible up there, moving to transit the ruddy face of Jupiter. Europa, it must be. That's where we're going—or at hast Jon is. I still have to find a way to get myself there with him. And it looks big, much bigger than I expected. As big as the moon from Earth.

  Europa, like Jupiter, was at half phase. It was hard to believe that the fiery spark of Sol, way off to Nell's left, could throw enough light to illuminate the whole of the planet looming over her head. She zoomed in on the frosty half-moon image of Europa and suddenly noticed the blinking light on the side of her camera. The smart circuits inside it were warning her that something was interfering with their delicate electronics. It took a few moments more for Nell to realize what the interference must be. A hail of invisible but deadly particles was whipping at her and being diverted by her suit, but the camera had no protection. Those high-speed protons were searing its inside circuits, and it had not been designed for use under such conditions.

  Nell worried that the camera might be destroyed. Then she had a much worse thought. The particles are just millimeters away from my skin, held off by the suit's field. But suppose the suit failed? I wouldn't know it, not until I was fried and it was too late to do anything about it.

  The people around her obviously shared none of her concerns. Over the suit's communications unit, itself an oddly modified design to permit signals to enter and leave while keeping out marauding high-energy protons, she could hear the unconcerned banter of the surface crew as they unloaded the Spindrift and moved the ITV beneath a protective cowl. They were swapping insults, in no hurry to run below to the safety of Ganymede's interior. Except for the skintight suits and the bizarre surroundings, they could have been a dockside team casually unloading cargo in Arenas.

  Jon Perry was not speaking to anyone. Nell knew why. I have him pegged now. He's the perfect Ice Man only when it's external danger that's involved. When it's internal worries or dealing with people, he's no calmer than I am. Less calm. He's worrying about how he'll impress Hilda Brandt.

  "Come on," said a stranger's voice in Nell's ear. The ITV was safe under cover, and the new arrivals were finally being addressed directly. Half a dozen Ganymede surface workers had moved the Spindrift, and now they led Nell and Jon in the same direction. Nell found herself staring at a great shaft in the surface, a near-vertical tunnel that had started life as another meteorite-impact crater. It held a gigantic elevator and formed one of the many entry points to the endless kilometers of Ganymede's internal caverns. A car stood waiting at the top, the Spindrift already positioned within it.

  Nell followed Jon inside the car and soon heard a thrum of pulsed magnetic fields. The vehicle slid into downward motion, slow-moving and in tune with the low accelerations o
f Ganymede's gravity.

  Two workers were traveling down with them; the rest had stayed behind to tackle another job on the surface. Nell and Jon followed their guides' example, removing their surface suits in the elevator as soon as the inflowing warm air reached its normal interior pressure. No one spoke. Nell did not feel like using her subvocal recorder, though she did record pictures of the Spindrift and of their descent. Her camera seemed to have survived the murderous particle flux at the surface. She would know for sure when she reviewed the images.

  They reached destination level and stepped out. And at last, for the first time in a week, Nell felt comfortable. Except for the absence of windows and the unnaturally low gravity, she could have been in the basement level of a building in Stanley or Dunedin. In her mind she had continued the barren waste of Ganymede's surface down into the interior, expecting something bleak, gloomy, and forbidding. What she saw was a bright-lit room whose walls flamed with color and life. And there were plants everywhere, from familiar forms seen blooming anywhere on the streets of Arenas to alien exotics, whose long, arching stems could have developed only on a world where gravity offered no more than a weak restraint to form.

  The travelers were expected—or at least Jon was. He was scarcely out of the elevator before a woman was stepping forward to greet him.

  "Dr. Jon Perry? Welcome to Ganymede. I am Hilda Brandt."

  Nell, ignored, automatically pointed her camera and added her subvocal capsule description. Dr. Hilda Brandt. Not at all what I was expecting. She's pretty old. Close to seventy, for a guess. Brown hair, bright brown eyes, very dark complexion. Dumpy build, dressed for comfort, not for style. Looks easygoing and—what's the word I want?—motherly. Hard to see her as the top scientist for Europa, or as any sort of scientist at all. But that's just me showing my prejudices. Scientists are supposed to be intense, and serious, and focused. How come they never are?

  Jon had stepped back into the elevator and was showing Hilda Brandt the main features of the newly arrived submersible. His manner remained stiff and formal. Nell, standing apart, studied both of them. There was something odd about the way they were positioned, but it took a few moments before she caught it.

  Jon Perry had brought from Earth the superior submarine that Dr. Brandt had requested. The Jovian system had sophisticated submersibles for exploring the atmosphere of Jupiter, but nothing specially designed for water. Hilda Brandt ought to be interested in knowing exactly what the Spindrift would do. Yet she was facing Perry, and all of her attention seemed to be on him. She didn't even glance at the Spindrift. Not once.

  And her expression was . . . what?

  Nell puzzled over it. Friendly? That certainly. Possessive? Closer. As though she's ready to eat Jon up. Acquisitive. That's better yet, as though she can hardly bear to keep her hands off him. My God, I bet that's it! She wants to grab him. Dirty old woman! But I feel the same way about him myself, and I hope I'll still feel it when I'm her age. (Edit! And back to business!)

  Hilda Brandt was shaking her head firmly. Nell forced her attention to what the woman was saying.

  "A very delicate environment, perhaps the most delicate of any body in the solar system. Certainly, we want you to explore the Europan seabed. After all, that's why you came out from Earth. But the movements of the submersible must take place under tight control. No random wandering through the Europan ocean." She smiled. Her brown eyes sparkled, and she put her hand on Jon's forearm. "I'm sorry to have to say that, because if you're anything like the scientists who work for me, wandering off the beaten track is the thing you most enjoy. But my job is to protect Europa."

  She kept her hand on Jon's arm and began moving away from the Spindrift, slowly, yet firmly enough to leave no doubt in anyone's mind that she was not going to spend more time in looking at the submersible. And whatever she was doing to Jon, it was working. Judging by the complacent expression on his face, he was completely sold. On the way down in the elevator, he had not been able to relax, but Nell could tell that he was relaxed now. After less than five minutes' exposure to Hilda Brandt, he was totally at ease with her.

  Maybe Dr. Brandt can teach me a trick or two. But hey, how do I finagle my way to Europa? Jon, you thoughtless swine, you didn't even bother to introduce me.

  Hilda Brandt had already left the entrance chamber and was leading Jon along a horizontal corridor that seemed to stretch away forever. Nell moved quietly up behind them and poked Jon in the back. He turned, and got the message. He motioned Nell forward to walk by his side.

  "Dr. Brandt, this is Nell Cotter. She came with me from Earth. She has accompanied me on my most recent descents in the Spindrift."

  It was a good way to put it, even if "descents" stretched singular to plural. But Hilda Brandt didn't buy it.

  "Accompanied you as a scientist?" she said at once. The brown eyes scanned Nell's clothes and figure, and when they reached her face, they seemed more shrewd than kindly. Nell began to revise her ideas about the woman.

  "As a . . . recorder," Jon began, and was saved more explanation by another voice from a door on their left.

  "Hilda? Got a minute?"

  A tall, thin man in his early thirties bobbed out into the corridor. His eyes were as bright as Hilda Brandt's, but he lacked her easy manner. He didn't just look at Nell and Jon—he stared at them with open curiosity, then turned expectantly to Brandt. "Dr. Jon Perry," she said at once. "And Nell Cotter."

  She had caught and remembered Nell's name on first hearing. Hilda Brandt's sharpness went up another notch in Nell's evaluation.

  "They arrived from Earth just a few minutes ago." Brandt turned to Jon and Nell. "Let me introduce Tristan Morgan, of Project Starseed."

  "And of Ganymede," said Morgan. "Born here, but lived mostly somewhere else. Dr. Brandt and I are old friends and allies. Do you know about Starseed?" He had the subject-switching, hyperkinetic manner of someone who would not be able to sit still for more than a couple of minutes.

  "Whether they do or not, Tristan," said Hilda Brandt firmly, "you're not going to talk about it now." She turned back to Jon and Nell. "Tristan is ready at all times to tell anyone, willing or otherwise, more than they ever wanted to know about Project Starseed."

  "The unmanned interstellar probe?" asked Nell. "With the helium-3/deuterium fusion drive? I can't understand why you don't just use a Moby." She was rewarded with a surprised and appreciative stare from Hilda Brandt. No need to explain that Nell had edited hours of documentary footage about Starseed, unwillingly, as one of her first assignments for Glyn Sefaris.

  "Don't encourage him." Brandt laughed. "Otherwise we'll never get away. What do you want from me now, Tristan? You asked if I had a minute, and that's about what I do have."

  Tristan Morgan gave her a look of wounded innocence. "I was going to do you a big favor. You know that Wilsa Sheer's in the Jovian system? Well, I took her to Hebe Station, then down for a remote cruise through the Jupiter atmosphere. Drove her agent wild when he found out, but she loved it. And she's doing me a favor in return. Tonight at seven-fifty she's giving the system's first performance of her new commissioned work, The Galileian Suite—and she's arranged for me to get free tickets. Three of 'em. I'm offering you one!"

  Without thinking, Nell had turned on her camera. He was an oddly intense young man, and words came squirting out of Tristan Morgan as though his inside was at ten atmospheres' pressure. Wilsa Sheer? The name was vaguely familiar to Nell, but as just that—a name. She had seen it somewhere on a news clip.

  Hilda Brandt was shaking her head. "I'd like to, Tristan, really I would. But I'm on a tight timetable to get back to Europa, and I came here only long enough to meet Dr. Perry"—she smiled at Jon, a repeat of the maternal, possessive smile that Nell had noticed earlier—"and see his famous submersible. And now I have to run."

  "Wilsa Sheer," said Jon unexpectedly. "The keyboard player? I've got half a dozen of her recordings, back in my PacAnt collection. She's really good, as good as Fechmann
. I've watched to see if she ever gives performances on Earth, but I don't think she does. If you won't be able to stay and hear her, Dr. Brandt, you'll be missing a treat."

  He spoke to Hilda Brandt, but he was staring at Tristan Morgan in a way that was hard to misinterpret.

  "Of course you can come along," said Tristan with hardly a pause. "I've got two spare tickets now. You're right, she's usually in the Belt and she's never been to Earth. In fact, this is her first visit to the Jovian system." His eyes lit with a new thought. "You know, it's funny that you should mention Fechmann, because just the other day I was listening to Wilsa Sheer playing Fechmann's keyboard arrangement of the finale of a Mozart quartet—the K.464. Do you know it?"

  "I have Fechmann's own recording of it. A Major, right? The way he handles the polyphony!"

  "Exactly! But Wilsa changes the emphasis, and it works even better."

  Hilda Brandt caught Nell's eye and smiled indulgently. Boys will be boys. "So you were with Jon Perry on his most recent descent." She spoke across the two men, who were far off in their own discussion of pseudo-fugal forms, revealing a side of Jon Perry that Nell had not encountered before. "Wasn't that the one where the submersible encountered an eruption at depth and went beyond its pressure tolerances? It must have been frightening."

  "It was to me, but not to Jon. Nothing scares him." It might not be an olive branch that Hilda Brandt was holding out to her, but it was close. And it gave her an opportunity to prove that she knew something—learned for the program, but who was to know that?—about underwater exploration and hydrothermal-vent life forms.

  It could be the best chance that she would ever have. Nell moved closer to Hilda Brandt and began to make her pitch.

  * * *

  Jon Perry loved life on the PacAnt floating base, but even he would admit that it had its limitations. The outside environment changed all the time, a constant delight as the huge segmented pontoon moved across Earth's oceans, through sun and rain and flat calms and howling storms. Yet within that varying environment, Jon dealt all the time with the same fixed group of people: PacAnt 14's staff, and now and again his counterparts on some other floating base. For some reason, work in PacAnt seemed to attract few amateur musicians. So although Jon listened to a lot of recorded music, alone, he had few people to talk with about it—and certainly no one as knowledgeable and enthusiastic as Tristan Morgan. He already knew that he would miss Tristan when he went back to Earth.