"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. It was tricky to take the deep-ocean specimens and move them into the Spindrift, but once I got back to Mount Ararat the whole analysis was straightforward. Your staff can confirm the results."
"Have you mentioned this to anyone else?"
"Nobody. I came straight here."
"That's good. Will you do me a favor and keep it that way for the moment? Your discovery has big implications for Europa. I need to decide how I'm going to break this to my staff, and then I have to make a trip to Ganymede as soon as I get a ship in to take me."
Jon's own problems began to seem minor. A contaminated Europan ocean could make nonsense of the decades of work done at Mount Ararat. Every one of Hilda Brandt's programs might be in jeopardy. "I won't say a word until you tell me to. But what about Wilsa Sheer? She gave her final Ganymede concert yesterday, and she's supposed to be arriving here at any time. She's sure to ask me how things are going."
"She's already here. She landed an hour ago. You had a Do-Not-Disturb sign on your lab terminals, so I didn't interrupt. Wilsa's in Guest Suite Four, tell her as much as you like." Hilda Brandt was rapidly gathering papers and closing file-cabinet drawers. "But I don't want either of you using the communications systems until I get back. I'm going to tell Buzz Sandstrom to put the whole Mount Ararat base into isolation mode until we have a strategy worked out. A lot of careers are at stake."
Hilda Brandt's plump and aging body could move with speed and economy. Before Jon could ask more questions she had swept a final stack of files into her case, nodded, and headed for the door. "I have a few other things to take care of before I can leave. Better make sure your results look nice and tidy. When this goes public you're going to be hit with a million questions."
She was gone before Jon had a chance to mention a new worry. When he had spoken the word contamination, another idea with different and more ominous overtones had flickered across the back of his mind.
It was one that he should be able to confirm with a few more minutes of work. He rushed out of Brandt's office, almost colliding with Buzz Sandstrom in the doorway. The muscular deputy glared at him in surprised annoyance. "What the devil have you been doing in there?" Jon took no notice and headed back to the lab.
The genome scans that he had performed on the Europan organisms were still available in rapid-access files. He searched for and loaded the appropriate matching programs, those that would take his new genetic data and use it to seek segment-by-segment matches with the stored genomes of existing forms.
And at once he ran into a snag. Jon had a good idea of which Earth forms he needed: selected annelid worms, and some form of mollusk, probably a gastropod. But those genomes were missing from the files.
Accident, or design? His suspicions were growing. Europan research workers had little interest in the organisms of Earth; perhaps it was not too surprising then that the genomes he required were not to be found in the data bank. But the fact that genomes for so many other Earth organisms were in the files was surely significant.
He swore under his breath. If only he were back on the Spindrift. He knew that its onboard computer files held just what he needed.
Jon called up the display of the Europan genomes anyway and began to examine them visually, segment after segment. It was slow, painstaking work, and it depended too much on his memory. He could never be sure, not as a computer match using the Spindrift's stored data would have provided certainty. But what he saw was familiar enough to convince him at a deep interior level that he was right.
Contamination, yes. But not the natural contamination of a random drift of Earth life into Europa's deep ocean. That could certainly have happened. But it would not—could not—have produced in less than a century mutations so exquisitely suited to the chemistry and temperatures of the Europan black smoker.
Deliberate contamination, constructed contamination; and then—
Use the right words. A setup.
The leeches, and probably all of the other life forms he had found, were not the product of natural evolution. They were genetic hybrids, designed organisms crafted from existing Earth forms to thrive and multiply in the Europan deep ocean. And Jon did not have to look far to find their maker.
He stared at the genetic sequences and cursed his blindness. Shelley Solbourne. Manuel Posada had given Jon all the clues that he needed when he was still in Arenas. Shelley had left PacAnt 9 and headed out for the Jovian system. She had come up with "indirect" evidence of Europan life. But then, instead of staying to confirm its nature, as any mortal scientist would have done—lasting fame within reach for the discoverer of the first alien life form—she had returned to Earth. That had not amazed Posada, a nonscientist; but it should have raised a million red flags with Jon. He recalled Posada's words: ". . . did well for herself and came back to Earth a wealthy woman."
And Jon, in his innocence, had never thought to ask where that wealth had come from!
He did not need to ask now. Someone had paid Shelley, and paid her well, to develop chemosynthetic hybrids that could flourish in Europa's hydrothermal vents. She had done her job competently, as she did everything she touched. Then she had seeded the results in the deep ocean, "discovered" their existence—but not, of course, produced specimens for inspection—and returned quietly, and wealthily, to Earth.
Why hadn't Jon followed up his own first thought back in Arenas? He had wanted to go over to see Shelley in her Dunedin villa and discuss the discovery. Instead he had been kept constantly busy, hustled off Earth at maximum speed and shipped to Ganymede within three days. No reason had ever been offered for all the rush.
And it had not ended when Jon left Earth. Surely, whoever had paid Shelley Solbourne to seed the ocean of Europa had also intended for Jon to discover the deception. He had been manipulated, from first to last.
But his manipulation was over now. Enough was enough. He would confirm his suspicions directly, using the data banks on the Spindrift. And then, with proof in hand, he would act.
He grimly transferred the evidence of the Europan genomes to a portable data-storage device, slipped it into his pocket, and headed for Hilda Brandt's quarters. He didn't want to trust anyone, but she had to be the exception. She, and she alone, could not be in on the fraud. It made no sense for her to hire someone to plant imported life in the Europan ocean, and then permit Jon to come in and prove that her own effort was a fake.
Brandt was not there. But Buzz Sandstrom was. He was sitting at the desk, his cropped head bowed in concentration.
"Has Dr. Brandt left yet?" Jon blurted out the question as he realized that Sandstrom was reading the work summary left behind during Jon's previous visit.
Sandstrom lifted his head, and Jon had never seen such anger on any face.
"Dr. Brandt has gone to Ganymede." Sandstrom stood up, muscles flexing. "I'm in charge. She told me that there was bad news on the way, but I had no idea of how bad 'til I saw this."
He tapped the summary sheets. "Everybody's work here depends on an uncontaminated environment. I don't know why Dr. Brandt allowed you and that Sheer woman to come here at all, messing things up. You've destroyed all we've been doing."
Jon stared at him in disbelief. "Me? I didn't contaminate anything. All I proved is that the deep ocean was already spoiled, long ago."
"You expect me to believe that? Until you got here, Europa was fine. If the ocean is spoiled now, it's because you came. You and your Earth ship, and your Earth filth, you ruined us. I always said it was too risky, bringing you. And now you've opened the door for Mobarak and his whole lousy fusion project."
It was tempting to pick up Sandstrom's furious mood and reply in kind. But it would accomplish nothing. Jon swallowed his irritation. "You're right about one thing, but you're wrong about another. Someone did come here from Earth and spoil this ocean. It wasn't me and my submersible. It was Shelley Solbourne."
That stopped Sandstrom. Jon looked for any sign of guilt on th
e man's face, and saw only surprise and anger. If Shelley had worked with accomplices on Europa, Sandstrom was not one of them.
"And it's worse than you think," Jon went on. "The report that you've been reading says contamination, because I assumed that it was accidental. Now I know that it wasn't. It was done deliberately."
"Nonsense! Why would anyone ruin a world on purpose?"
"I can't tell you that. All I'm saying is that the contamination of the Europan ocean was intentional. Modified forms of Earth life were planted here, specially designed forms. I can prove it."
Sandstrom had been reaching across the desk to flip a switch on a panel. Now he sat down again. "Do it." His expression had moved from anger to glacial coldness. "I liked Shelley Solbourne. She'd had a hard life, and she liked to grumble about it. But she did good, solid work, and I won't see her slandered when she's not here to defend herself. You say you can prove what you said. Go on, then. I'll give you five minutes."
Jon took the data storage unit out of his pocket. "This contains the scanned genomes of the Europan-vent life forms. I've inspected them, and I'm sure that they're not naturally evolved organisms. They're hybrids, gene-supplied from existing Earth forms for adaptation to the Europan deep-ocean environment. Shelley Solbourne planted them here. And I can prove it. All I have to do is to match their DNA against the appropriate Earth forms."
"So why haven't you done it?"
"The genome maps for the organisms I need aren't in the Europa data banks. But they are in my data storage bank on board the Spindrift. We can just go back to Blowhole—"
"Are you out of your mind? Mount Ararat has been placed in isolation mode. Dr. Brandt told me to put us there. You can't go to Blowhole now."
"She was referring to off-world communications—so no one could leak word of what's going on until she decides how. to handle it. I'm sure she didn't mean it to apply to trips out onto the surface. I'm saying, one quick visit to the Spindrift—"
"And I'm saying, forget it. You have the nerve to stand there and ask me to give you another chance to take a submersible and mess up the inside of Europa even worse than you have already? I wouldn't do that, even if I didn't have specific instructions not to. Isolation is isolation. You've had your five minutes."
"I've not had half that!"
"It doesn't matter. It's over, Perry. We won't let Europa be destroyed." Sandstrom was staring past him. Jon turned and found three men in the doorway, each as muscular as the deputy.
"See? So don't try anything." Sandstrom nodded to the newcomers. "All right, take him to Suite Four, with the new arrival. Don't say nothing to nobody. And make sure it's secure there, until I figure out what comes next."
* * *
Jon was almost to the point of deciding that he must be guilty of something; he wasn't sure of what, but if the way he was being treated was anything to go by, it had to be a major offense.
Because Wilsa Sheer was even angrier than Buzz Sandstrom. She had been pleasant for maybe thirty seconds, until she realized that the door was being closed—and locked—behind Jon. Then she had swelled with fury, all five feet of her, and looked around for someone to thunder at. There was only one candidate.
Jon waited for a break in the weather, then explained the whole thing as carefully and systematically as her outraged interruptions would allow. It went slowly, but by the time he came to the contents of the data storage unit, still clutched in his sweaty hand, and his need to compare that with files held on the Spindrift, Wilsa's lightning flashes had gone. There was still an occasional rumble, but it was not directed at him.
"Buzz Sandstrom's going to keep us here until Hilda Brandt returns?" She was eyeing the walls and the door of the suite.
"That's not quite what he told me. Until he decides 'what comes next,' he said."
"And Hilda Brandt asked you who else you told, and you said nobody?"
"Right. What of it?"
"Maybe nothing. Or maybe I've been exposed to too many opera librettos. But I can't help recalling the look on their faces when they stuffed you in through the door. Those goons follow orders. You and Sandstrom—and now me—are the only ones who know that the Europa life forms aren't native. We're the only ones who can ruin Europa's official status of an off-limits, untouchable world."
"Hilda Brandt knows, too."
"You take comfort from that if you like." Wilsa's face was calm now, but she was sitting barefoot, and her long, modified toes were curling and uncurling. "Me, I'm thinking of how convenient it would be if you and I weren't around to explain your findings. Wouldn't it be nice for the Europan administration if your new analysis disappeared, and you and me with it?"
"Nonsense. Brandt wouldn't go along with that."
"Why would she have to know? Sandstrom's in charge until she gets back."
Wilsa began to wander from room to room, although Guest Suite Four was too small for effective prowling. A main living area, furnished with a table and three soft chairs, led to a small kitchen. Wilsa went into it and began opening drawers, banging cupboards, and muttering to herself. Beyond the living room, separated from it by a sliding door, lay the bedroom and a compact bathroom. There was just one external door, leading to the outside corridor. When Wilsa finished her inspection, she returned to stare at it.
"Locked. There's no other exit." Jon could read her thoughts. "Come and sit down, you're making me nervous."
"We have to find a way out." She swung around to glare at him. "I'm not going to stay locked up. I won't. It's different for you. You were raised on Earth. Earth people are used to physical restraint."
"That's not true! Where did you get that idea?"
"You still have jails on Earth, don't you? But I was raised in the Belt. Belters must have freedom to move, or they suffocate."
"You were happy in a submersible. That's a lot more like a jail than this apartment."
"It's totally different. I was in a submersible because I wanted to be there. It's the principle of the thing."
"Suppose we could get out of here." Jon wasn't sure of how seriously to take Wilsa. "We couldn't escape from Europa. There's no ship available, for one thing—Hilda Brandt had to call one in to take her to Ganymede."
"I'll settle for getting away from Mount Ararat. How about the Spindrift. Is it working?"
"It should be. But it's over at Blowhole."
"So we escape from here and we go to Blowhole and the Spindrift."
"Yeah. Sure. We escape. Like to tell me how?"
"There's no food in this kitchen. I just checked. They have to come and feed us, unless they've decided to starve us to death. When they bring food, you overpower the guards."
She had to be joking.
"Sure. All three of 'em. Then I grab their weapons, right?"
"That's it. Then we run away through the corridors. We put on suits, we take a ground car—" But Wilsa was grinning.
"You're right, you have been reading too many opera librettos. You saw those muscles. If you can take their weapons away, be my guest."
"Maybe I can't." Wilsa came to sit down again. "But I'm dead serious about one thing. I won't stay cooped up here if there's any way at all to get out."
"So do you have any real ideas?"
"Not a thing. Not yet. But you're the scientist. I'm the artist. It's your job to think of something."
"Prison escapes aren't science. They're engineering." Now it was Jon's turn to prowl the suite. "The ceiling's solid. Same with the walls and the floor. The air ducts are only a few centimeters wide."
"Door?"
"Honeycombed graphite matrix. Harder than steel. It would be easier to break the walls. I give up."
Wilsa shook her head. "Not me. I don't give up. I told you how I feel about lockups." She stood up again and wandered through to inspect the kitchen cooking utensils. "Nice sharp knives."
"Forget it. Unless you're going to be the one to use' em."
"How about this thing? It's a pressure cooker, isn't it? If we block
the safety valve, fill it with water, and set the heat high enough–"
"You'd have a bomb, of unknown strength. Do you like that sort of gadget? Because I don't. It wouldn't destroy the apartment, but it would blow superheated water all over. Make a hell of a mess of the kitchen. Of us, too, if we were anywhere near it."
"We could hide in the bedroom. And if we could make it explode near the door—"
"It wouldn't make more than a scratch." But the challenge was raising Jon's interest; he was hunched over the stove. "Even if you blocked the safety valve, there'd be no way of getting it to the door at the exact moment it blew up. You'd have to keep the heat underneath the pot right 'til it exploded. Nice try, but you'll never blow your way free with a pressure-cooker bomb."
"So we need something different."
"I never said that." Jon was bending over the pot of glossy black ceramic, studying the safety valve. "It would be easy enough to block this—see, right here. That's a start. Let me try it."
"You have an idea?"
"Not an idea, exactly . . . call it a thought. We've got one thing going for us. Sandstrom expects us to behave the way I would behave if you hadn't been pestering me. He doesn't realize that you're a lunatic, so he doesn't expect us to go all-out to escape. That gives us a shot—one shot—at surprising him."
"But we have no surprise."
"I didn't say that, either. Come sit down, and let's talk about cooperation. You have to find a way of buying me five minutes after they get here."
21
Out and Down on Europa
By the time that the door to the suite was finally unlocked from outside, Jon Perry had begun to take seriously the idea that he and Wilsa Sheer could be left to starve to death. He had sat by the stove, ready for action, for six endless hours. The pressure cooker had boiled low and been refilled eight times. All feeling of tension had long since given way to hunger, and he was drifting off into an uneasy half-sleep when Wilsa, kneeling with her ear to the door, suddenly whispered, "Now!"
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