Cold as Ice

by Charles Sheffield

  "I can try." Mobarak at last made the connection, while Bat drifted back to his special comfort seat. He was exhausted. He had taken all that he could stand, and hated it. How did Magrit Knudsen handle this sort of thing, day after day? Yet she seemed to thrive on such personal confrontation, such emotional intertwining.

  "David." The line was open. Mobarak's voice was gruff and oddly tentative. "David, are you busy?"

  "I'm pretty busy." David Lammerman's face was on the screen, guarded and uncertain. "I'm in a meeting with Tristan Morgan and Nell Cotter. We're discussing the ways that Mobies might help Outward Bound."

  "David, I hate to interrupt. But I need your help with a . . . a special task that I dare not entrust to anyone else. I am in a meeting with Rustum Battachariya. Jon Perry and Wilsa Sheer are on Europa, and we have reason to think that they are in great danger. Would you try to reach them through Camille, and make sure they are safe?"

  "Of course." David Lammerman's face was puzzled. "The last time I spoke to Camille, everything was going well. But I'll call Europa right now. Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine."

  "And if there are problems on Europa . . ."

  "Use your best judgment. You can call me if you want a second opinion—but you certainly don't have to. Go to Europa yourself, if you think it's necessary. Use my credit, my name, anything else you need. I know you'll do the intelligent thing. But please hurry. This is urgent."

  "I'll sure do my best." David glanced away from the camera for a moment. "I'll have help here if I need it. I'd better get on with it. Are you sure you are all right."

  "I am certain of it. I'm . . . better than I've ever been."

  There was a long, self-conscious moment, when neither man spoke. They finally nodded at each other and simultaneously broke contact.

  "Well." Cyrus Mobarak stared blindly at the blank screen. "I tried. He's very competent, you know. Did you notice that he didn't ask me one unnecessary question? But I have a thousand questions. About Europa, about Hilda Brandt. About how you connected me with her. About why you think she's dangerous. When will you be ready to give me answers?"

  "Very soon." Bat was more than happy to change back to factual discussions. "There is one thing I must do first."

  He rose and lumbered over to Mobarak's side, where he set up his own instruction sequence.

  "You're ordering a ship?" Mobarak could not quite follow the abbreviated command codes, shortened for Bat's personal use.

  "Indeed I am. A ship, and also suits."

  "For me?" Mobarak had seen his own name flash across the display.

  "Yes. And for me also. I am going with you."

  Mobarak stared in amazement at the screen, where the complete mission profile was appearing. His name was there, along with that of Rustum Battachariya.

  Rustum Battachariya. Passenger!

  A few minutes earlier, Bat had wished for a way to prove to Mobarak just how dangerous he believed Hilda Brandt to be. He had found one now, without saying a word.

  Proof enough for anyone: For the first time in uncounted years, the Great Bat was about to abandon his cave on Ganymede. He would endure the chaos and crowded discomfort of a high-gee flight through the open space of the Jovian system, his destination the barren, naked surface of Europa.

  23

  Too Late

  The communication channel offered only one reply to all inquiries: "Europa is in isolation mode until further notice. Your approach request has been noted, but permission to land cannot be provided."

  Three of those anonymous rejections were quite enough. David Lammerman's fourth message was not a request; it was a notice of intention to land, with a well-defined arrival time.

  And that produced results. In rapid succession there appeared on the ship's screen a confused, low-level Fax of Buzz Sandstrom; a less polite but equally confused high-level Fax; a Mount Ararat mid-level live official who changed in a few seconds from calm obnoxious superiority to shock, anger, and disbelief; and, at last, Sandstrom himself.

  "You've heard it six times." His nostrils were dilated, and he was leaning far forward so that his distorted face filled the screen. "Go away. We're in isolation mode. You can't land at Mount Ararat, no matter who you are."

  "I'm afraid we must, unless you let me talk at once to Camille Hamilton, Jon Perry, or Wilsa Sheer." Lammerman's voice remained as mild and reasonable as ever. "Actually, we're already in final approach. I called as a courtesy, to make sure that nothing in the spaceport will be damaged by our ship's exhaust when we come down."

  "Touch down and you'll be under arrest the minute you step out of your ship."

  "Then that's the way it will have to be."

  "Buzz is going through the ceiling," said Tristan Morgan softly. He and Nell Cotter were sitting tucked away in the rear of the cabin, where they could watch Sandstrom but not be seen or heard by him. "I've met him a dozen times, and he's not really such a bad guy. A bit dim, maybe. But I've never seen him like this before."

  "I don't think it's all anger." Nell had been watching every muscle-twitch on Sandstrom's face, and recording it. "He may be annoyed, but there's more to it than that. Seems like he's battle-scarred. Nearly ready to weep. Somebody's been giving him a prize chewing-out. A little more shove, and I think he'll break completely."

  "You have to be wrong. He's deputy director on Europa. He dishes it out, he doesn't take it."

  "All the more reason why he doesn't like it. But that limits the choice of chewer: Hilda Brandt or nobody. Let me past. I want to try something."

  She edged around Tristan and moved forward, to a point where Sandstrom could see her. "If you say we can't talk to the others, then I demand to speak with Dr. Brandt. Immediately. And I will tell her how you have been behaving toward us."

  "And who the hell are you?" Buzz Sandstrom had met Nell on her previous visit to Europa, but he did not seem to recognize her. He hesitated, then went on in quieter tones: "I really don't see why Dr. Brandt would want to talk with you."

  "Well, you can't say that about me, Buzz." Tristan had followed Nell and was standing beside her. "I talk to Hilda all the time. And we're entitled to land on Mount Ararat. We have a permit from Rustum Battachariya, the head of Passenger Transport for the Outer System—including Europa."

  "That doesn't overrule an isolation-mode notice."

  "I don't agree. But that's something for the lawyers to argue over. We'll be touching down at Mount Ararat in five minutes. We need a landing slot. And we want to talk to Hilda, or to Perry and the others. Better cooperate, Buzz, or you'll get yourself in real trouble."

  "Cooperate!" But Buzz Sandstrom was wilting. His muscles had lost a lot of their tightness, and the line of his jaw no longer had its pugnacious jut. "Even if you do land, you can't talk to Dr. Brandt. She's not here."

  "According to the system transit manifests, she is. She arrived on Europa a couple of hours ago, and there's no record of her leaving."

  "I didn't mean she's not on Europa." Buzz was actually starting to sound placating. "I mean she's not here, not at Ararat Base."

  "So where is she?"

  "On the surface. Camille Hamilton is with her, so you can't talk to her either. They're out at Blowhole. It's iced over, and they're trying to clear it." Sandstrom lost the last shred of belligerence. "Look, Tristan, it's not my fault. I was just following Dr. Brandt's orders. There was no reason for her to get so angry with me. She was the one told me to put Europa in isolation mode, and she was the one told me to keep Perry and Sheer from talking to others. How was I supposed to know the two of 'em would go out and commit suicide?"

  "They're dead?"

  "No. Yes. I mean—I don't know. They may be. I mean, it happened over two days ago. They escaped from Ararat Base and went out onto the surface. They took a submersible down below the ice without permission."

  "So they're safe."

  "No. You see, they took the Danae, a ship that was being modified and wasn't ready for full use. And they'
re not just under the ice, exploring; they're stuck under there, with no way back and not enough oxygen. They closed Blowhole themselves; it iced over when they cut off the power below. And I had nothing to do with any of that." Sandstrom's voice rose to a wail just as the signal for the final descent phase sounded through the ship. "But I'm being blamed for the whole stupid thing!"

  * * *

  Blowhole had vanished. To Nell and the others approaching in the ground cars, its former location was signaled only by a circle of buildings and a long, shallow-sloping ramp that ran down to end in a blank wall of new ice. A glittering submersible—the Spindrift, or its identical twin—sat at the top of the ramp, surrounded by half a dozen cars.

  "See, water-ice is different from most ices. When it freezes, it expands." Buzz Sandstrom was in the same ground car as Nell. He had been enormously relieved when Hilda Brandt did not accuse him of permitting an unauthorized ship to land at Mount Ararat. As soon as she found out who the three newcomers were, she had actually told him to bring them along to help. Now Buzz was explaining to Nell—and to her insatiable unseen recorders—the problem of recovering the bodies of Jon Perry and Wilsa Sheer from underneath the ice.

  "So Blowhole doesn't just fill with ice if the heat is turned off," he went on, "because the column of water wants to expand when it freezes. The only way it can go is up. It squeezes higher in the cylinder. See the ramp? It used to lead down to open water, when the water level was down below the ice level. Now you could drive this car right out where Blowhole used to be."

  "How thick is the ice? It's not solid all the way down the hole, surely?"

  "No. It hasn't had time to freeze that much. But it's maybe thirty meters, according to sonar readings. They might as well be digging at it with toothpicks. Maybe that's just as well. If they broke through, they'd fall into the water."

  "They" were a dozen suited figures, working with mobile construction equipment on the ice over Blowhole. As Nell's car approached on its caterpillar tracks, closely followed by the car holding David Lammerman and Tristan Morgan, all excavation work stopped. Two of the suited people came hurrying across to meet the arriving cars.

  "Waste of time digging." Hilda Brandt nodded to the new arrivals. She was easily recognizable by the high-level insignia on her suit. "We need a fresh idea. I was hoping that one of you might think of something."

  Nell was impressed again by the other woman's self-confidence and concentration. She offered no explanation of why she had put Europa in isolation mode, and made no comment as to why she had now chosen to change her mind and accept help. Just the statement: We have a problem that needs a solution.

  A problem? Nell couldn't make herself see it that objectively. The death of Jon Perry wouldn't be a problem, it would be the worst thing in the world. But Hilda Brandt remained so damned calm.

  Don't let yourself brood on it. Be a reporter—ask questions. "Why did they seal themselves down under the ice if they knew it might kill them?"

  "They didn't." Camille was at Hilda Brandt's side. It was clear that she knew nothing of the recent embargo of Europa and regarded the arrival of Nell and the others simply as extra help. "They thought they were quite safe. They would have been, under normal circumstances, because the Danae can carry a fourteen-day oxygen supply, and more than that of food and water. But when the hull was strengthened to withstand greater pressure, most of the air tanks were temporarily removed. They hadn't been replaced when Jon Perry stole the submersible. The gauges show a fourteen-day supply, but that's totally misleading. The air will last less than two days for two people. Jon Perry and Wilsa Sheer have been down for over two and a half days. If they've spent most of their time asleep, or sitting very still, it's possible that they are still alive. But time's against us. And we're farther from getting them out than we've ever been. The layer of ice covering Blowhole gets thicker by the hour."

  Nell found herself staring at Tristan. There it was, the explicit statement that neither Buzz Sandstrom nor Hilda Brandt had been willing to provide. Jon and Wilsa, according to Camille's numbers, were surely dead. This was no rescue mission. It was the doleful recovery of corpses.

  Yet Hilda Brandt still seemed to be denying it, acting as though every minute counted. She had moved to stand by David Lammerman and was listening intently. He was pointing at Blowhole and then back toward Mount Ararat. After a few seconds, she began to nod. She waved.

  "Come here, would you? I want you to hear this, then tell me what you think."

  Her call and gesture were to Camille Hamilton, but of course everyone else crowded around as well.

  "Actually, it's not just my idea." David Lammerman had been confident and in command since leaving Ganymede. Now he showed, just for a moment, a trace of his old diffidence. It vanished as he went on: "When we first landed at Ararat Base and learned what had happened at Blowhole, I wondered about ways to open up the ice. I didn't know that you were trying to excavate, but I'd decided straightaway that excavation couldn't work. It seemed to me that only something really powerful would do the job fast enough and yet keep the ice open long enough for us to find . . . whatever's down there."

  David glanced from Nell to Tristan, then away. "So I asked myself, what's the most powerful energy source that I know of on Europa? And it became obvious: the drive on the ship that brought us here. It's powered by a Moby. I called Cyrus Mobarak—" He caught Camille's shocked expression and gave her an embarrassed smile. "I know, Camille. But I really did. On my own. I spoke to him, and by now he should have landed and be on his way to Blowhole. But I didn't want to wait until he arrived, so I asked him, could a ship's Moby be modified to melt a path down into Blowhole without destroying itself and anything down there in its way?"

  "And his reply?" Hilda Brandt spoke for everyone.

  "He said he didn't see why not. But it would be very tricky, because a ship's fusion drive was never designed to interact directly with water and ice. It's an unstable situation, he's pretty sure of that. But he says he's not the real expert on Moby stability." He pointed at Camille. "She is. He says we must ask her. That was Cyrus Mobarak's opinion, and it's mine as well. Camille?"

  Camille hardly seemed to be listening. She was staring all around at the grey-white, lifeless ice-world, then up into the black, star-swarmed sky; everywhere except at the waiting circle of people. At last she shook her head.

  "I'm not an expert. Not on Mobies. I'm still learning."

  "We're all learning," said Hilda Brandt. "All our lives. That's not the point. The point is, can the ship's Moby do it? If it can, someone at Ararat Base will fly it over here as soon as I give the order."

  "You don't understand." Camille sensed what they were going to ask her to do. It sounded like the only way that Jon Perry and Wilsa Sheer might be saved . . . except that she knew it was impossible. "The Moby has the power to do it; it has raw energy to spare. That's not the question. It's the stability. A stability analysis, even a first-order one, for a ship's Moby sitting in Blowhole—that would need a huge amount of computation."

  She took a couple of steps backward, distancing herself from the group.

  "But you can do that!" said David. He and the whole party were following Camille, drifting across the spongy ice. He took her arm. "You've done a hundred calculations like it. And I could have the Moby out of our ship in five minutes."

  "I might be able to do the calculation—given enough time. But you need an answer now. I'd have to go back to Mount Ararat, get on the computer, and enter all the parameters for the ship's Moby. And the Blowhole geometry, and then the surface-material properties, and radiation rates, and ambient temperatures." Camille shook herself free of David's grip. "You're talking about a monster computation, about something that might run for days before it converged."

  "And we don't have days, do we?" murmured Hilda Brandt thoughtfully. "Or even hours." She lowered her head as though studying the mottled patterns of ice at her feet. Finally she said, as though to herself, "That's it, then. Damne
d, aren't we, either way? But really, what is the choice?"

  She sighed, walked up to Camille, and reached out to take her by the shoulders. She stared in through the visor of the suit, oblivious to the ground car that was grinding its way across the ice from Mount Ararat, and unaware of the strange-looking figure that emerged from it.

  Rustum Battachariya, an exception to the "one-size-fits-all" rule of surface superconductor suits, had been stripped to his shoes and underwear and stuffed into a translucent container of green shielding plastic designed to hold large flux-intolerant equipment.

  It was big enough . . . barely. Bat could walk, after a fashion, by shuffling his feet a few inches at a time while he held his arms close to his sides. But it was freezing cold; the radio of his improvised suit was not working right; and while the green plastic was not opaque, it was far from transparent. Bat could see little and hear only the scuffle of boots across the surface. At his side, guiding him along, walked Cyrus Mobarak.

  Hilda Brandt ignored the waddling green-clad figure with its penguin gait. She had been staring at Camille steadily, eye to eye. "Camille Hamilton," she said at last, "look at me, and listen. The ship will be here in ten minutes. I already sent the order to fly it over. The Moby can be taken out of it and made ready for use in fifteen minutes. At the end of that period, we need to know how to position the Moby, and what settings to use with it. There will be no opportunity to return to Ararat Base, or to sit at a computer. You must decide the settings yourself. Fifteen minutes. You hear me? You will have fifteen minutes. No more."

  "I can't do that!" Camille was trying to pull free. David Lammerman made an instinctive gesture to help her, then controlled himself and turned away. Everyone else stood motionless, as frozen as the Europan ice crystals beneath their triple-insulated boots. Nell, not understanding what she was seeing, knowing only that it was dramatic and somehow important, prayed that her hidden recorder was working.