The Ganymede Club

by Charles Sheffield

  ". . . Jinx Barker. .. unexplained death . . . Lola Belman . . ." (the sound of her own name in the broadcast gave her goosebumps) ". . . mysterious circumstances . . . wanted for questioning by Ganymede Security . . . any report of her whereabouts . . ."

  No mention of the others. Nothing about her present location. It was probably the best that she could hope for. And then came another confirmation.

  ". . . Alicia Rios . . . homicide . . . crime took place within her own living quarters . . . anyone with information please report . . ."

  Not surprisingly, the sophisticated tools available to Security had proved what Bryce had only been able to surmise. Although Alicia Rios had been burned and her body reduced to its component atoms, enough evidence remained to prove that she had been murdered.

  The broadcast created another worry. What if Joss Cayuga was listening to the same news stories, out on Lysithea? It would be ironic to fly all the way to the edge of the Jovian system, and then be arrested the minute she stepped out of the arrival lock.

  She could not safely send a message back to Ganymede. But she could place a call outward, with a tight enough beam that only someone in the direct line of sight between the Dimbula and Lysithea could pick it up. The only question was what she should say. It had to be something that would give her the feedback that all was well, without alerting Cayuga.

  She set up for voice transmission and waited impatiently for the link to be established. When the reply came from Lysithea, it seemed at first like a disappointment. It was Cayuga's voice, but Lola was not hearing a live person.

  "Hello, you have reached Joss Cayuga. I am not Joss himself, but I am his third-level fax. He is not presently available. I can provide almost any factual information that you may need, or, if you want analysis, a higher-level fax can also be brought on-line. If you require a personal opinion, or wish to speak with Joss Cayuga himself, you may leave a message with me. I will make sure that he receives it as soon as he is available."

  Normally Lola was not happy dealing with a fax. She thought of even the highest-level fax as a person with the juice squeezed out, including all the emotions and impulses and subterranean desires that a haldane must be in touch with before she could treat and help a troubled person. What Lola wished for in her own work was an antifax—a mind with all its surface logic and explanations separated out and laid away to one side. The conscious mind accounted for no more than five percent of the activity of the brain, but seeing through its misdirection and subtle false explanations took ninety percent of a haldane's time.

  Today, though, she might be better off dealing with a fax. It would take Lola's statements at face value, without suspicions or questions.

  "I do not need a higher-level fax," she said, "nor do I need to speak with Joss Cayuga personally. Just pass this message along to him when he becomes available. This is Lola Belman. I want to confirm to him that I am on the way to Lysithea aboard the Dimbula. The ship's trajectory and arrival time are already stored in your transportation computer. Tell Joss Cayuga that I appreciate his assistance in helping me to make this trip, and I am looking forward to meeting him and inspecting his uncle's records. That is all."

  There was the predictable delay while the radio signals traveled to Lysithea and back.

  "Thank you, Lola Belman, your message is received and recorded," said Cayuga's calm voice at last. Then to Lola's surprise it went on. "This is a recorded message from Joss Cayuga, addressed to Lola Belman specifically. I have recently learned that a small portion of Jeffrey Cayuga's effects are stored on the coorbiting moon, Elara. Rather than putting you to the trouble of a second stop, I am making a brief trip to Elara to pick up those records. I will return at once with them to Lysithea and meet you there. It may be difficult for you to reach me while we are both in transit, but our two ships are scheduled for arrival at the Lysithean dock within seconds of each other. I look forward to seeing your ship, and to meeting with you."

  It was a reassuring message. From Lola's point of view, the only surprising thing about it was its maturity. For a nineteen-year-old, Joss Cayuga showed amazing poise and judgment. Spook wouldn't be like that in another four years—maybe not even in twenty. Lola smiled to herself, trying to imagine Spook at thirty-five. Would her brother still be full of random energy and wild enthusiasms? Probably. It was the way she remembered their father, rushing in to announce another project that would take them all to the ends of the Earth.

  If only he had dragged them to the far-off Southern Hemisphere before war convulsed the inner system. Then the family might still be on Earth, and none of this would be happening.

  Lola, emotionally exhausted and with nothing pleasant to occupy her mind, permitted herself a rare luxury. She lay on one of the compact little beds and drifted off into her own past. Just for once she wanted to return to the old days—the good old days when she was still a teenager; when she had hardly heard of the word "haldane"; when responsibility was something that other people worried about, and dreams did not turn into nightmares.

  * * *

  While Lola drifted and dreamed, Bat was desperately busy. He had three ships to deal with, plus a dozen computers of all kinds. He dared not talk directly with the Weland, which he was now convinced was carrying Joss/Jeffrey/Jason Cayuga to Lysithea. He could reach the Kobold, but he had nothing useful to say to Spook and Bryce because all his efforts had not advanced the arrival time of their ship at Lysithea by a single millisecond. They would be fifteen minutes too late—close enough to watch the near-simultaneous landings of both the Weland and the Dimbula, but unable to affect either one.

  That left only the Dimbula, carrying Lola to what Bat now believed was her certain death on Lysithea. Here the frustration was at its maximum. All he needed was for a short and simple message to get through to Lola: "Slow down, don't land." That would make all the difference. But every effort at a linkage had been balked by the communications computer on Lysithea.

  In his desperation Bat even placed a call to Jovian Security. Over the video link two Security officers stared at the cluttered mess of papers, empty plates, and strewn data files that surrounded Bat's massive, black-robed figure, and listened politely to his request for a maximum-acceleration Jovian Security vessel to be sent at once to Lysithea.

  "We have heard no reports of trouble," the woman said at last. She turned to her partner. "Have we?"

  "Nothing." The man was at his own console. "In fact, I don't think I've ever heard of a problem on Lysithea. The Dimbula, you say? Yes, that ship shows a destination of Lysithea. But we've had no distress calls. No messages from it of any kind. Do you have the names of the crew and passengers? They are not listed here."

  Bat was stymied. If he mentioned the name of Lola Belman, there was a faint possibility that they would do as he asked and send an investigating ship out to Lysithea. However, there was the absolute certainty that they would haul Bat in for questioning in connection with the death of Jinx Barker. His own efforts to do something for Lola would be over until it was too late.

  "I don't know who the crew and passengers are," he said weakly. He was not surprised when the man and woman glanced significantly at each other, and she said, "Well, thanks for the call. Why don't you try us again when you have more information."

  In other words, Bat was written off as a nut case and was back to his own unaided resources. He had wasted a valuable ten minutes proving that fact. He slumped lower in his chair. It was time to forget Security forces and return to first principles.

  Again he summoned information about the three ships. He had dealt with the Kobold many times before, and he knew its capabilities. He could not squeeze one more meter per second out of its drive. Spook and Bryce would get there too late. The Dimbula and the Weland were less familiar to him. He arrayed the data sets for the two ships side by side and studied them closely. Both were Miranda-class, both were rated for travel anywhere in the Jovian system, both were able to carry either passengers or cargo. But the Welan
d was a good deal newer. It could go much faster than the ship that carried Lola, and it could have easily beaten the Dimbula to Lysithea. For some reason, Joss Cayuga was not pushing the Weland to its maximum speed. Rather than arriving before Lola and waiting for her there, Cayuga had arranged it so that the two ships would reach the docking area at almost exactly the same time. The Weland would in fact be there a few seconds after the Dimbula.

  If you wanted to dispose of somebody, wouldn't you want to get there ahead of them, with plenty of time to make your preparations?

  Bat sat silent and motionless for a long time, trying to think like an efficient murderer. Assume that Cayuga was monitoring news broadcasts from Ganymede. Then he would know that Security was searching for Lola Belman. He would know that the people from Security were thorough and patient, that eventually they would learn of Lola's departure for Lysithea. He would know they would follow her there. So he, Joss Cayuga, would have to kill Lola in a way that left him entirely blameless.

  How?

  Bat wasted more precious minutes, deep in thought. At last he put his final question and his own suspicions to the back of his mind and summoned more data. This time he needed information about computers.

  It came quickly, a satisfying amount—or maybe, given the short time available, a depressingly large amount. There were individual but interlocked computers on both the Weland and the Dimbula, for communication, internal ship maintenance, and navigation and control. Those on the Weland were a generation newer and more sophisticated than the Dimbula's. However, that didn't really matter since both ships during the final stages of approach would be slaved to the computers on Lysithea.

  Bat turned his attention there. The Lysithean computers were new and highly advanced, not what you might expect on such a small and out-of-the-way worldlet. They had individual modules responsible for ship communication and ship control. The control modules were also linked to the general Jovian-system transportation computers on Ganymede. The Lysithean computers relied upon Ganymede for general registry information—ship class, drive, travel restrictions, and specific IDs—but they had their own stand-alone control authority for ship movements in the vicinity of Lysithea. They could not be overridden by a command from some other location.

  They were also, as Bat soon discovered, impossible to infiltrate in the time available. Given a month, he might be able to gain access to the Lysithean control system, as he had gained access to almost every data bank on Ganymede. But he could not do it in just seven hours. He had already tried to crack the Lysithean communications module and send a message to Lola, and had failed miserably.

  Bat was facing an impossible problem; and unlike the "impossible" problems of the Puzzle Network, this one had no solution at all.

  He stood up. When your thoughts turned defeatist, it was time to do something different. He wandered the length of the Bat Cave, touching and fingering his priceless collection of war relics. Just a week ago he had heard rumors of another two relics, the fabled Palladian genome stripper and a variant on Fishel's renegade Von Neumann. Every copy of the latter had supposedly been exterminated after it ran out of control and converted the Trojan asteroids, but something very like Fishel's Von Neumann had been active in the Belt near the end of the war. Earth and Mars denied responsibility.

  Bat moved on, circling past the brain-dead Seeker, the Purcell invertor, the Tolkov stimulator. The handful of war buffs who were also Puzzle Network members occasionally talked of something more exotic yet: the Mother Lode, a lost data base that contained a list of all forbidden technology developed in the Belt before and during the war.

  Bat was skeptical. Why would anyone in his right mind make a permanent record that might later be used to incriminate him?

  And yet a powerful leader had done exactly that, only a century ago in Earth's North America. Maybe the Mother Lode was real, created by some lunatic with no thought of consequences. Maybe a copy still existed. Maybe one day somebody would stumble across it.

  If that happened, even more tantalizing questions would raise their heads: Would copies of the devices described by the data base still exist? If they did, where would they be? Not even the biggest optimist on the Puzzle Network suggested that those missing facts would be found in the same lost data base.

  Bat, prowling the darkened Bat Cave, could see that the discovery of the Mother Lode alone would lead to endless wasted effort. There would certainly be plenty of speculation on the existence and location of the devices listed there, but no one would have reliable information. And wrong information would be worse than no information at all.

  He paused. Wrong information would be worse than no information at all. Not necessarily. There might be situations where wrong information would be exactly what you needed.

  He hurried to the Bat Cave's communications center and looked at the time. In a little more than six hours, the Dimbula and the Weland would reach Lysithea. It would be a breakneck programing effort, with no time for checking of his code. But he had no choice. He had to try.

  He removed his bulky robe, flexed his fingers, and sat down without providing his usual array of snacks. Physical discomfort would serve as a spur. The good news was that even if he were wrong, what he planned to do could make matters no worse for Lola.

  * * *

  When Spook insisted on going to Lysithea with Bryce, the picture had seemed pretty clear. They would have an active role, maybe even a heroic one. They would make sure that Lola was all right, and they would put an end to any dangerous nonsense that Joss Cayuga might have dreamed up. Bat would sit at home, stewing in the Bat Cave.

  Well, Spook didn't know what sort of stewing Bat might be engaging in at the moment, but he envied him. At least Bat would be doing something, while Spook and Bryce were sitting inside the Kobold like two lumps of canned meat, unable either to overtake Lola or to talk to her. Bryce had been over their flight path and their drive settings again and again, and all he had been able to do was confirm that they would reach Lysithea too late to do anything about Lola's arrival.

  They would, however, be able to watch. Spook had installed himself in front of the forward display, where images from the main scope were now appearing. The Dimbula showed as a silver dot in the middle of the display volume. It grew steadily in size as the flight progressed. Even though the Kobold could not catch up, it was definitely gaining.

  More perplexing, though, was the second ship that had appeared in the same display. There was no saying where it had come from, but another dot had drifted into the field of view and was narrowing its separation from the Dimbula.

  Spook called to Bryce to come and take a look. "What do you make of it?"

  "That's the Weland. Bat said it was on the way. Is it closing on Dimbula?"

  "Slowly. If they get much closer together, the scope won't be able to separate them. But they'll still be a long way from actually touching."

  "Let's hope Cayuga isn't crazy enough to try anything like a collision. A space impact would destroy both ships. Keep your eye on them and let me know if you see any unusual drive activity."

  Bryce wandered aft again, leaving Spook to stare irritatedly at the display. Apparently he had been demoted to the role of ship's boy, with nothing better to do than sit and watch. On the other hand, what better was there to do? He stared as directed, hour after hour, until his eyes felt ready to drop out. Bryce stopped by occasionally to glance at the images and tell Spook what else was happening.

  In two words, not much. There was nothing new on the general news channels. No success in getting through to the Dimbula. No further word from Bat, back on Ganymede—according to Bryce, he was not even responding to their calls. Probably asleep or feeding his face, thought Spook. Great lazy lump, couldn't wait to get us out of the Bat Cave and have the place all to himself.

  The images of the two ships ahead had gradually merged into a single elongated dot. But now, as the Kobold slowly caught up with them and Lysithea itself became visible ahead as a t
iny disk, the scope was once more able to separate the Weland and the Dimbula. Spook wasn't quite sure what the "unusual drive activity" that Bryce had talked about would look like, but so far the two ships in front were following the same boost sequence. They were preparing for final arrival at the Lysithean dock.

  Spook watched the approach, filled with a strange and agonized tension. In another ten minutes Lola would be there, but they would not. Up to this point they had at least been able to see that she was all right. Once she was docked and inside Lysithea, Spook would have no idea what was happening to her.

  Bryce joined him and they stared together in silence. Lysithea was an irregular lump of rock and ice, its craters smoothed away by human activity. The docking facility where all three ships would enter showed as a dark circle within the bland grey of the surface. Already, the Kobold's own forward drive had come on, slowing them for rendezvous. The two ships ahead had been decelerating for some minutes. They were in final approach, only a few kilometers from the surface. Their landing could be no more than a minute away.

  Spook was opening his mouth to say that so far everything seemed normal when the display in front of him lit with the intense flare of a fusion drive at full power. The observation sensors overloaded in the glare and for a few seconds the whole display went black. It came back slowly, beginning with a ghostly outline of Lysithea. As the image strengthened, Spook looked in vain for any sign of either ship.

  All he saw was the dark mouth of the docking facility. A few hundred meters away from it a great cloud of white steam obscured Lysithea's frozen surface.

  25

  It happened fast, too fast to follow. She was in the final landing approach, the docking facility just ahead. Close behind the Dimbula was another ship. She assumed it was Joss Cayuga, on his way home from Elara and arriving just a few seconds after her.

  Four kilometers from the landing circle. Three. And then the Dimbula's drive went on—far stronger than expected. It caught her unprepared, and she fell back against her seat. The Dimbula lurched and spun. It was suddenly heading toward a different point on the opening landing circle. At the same moment the ship that had been just behind came arrowing across their bow. Its drive showed the actinic glare of a high-thrust setting and it was still accelerating when it smashed into the surface of Lysithea. There was a flash of light, a gout of white steam. She stared in horror until her ship penetrated the landing circle.