by Ben Bova
The coffee machine pinged and Dorn turned back to it. He poured two cups of steaming black brew and brought them to the tiny round table beside Deirdre’s chair. Then he pulled up the desk chair and sat facing her.
“So,” he said. “I am not really a priest. But you need someone to talk to and I am willing to listen.” Before Deirdre could say anything, Dorn added, “And, like a priest, I will treat your words as private and entirely confidential.”
“It’s about Andy.” Deirdre surprised herself by blurting it out.
“The mission into the ocean.”
With a slight shake of her head, Deirdre said, “It’s more than just the mission. It’s about Andy and me … our relationship.”
Dorn asked, “Do you have a relationship?”
“We’re friends. I like Andy a lot. And I know he likes me.”
“Enough to be jealous of Franklin Torre.”
“You know about that?”
Dorn half smiled. “I’d have to be totally blind not to recognize it. While you’ve been having dinner with Torre these past few nights, I’ve been eating with Andy. Not that he’s done much eating.”
“Oh dear.”
Noticing that she hadn’t touched her coffee, Dorn asked, “Would you like a sweetener? Some cold soymilk, perhaps?”
Deirdre glanced down at the steaming cups. “No, black is fine.” She picked up her cup and sipped at it. The coffee was strong and hot.
Dorn took a swallow from his cup, then told Deirdre, “For what it’s worth, I think Andy likes you very much. I don’t know much about love, but he might very well be in love with you.”
“When I told him I was frightened of the ocean mission he said I shouldn’t go. He said I meant more to him than making contact with the leviathans.”
Dorn said nothing.
“I mean, he’s willing to throw away the whole reason why he came here to Jupiter, his chance for a breakthrough, his chance for success as a scientist. For me!”
Carefully putting his cup back on the little table, Dorn said, “You are a very beautiful woman. Andy is obviously smitten with you.”
“But don’t you see where this puts me?” Deirdre pleaded. “I like Andy, I think he’s very sweet. But if I don’t go down into the ocean with him I could be ruining his career. He’ll hate me!”
“That’s not what he’s said. He told you that you mean more to him than the mission, didn’t he?”
Impatiently, Deirdre replied, “Of course he did. And I’m sure he means it. Now. But what about after the mission? What about when he comes back without making contact with the leviathans? He’ll blame me, sooner or later. Instead of loving me he’ll start to hate me!”
Dorn leaned back in the wheeled desk chair, making it roll slightly away from Deirdre. He clasped his hands together, one flesh and one metal, and held them prayerfully before his lips.
At last he asked, “If he actually did blame you for his failure, would that bother you?”
“Of course it would!”
“Why? Because you want him to like you, or because his failure would hurt his career, his life?”
Deirdre started to answer, but clicked her teeth shut. Her thoughts were swirling too much for a quick reply. How do I feel about Andy? Am I miserable because of my own ego or because I’ll be hurting him?
Dorn sat watching her, silent as a graven image.
At last Deirdre heard herself say, “I don’t want to hurt Andy.”
“Do you love him?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I only know that I don’t want to hurt him.”
“Then you’ll have to go on the mission with him,” said Dorn.
Deirdre looked into his eyes: one gray as a stormy sea, the other a red-glowing optronic vidcam.
“Yes,” she said, in an accepting sigh. “I suppose I will.”
RODNEY DEVLIN
In his own mind, Red Devlin believed that he was the one who actually ran research station Gold. Oh, Archer and the other scientists thought that they were in charge, and on paper they were, but the old Red Devil was the bloke who really made the place hum.
He had come out to Gold when the station had first been built, more than twenty years earlier, when his youthful attempt to open a restaurant in Melbourne had ended in bankruptcy. His official job at Gold was chief cook for the station. That meant that he spent most of his time in the kitchen and galley, supervising the small staff of humans and larger contingent of robots that prepared and served food and drink for the station’s personnel.
It also meant that he was responsible for obtaining the foodstuffs and drinkables that supplied the kitchen. And other things, as well.
Very quickly, Devlin became the station’s unofficial procurer. He was able to acquire things, find things, bring people together, in a manner that was little short of Machiavellian. When a staff scientist needed a new set of sensors in too much of a hurry to go through the red tape of the station’s regular procurement department, Red got the sensors for him and let him fill out the paperwork later. When someone needed some recreational drugs for a party she was throwing, it was the Red Devil that she turned to. When a lonely administrator needed diversion, Devlin smuggled in virtual reality sex simulations. He brewed “rocket juice” in a still that was tucked away among the scoopship operators’ repair facilities. He hacked into the station’s personnel files to speed transfers and promotions.
He called himself a facilitator. Many times, over the years he had been at station Gold, he’d heard people say admiringly that the station couldn’t operate without him. Devlin knew he was the lubricating oil that made the machinery run smoothly.
Or so he thought of himself.
Now and then he considered leaving Gold and returning to Australia. He had enough money tucked away to retire in comfort. But his memories of Earth were not all that pleasant: orphaned at the age of six, a ward of the state, compulsory schooling and then training for the restaurant business that was so poor he went bankrupt right off. No, he told himself, here at Gold he was known and respected, even admired by many of the brainiest people around. It was a small, almost claustrophobic world, but Red regarded himself as a pretty big fish in this little pond, and that was the way he liked it.
But as he sat up in his narrow bed, he mulled over this latest twist in the station’s sometimes Byzantine politics. Westfall wants a sample of nanomachines. Dangerous stuff, that. But she’s powerful enough to chuck me in jail. Or at least get me thrown off Gold. What then? Where would I go, even if she doesn’t railroad me into the cooler?
His room was small, little more than a nook near the kitchen. Devlin had never been one for creature comforts. His tastes for physical well-being were little short of Spartan. What he enjoyed most was the smiling admiration of the people around him. Scientists, engineers, administrators—men and women of good families and high education. They came to him for help. They needed the old Red Devil to solve their problems for them.
Now I’m the one who needs help, he thought as he stared sleeplessly at the blank display screen on the bulkhead at the end of his bunk. Westfall can ruin my life if I don’t do what she wants. But what she wants might be dangerous, terribly dangerous.
Should I tell Archer about it? Devlin shook his head. Nah. He’s too straight-arrow. He always shied away from me when he was a punk kid, just arrived here. Devlin remembered the first time he had offered to get some VR sex sims for the young Grant Archer. The kid had looked like he’d just been offered a deal to sell his soul. Archer was a religious Believer back then. Still is, as far as Devlin knew. Married to the same woman all these years; no hint of him straying.
So what if I tell Archer about it? That’d set up a real head-to-head battle between him and Westfall. She’d wipe the floor with him. Grant could never fight the way she would. She’d have him tossed off Gold before he knew what hit him.
No, Devlin told himself, I can’t bring Archer into this. I’ve got to find a way to satisfy Westfall wi
thout running the danger of setting nanomachine gobblers loose all over the place.
But how? How can I do that?
He decided the answer was more than he could hope to achieve at the moment. But as he wriggled down into his bunk and closed his eyes for sleep, he realized he was wrong.
He knew the answer. It came from a story he’d been told at the orphanage, all those years ago. A story by somebody with three names: Hans Christian Andersen.
OBSERVATION DECK
With some misgivings, Deirdre made her way along the main passageway toward the observation deck, where Max Yeager was waiting for her.
She hadn’t seen Yeager for several days, not even in the galley at dinnertime. The station’s phone system tracked him down almost instantaneously in the mission control center. From her own compartment’s wall screen, Deirdre could see that Max looked haggard, unshaven, his thick mane disheveled, his coveralls wrinkled and baggy. Over his shoulder she could see a bright-looking golden-haired woman with violet eyes sitting at the main console.
“Dee?” Yeager said, easing into a grin as soon as he recognized who had called him. “What can I do for you, gorgeous?”
Deirdre suppressed an annoyed frown. “Max, I need to talk to you.”
“Sure.” His grin became leering. “Your place or mine?”
“Be serious!”
“What’s the trouble, Dee?”
“I need your advice. It … it’s personal. Can we meet somewhere, in private, someplace where we won’t be disturbed?”
His face totally serious now, Yeager said, “Okay, sure.” He thought a moment, then suggested, “How about the observation deck?”
Deirdre nodded. “All right.”
“I can be there in ten minutes.”
“The observation deck,” she said. “Ten minutes.”
Now, though, as she neared the doors, Deirdre recalled that the observation deck was sometimes used for lovers’ trysts. Max! she railed silently. Did I give him the impression that I’m interested in him sexually? No, she told herself. But what I said and what he heard could be two entirely different things.
So she felt distinctly nervous as she slid back the door to the observation deck and stepped inside. The door slid shut automatically and the lights inside dimmed. It was like standing out in space. Deirdre could see myriads of stars spread across the infinite black, the beauty of the universe stretching before her eyes.
But she had no time for the glory of the heavens.
“Max?” she called. “Max, are you here?”
Silence. Then the door slid open again, spilling light from the passageway into the compartment. Max Yeager’s burly form was silhouetted briefly as he stepped through and the door shut once more, automatically dimming the lights.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, his tone apologetic. “I had to get loose from Linda; she wanted to come here with me.”
Deirdre assumed Linda was the woman she had glimpsed in the phone screen.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I just got here myself.”
“So here we are, beautiful, in this romantic spot, just you and me and a few zillion stars.”
Deirdre said, “Behave yourself, Max.”
“Do I hafta?” he said, in an imitation of a little boy’s whine.
“Max, I need your advice.”
“About what?”
Deirdre bit her lip, trying to frame her words. Max loomed before her in the shadows, a big shaggy presence.
“How dangerous will the mission be?” she asked.
In the dim light it was difficult to see his face, but his voice sounded surprised. “Dangerous? Like any flight mission, Dee. There’s always the element of risk.”
“But … going down into the ocean. Living in that liquid, breathing it.”
“You’re not going, are you?”
“Andy wants me to. He needs me to.”
For a couple of heartbeats Yeager said nothing. Then, “You’re scared, eh?”
“Terrified,” she admitted.
“Then don’t go.”
“But Andy … he wants to make contact with the leviathans and he thinks I can be a big help to him.”
“Then go.”
“You’re not helping me!”
Yeager stepped closer to her, so close she could smell the acrid tang of his unwashed coveralls. “Dee, honey, what do you want from me? I can’t make up your mind for you.”
“I need to know if your ship is safe,” she replied. “I need to know if we can get through the mission without harm.”
Yeager fell silent again.
“Will I be safe?” she asked, pleadingly.
“Faraday is as safe as I can make her. She’s gone down into that ocean and come back again in tip-top condition. All systems performed as designed. She even took a battering from the sharks and survived virtually unscathed.”
“Virtually?”
Yeager shrugged and gave out a low chuckle. “A couple of minor subsystems went off-line from the shock for a few seconds. They came back on-line, just as they were designed to do.”
“So the ship is safe.”
She sensed him nodding. “As safe as I know how to make her, Dee.”
“Would you ride in it?”
“Sure. In a hot second.”
It was Deirdre’s turn to fall silent.
“I don’t mean that there aren’t risks involved,” Yeager amended. “There’re risks with any mission. But Faraday’s a hundred times safer than the tin cans they sent out on crewed missions twenty years ago. A thousand times safer.”
“Really?”
Placing his hand over his heart, Yeager said, “On my honor as an engineer and a gentleman.”
Deirdre smiled at him. “You are a gentleman, Max.”
“Yeah, dammit.”
The glassteel-walled deck suddenly began to flood with light. Deirdre could see Max clearly: He looked solemn, pensive.
“Jupiter’s rising,” she said.
The giant planet climbed into view, a huge overwhelming curve of glowing clouds, swirling and churning in multihued splendor.
“I’ll be going into that world,” Deirdre said, still more than a little frightened, but totally determined now.
“And I’m going with you,” said Max Yeager.
“You? But—”
“I won’t let you go without me, Dee. If anything happened to you I’d never forgive myself. But if I’m on board with you, if anything unforeseen happens, maybe I’ll be able to fix it.”
“But Max, you’re not a scientist. Dr. Archer won’t allow you to go.”
“Yes he will,” Yeager said, his tone as flat and final as a judge pronouncing sentence. “I’ll make him allow me.”
DOLPHIN TANK
Andy Corvus sat glumly on his equipment box and watched the dolphins gliding sleekly through the water all around him.
That’s the life, he thought. Just swim around and eat fish. No worries. No dangers. No fears about the future or regrets about the past. Nothing but the here and now.
The dolphins were talking to each other, ignoring his presence. Andy understood part of their chatter through the translator and the DBS probe in the circlet he had placed on his head. They were talking about food, which fish were the tastiest, how the squid tried to hide among the rocks on the bottom of the tank.
Baby was growing bigger by the day. Sleek and strong, she slid past Andy’s watching eyes, propelled by thrusts of her powerful tail flukes.
“Hello, Andy,” his translator crackled.
Surprised and pleased, Corvus replied, “Hello, Baby.”
“Where’s Dee?” Baby asked.
Andy’s breath caught in his throat. Deirdre hadn’t been down to the tank for days, yet Baby missed her.
“Dee’s not here,” Corvus said morosely. And, he thought, she probably never will come down here again.
“I’m right here, Andy.”
He whirled, almost falling off the equipment box. And there
she was, in a knee-length robe that covered her swimsuit, looking as beautiful as a woman could possibly look.
“Hi!” he said, bouncing to his feet.
“I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you and Baby,” Deirdre said. “What with the nanomachine therapy and working on the Volvox and then Dr. Archer wants me to study the leviathans’ pictures…”
“I understand,” Corvus said, his spirits sinking again. “After all, if you’re not going on the mission there’s not much sense working with the dolphins.”
“But I am going on the mission, Andy.”
For a heartbeat or two Corvus couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “You’re going?”
“I talked it over with Dorn and Max. We’re all going, the four of us together.”
Corvus shook his head. “No, Dee, you’re not going.”
“Yes I am.”
“But I thought … I mean, you told me you were scared.”
“I still am.”
“So why would you change your mind if you’re still frightened?” Before Deirdre could reply Corvus thought he knew the answer. “You’re doing this for me?”
“Partly,” she said, with a bright smile. “And partly to help Dr. Archer. I mean, he’s set up a scholarship for me at the Sorbonne. I owe him something, don’t you think?”
Feeling confused, Corvus stuttered, “But … the risks … the danger.”
“I’m scared, for sure,” Deirdre admitted, “but I’m not going to let that stop me.”
“No! I won’t let you.”
“Andy, it’s not your decision to make.”
He stared at her: so beautiful, so sweet. She’s willing to do what she’s scared of, Corvus told himself, because she knows it will help me.
“I can’t let you do it, Dee,” he said. “It really is dangerous. If anything happened to you—”
“It would happen to you, too, wouldn’t it? I mean, we’ll be in the ship together, you, me, Max, and Dorn.”
He sagged down onto the equipment box again, his thoughts whirling. “What made you change your mind?” he asked.
Sitting beside him, Deirdre replied very seriously, “I decided that it was very selfish of me to refuse. This mission is important. Not just to you, Andy. It’s important to Dr. Archer. It’s important to our understanding of the leviathans. If we can make contact with an intelligent alien species … that’s mind-blowing!”
