Gregory Benford - Jupiter Project

We found our bunks and stowed our gear without wasting any time. We didn’t want the mob to catch up with us. As soon as things were squared away Zak and I beat it across the base and trotted over to the dome lock.

The dome is the whole point of Ganymede, for me. I was out of my suit and putting on tennis shoes almost before the air lock had stopped wheezing. I had to gulp a few times to adjust my inner ear to the dome’s pressure, but that was automatic. Anybody who has been in space learns to do that without thinking—or ends up with lancing ear pains when he forgets. Zak was just as fast, and we went through the door together.

To anybody living on Earth I guess the dome wouldn’t be a big deal. But to me—I came out the door and just stood there, sopping it up. Overhead the dome arches away, supported by the air I was breathing. It rises to 500 meters in height and is five kilometers in diameter; a giant, life-filled blister on Ganymede. Inside the blister is the only spot where a man can walk without a suit.

Zak and I trotted the klick to the ski shed. There is a funny nose-shaped hill under the dome, with one steep face and one shallow. We carried our skis up the difficult side and strapped them on. I stood looking out, surveying the land under the dome. Hills sloped into each other, making stream beds and narrow valleys. A late morning water fog rose from a marshland. Up near the top of the dome, so thin you had to have faith to see it, was a wisp of pearly cloud. Back at the edge, the way we had come, a few people were spreading out from the lock.

“Come on!” I said, and pushed off. We started slowly and then began to weave, making long undulating patterns down the hill face. You don’t get as much speed in a lighter gravity, but you can make incredible turns and prolong the ride.

We skied most of the afternoon, until there were too many on the slope. Then we took a hike around the dome to see what was new. The experimental farm had grown and most of the crops—adapted corn, root vegetables, apples—were doing well. The farm is the seed of what Ganymede will become, once the atmosphere project gets going, melting dirty ice to make air.

With the greenhouse effect warming things up and microorganisms giving off oxygen, eventually a soybean will grow somewhere and then—well, then colonists will be panting down our necks, wanting to get in. By then it will be time to push on…before they build a Hilton.

That is, assuming ISA didn’t send me back on the Argosy, I reminded myself.

That thought wasn’t so easy to brush aside. I tried pretty hard, though, the next two days. I climbed hills, skied and played soccer until my legs threatened to stop holding me up. When we got up in the morning Zak would just lie in bed groaning about his past sins, and wish for a chocolate sundae to tide him over until breakfast.

The third day we were skiing sort of halfheartedly, waiting for enough people to show up to make a soccer team, when I lost sight of Zak on the slope.

I turned uphill, came to a halt and looked around. There was nobody very near. I poled my clumsy way uphill and looked again. There was a small mound nearby I skirted around it to get a better view.

“Hey!” Zak said. He was lying in a small depression behind the mound. His skis were off and there was a brown gouge in the snow.

“Why didn’t you yell before?” I said, clomping over to him.

“I was embarrassed. It’s kind of dumb to take a fall on an easy grade like this.” He grinned sheepishly.

“Hurt anything?” I put out a hand to help him up.

“I don’t think— ow !”

“Sit back down. Let’s see.” I unwrapped his left ankle.

“How is it?” He blinked owlishly at his leg.

“Sprained ankle.” I started unclipping my skis.

“Will I be able to play the piano again, doctor?”

“Sure, with your feet, just like before. Come on.” I got him up and leaning on me. “Think you can walk?”

“Certain— ow !”

He did make it, though, to the bottom of the hill. From there I hiked back to the dome lock and got a small wagon usually used to haul things to the experimental farm. The base doctor walked back with me and bandaged up Zak’s ankle, making the same diagnosis I had, only using longer words.

I got him settled into his bunk. The doctor delegated me to bring him his meals and the first thing Zak asked for was a milkshake. I shrugged and went over to the cafeteria to weasel one out of the cook—no mean feat.

I asked the man tending counter and he told me it would be a few minutes—several people had lunch coming up. I stood aside to wait. The woman from the Sagan was next in line behind me. She asked for a cup of coffee and a vegetable roll and got it immediately. Then she leaned over to the counterman and said loudly, “These youngsters all want special favors, don’t they?”

I stood there trying to think of something to say until she flounced out. If it had been Zak, he would have come up with something cutting and brilliant, but I acted as though I had a mouth full or marbles, and my face burned with embarrassment.

“You’re the younger Bohles, aren’t you?” a deep voice said.

I looked up. It was Captain Vandez; he looked tired.

“Yes sir.”

“I heard about the Palonski boy just now. Unfortunate.”

“It isn’t anything major,” I said, “Zak will be walking by the time we ship home.”

“Good.” He nodded abruptly. “The base commander has you two slated to take the Walker out on a routine inspection tour starting tomorrow. I was afraid this accident might scrub it.”

“It will.”

“Not necessarily. Another boy volunteered for the job two days ago. I told him both places were filled, but now there is a spot vacant. You see, Bohles, base personnel are all assigned to other jobs now and we are a bit squeezed. If you don’t mind going out with another boy…”

“Who is he?”

Captain Vandez sighed and looked at a paper in his hand. “Sagdaeff. Yuri Sagdaeff.”

“Oh.” I gulped. “Could I let you know in a few minutes?”

“Of course. Take your time.”

I got the milkshake and put it in a sealed carrying box. I was still in my suit, so I put on my helmet and cycled through the cafeteria lock as fast as I could. Then I double-timed it through a low-lying pink haze back to our dorm.

When I told him Zak stopped slurping and made a raucous noise.

“That sneak!”

“Huh?”

“Remember when we told him about the Walker? I know just how his mind works. Sagdaeff thinks we’re making points by, doing the inspection tour. He wants his share.”

“What for?”

“Yuri wants to rack up points with Captain Vandez and hope the word gets back to Commander Aarons about what a sharp guy our Yuri is. He’s not dumb.”

“Aren’t you being a little cynical?”

“Every realist is at first called a cynic.” he pontificated.

“You don’t think I should go?”

“You’re just giving him a break. After all, you and I have been out in the Walker before, doing odd jobs. The guys here at the base know you’re not a Johnny-come-lately.”

“The work has to be done.” I said firmly. “The project is more important—”

“Okay, okay,” Zak said, rolling his eyes. “Go ahead. Tramp the icy wastes with Yuri for the glory of the ISA. I’ll stay here and write terrible things about you in my diary and starve to death.”

I gritted my teeth, thinking. I was nervous and jittery. A small voice was nagging me in the back of my mind. Don’t be a sucker, it said. It had some good arguments, too.

But I knew, finally, what was right. So I went back to Vandez and volunteered again.