Gregory Benford - Jupiter Project

“That may possibly be the point,” Dr. Kadin said. “Perhaps these are spores and they were migrating.”

“Migrating?” Dad said. “What for?”

“We know there are fewer storms near the poles. A point at the pole does not rotate like the rest of the planet; the atmosphere above it is relatively still. It could be that only under those conditions can life survive in the Jovian atmosphere.”

“I see,” I murmured. “They were migrating to the other livable zone of the planet—the south pole.”

“Perhaps, perhaps.” Dr. Kadin waved his hands. “This is all quite preliminary. I am only advancing speculations, you understand.”

“We can deal with theories later,” Commander Aarons said. He smacked his fist into his palm. “The point is that we’ve found life—the real McCoy! If this doesn’t make ISA sit up and take notice, nothing will.”

“You think we might get to stay?” I said excitedly.

“We’re back in the running, anyway. I am going to get Earthside on the line at once: this will make headlines on every continent, if I am any judge.” He plucked at his moustache, smiling to himself. “Just wait until—”

“If you don’t mind, gentlemen, before you leave I have a piece of data you might find interesting,” Dad said. He got slowly to his feet, pausing for dramatic effect. I grinned. Dad could really play to the house, when he wanted to.

“I couldn’t sleep while Matt was out making an unintentional hero of himself; neither could his mother.” I suddenly noticed bags under his eyes; he was tired. “I spent the time following up a project I’ve been meaning to get to for several weeks.”

He picked a memory cube off the work table and inserted it in a viewscreen slot on the wall. The screen came to life.

At first I thought it was a bull’s-eye—just a bunch of concentric circles with three large ellipses on the outside. Then I picked out one little dot on the rim of each curve and realized this was the orbit pattern of the Jovian moons: the bull’s-eye at the center was Jupiter. As I watched, the dots moved. It was a speeded-up simulation.

“I had the computer plot out this history of the moons over the past month. All thirteen of the larger ones are here. You will notice that the outer moons do not move rapidly and have rather eccentric orbits. The outer three have never been visited by man; they appear to be smaller than the other moons and are probably asteroids captured when Jupiter was young.”

“That is only a hypothesis,” Dr. Kadin said.

“True, but a reasonable one.” Dad paused again. “You have probably heard of the meteor swarms we have recently observed. They strike Jupiter near both the north and south poles. To do that requires an orbit that doesn’t revolve in the same plane as Jupiter’s equator, as the Can’s does. It happens that the outer moons share this property.”

“Ah,” said Dr. Kadin.

“My reasoning wasn’t this clear when I began. At the time I was simply interested in the orbits of the meteor swarms. Previously we had simply followed their orbits backwards until we could be sure they came from far out. I extended the calculation.”

My father pressed a button and the screen flickered for a moment. The moon orbits were in yellow; now blue lines crawled away from Jupiter’s circle and spiraled outward.

“This is a history of the meteor orbits, run backwards. This first swarm spreads out a little”—the blue lines fanned open—“and then bunches together again. That is unusual in itself. But notice where they bunch.”

The lines focused together and intersected the eleventh Jovian moon.

“There isn’t very much error in this work; we got good fixes on the swarm.”

“Are you certain they had to strike J-11?” Dr. Kadin said. “It is a very small satellite”.

“About twenty miles across, in fact. But the swarm had to hit it; I’m sure of that.”

“Dad, ‘hit’ is the wrong word, isn’t it? This display is running backwards. You mean the swarm started from J-11, don’t you?”

“Right. Sloppy terminology. The program is still going though—watch this next swarm. The same pattern—spiraling out, bunching.”

We watched the lines inch away from Jupiter. They came together just as they met the yellow dot that was J-12.

“Zap!” Mr. Jablons said. “I don’t understand what’s going on, but it looks beautiful.”

“And strange,” the Commander murmured.

“There’s more.” Dad said. “I’ll speed it up.”

Another family of lines wound outward, meeting at J-11. The next group was a little slower, they took their time, but they all ended up at J-12.

“Three earlier swarms show the same pattern.”

“You have verified these calculations?” Dr. Kadin said. “Yes.”

“I am no astrophysicist.” Commander Aarons said. “Maybe I am missing something in all this.”

Dad shook his head, “I don’t think you are, sir. This is something new to all of us. There isn’t any handy explanation.”

The room was quiet. Everyone was watching the screen. Blue lines crept out from Jupiter again.

“What could possibly cause it?” I said.

Dr. Kadin narrowed his eyes as he studied the lines.

“Let us go and find out,” he said.

I was on an emotional roller-coaster, of course. I had been for days, without really realizing it.

Soon Dr. Kadin fell into conversation about how to investigate J-11 and J-12. I sat and listened and slowly, slowly, the tension drained out of me. The room got very clear and bright. My arms and legs felt warm and tingly. The things people were saying were very interesting and I followed the conversation closely. But somehow I couldn’t understand. The words were there, sure…but making the connections got harder…and harder. My eyes were sandy…and my eyelids kept creeping down.

I woke up the next morning. In my own bed.

I lay there for a while, feeling lazy and warm and letting my body drift. I thought about all that had happened. So much had come about by accident, the random collisions between people and events. Or it seemed random…

I mused about that for a while and then I got up. No point in lying around forever. Mom and Dad had already left for work. They left me a note on the newspad, telling me to take it easy and rest up. So I went for a walk, of course.

In the corridors outside, as I walked, I watched the faces. They were intent, but the mood was different from…was it only yesterday? People bustled along with fresh energy. A few recognized me. They stopped and slapped me on the back and said boisterous things. I smiled and told them it was just luck, nothing more, because that was the truth.

Zak was punching into a cubbyhole terminal near the comp center. He was frowning and typing as fast as he could. He looked over and saw me. His eyebrows shot up and he typed faster. In a minute he had cleared his program and gave up the terminal. “Matt-o!” He jumped up and came over to me. “I thought you’d be sipping champagne with the Commander.”

“I’d settle for a bowl of cereal.”

“I suppose you know you’re the man on the white horse around here.”

“Dumb luck.”

“Don’t fight it. People need heroes.”

I grunted. Somehow I knew I wasn’t going to like being the center of attention. “What’s the update?” I asked.

“You don’t know? The Sagan is going out to J-11. The crew’s been selected. Aarons announced it an hour ago.”

“Really? He’s moving fast.”

“Aarons wants to follow up your discovery, pronto. The way I figure it is, he doesn’t want to give ISA time to react.”

“Why not?”

“They’ll advise extreme caution—you know bureaucracies. And some factions will say we’re faking it, as a last-ditch measure to keep the Can alive.”