Gregory Benford - Jupiter Project

“Yes,” she said softly, “it was.”

The next day I did more chore work, lugging sacks of compost. It was the only kind of thing I felt like doing. Halfway through the morning I got a comm call. It was Commander Aarons’ office. They wanted me at a meeting in one hour. I went back to work and mulled it over. Probably a more thorough debriefing of my Satellite Fourteen run, I guessed. ISA would want them to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.

When I got there, all changed into a new suit, there wasn’t anybody I’d expected. No Dr. Kadin, no Mr. Jablons. Commander Aarons’ secretary—a guy I knew from the squash ladder—made me sit and wait. I could hear some loud talking from the inner office; the sealite partitions can only muffle so much. I couldn’t make out who was talking.

A light flashed on the secretary’s console. He told me to go on in.

Sitting in a chair across from the Commander’s desk was Yuri’s father.

“I thought you might be interested in Dr. Sagdaeff’s complaint. He has filed it against you,” Aarons said.

Dr. Sagdaeff said stiffly, “I see no reason why he should be here. This is a disciplinary matter—”

“Oh, it’s more than that.”

I began, “Look, sir. I’d just as soon avoid—”

“No, sit down.” Aarons said. “This is indeed more than a disciplinary matter. State your case, Dr. Sagdaeff.”

Yuri’s father frowned and glanced at me. “Briefly, we all know what this boy did to Yuri. Assault, that is the term, I believe. And the boy risked his own life, and destroyed valuable equipment, in a foolhardy stunt.”

“Hey, there—”

Aarons silenced me with a raised palm. Yuri’s father went on. “However, you are certainly aware that the feeling in the Laboratory runs strongly in favor of this boy. He was, I’ll admit, very fortunate. But that does not erase the offense against my son.”

“Agreed.” Commander Aarons made a steeple of his fingers and peered at them.

“And it is not a trivial offense. Yuri could have been seriously hurt.”

“Perhaps.”

“What is more, my son, by trying to stop this boy, has been made to look like the villain. It appears to me that, even beyond the issue of punishment for the assault, one should consider the harm to my son’s prestige among his co-workers.”

I was seething, but I kept my trap shut. Commander Aarons tapped on his desk top with a pen. “And so…?”

“I ask that, to compensate my son, he be included in the crew which goes to investigate the J-11.”

“ What? ” I cried. “What can he do that—”

“Quiet.” Commander Aarons shifted forward, putting his elbows on his desk and peering at Dr. Sagdaeff. “Of course, none of this is a coincidence. I am sure you have already learned, Dr. Sagdaeff, that one of the Sagan crew has been injured. A deep cut, from a loading accident. She must be replaced.”

Yuri’s father smiled slightly and nodded.

Aarons glowered. He seemed to get larger. “But to come to me with this case—incredible, sir, incredible. I am not in the business of insuring your son’s reputation. I am not a settler of petty disputes. And I will not be pushed into making assignments on a political basis.”

Yuri’s father twisted his mouth. “I hope you realize what harm this decision can do to your own position, eh? There are those in ISA who believe you have been altogether too arbitrary already in your policies. I would expect—”

Aarons stood up. “That, sir, is too much. Your faction is well known to me. I hear about your maneuverings constantly. But you do not have to insure the safety of this Laboratory. Your only obligation is to complain.”

“I think that is a totally unfair—”

“To hell with your idea of fairness.”

“—and your own attitude will be well documented, I assure—”

“Your son is inexperienced at long flights outside the Can. He is unqualified,” Commander Aarons said stiffly.

“No more so than others. I feel he is owed—”

“I will not have you strong-arming me with your ISA connections. Out!”

“What?” Dr. Sagdaeff looked surprised. “You cannot insult a senior member of the staff by ordering him to—”

“Out! Or do I have to assist you to the door?”

Yuri’s father froze for a moment, reassessing the situation. It obviously hadn’t gone the way he thought it would. “I hope you realize—”

“Out!”

Dr. Sagdaeff stood slowly and turned toward the door.

“Oh, yes.” Aarons said, a little of the steam leaving his voice, “I suppose I do owe you the favor of being the first to hear the announcement. Dr. Sagdaeff. Seeing as how you are a senior member of the staff and all that.” He smiled without mirth. “I had chosen the replacement before you even came to see me. I made the decision before you could try to put your political spin on it, you see. What Sagan needs is somebody with experience on shuttle-type craft.”

He pointed at me. “And there he is.”

It took two more days to outfit the Sagan for an extra-long flight. I spent most of the time working with Mr. Jablons on the Faraday cups. The biologists were concentrating on the spores themselves so much, nobody had taken the time to figure out how we found them in the first place.

After some tinkering, we figured out why the cup on Satellite Seventeen had cleared up after it had left the region above the poles. It turned out that the spores had their charge bled away after a few hours of contact with the grid and plate. Simple electrical conduction. When their charge vanished they were no longer attracted to the grid, so they gradually drifted out and away into space.

But the biologists had the limelight. Everybody wanted details and everybody had a half-baked theory. Dr. Kadin held a seminar that packed the auditorium. Earth kept the laser comm net saturated with questions, and they televised Dr. Kadin’s talk for prime-time showing Earthside.

In the question session afterward, somebody asked why the older cup I had replaced hadn’t shorted out, too. I had to admit I didn’t know. Maybe the cups didn’t have exactly identical electrical characteristics. Or maybe only a few of the storms carried spores. I had no idea. As the scientists say when they want to wriggle out from under, that aspect of the problem will be left for future research.

I trained for my job. We were taking along a shuttlecraft that had been in storage. It was outfitted with better detectors and special equipment, hydraulics and electron-beam cutters and omnisensors. We would carry it out on the hull of the S agan. I was to be the pilot. I named it Roadhog. Sentimental, I guess.

There was a big, noisy crowd saying good-bye at the main lock. Somebody was taking 3D scans for Earthside media hype. I said good-bye solemnly to my mother and waved at friends. Zak thumped me on the back, grinning.

“Hold the fort.” I said. I grabbed Jenny and gave her a long kiss that unfocused her eyes. I shook hands in a manly, exaggerated way with Zak. Then I lugged my gear out to the Sagan.

It took three days to reach J-11. We maneuvered into a parallel orbit thirty klicks away from it and the scientists got busy peering at it in the optical, infrared, UV, and beyond. J-11 was an unappetizing lump of rock, a flying mountain. Jagged peaks caught the sunlight and pooled the low spots in shadow. The whole thing was barely thirty klicks across at its longest dimension. There were no snowdrifts or clumps of ice clinging in dark corners, just cratered granite-gray rock. That suggested it had not condensed out of the primordial soup around Jupiter. It was probably a captured asteroid, tugged into orbit by tidal forces long ago.