Gregory Benford - Jupiter Project

“The fact remains, Ishi, that you know a girl who is reachable,” Zak put in.

“Yeah.” I said, eyeing Ishi. He only smiled. The unspoken point was that a girl who would Do It for Ishi might Do It for one of us, too. I mean, it’s not a pretty idea, but that’s what I was thinking. I was pretty sure Zak was, too. In fact, Zak might have stage-managed this whole conversation to find out if Ishi or I knew any good candidates. He’s shrewd, ol’ Zak is. Not shrewd enough to solve the Getting Laid Problem, though. And even I could see we were thinking about this the same old way, with girls as half-enemy, half-ally, but, well, that’s the way the world was.

Zak insisted, “You know a girl that we know, too. who—”

“Correct,” Ishi said, grinning.

“C’mon, who is she?”

“I’ll say no more, Zak.”

“Look, we won’t tell. We just want to know—”

“I’m not going to say.”

“Geez, at least you could tell us what it was like. I mean, is it—”

“I have told enough.” Ishi said it in a soft, even voice, and I could tell he meant it.

After that, nothing much more happened. Ishi put up with our grousing. He wouldn’t give away any more information about the mysterious Lady X who’d lifted the burden of virginity from his shoulders. Zak told a seemingly endless series of dirty jokes. I wondered if adults spent this much time on the subject and decided no, that was impossible. When you can do, you don’t talk.

Zak’s mother came in from her job in Physical Chem. She peered in at us, all scrunched together, and gave us a curious look. Zak hurried to erase the encoding for energetic Rebecca’s program. After that we joked around a little, the way you do, and then when there wasn’t anything more to say, I went home.

The tubeway lights were dimming as I walked home. The air pressure was dropping too, I knew, though the change was so slight I couldn’t feel it. The Can is more than metal walls and oxy bottles; it has to ebb and flow like a natural environment, to fill the human need for a rhythm, a cycle. It has some decidedly non-Earthside benefits, too, like the low-g sleeping dormitory, where you can get the equivalent of a full night’s sleep in about four hours. The way I felt, maybe I’d be using the dormitory tonight.

When I slid the door aside, though, my father was sitting in his favorite chair, reading a fax sheet and there was a toasty, cooking smell in the air. Troubles seemed far away.

“What’s on?” I called out.

“Salad, artichokes, veal, custard,” my mother said quietly, coming out of the small kitchen and wiping her hands on her apron. “And please do not shout at home.”

“He was only releasing a little tension,” Dad said. “He had to sit through one of my lectures today.”

“Oh?” Mom said, instantly concerned. “About—?”

“Yes.” Dad said. Evidently they had talked over my future before broaching the subject to me.

“Well, you needn’t be so glum,” Mom said. “The two of you look as though Matt was shipping for Earthside tomorrow.”

“Well, I am shipping for Ganymede in two days,” I said, making a try at changing the subject.

“I know, and we’ll miss you,” Mom said. “I don’t see why we don’t take our recreation trips together, when—”

“Leyetta,” Dad said. “A nearly grown boy doesn’t want his parents tagging along after him wherever he goes. We’re sandwiched into a small enough area as it is.”

“Hmmm,” she said noncommittally, and went back into the kitchen. “Dinner is almost ready.”

I used the time to stow my school work, straighten up my room and wash my hands. One of the troubles with living in the Can is the squeeze on space. My bedroom is about as big as a decent-sized closet on Earth. I have to keep it neat and put everything away in the wall drawers or I’d go crazy. I’m told we were all tested to find whether we were naturally orderly, before we qualified for the Jupiter Project. No slobs allowed. How they decided the eight-year-old Bohles brat was okay I can’t guess, but they did.

“Matt.” my father called, reminding me that I may have learned to be neat but I’m not always on time.

Dinner was good, as usual. Dad presided over the serving of portions and I dug in. I didn’t pay much attention to the small talk about events around the Lab until Mom said:

“I heard an interesting rumor today, Paul. The Argosy leaves in a week or two, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it must. That’s when the optimum conjunction comes up for the Earth-Jupiter cruise.”

“Well, one of the women who works in Hydroponics with me heard that Earthside asked for a personnel inventory several months ago.” Mom said.

“Surely they have that information already,” Dad said.

“No, they wanted a new assessment of everyone in the Laboratory. And that’s not all. Earthside asked if there were any jobs that weren’t getting done because we don’t have the time.”

“ISA thinks we’re shorthanded?” I said.

“I don’t believe the International Space Administration ‘thinks’ anything,” Dad said. “It is too large, like a dinosaur, to do anything more than stay alive. The higher functions are left for others.”

“Oh, Paul,” Mom said, and looked at him with an amused smile.

“Well, perhaps I overstated my case. ISA takes orders from the Association for the Advancement of Science, and somewhere in that anthill a few people decide what happens and what doesn’t.”

“Mom, do you think ISA will send us some more staff members?”

“I don’t know, I just work here. But that is what the rumor seems to imply.”

“Just a while ago Dad was warning me that ISA might ship a lot of us kids home when we reach eighteen.” I said.

“I will admit that does not seem to agree with the rumors,” Mom said.

“Ah,” Dad said, raising a finger. “There are several ways to interpret that. If ISA does send you back. Matt, they will have to replace you. The work must be done by somebody.”

“I wish you hadn’t thought of that,” I said.

“I’m merely guessing, son. A word of advice: don’t waste your time trying to fit one rumor against another. Everyone in the Lab knows there is some sort of administrative battle going on in ISA and that there may be changes in our work here. An atmosphere like that breeds rumors faster than your mother can grow this veal in her tanks.”

I took another mouthful, thinking.

“If ISA is going to send us more staff. I would like to know about it,” Mom said. “We will need the time to increase the farming cycle.”

“Dad,” I said during a pause in the conversation, “why is all this happening? Why is ISA rocking the boat now, after the Lab has been out here nine years?”

My father made a tent with his fingers and leaned over the red-topped table. “Like most human problems, it is a matter of too many things happening at once. Earth is running out of raw materials. The fossil fuels, like coal and oil and natural gas, are going. Those don’t hurt so much, because we have thermonuclear fusion to provide all the power we want. Fusion reactors drive the Argosy and the Rambler and run that electric light, there.” He pointed at the ceiling lamp.

“But once the oil is gone, what do factories use for lubricants? Where is the lode of iron? There simply isn’t any.”

“We’re mining the asteroids,” I said. “It’s not like we’re living during the Breakdown, in 1990 or—”

“Sure, that’s a help. In fact, without it Earth would have to cut back drastically and go without a lot of things.”

“It’s that serious?” Mom said.