Donald Moffitt - The Jupiter Theft

“Well?” the NIB director said.

“The Cygnus object is slowing down,” Ruiz said. “That’s what it’s doing with all the mass it’s throwing away. The energies involved would have to be … enormous … for it to decelerate like that.”

“Never mind all that!” Harris snapped. “What does it mean?”

“Mean?” Ruiz passed a hand wearily over his eyes. “It means we’ve got a reprieve. By the time the Cygnus object arrives, it’ll be a good deal more tame. And considerably shrunken.”

“Time,” the general mused. “If it’s slowing down, we’ll have more time to get ready…”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? You can call off your damned national emergency. If the trend of those curves continues, it won’t be shedding any dangerous amount of X-rays and gamma radiation by the time it gets here. It won’t be colliding with interstellar hydrogen at relativistic speeds any more! And it won’t have as large a gravitational scoop. And its cross section will be smaller.”

The NIB director looked at the screen. “Do you verify that, Dr. Mackie?” he said.

There was a three-second delay, and Mackie jerked into response. “Er … we’ll have to continue our observations for some time, of course, but—”

“Why don’t you tell him the Cygnus object’s rate of deceleration, Horace?” Ruiz said.

Mackie maundered on until Ruiz’s words reached him, then said: “Uh … why, approximately nine hundred eighty centimeters per second per second.”

“Is that figure supposed to mean something to me?” Harris said.

“It’s an interesting coincidence, that’s all,” Ruiz said. “The Cygnus object happens to be braking at just about one gravity.”

“I don’t see…”

“Don’t you understand yet, man?” In his impatience, Ruiz had reverted to his New Manhattan accent. “It’s not passing through any more! It’s going to park here!”

The saloon smelled of fresh paint and new insulation. They were still putting the finishing touches on it. Tubular metal scaffolding was stacked haphazardly against the bulge of the far wall, where carpenters and foam wrights were installing a small stage to be used for concerts and amateur theatricals. Rows of mismatched folding and inflatable chairs had been hastily set up for the meeting. The curving chamber was one of the few places in the American sector of the ship that was roomy enough to seat this many crew members at once.

Jameson filed in with the rest, looking over the heads in front of him. There was a lot of joking and goodnatured jostling. It felt good having weight on his feet again. They’d been spinning the Jupiter ship at a full g for a couple of days now as part of the final shakedown—though during the actual voyage the 200-meter ring would be stressed at only two-thirds of a g.

A small, wiry man in a stained overshirt bumped into him; it was Kiernan, one of the hydroponicists. “What’s the Old Man want?” he said. “I’ve got two hundred trays of wingbean seedlings to set out.”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Jameson said.

Jameson found an empty seat near the back and sat down. The saloon was filling up fast. A couple of minutes later, Maggie MacInnes slid in next to him. A bony hip bumped his. She turned her head and blinked orange eyelashes. “Hi,” she said. “We haven’t seen much of you these days.”

“Li and I pretty well wrapped up the landing exercises a month ago,” he said. “I’ve been working for Captain Boyle. Got to earn my keep while we’re getting there.”

She brushed a loose strand of red hair from her cheek. “I’m glad you’re going to be one of the execs in charge,” she said.

“I’m just third officer. By the way, that was a nice set of trajectory parameters you sent up yesterday. I recognized your touch.”

She shrugged freckled shoulders. “I want to get to Jupiter in one piece too.”

The buzz of conversation around them died down as Captain Boyle came in and took his place on the little raised platform with the folding Moog and the music stands. He smiled and nodded at a couple of people in the front row, then stood in an easy posture, one thumb hooked into his harness, while he waited for everyone’s full attention.

Boyle was a big, imposing man with a red face and a thick, powerful neck. His cap of tight curls was thinning, and under the harness straps and the fresh uniform blouse donned for the occasion his wide shoulders and bull-like chest were tending toward bulk, but his waist was as trim as it had been when he commanded the expedition that had begun the work of seeding the Venusian clouds with life. Like many big men, he moved well, and in a way that inspired instant confidence.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and all you others,” he began; there was a dutiful laugh. “I won’t keep you long. I just want you all to know that, as of a couple of hours ago, our mission is officially go.” He drew a length of message strip out of the pocket of his shorts and waved it at them. “I’ve just received confirmation from Earth of our original target date—” A ragged cheer went up, and in the second row Mike Berry stood up and raised clasped hands in a victory gesture. Captain Boyle motioned for silence and went on. “I know that there have been times in the last year and a half when some of you thought we’d never make it”—groans from the audience—“but I want to say that I’m proud of you and all your efforts.”

His manner became more serious. “At this moment, over in the opposite side of the ship, Captain Hsieh is giving essentially the same message to his crew. A great new era in the exploration of space is about to begin. As representatives of the human race, we are going to”—he cleared his throat and looked a little embarrassed—“to carry the banner of mankind farther from our home planet than we’ve ever gone before—ten times as far…”

Maggie nudged Jameson. “Some pressec wrote that for him,” she whispered.

Jameson frowned her into subsiding. Boyle’s awkward words had stirred him more than all the slick panegyrics he’d heard on the holoset in the last couple of years. He didn’t think anybody had written them for him.

Boyle was going on more briskly. “We’ll be having a joint party with our Chinese crewmates tomorrow night”—there was a rustle of interest; the Chinese had remained correct but aloof during training, and get-togethers where you could socialize with them were rare—“but tonight I’m inviting you all to a party of our own in the bubble lounge at Eurostation. Drinks and eats are on me.” Somebody whistled appreciatively; the bubble lounge was expensive.

He waved them into silence again. “We’ll be essentially finishing our training sessions in the next week, except for wrap-ups. During the six weeks before countdown, there’ll only be routine maintenance while the Earth crews finish up outfitting. I’m-happy to say that there’ll be Earth furloughs for all of you on a staggered schedule.”

Maggie turned to Jameson, her face shining. “Earth! I’ve been breathing canned air for six months now!”

Jameson drew a deep breath. It was real now. This was what all the hard work had been for. He realized that until this moment he hadn’t really believed in it.

Around them, people had begun to chatter, to move restlessly in their seats. Captain Boyle held up his hand for silence again.

“Before we break this up, there are a couple of people I want you to meet. You’ll be seeing a lot of them.”

There was a stir of interest. Maggie was leaning to her left to see, a skinny thigh pressed against his.

A sandy-haired fellow with boyish, snub-nosed features and well-muscled shoulders under a sleeveless jersey came in through the door behind Boyle, moving in a catlike crouch that showed he’d spent a lot of time in low gravity. He waved at someone in the audience and took his place beside the captain.