Donald Moffitt - The Jupiter Theft

Ruiz squinted at the garish yellow ball of the Sun, shedding its fierce light on the herds of naked people facing seaward. It warmed his chill bones, baking out the old pains. He supposed he was lucky to be enjoying the luxury of Govpark instead of shivering in an isolation cell somewhere. Probably he could thank Harris for that; the man had brains enough to realize that Ruiz, despite his origins, couldn’t possibly have gotten where he was in GovCorp unless he had some discretion.

Ruiz sighed. Why couldn’t they understand that he had no desire at all to stir up problems? All he wanted was to get back to the Moon, where he could be useful.

A pair of young Govgirls strolled by, big and healthy and tanned, wearing only the briefest of fronties, white teeth flashing, repellesprayed hair still shaking out beads of salt water from their swim. They gave him a cursory glance, then walked on.

Ruiz didn’t belong here, with his seamed face and knobby joints, his hollow chest and baggy jockstrap. He stood there in the hot, insistent sun, squinting at the fax sheet, looking for all the world like some undernourished Privie who’d gotten in by mistake.

He was blocking the entrance to an eats booth, but he didn’t notice the annoyed glances he was getting from people who had to squeeze past him. He was studying the sheet in his hands with growing rage.

The holofax showed a scarred rocky globe with a headline in three-dimensional block letters hanging in front of it. The headline read:

New Moon for Jupiter?

He tilted the fax first to one side, then to the other, to see the part of the planetary surface the letters were obscuring. There were no surprises: just scorched rock like the rest of it. He snorted in disgust and read the brief story floating in white type in the illusory space beneath the sphere. There were no surprises there, either. It was substantially what he’d overheard a few minutes earlier when some bather had walked by with portable holovid blaring:

… according to Farside director Dr. Horace Mackie, scientists have now updated and corrected their original computations, and it appears that the wandering planet will take up an orbit around Jupiter instead of orbiting the sun, as had originally been theorized …

Ruiz crumpled the holofax angrily and dropped it on the boardwalk. So that was the pap they were going to feed the public! Updated computations!

It had taken some unimaginable force to tear that planetary mass from its solar orbit and aim it so that it would be captured by Jupiter. The universe was turning out to be a very queer place indeed, and here he was, stuck in this expensive sandbox for spoiled Guvie brats, while a stuffed gabacho like Mackie had all of Farside’s facilities to play with.

Hot tears of frustration in his eyes, Ruiz stared out over the water. Swarms of boisterous pink bathers splashed in the near surf, and farther out bright little sailboats bobbed against the translucent sky. It was hard to believe that this sparkling bay once had been known as Death Valley, before the ’09 earthquake had split the coast open and opened a channel to the sea.

He shook his head; best take advantage of it while he could. There’d been nothing like it for people like him while he was scrabbling for survival in the stinking tents of New Manhattan.

Ruiz hitched up his jockstrap and picked his way awkwardly through the sprawled sunbathers to the water’s edge. After a dip, he felt better. He picked up his gear and started the long trudge across the desert sands toward his assigned hospice. He’d give it one more try. Maybe this time they’d let him talk to Mackie. He pretended elaborately not to notice the arbee in the striped robe and mirrorglasses who followed him back.

“Sorry I’m late,” Li said. “Struggle Group meeting.” He made a wry face. “We had to elect a new leader, and the self-criticism dragged on longer than usual.”

“ Yuan yu, ” Jameson said, giving Li a crooked grin of sympathy. “I thought Chu Lo was Struggle Group leader.”

“Didn’t you hear? Chu Lo got rotated Earth. They send up new biologist this morning. Lady name Tu Jue-chen.”

“Who’s the new leader?”

“Tu Jue-chen,” Li said blandly. “Only democratic way.”

Jameson diplomatically said nothing. If Peking Center wanted to replace their political watchdog this close to countdown, it was their business. He was just thankful that it was a biologist and not somebody involved in the operational safety of the spaceship.

The two of them set off down the corridor toward Stores, helmets tucked under their arms. The great ship was eerily silent, sound smothered in foam. A quarter of the crew was on Earth leave, or at Eurostation awaiting transportation. There was ample room in the 600-foot doughnut of the spin section to dilute the rest of the crew—now grown to almost eighty people.

The sandaled feet of an approaching crewman came into view as they advanced along the upward-curving floor, and gradually the rest of him emerged from the ceiling’s eclipse. It was Kiernan, the wiry little hydroponicist, muttering to himself. As he drew abreast, he said, “If you’re headed for Stores, that new bastard’s going to give you a hard time.”

“What’s the matter?” Jameson asked.

Kiernan jerked his head angrily toward the exit. “I wanted to check out a couple of parts bins to use for seedlings. They’re just the right size. Wang and I punch holes in them for drainage. This Klein makes a big deal out of it. Says they’re not authorized for that use—tells me to make out a requisition and he’ll have the proper equipment shipped over from Eurostation, and in the meantime I lose two days!”

“By the book,” Jameson said. “One of those.”

Kiernan disappeared down the corridor, still muttering. Jameson and Li turned into the next crosstube and found themselves in the supply bay.

There was some kind of argument going on at the desk. As they drew closer, Jameson recognized Chief Grogan. Grogan’s enormous competence had gotten him promoted from the original construction crew, and he would be coming along to Jupiter.

“Look,” Grogan was growling with forced patience, “I got five men waiting at the air lock to go on outside detail. I gotta have fresh charges for their scooters.”

On the other side of the counter, Klein’s narrow face was set woodenly. “I can’t issue you the new charges until you turn in the empties,” he said expressionlessly. “Those are the rules.”

“Rules hell!” Grogan said. “Those fragging scooters are tethered outside. I gotta go all the way back to the air lock, put a man in a spacesuit, wait till he vacs the lock, wait till he matches hub spin, goes out, gets the charges, matches spin again, waits for the air pumps, and hands me the tanks like a good little boy! Then I trot all the way down here and say, please, sir, can I have my charges now, sir! And in the meantime I waste an hour of the shift.” Grogan’s brick-colored face contorted with the effort of being polite. “Look, why can’t you just issue me the replacements and leave the paperwork for later. I’ll bring the empties down at the end of the shift. Bailey always used to—”

“Bailey isn’t here any more,” Klein said.

“But—”

“I’m responsible for everything that goes out of here.” Klein said. “You don’t get new charges until you account for the old ones. If you want to fill out a lost or damaged report…”

Grogan made a choking sound. He spat out a rude word and stormed out. Klein’s eyes flickered over Jameson and Li. “Yes, Commander,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“ Tongzhi Li, ching, ” Jameson said to Li. “Can we have that shopping list?”