Donald Moffitt - The Jupiter Theft

It took fifteen minutes of effort to make the Cygnans understand. He told them that the health of the humans depended on their having access to food supplements till they got a garden growing in the enclosure. He clinched it by saying that with a few human artifacts to work with, they could give zoo visitors a more approximate view of terran life.

When they returned Jameson to the enclosure, a reception committee was waiting. Boyle said, “Well?”

Jameson looked at the ring of faces: Boyle, Hsieh, Kay Thorwald, Tu Jue-chen. Beyond, a ragged assortment of men and women were straining to hear.

“I can bring two people with me to load up. They can’t spare the personnel. The Cygnans will check each item. Nothing that can be used as a weapon or for escape attempts, nothing dangerous to the ecology of the spaceship, like yeasts or algae. We get food, clothing, limited building materials, some personal items. They pretty well stripped the ship.”

Tu Jue-chen sucked an invisible lemon. “Two people—no good.”

“One Chinese, one American,” Boyle said.

“With Jameson, two Americans. Must have two Chinese.”

Jameson said, “They won’t let me take three people. They were clear about that. And we’d better get moving before they change their mind. I don’t know how many trips we’ll be allowed.”

“Two Chinese,” Tu Jue-chen insisted.

Jameson left her arguing with Boyle and went to eat the breakfast that Liz Becque had saved for him. Liz hovered over him while he was eating it. She had a list of foodstuffs to give him. She saw him looking at her belly.

“Two months to go, Tod,” she said ruefully. “Omar and I were careless. Then I kept it a secret until it was too late for one of Doc Brough’s retrogenesis pills. God, I wanted that child! I knew it would be the end of my career in the Space Resources Agency, but I didn’t care! Now it’s going to be the first baby born in a Cygnan zoo.”

“Born among the stars, Liz,” Jameson said. “We’ve got a human society going in this starship. Ninety of us, with our own personal ecology. Neolithic man got started in communities far smaller than that. There’s eternity ahead of us. Anything can happen.”

Liz gave him a brave smile. “A primitive tribe, are we? Homo dum anima …”

He looked at her blankly. “Dumb animals? Now, Liz…”

“It’s a stupid pun. A Latin proverb: Dum anima est, spes esse … while there’s life, there’s hope.” Abruptly she burst into tears and walked away.

Boyle was climbing down the gray steps toward him, Kay, and the two Chinese following. They had Klein and Chia Lan-ying, the Chinese stores exec, in tow.

“Here’s your two porters, Commander,” Boyle said. “You’d better get moving.”

Jameson looked doubtfully at Chia Lan-ying. She was a lovely thing, with rosy cheeks and huge eyes almost hidden by dense bangs. She looked tiny and frail next to Klein.

“Maybe you’d want to send comrade Yeh or one of the men,” he said. “We want to move stuff as fast as possible.”

Tu Jue-chen drew her simian brow into a network of angry V’s and said, “You will not fool me. Comrade Chia is in charge of supplies.”

Jameson sighed and gave it up.

Chia proved to be a deft and efficient worker, darting through the moldering piles of goods and finding useful items and helping Klein and Jameson load them on the circular dolly with three ball-bearing wheels that the Cygnans had provided. Jameson had to admit that she was a better choice than Yeh; muscles weren’t that important in the low gravity anyway.

Klein tried his patience, though. He kept goofing off to prowl through the scattered stuff from the cabins when he was supposed to be helping Jameson wrestle the heavy stuff like food lockers and fish tanks onto the dolly. Jameson was about to say something when he saw Klein stiffen, then pounce on something in one of the jumbled piles.

“My duffle,” he said sullenly when Jameson came up behind him. “And some of my other stuff.”

“Show it to the Cygnans before you load it,” Jameson said. He wasn’t going to make an issue about Klein’s personal possessions; maybe the man would get down to work now that he had found them. “We can’t take a chance on trying to sneak contraband past them.”

He’d already caught Klein attempting to pocket somebody’s jackknife. The Cygnans frowned on anything that might be used as a weapon, though Jameson had gained a dispensation for safety razors when he explained their use.

“Just some clothes and toilet articles,” Klein said, his sallow face closed.

Jameson saw brushes, a shaving kit, Klein’s heavy gum-soled boots, some crumpled garments, a pocket chess set, some fancy bottles. He gestured at a silver flask.

“All the liquor goes into the common store,” he said.

“Just aftershave lotion,” Klein said. He unscrewed the cap. “Here, take a sniff.”

“That’s not necessary,” Jameson began, but Klein was already holding the flask under his nose. “Okay, come on, let’s get those blankets loaded.”

A cheer went up every time they pushed a loaded dolly through the gate. There were lots of willing hands to help them unload and send them back again. They worked steadily for almost two hours before the Cygnans put a stop to it.

Visiting hours were about to begin.

There was a celebration that night after the sky went dark and the observation tubes had emptied of their flitting six-legged shapes. Boyle and Hsieh had agreed that some of the liquor and joints could be doled out for a party. They could hardly have stopped it. A boost in morale was badly needed.

Jameson sat with his back against a slab of terrace, his belly comfortably full of the meal Liz Becque and the Chinese nutritionist had served up from the precious store of packaged foodstuffs he’d brought back. It had been a brilliant approximation of a man han feast, complete with green noodles pressed from Cygnan mash. There had been reconstituted beer and wine, and a joint for every five people, and there was a great tub of punch contrived from fruit-juice concentrates and five squandered gallons of grain alcohol. It would be back to synthetic rations tomorrow, Jameson knew, but for now everybody was happy.

Maggie’s head stirred on his shoulder. “Look at them,” she said lazily. “I wonder if they’d be having such a good time if they knew the Cygnans were going to start moving Jupiter in six days.”

Jameson looked around uneasily, but nobody was within earshot.

“I know,” Maggie said. “It’s our guilty little secret.”

“Let ’em be happy while they can,” he said, squeezing her hand.

In the dilute silver light, the great terraced bowl of the enclosure had lost its drabness. He could see the pale outlined figures standing around or sprawled in conversational groups, Chinese and Americans mingling. Over by the bar, a tank cover on trestles, Liz and Chia were ladling out the punch. Behind a subdued babble of voices there was the dreadful wail of a harmonica and the easy accompaniment of the guitar he’d managed to bring back for Mike Berry. Across, on the upper slope, he saw an unsteady couple heading toward a makeshift pup tent devised from a sheet and cordage, early as it still was. A number of such improvised privacy screens had been set up throughout the enclosure since they had brought back bedding.

Ruiz was holding forth a couple of levels down. He’d been giving an informal briefing to Boyle and Hsieh of what he’d deduced since Jameson had found him a lightpad with stored mathematical tables and astronomical data. A small crowd had grown around him. It now numbered about twenty.

“Hi, Tod, can you come over here for a minute?” They were waving for him.