Donald Moffitt - The Jupiter Theft

Jameson looked up at the winding observation tubes, frosty in the subdued light. In not too many hours, they would be filled with sightseeing Cygnans.

He turned to face the others. “All right,” he said. “Who’s going with me?”

“Here’s all the food I could get together,” Liz Becque said apologetically. “And there’s about three gallons of drinking water in those cans and jugs. You couldn’t carry much more than that. You’ll have to depend on finding water along the way.”

Jameson examined the supplies spread out across the pokes that Liz had improvised from squares of sheeting. It included all the canned and packaged food that Klein had overlooked, and some pressed bars of a fish-and-wingbean pemmican that she’d made from the leftover supper rations.

“You may not get fed in the morning,” he warned. “Triad won’t be in any shape to get the zoo routine back to normal.”

“It’s all right. We’ll go hungry tomorrow. It’s the least we can do.”

Jameson began to tie up the bundles. He became aware of Omar Tuttle standing nearby, shuffling his big feet.

“I’m sorry, Tod,” Omar said. “I’d go with you, but I’d better stay and look after Liz. The baby could come any time.” He avoided meeting Jameson’s eyes.

“Okay,” Jameson said. “Don’t worry about it.” He went on tying up the bundles, and after awhile Omar went away.

He couldn’t blame Omar. He’d told them all himself that there was little chance of catching up with Klein before the alerted Cygnans intercepted him, or of doing anything useful if he did. Klein had a small army with him. Armed.

“Don’t go, then,” Beth Oliver had said reasonably. “Let the Cygnans catch them. You’ll only make things worse for us.”

Pierce had said: “All you’ll accomplish is to be brought back here anyway, and that’s if you’re lucky. Nobody shoots zoo animals. But you shoot mad dogs that are running around loose.”

Janet Lemieux had said: “We need you here, Tod, Captain Boyle’s going to need somebody to back him up. Otherwise the Chinese will control things. And you’re the only one who can talk to the Cygnans.”

What it all boiled down to was that everybody had an excuse for not going. Pierce, sheepishly displaying the arm broken during capture. Liz with her indisputable pregnancy. Omar, with his surrogate pregnancy. Janet, who was needed by Boyle and who soon would be needed by Liz…

But dammit, he could have used some help !

None of the Chinese, of course, would even consider going along. Chia had made herself unquestioned authority of the Chinese contingent for as long as she was aboard the Cygnan ship. Bring her back, and you’d committed an act of lèse majesté for which you’d suffer when she started running things again. And back here at the zoo, two factions were already shaping up: Captain Hsieh’s followers and the regrouped forces of Tu Juechen. Neither of the principals would willingly leave the field to the other, and none of the followers would desert the standard; it was important to be on the winning side early in the game.

For that matter, if Klein were brought back alive there could be a clash about constituted authority among the Americans. Klein carried the baton of the Reliability Board, and all of them, Jameson included, to some degree had been conditioned to its touch.

Except perhaps Ruiz.

Jameson looked across to where Ruiz was waiting for him. The old man was standing straight and tall, too proud to let anyone see him leaning against the wall. The bandage around his head was already askew where he had been fooling with it. His fierce hawklike profile was turned away. He’d bullied Janet into giving him the stimulants he’d need to keep him going.

“Medical supplies are short, Dr. Ruiz,” she had told him.

“Boyle and I are your only patients at the moment, and Boyle doesn’t need them.”

Janet had bit her lip. “You ought not to be doing anything strenuous. You certainly have a concussion, and you may even have a fracture under that cut scalp.”

In the end she’d given in. Then it had been Jameson’s turn.

“You’ll slow me up, Doctor,” he said bluntly.

“I’ll keep up with you. If I don’t, you can leave me behind. You’ll be no worse off.”

“How long do you think you can keep going on those things Janet gave you?”

“Long enough.”

“All right. I need all the help I can get. But you’ll kill yourself.”

“Commander,” Ruiz said, his eyes bright with speed, “that madman took Maybury with him because of me! Estúpido! I had to make speeches! Why didn’t I just go along quietly and try to slow him down?” He shook his head and immediately winced with pain.

So Ruiz was Jameson’s first recruit.

Dmitri was his second. The young biologist had impulsively followed Ruiz’s example. He admired the old man. And perhaps he wanted to prove to Jameson that he was a man of action. Jameson hid his misgivings and thanked him.

Then Maggie had thrown her arms around him and announced that she was going too.

“I thought you were trying to talk me out of it, like Janet.”

“That was before I knew you were really going! You’re not going to leave me behind!”

“Good girl, but—”

“I won’t stay behind with all those sheep! ” she said fiercely.

That hadn’t endeared her to the others. But Jameson had to admire her independent spirit. He felt a little ashamed of himself. He’d been one of the sheep himself, for too long. It was Maggie’s example, with her rebellious heritage from the New England Secessionists, that had opened his eyes and given him the resolve to resist the Kleins and the authority they represented.

He finished tying up the bundles and handed them out, giving the lightest one to Ruiz. “Just a moment,” he said. “I just want to say good-bye to Boyle.”

Boyle was breathing deeply and rhythmically. He looked somehow shrunken between the two blankets. There was a makeshift screen around him: sheets hung from ropes that were strung between the abstract branches of the iron trees.

“He doesn’t know you’re here,” Janet said. “I put him under.”

“When are you going to operate?”

“Soon. I’m boiling the instruments now. I’ll have to make do with what was in the medical bag.” She laughed uneasily. “I’ve never performed an amputation before. In fact, I haven’t practiced medicine since my internship. Just administrative psychiatry. Qing-yi’s going to help me. Did you know that she was a chijiao yisheng— what they call a barefoot doctor—in Kweichow Province before she qualified for the space program? She doesn’t have a medical degree, but she’s performed more operations than I have.”

“Is he going to be all right?”

“He’ll be fine. He has the constitution of an ox. And lots of willpower; he’ll make himself a crutch and be hopping around in no time. Maybe some day…” She hesitated. “The Cygnans must know about regeneration—you saw that assistant. If we can get a dialogue going with them … Tod, won’t you stay?”

“Chances are, I’ll be back before you know it. If not…” He shrugged. “Look, you can’t depend on one man with absolute pitch. We humans are ingenious creatures. It can be done with computer-generated sound and translating interfaces. There are some good electronics people here, and if you can actively enlist the Cygnan’s interest … Do it for the captain, Janet. And for your children.”

He turned toward Boyle. “So long, Skipper,” he said. “Good luck.”

Incredibly, from some iron resource of will, Boyle’s eyes flicked open. Jameson sensed that he was fighting the drug. “Good luck, boy,” he whispered. “It’s up to you.” His eyes closed, and he was breathing deeply again.