Donald Moffitt - The Jupiter Theft

“She won’t get very far with that. Not any more. Mike’s going to be a hero when we get back. So are we all—Maggie and Gifford and Fiaccone included. We’re all going to have to smile a lot at each other for the holocasts. The facts are going to be rearranged. Klein never murdered Ruiz. He was just another heroic crewman who died trying to save the human race. I never fought Chia’s crowd. We were all in it together. They’re going to have diplomatic problems enough splitting up the Jovian moons and the new terrestrial planet.”

Later on, he showed her 61 Cygni through the port. “It’s very faint,” he said. “You can just about make it out. Actually it’s two stars.”

“Nice,” she said, nestling up to him. She yawned. “Nice to know that there are a lot of little elves out there, covered with pink feathers.”

The communicator buzzed. Jameson reached out and switched on the audio.

“Commander,” Maybury’s voice said. “Did I wake you up?”

“No,” Jameson said.

“I just wanted you to know that I accumulated enough observational data. Jupiter’s going to miss the Earth. It’s going to pass through just where Dr. Ruiz said it would.”

“That’s fine,” he said. “That’s very fine. Now go get some sleep.”

A week later they held a modest celebration in the saloon. Jupiter had crossed Earth’s orbit twice, with no more effect than a few earthquakes and typhoons, and the bollixing up of the planetary tables in the Nautical Almanac. It already had passed the orbit of Saturn without incident, and was heading out of the solar system at the rate of six thousand kilometers per second, still picking up speed. It seemed to be heading for the Great Nebula in Andromeda.

“They paid for it, you know,” Mike Berry said.

“What?” Jameson said. He’d been preoccupied watching the antics of the two humanoids. They seemed to like alcohol too. They couldn’t tolerate the sugars in beer or wine, or the congeners in whiskey, but chilled vodka seemed to do very nicely for them, if it wasn’t mucked up with vermouth or lemon peel. Right now one of them was mixing up a new batch in a cocktail shaker, while the other was breaking up the Chinese by doing a wickedly accurate imitation of Yeh’s hulking walk.

“They paid for Jupiter,” Mike said. “They took a planet the human race couldn’t use and left us an Earth-size planet—conveniently sterile—and three of the four Galilean moons. Plus they traded us their own moon for Io. I’ll bet the archeologists will go crazy.”

“We didn’t own Jupiter. The Jovians did,” Jameson said.

Mike went on, oblivious. “That’s five more planets in the solar system that the human race can colonize. And Jupiter’s radiation belt isn’t there to keep us away.”

Jameson took a sip of his martini. Mike was only saying what had been on everybody’s tongue for the last five days. As it hurtled Sunward, Jupiter had failed to hang on to its outer satellites and the two bodies the Cygnans had brought. It had managed to hang on to Io, of course, and the piece of rock known as Jupiter V.

The core of the superjovian gas giant they had ridden into the solar system was now the size of the planet Earth. It was going to be the most valuable piece of real estate in the solar system, surpassing even Mars. It could be terraformed. They could make water out of the remnants of its hydrogen and the oxides in the rocks. It was rich in iron and heavy elements. And it was heavy enough to hold on to the atmosphere that could be squeezed out of its rocks.

“And to top it all off,” Mike was saying, “Jupiter yanked them closer to the Sun before it let go. According to Maybury, it even looks like Ganymede will end up in an elliptical orbit that’ll take it inside the orbit of Mars!”

“You overlooked the biggest gift of all,” Jameson said. “They may have given us the stars.”

Mike nodded vigorously, spilling his beer. “I’ve been going over that Cygnan broomstick with Po’s boys. Do you know that it runs on water? Takes about a pint—we’ve tried it out with the ship’s stuff. Uses the hydrogen. I don’t know what it does with the oxygen! Very efficient—almost a hundred percent conversion to energy. It comes out as very energetic photons. They work like hadrons and scatter a hell of a lot of rho mesons. I think it’s a scaled-down version of their star drive. If they can make it that small, it has to be simple! ”

“If the Chinese have been looking at that thing, there’s going to be one great big crash research program on our side. I think you’re going to be at the head of it. That’s how the bureaucratic mind works. You were there first. You’re magic.”

“So are you,” Mike said. “You’re the only person in the world who can talk to Cygnans.”

“For the time being. There must be a few linguists around who have absolute pitch.”

“It’ll be you,” Mike said in a positive tone. “You and our pink feathered friends. With the three of you working on that Cygnan engineer we’ve got in the hamster cages, we ought to get enough clues to have a star drive inside of twenty years. Anyway, if I’m going to be project supervisor I won’t take anybody but you.”

“I accept,” Jameson said, laughing.

Mike leaped to his feet, spilling more beer. “It’ll be the stars, boy!” he declaimed dramatically. “Just think of it—the stars in our lifetime!”

Heads turned in their direction. Mike lifted his glass and toasted the saloon in general.

The humanoid who had been imitating Yeh came tumbling over in a series of cartwheels. Mike scratched it behind the ears. Everybody was doing that now. It was hard to keep your hands off them.

“S-t-t-t- ars! ” it chirruped in its songbird voice. “S-t-t-ars, s-t-t-ars, t-t-t- we! ” The two of them already had picked up a few English and Chinese words, beginning with “no” and “stop” and “don’t touch,” and you could understand them if you listened hard.

“That’s right,” Mike said, patting the silky crest. “We’ll take you home first. Then we’ll visit Alpha Centauri.”

“Hold on there!” Jameson said. “Don’t go off halfcocked. Alpha Centauri’s only four light-years away, and 61 Cygni’s eleven. If we get a starship out of this, the bureaucrats who finance it are going to want instant gratification.”

People were starting to drift over, drinks in hand. Ears had perked up at the sound of what had become the most popular subject aboard the ship.

“That’s right,” Quentin agreed earnestly. “Baby steps first. That’s been the whole history of the space program, ever since Stafford and Cernan and Young circled the moon before they let Armstrong and Aldrin land.”

“Look,” Mike said. “It’s a five-year trip to Alpha Centauri. Two of that is boosting and decelerating up to light-speed, during which you knock off another light-year, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“And it’s a twelve-year trip to 61 Cygni. Same two years to boost and brake. In between you travel at, say, ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent of the speed of light.”

“What about it?”

Mike leaned back, looking smug. “So at that speed, the time dilation effect is a hundred to one, right? Subjective time for the crew is maybe two years and two weeks to Alpha Centauri compared to two years and six weeks to 61 Cygni.” He spread his hands. “So what’s the big deal?”

“You’re missing the point,” Jameson said, egging him on. “Back home in the budget department, they’re waiting ten years to show results from an Alpha Centauri round trip versus twenty-four years for a return from 61 Cygni.”

“ You’re missing the point,” Mike said, grinning hugely. “61 Cygni’s a sure thing! Nobody can criticize the maiden voyage. We know there’s life there! And intelligent life at that!” He ruffled the humanoid’s silky fur affectionately. “And we’ve got two friends to introduce us.”