Charles Sheffield - Dark as Day

“Hours and hours, before we are close to Jupiter. But we’re within emergency signal range. You can talk to him now.”

Paul sounded calm and sane. Jan felt neither, but she had to pretend. “Sebastian? Can you hear me?”

She didn’t expect a reply, but the answer came at once. “Yes, Jan. I hear you.”

The words were rational, but the tone was of someone talking in a dream. She felt Paul’s encouraging pat on her suited arm. “Sebastian, the ship that you are flying doesn’t belong to us. We must return it.”

“I know. I’m not stealing it, Jan. I’m just borrowing it.”

“It’s time to give it back. You have to turn around now.”

“Not yet, Jan. Not until I’ve finished.”

“What do you mean, finished? Where are you going?”

“I need to fly close to Jupiter. I need to go to the clouds.”

“Sebastian, if you fly back to Ganymede you can have the use of telescopes that will show you all kinds of cloud details. A swingby may sound easy, but it isn’t. You need to have an expert in charge of it.”

“You don’t understand, Jan. I have a job to do. I must do it.”

“What job? Nobody gave you a job — certainly not one like this.”

“They did, Jan. I know what I must do. I’ve always known it.”

“That doesn’t make sense, Sebastian. We’ve spent almost our whole lives together, and you’ve never talked to me about a job. What is it you have to do?”

“You wouldn’t understand. Jan, I hope you won’t mind, but I don’t want to talk anymore. I’m not going to talk anymore.”

“Sebastian…” Jan felt Paul’s hand on her arm.

“You’re not getting through to him,” he said quietly. “Admit it, Jan. He’s crazy. I said that you had to persuade him, but you can’t persuade a crazy man.”

“I have to try. Let me keep talking to him, maybe I can get through to him.”

“It’s all we can do. As we approach I’m going to bring us right alongside. It may help if he sees our ship and knows you’re with him wherever he goes. Talk to him, Jan.”

About what? But the words came spilling out. She began with their earliest days together, in the displaced persons’ camp at Husvik. She spoke of their schooling, the flower festival in Punta Arenas, summer evenings that lasted forever. Then there was their joint decision to take jobs on the Global Minerals’ platform, the application to move to the Outer System, their plan to work on the Saturn orbital weather station.

Through all of it Sebastian answered not a word. When the two ships were racing side by side, Jan could see the dark dot of his helmet in the Mayfly’s tiny cabin. So near and yet so far away. And as Jupiter loomed large in the sky ahead, she realized that all her talk of “their” plans and “their” actions was delusion. She had proposed. She had persuaded; Sebastian had merely gone along. So why did he refuse to go along now, when she needed to persuade him as never before?

She knew why. Her thinking had not been quite accurate. The interest in the cloud patterns of the outer planets had never been hers. It had always been Sebastian’s, and his alone. That had brought them out to Ganymede. That drove them now toward Jupiter.

Their trajectory was not as Jan had expected. They were flying side by side, but rather than following a path that would graze by the planet, the two ships were arrowing right toward the center of Jupiter’s banded disk. She realized that Sebastian had never said he wanted to make a flyby. He wanted to “go to the clouds.” If they did not change course they would plunge deep into the atmosphere on a path of no return.

Through all her talking, Paul had sat quietly. She was still talking, with a sense of futility and with no response from Sebastian, when Paul said, “Ah! At last. That’s what I’ve been waiting for.”

He manipulated the controls so fast that she could not follow what he did; but suddenly they were in free-fall.

“What’s going on?”

“He’s out of volatiles. I told you, Ganymede Ground Control doesn’t like crew members joyriding too far, so they’re stingy with reaction mass. The Mayfly has no more drive capability.”

“Does that make any difference?”

“A huge difference. While we were both accelerating, nobody could leave either ship without being left behind in space. Now I can go over to his ship and bring Sebastian here. Then we turn around and go home. We still have plenty of reaction mass.”

He said it casually, as though this was a routine operation that he did every day.

Jan said, “Suppose he won’t come?”

“I wasn’t proposing to give him an option.” Paul studied the sky ahead. “We have plenty of time. Let’s take ten minutes.”

“Why?” To Jan’s eye, Jupiter seemed awfully close.

“To be sure that you know how to fly this ship — just in case.”

“Paul, I’m the reason that Sebastian came to Ganymede. I must be the one who goes to him.”

“How many spacewalks have you done? That’s what I thought. And these scooters are designed to practically fly themselves. Let me squeeze past you. We have to change seats.”

The move was tricky, but within less than five minutes Jan was facing the bank of controls. After that… Maybe it was the sight of Jupiter, swelling ahead; maybe it was fatigue or nerves; maybe Paul was an optimist. For whatever reason, it seemed far longer than five minutes before Jan felt confident enough to say, “All right. I can handle simple maneuvers.”

“Good. If I don’t come back—”

“Don’t say that.” They had their suit helmets closed, and Jan stared at his face through the hard transparent visor. “You come back, Paul Marr. Do you hear?”

Then she had to say the hardest words ever. She gripped his arm, hard. “Whatever happens to Sebastian, don’t risk your own life. You come back with Sebastian or without him, but you come back to me.”

“I’ll come back, and I’ll have Sebastian with me. Remember, I still-need to get a portrait of you that I’m satisfied with.” He turned away and opened the hatch. He left it wide open as he left, and Jan had a clear view of Sebastian’s ship as Paul floated off toward it. The distance separating them was no more than fifteen meters. Surely she could have made that jump herself.

But Paul possessed information that Jan lacked. He used his suit’s controls to bring him close alongside the Mayfly, and gestured to Sebastian to open its hatch. When that produced no result — it seemed to Jan that Sebastian was not even aware of Paul’s presence — he moved backward along the ship’s hull, and ran his glove in a certain pattern over selected points.

The Mayfly hatch opened. Paul approached it slowly, easing his way along the hull. Jan saw Sebastian turn in his cramped seat, a puzzled look on his face.

“Emergency opening,” Paul said to Sebastian, and Jan added, “This is for your own good. We’re going to take you home.”

“Home?” The moon face showed a spark of interest, then settled back into indifference. “I can’t go home until I finish my job.”

“Sebastian, you’re imagining things. There is no ‘job’ that has to be done. Your job will be out on the Saturn orbiting weather station. Let Paul help you. He’ll bring you over to our ship, and we can all go back to Ganymede.”

To her surprise and huge relief, he nodded and said, “All right.” And to Paul, hovering outside the Mayfly cabin, “This is a tight fit. Help me.”

He reached out his left hand, and Jan saw Paul take it in both of his. Then she saw Sebastian’s right hand move upward, fast. He had his body braced in his seat, and he used that leverage to slam the hatch down. Its sharp edge smashed onto Paul’s forearms, just above the wrists. Jan heard a crunch of breaking bones, and Paul’s cry of agony over his suit radio.