Arthur Clarke - 2061 - Odyssey Three

'Hello, Doctor. You're the only person who lives around here. I wondered if you could help me.'

'I'm not sure how anyone can help anyone at the moment. What's the latest from the bridge?'

'Nothing new: I've just left Yu and Gillings up there, trying to fix a mike on the door. But no-one inside seems to be talking; not surprising – Chang must have his hands full.'

'Can he get us down safely?'

'He's the best; if anyone can do it, he can. I'm more worried about getting off again.'

'God – I'd not been looking that far ahead. I assumed that was no problem.'

'It could be marginal. Remember, this ship is designed for orbital operations. We hadn't planned to put down on any major moon – though we had hoped to rendezvous with Ananke and Carme. So we could be stuck on Europa – especially if Chang has to waste propellant looking for a good landing site.'

'Do we know where he is trying to land?' Rolf asked, trying not to sound more interested than might be reasonably expected. He must have failed, because Chris looked at him sharply.

'There's no way we can tell at this stage, though we may get a better idea when he starts braking. But you know these moons; where do you think?'

'There's only one interesting place. Mount Zeus.'

'Why should anyone want to land there?'

RoIf shrugged.

'That was one of the things we'd hoped to find out. Cost us two expensive penetrometers.'

'And it looks like costing a great deal more. Haven't you any ideas?'

'You sound like a cop,' said van der Berg with a grin, not intending it in the least seriously.

'Funny – that's the second time I've been told that in the last hour.'

Instantly, there was a subtle change in the atmosphere of the cabin – almost as if the life-support system had readjusted itself.

'Oh – I was just joking – are you?'

'If I was, I wouldn't admit it, would I?'

That was no answer, thought van der Berg; but on second thoughts, perhaps it was.

He looked intently at the young officer, noticing – not for the first time – his striking resemblance to his famous grandfather. Someone had mentioned that Chris Floyd had only joined Galaxy on this mission, from another ship in the Tsung fleet – adding sarcastically that it was useful to have good connections in any business. But there had been no criticism of Floyd's ability; he was an excellent space officer. Those skills might qualify him for other part-time jobs as well; look at RosieMcCulIen – who had also, now he came to think of it, joined Galaxy just before this mission.

Rolf van der Berg felt that he had become enmeshed in some vast and tenuous web of interplanetary intrigue; as a scientist, accustomed to getting – usually – straightforward answers to the questions he put to nature, he did not enjoy the situation.

But he could hardly claim to be an innocent victim. He had tried to conceal the truth – or at least what he believed to be the truth. And now the consequences of that deceit had multiplied like the neutrons in a chain reaction; with results that might be equally disastrous.

Which side was Chris Floyd on? How many sides were there? The Bund would certainly be involved, once the secret had leaked out. But there were splinter groups within the Bund itself, and groups opposing them; it was like a hall of mirrors.

There was one point, however, on which he did feel reasonably certain. Chris Floyd, if only because of his connections, could be trusted. I'd put my money, thought van der Berg, on him being assigned to ASTROPOL for the duration of the mission – however long, or short, that might now be.

'I'd like to help you, Chris,' he said slowly. 'As you probably suspect, I do have some theories. But they may still be utter nonsense.

'In less than half an hour, we may know the truth. Until then, I prefer to say nothing.'

And this is not, he told himself, merely ingrained Boer stubbornness. If he had been mistaken, he would prefer not to die among men who knew that he was the fool who had brought them to their doom.

Second Officer Chang had been wrestling with the problem ever since Galaxy had been successfully – to his surprise as much as his relief – injected into transfer orbit. For the next couple of hours she was in the hands of God, or at least Sir Isaac Newton; there was nothing to do but wait until the final braking and descent manoeuvre.

He had briefly considered trying to fool Rosie by giving the ship a reverse vector at closest approach, and so taking it out into space again. It would then be back in a stable orbit, and a rescue could eventually be mounted from Ganymede. But there was a fundamental objection to this scheme: he would certainly not be alive to be rescued. Though Chang was no coward, he would prefer not to become a posthumous hero of the spaceways.

In any event, his chances of surviving the next hour seemed remote. He had been ordered to take down, single-handed, a three-thousand tonner on totally unknown territory. This was not a feat he would care to attempt even on the familiar Moon.

'How many minutes before you start braking?' asked Rosie. Perhaps it was more of an order than a question; she clearly understood the fundamentals of astronautics, and Chang abandoned his last wild fantasies of outwitting her.

'Five,' he said reluctantly. 'Can I warn the rest of the ship to stand by?'

'I'll do it. Give me the mike... THIS IS THE BRIDGE. WE START BRAKING IN FIVE MINUTES. REPEAT, FIVE MINUTES. OUT.'

To the scientists and officers assembled in the wardroom, the message was fully expected. They had had one piece of luck; the external video monitors had not been switched off. Perhaps Rose had forgotten about them; it was more likely that she had not bothered. So now, as helpless spectators – quite literally, a captive audience – they could watch their unfolding doom.

The cloudy crescent of Europa now filled the field of the rear-view camera. There was no break anywhere in the solid overcast of water vapour recondensing on its way back to nightside. That was not important, since the landing would be radar-controlled until the last moment. It would, however, prolong the agony of observers who had to rely on visible light,

No-one stared more intently at the approaching world than the man who had studied it with such frustration for almost a decade. Rolf van der Berg, seated in one of the flimsy low-gravity chairs with the restraining belt lightly fastened, barely noticed the first onset of weight as braking commenced.

In five seconds, they were up to full thrust. All the officers were doing rapid calculations on their comsets; without access to Navigation, there would be a lot of guesswork, and Captain Laplace waited for a consensus to emerge.

'Eleven minutes,' he announced presently, 'assuming he doesn't reduce thrust level – he's at max now. And assuming he's going to hover at ten kilometres – just above the overcast – and then go straight down. That could take another five minutes.'

It was unnecessary for him to add that the last second of those five minutes would be the most critical.

Europa seemed determined to keep its secrets to the very end. When Galaxy was hovering motionless, just above the cloudscape, there was still no sign of the land – or sea – beneath. Then, for a few agonizing seconds, the screens became completely blank – except for a glimpse of the now extended, and very seldom used, landing gear. The noise of its emergence a few minutes earlier had caused a brief flurry of alarm among the passengers; now they could only hope that it would perform its duty.

How thick is this damn cloud? van der Berg asked himself. Does it go all the way down -No, it was breaking, thinning out into shreds and wisps – and there was the new Europa, spread out, it seemed, only a few thousand metres below.