Ben Bova: Leviathans of Jupiter

“You’re really going to Earth?” he asked, in a whisper.

“I’ll come back, Andy.”

He turned toward her and nuzzled her auburn hair. “I’m heading Earthside, too. Back to Dr. Carbo’s lab at Rome.”

They stopped at Deirdre’s door. “We’ll go on the same ship?”

With a nod, Corvus said, “No sense sending two separate ships out here.”

“No, of course not.”

Deirdre looked into Andy’s soft blue eyes and saw her future in them. Without a word, she took him by the hand and began leading him back up the passageway, along the way they had come, away from their compartments.

Puzzlement showed clearly on his slightly awry face. “You’re not going to … uh, sleep?”

“Not yet,” Deirdre said.

“Then where … where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

Katherine Westfall had not attended the party. She was in her suite, preparing to leave station Gold on the torch ship that the IAA had sent—at her demand.

Seething inwardly as she packed her toiletries in a hard-shelled travel bag, she tried to convince herself, All things considered, this trip has actually been rather successful. I can share the credit for sending the mission into the ocean. Archer has agreed not to compete against me for the IAA chairmanship. There’s plenty of glory to go around.

She realized that the memory of Elaine O’Hara, the half sister she had never known, had been a self-deluding subterfuge, an excuse to justify her action against Grant Archer. Once Archer had made it clear he would not challenge her for the chairmanship, her anger over Elaine evaporated.

But now it was replaced by another fury. Archer and that rat-faced Red Devil. They had tricked her. Embarrassed her. Humiliated her. What’s worse, Westfall realized, is that they had something over her that they could use any time they wished. That’s a danger, she knew. A danger that must be eliminated, sooner or later.

Sooner or later. The time will come. The time will come. Archer and Devlin both. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

“The observation blister?” Corvus blurted.

Deirdre smiled at him as she slid back the door. “The observation blister,” she said. “Just you and me, Andy. And the universe.”

They stepped in and closed the door. In the dim lighting they could see thousands of stars hanging against the everlasting night.

Andy slipped his arms around her waist and pulled Deirdre to him. “Are you sure?” he whispered. “Really certain?”

“Yes,” she breathed. “Aren’t you?”

“Um … on the ship going back to Earth … I’m pretty sure the captain of a torch ship can perform a marriage.”

“Marriage?”

“I mean, it’d be legal, just like we got married in a church.”

Deirdre wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly. They made love slowly, languidly, as if they had all eternity to spend together, while mighty Jupiter rose and bathed their naked, glistening bodies in its majestic glowing splendor.

Leviathan swam with the Kin in the warm, rich waters of the Symmetry. The alien had gone, leaving in its place a thousand unanswered questions.

It will return, Leviathan told itself. It will come back. We have much to learn from it. We have much to look forward to.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

LEVIATHANS OF JUPITER

Copyright © 2011 by Ben Bova

All rights reserved.

A Tor® eBook

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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New York, NY 10010

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Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bova, Ben, 1932–

Leviathans of Jupiter / Ben Bova. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

ISBN 978-0-7653-1788-9

1. Jupiter (Planet)—Exploration—Fiction. 2. Life on other planets—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3552.O84L48 2011

813'.54—dc22

2010036115

First Edition: February 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-2961-5

First Tor eBook Edition: February 2011