Ben Bova: Leviathans of Jupiter

She shared her wealth ostentatiously and was ultimately rewarded with a membership on the International Astronautical Authority’s governing council. The directors of the IAA expected their new member to be flattered and malleable. They planned to use her as a public relations figurehead: a handsome, philanthropic woman who could speak the usual platitudes about the importance of scientific research before government councils and influential donors.

They did not realize that Katherine Westfall had her own agenda in mind. “Get to the top,” her mother had often told her. “Whatever you do, get to the top. You’re not safe until you’re on top.”

So Katherine Westfall initiated a subtle yet relentless campaign to be elected chairman of the IAA’s governing council. From that position no one could challenge her, she would never have to worry about falling back into obscurity.

There were others who coveted the chairmanship, of course, but Katherine realized that her most dangerous rival was a man who claimed he had no interest in the position whatsoever: Grant Archer, director of the research station out at Jupiter. Archer was a danger to her, Katherine knew, despite his protestations of modest disinterest. He had to be stopped.

Halfway through dinner in the captain’s quarters, Guerra asked her, “But why Jupiter, if I may ask? Why don’t you start with the research bases on Mars? After all, that’s where the most interesting work—”

She didn’t wait for him to finish. “The leviathans,” she said, her voice still muted but quite firm. “The leviathans are on Jupiter. Nothing else in the entire solar system is so interesting, so … challenging.”

Captain Guerra’s shaggy brows knit. “Those big whales? What makes them so interesting to you?”

Katherine Westfall smiled sweetly, thinking that if Archer could prove that those Jovian creatures were intelligent, the IAA would offer him their chairmanship on a silver platter.

To Guerra, however, she said merely, “The scientists want an enormous increase in their budget so they can study those creatures. I’ve got to pay them the courtesy of visiting their facility in person to see what they’re doing.”

To herself she added, I’ve got to stop them. Cut them off. Bring Archer down. Otherwise I won’t be safe.

Leviathan glided among the Kin along the warm upwelling current that carried them almost effortlessly through the endless sea. But the food that had always sifted down from the cold abyss above was nowhere in sight. All through Leviathan’s existence, the food had been present in abundance. But now it was gone. The Elders flashed fears that the Symmetry had been disrupted.

At least there was no sign of darters, Leviathan’s sensor parts reported. They watched faithfully for the predators. As a younger member of the Kin, Leviathan was placed on the outer perimeter of the vast school of the creatures, constantly alert for the faintest trace of the dangerous killers.

Even so, a deeper part of its brain puzzled over the strangeness. Could the Symmetry truly be broken?

More than that, something new and different was imposing on the Kin. Something alien. Strange, cold, insensitive creatures had appeared in the world. Tiny and solitary, they came from the cold abyss above, cruised off at a distance from the Kin, then disappeared up into the cold again. Uncommunicative creatures, smaller than one of Leviathan’s flagella members. When Leviathan and others of the Kin had flashed a welcome to them, the aliens blinked in gibberish and then fled.

Troubling. It disturbed the Symmetry, even though the Elders maintained that such pitifully small creatures could pose no danger to the Kin. They do not eat of our food, the Elders pictured, and they do not attack us. They can be safely ignored.

But then the flow of food from the cold abyss above had faltered and finally stopped. Leviathan wondered. Could the aliens be the cause of the break in the Symmetry?

Leviathan remembered back to the time when one of those aliens had seemingly helped Leviathan itself when it had wandered far from the Kin and was attacked by a pack of darters. The predators were tearing at Leviathan when this tiny, dark, hard-shelled alien had come to its aid. By the time the Kin reached Leviathan and drove off the darters, the alien was dying, sinking toward the hot abyss below.

Leviathan had tried to communicate with the alien, to thank it, but all the pictures Leviathan displayed on its flank went unanswered. Fearing that the alien would dissociate itself as it sank into the hot depths, Leviathan nosed beneath the pathetically tiny creature and lifted it on its back toward the cold abyss from which it had come.

Leviathan’s reward for this kindness was a spray of painful heat as the alien apparently gathered its last strength and flew upward, never to be seen again.

That was more than two buddings ago, Leviathan remembered. In that time, other aliens had invaded the Symmetry. Invaded. That was how Leviathan thought of them. Strange, cold, hard-shelled creatures that flashed colored images that made no sense at all. They came down from the cold abyss, loitered near the Kin for brief periods, then returned whence they came.

Aliens, Leviathan thought. Not darters or the filmy tentacled creatures that dwelled on the edges of the cold abyss. Creatures the like of which none of the Kin had ever seen before. Not even the hoariest of the Elders had any idea of what they might be.

Aliens. The thought troubled Leviathan. Perhaps the Elders were correct and these aliens could be safely ignored. But why were they here, disrupting the Symmetry? What did they want of Leviathan and its Kin?

Were they responsible for the interruption of the food flow, for the disruption to the Symmetry?

As Deirdre slowly undressed in the tiny privacy cubicle of the ship’s infirmary she heard her father’s warning in her mind. The gnomish little ship’s doctor certainly didn’t look like a smooth-talking bloke, but Deirdre wondered if this medical examination was nothing more than an excuse to see her naked. Peering at the cubicle’s overhead panel of lights, she could not see any obvious signs of a camera. But still …

She piled her clothes and underwear neatly on the little stool beside her and slipped into the shapeless green medical gown that was hanging from a peg on the bulkhead. It barely reached down to her thighs. Then she hesitated. If he’s watching me, she thought, he’ll know that I’m finished undressing.

Nothing. Not a sound from beyond the flimsy partition. Deirdre stood there for as long as she could stand it, then cautiously slid the partition aside and stepped back into Dr. Pohan’s office.

He wasn’t even there. Surprised, she didn’t know what to do. She felt slightly ridiculous in the flimsy medical gown. It was a dull olive green, not good for her complexion, she thought.

“DEPARTURE IN FIVE MINUTES,” announced the speaker set into the overhead.

The corridor door slid back and Dr. Pohan came in again, his wrinkled bald face quite serious.“The scanner was off-line,” he said, apologetically. “I had to get a technician to reboot it.”

Deirdre nodded and unconsciously tugged at the hem of her absurdly short garment.

The doctor led her down the corridor past three closed and unmarked doors, then pulled open a fourth. It was another small compartment with a glass booth standing in its middle. White medical cabinets lined the walls.

Dr. Pohan gestured to the booth. “Kindly step inside. This will only take a moment.”

Wordlessly, Deirdre entered the booth. The doctor shut its transparent door, then went to one of the cabinets. When he opened it, Deirdre saw that a control panel was inside, rows of switches and dials surmounted by a circular display screen.