Jupiter Project Read online

  The next article I read was a fashion tip for men: Handy Hints to Get the Right Tint. It had a 3D of a man wearing a maroon coat with an ascot, painting his fingernails.

  I asked Zak if he thought Commander Aarons edited the copy that came through the laser beam from Earth.

  “Why should he?”

  “Well, it seems to me Earth comes off pretty badly in these magazines.” I said. “I mean. I’d almost suspect somebody was trying to keep us from getting homesick.”

  Zak put aside his poetry magazine. “Just what is it—oh, I see. Painting fingernails is for women, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who says so?”

  “Why—well, my father doesn’t do it. Neither does yours.”

  “Yes, they are rather conservative, aren’t they? After all. Matt, the Lab is a backwater. An anomaly.”

  “How do you mean that?”

  “We’ve got something to do, out here. You follow little green blips in Monitoring, I talk to computers—everybody’s got a job. Even that brat back there—” he gestured behind us, where a baby was yowling—“will have something to do in a few years. Cleaning out the scum in the hydroponics tanks. I hope.”

  “So? They have work on Earth, too.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” He pointed a professorial finger at me. “They’ve got jobs, yes. The government sees to that. Plenty of them. But there’s not much work.”

  “You lost me again.”

  “How would you feel if you had to sit in an office every day, passing pieces of paper from one cubbyhole to another?”

  “Bored, I guess. It would be like going to one of their schools all day.”

  “Probably so. It makes you feel pretty useless. That’s the point. People like to see their work doing something; they want to see a final product. A chair, maybe, or a bridge, or a 3D.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “But that’s all done by machines. The men just push buttons and move paper around.”

  “And paint their fingernails,” I said scornfully.

  “Sure. Because they’re bored. They’re not doing anything they think is significant. Oh sure, the government says paper-passing is productive labor, but there’s so much make-work people know it’s a sham. That doesn’t jibe with their ego, their self-image.”

  “Uh-ho, here we go again.”

  “Okay, I’ll skip the jargon. The point is, they’re trying to show their individuality and worth through something other than their work. It’s like birds displaying colored feathers.”

  “Expressing themselves.”

  “Right. Only, out here, we’ve really got something to do. Fads don’t catch on here. We’re a different culture, really. You wouldn’t look down on a Fiji islander just because he wasn’t wearing a Brooks Brothers suit, would you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Anyway, Commander Aarons doesn’t have time to worry about what you read.” Zak said triumphantly.

  I was still trying to straighten out that jump in the subject when Yuri came clumping over.

  “Have you thought about what you are going to do in your recreation time?” he said.

  “Sure,” Zak said. “Just what we usually do—stay away from the crowd.”

  “Crowd?” Yuri said, his thick forehead wrinkling.

  “That’s what we’re out here for, lummox,” I said. “To get away from metal walls and people.”

  “I usually try to get in shape. You know, run a few klicks and play some volleyball.”

  “Fine. Go ahead.” I said.

  “What else is there?” he persisted.

  “I usually go out in one of the Walkers. The men at the base are always happy to get some help.” Zak said.

  “Same for me,” I said.

  “What for?” Yuri asked.

  “My friend.” Zak said, “you are no doubt aware of the Ganymede atmosphere project? The base there spends most of its time building new fusion plants, to generate power. The power is used to break down the rocks into basic carbon compounds, water, and oxygen. They’re slowly building up an atmosphere that we can breathe. Only, it’s a complicated business. They need to know how the air and the temperature is changing all over Ganymede, not merely around the dispersed fusion plants.”

  “So they’ve put out recorders and pocket laboratories, all over Ganymede.” I said. “Every now and then somebody has to go out and collect the data or make a repair.”

  “It’s a fairly dull job if you happen to live on Ganymede all the time,” Zak said. “A tour of the ice fields can get monotonous. But to people like us, it’s a chance to get out and see things. So I volunteer, every recreation period.”

  “I see,” Yuri said. “You little squirts are always into something, aren’t you? Me, I’m going to stick to my athletics. It might come in handy.” He looked at me significantly.

  “See you around,” I said. Yuri took the hint and walked away. I went back to my magazine.

  Chapter 6

  It was a long flight. Ganymede isn’t any further away from Jupiter than the Can—in fact, the two are in exactly the same orbit. But not at the same place in that orbit—the Can tags along after Ganymede, a million kilometers behind.

  Sure, it would be easier to study Jupiter from an orbit closer in; near one of the smaller moons, like Io, say. But Jupiter’s radiation belts are too intense there, so we have to watch Jove from a safe distance. Even so, the Can still needs those pancake “lids” of water to screen out the hard radiation that sleets in on us. We got the water from Ganymede’s ice fields. Ganymede is our corner grocery store out here; anything we can’t mine out of its crust has to be boosted all the way from Earth.

  Ganymede is so vital to us, I once got the idea that maybe we should move the Can, put it into orbit around Ganymede itself. Make ourselves into a sort of a moon around a moon, so to speak. My father sat me down and drew me some diagrams, and showed me that Ganymede would block out a lot of our transmissions to Earth, not to mention the telemetry from our satellites near Jupiter. And its reflected light would interfere with our telescopes. So the Can trails along behind Ganymede at a position called the Trojan Point, where its orbit is stable. And every flight between the two takes over eleven hours.

  So I was dog tired when we got there. The Sagan makes few concessions to passengers; I was sore from my space suit and restless from doing nothing.

  Most of our party was asleep when the blue and brown disk of Ganymede rolled into view in the forward port. Zak and I sneaked up to get a better look, even though the seat-belt light was on. I passed Yuri dozing in an aisle seat, no doubt reliving his triumph at squash. Well, I thought, he still had to play Ishi. I ignored him.

  But he tripped me as I went by.

  I stumbled slightly in the weak gravity and heard his hollow chuckle. “Still clumsy, eh Bohles?”

  I knotted my fists and started to say something.

  “Oh. mama’s boy is taking offense?” Yuri interrupted me. “Tsk tsk.”

  “C’mon, Matt,” Zak said, putting a restraining hand on my shoulder. “Don’t bother.”

  I didn’t say anything. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t come out sounding like I was whining. After a pause I turned and followed Zak down the aisle, seething. We looked out the forward viewpoint.

  Blue ice and frost spread out from both poles of Ganymede. Around the equator was a thick belt of bare brown rock and river valleys. The rivers sliced through the rims of ancient craters. The valleys were choked with a pale ruddy fog; naked peaks jutted about it.

  Thin atmosphere sang around the Sagan and we went back to our seats. In a moment our nose bit in and we settled into the long glide down.

  We were here for two weeks of frolic away from cares, away from family, away from the Jovian Astronautical-Biological Orbital Laboratory. The family part is important: the psychers say it’s good for kids like us to get away from the loco parentis every half year. Keeps down the nervous wigglies in the Lab, makes it eas
ier to live all together in one huge tin Can.

  There was a sudden tug as Captain Vandez gunned her, a faint dropping sensation, and then a solid bump. I started unstrapping.

  Zak snapped shut his book of poems—brushing up on the competition, he called it—and patted around for his glasses. With them on he looks like the kid computer ace he is; when he’s in his literary lion phase he pretends he doesn’t need them.

  “Collect youah baggage on the ground,” came a shout over my suit radio. I motioned to Zak and we were the first ones into the air lock. It cycled and the hatch popped open.

  I stared out at a range of steep hills, covered in white water frost. About five hundred meters away I could see the slight gray tinge that was the life dome, against a sky of black.

  “Move it!” someone called over radio. I looked down and saw a man waving at the drop rope that hung by the air lock.

  “Over you go. kid.” I heard Yuri’s voice behind me and somebody kicked me out into space. I grabbed for the rope, caught it with one hand. In Ganymede’s one-third g you don’t fall fast but I was still recovering when I hit the ground with a solid thump.

  I took a few steps away from the rope and then turned back. Yuri was just finishing a smooth slide down.

  “You’re still clubfooted, junior,” he said and I took a swipe at him. He dodged and it landed on his shoulder.

  “Come on,” I said, setting my feet.

  “Mad about a little roughhousing, smartass?” he said with mock surprise.

  Somebody shoved me aside. I turned threateningly and saw it was the man who had secured the drop rope. “Break it up!” he snarled at me. “Get out of the way of the rope. You kids can play big men somewhere else.”

  Yuri walked away. I tried to cool off and waited until Zak came down.

  “He’s still riding you. huh?” he said.

  “Looks like it.”

  “Yuri hates you being brighter and quicker than he is. So he uses muscle instead. Don’t let him provoke you.”

  I balled up a fist, “I’d like to—”

  “Yeah, I know. But that’s playing his game.”

  “So what? I can’t—”

  “Listen, he’s got you going both ways. That guy didn’t see Yuri boot you out, he just heard you try to pick a fight. So Yuri got all the points in that scramble. Listen, next time just treat him okay. Maybe after this he’ll feel square with you.”

  “Well…maybe.”

  A winch was already lowering nets of baggage from the cargo lock. We walked over and helped two men unroll the net. Our cases were in it. We scooped them up and started toward the base buildings. They housed some of the fifty permanent staff members; the rest lived under the life dome, further away.

  The Sagan’s jet splash had melted the ground and made a brown spot in the ghostly white. We trotted along, my suit chuffing away to fight off the cold. When the first expedition landed here the surface was at 150 degrees Centigrade below zero. The reclamation project has warmed things up, but not much.

  We reached the administration building and banged on the lock. In a moment the green light winked on and we cycled through. We came out in a suiting-up room. I popped my helmet pressure and found the air was sweeter than I’d expected; they’re making improvements in the base all the time. We lugged our bags into the next room and found a man behind a counter with a clipboard.

  “Your name—oh, Palonski and Bohles. Welcome back. Gluttons for punishment, aren’t you? I see you asked for a Walker again.”

  “Better than refueling duty,” I said and he chuckled. Pumping water and ammonia into the Sagan’s tanks is the most boring job imaginable; you watch dials for two hours, spend five minutes switching hoses, and then sit two hours again.

  He assigned us bunk numbers and let us go; the families with children would get a complete lecture on safety and a long list of things they couldn’t do. I’d heard the lecture ten times before and could probably give it about as well as he could.

  We found our bunks and stowed our gear without wasting any time. We didn’t want the mob to catch up with us. As soon as things were squared away Zak and I beat it across the base and trotted over to the dome lock.

  The dome is the whole point of Ganymede, for me. I was out of my suit and putting on tennis shoes almost before the air lock had stopped wheezing. I had to gulp a few times to adjust my inner ear to the dome’s pressure, but that was automatic. Anybody who has been in space learns to do that without thinking—or ends up with lancing ear pains when he forgets. Zak was just as fast, and we went through the door together.

  To anybody living on Earth I guess the dome wouldn’t be a big deal. But to me—I came out the door and just stood there, sopping it up. Overhead the dome arches away, supported by the air I was breathing. It rises to 500 meters in height and is five kilometers in diameter; a giant, life-filled blister on Ganymede. Inside the blister is the only spot where a man can walk without a suit.

  Zak and I trotted the klick to the ski shed. There is a funny nose-shaped hill under the dome, with one steep face and one shallow. We carried our skis up the difficult side and strapped them on. I stood looking out, surveying the land under the dome. Hills sloped into each other, making stream beds and narrow valleys. A late morning water fog rose from a marshland. Up near the top of the dome, so thin you had to have faith to see it, was a wisp of pearly cloud. Back at the edge, the way we had come, a few people were spreading out from the lock.

  “Come on!” I said, and pushed off. We started slowly and then began to weave, making long undulating patterns down the hill face. You don’t get as much speed in a lighter gravity, but you can make incredible turns and prolong the ride.

  We skied most of the afternoon, until there were too many on the slope. Then we took a hike around the dome to see what was new. The experimental farm had grown and most of the crops—adapted corn, root vegetables, apples—were doing well. The farm is the seed of what Ganymede will become, once the atmosphere project gets going, melting dirty ice to make air.

  With the greenhouse effect warming things up and microorganisms giving off oxygen, eventually a soybean will grow somewhere and then—well, then colonists will be panting down our necks, wanting to get in. By then it will be time to push on…before they build a Hilton.

  That is, assuming ISA didn’t send me back on the Argosy, I reminded myself.

  That thought wasn’t so easy to brush aside. I tried pretty hard, though, the next two days. I climbed hills, skied and played soccer until my legs threatened to stop holding me up. When we got up in the morning Zak would just lie in bed groaning about his past sins, and wish for a chocolate sundae to tide him over until breakfast.

  The third day we were skiing sort of halfheartedly, waiting for enough people to show up to make a soccer team, when I lost sight of Zak on the slope.

  I turned uphill, came to a halt and looked around. There was nobody very near. I poled my clumsy way uphill and looked again. There was a small mound nearby I skirted around it to get a better view.

  “Hey!” Zak said. He was lying in a small depression behind the mound. His skis were off and there was a brown gouge in the snow.

  “Why didn’t you yell before?” I said, clomping over to him.

  “I was embarrassed. It’s kind of dumb to take a fall on an easy grade like this.” He grinned sheepishly.

  “Hurt anything?” I put out a hand to help him up.

  “I don’t think—ow!”

  “Sit back down. Let’s see.” I unwrapped his left ankle.

  “How is it?” He blinked owlishly at his leg.

  “Sprained ankle.” I started unclipping my skis.

  “Will I be able to play the piano again, doctor?”

  “Sure, with your feet, just like before. Come on.” I got him up and leaning on me. “Think you can walk?”

  “Certain—ow!”

  He did make it, though, to the bottom of the hill. From there I hiked back to the dome lock and got a small wag
on usually used to haul things to the experimental farm. The base doctor walked back with me and bandaged up Zak’s ankle, making the same diagnosis I had, only using longer words.

  I got him settled into his bunk. The doctor delegated me to bring him his meals and the first thing Zak asked for was a milkshake. I shrugged and went over to the cafeteria to weasel one out of the cook—no mean feat.

  I asked the man tending counter and he told me it would be a few minutes—several people had lunch coming up. I stood aside to wait. The woman from the Sagan was next in line behind me. She asked for a cup of coffee and a vegetable roll and got it immediately. Then she leaned over to the counterman and said loudly, “These youngsters all want special favors, don’t they?”

  I stood there trying to think of something to say until she flounced out. If it had been Zak, he would have come up with something cutting and brilliant, but I acted as though I had a mouth full or marbles, and my face burned with embarrassment.

  “You’re the younger Bohles, aren’t you?” a deep voice said.

  I looked up. It was Captain Vandez; he looked tired.

  “Yes sir.”

  “I heard about the Palonski boy just now. Unfortunate.”

  “It isn’t anything major,” I said, “Zak will be walking by the time we ship home.”

  “Good.” He nodded abruptly. “The base commander has you two slated to take the Walker out on a routine inspection tour starting tomorrow. I was afraid this accident might scrub it.”

  “It will.”

  “Not necessarily. Another boy volunteered for the job two days ago. I told him both places were filled, but now there is a spot vacant. You see, Bohles, base personnel are all assigned to other jobs now and we are a bit squeezed. If you don’t mind going out with another boy…”

  “Who is he?”

  Captain Vandez sighed and looked at a paper in his hand. “Sagdaeff. Yuri Sagdaeff.”

  “Oh.” I gulped. “Could I let you know in a few minutes?”