Jupiter watches.
I fall in the poison dust.
Blue snow, like her eyes.
Distance and full sunlight gave Ganymede an icy translucency, an illusion of depth. Broad maria of brown and beige, highlights of blue and sparkling white seemed to swirl together like images trying to form in a scryer's crystal, creating the famous dragon-in-the-egg illusion. The beauty of the moon was lost on Karil, however. Impatiently, he waited while Johanna's nimble fingers established vertical attitude in the ship, and the gyros maintained orientation during descent and braking. A few kilometres above the surface, she fired the brakes and slowed their impact trajectory until they settled to the icy surface in a section marked Security Only. The pad sank beneath the surface, lowering the ship into a lock, and the hatch closed over them. In a moment the lock was pressurized, and they were lowered into the hangar beneath. They descended past a windowed control centre and through a spider's web of catwalks to the hangar deck. All about them were small ships of various types, all designed for vacuum ascent and resembling species of insects. It was like the lair of some trap-door spider.
Overall-clad technicians and uniformed guards clustered about their ship. Johanna’s code-credentials were checked by computer and they were allowed to leave. The express slidewalk rushed them through the Spaceways Complex into the city. Karil followed Johanna down a ramp, onto two more slidewalks, and through a number of pedestrian tunnels. They entered the Galilean Press Complex, took the elevator to the editorial veranda, and entered the Bureau Chief's suite of offices. Karil's face fell. The receptionist was a robot.
"This is going to be tricky," he said. "I'd like to speak to the Bureau Chief, please."
"Do you have an appointment?" the machine asked, pleasantly enough.
"No, I don't."
"I'm sorry, but..."
"It's an emergency. A life and death matter." Karil did not mention that the life and death in question was not that of a human being. The robot became uncertain.
"Just a moment." It listened. "I'm sorry, the Chief is unable to see you at this time. If you will..."
"I'm from Galilean Security," Johanna said. "This is a security matter."
"That's right," Karil added. "My name is Ali Karil..."
The door clicked open. "You may go in," the machine said. It was the only time in his life that Karil's name had opened a door for him. They entered.
The Chief’s office was dominated by an enormous live feed of Jupiter from orbit, the cloud formations changing slowly. The Chief rose from behind his desk and came forward. "So, you're Ali Karil," he said. "The whole GP has had its eye out for you."
"Really?"
"You disappeared rather suddenly, you know, after half a dozen broadcasts on behalf of the Rebellion. Obviously, Security has you working on this Atalanta business. Your connection with the ship is on record." He looked Johanna over, obviously pleased.
"I won’t introduce my friend, if you don’t mind."
"She's from Security. I understand. Have a seat."
They descended into the sunken sitting area.
"Drink?"
"We're in something of a hurry, Chief."
"Oh?"
"We're here to ask you to delay release of the Atalanta story."
"Security has already asked." He turned to Johanna. "We like to co-operate as much as we can, young lady, but we have a news service to run here and an obligation to provide the news. I doubt if a there's a story we cover that somebody doesn’t want silenced. Besides which..."
"I'm not from Security," Karil said. "And I'm not asking you to kill the story outright. I'm just asking you to wait a few days. I can promise you a better story if you do."
"Better? How?"
"How about an interview with Atalanta herself?"
The Chief peered at him for a moment under bushy eyebrows, the only hair on his head. "First of all," he said, "what you might promise and what Security will let you deliver may not be the same thing. Secondly, from what I gather, Atalanta is in no condition to give interviews. Thirdly..."
"We can repair her damage if we have a little more time," Karil said. "We've already made some headway. But if Security is pressured into taking the matter out of our hands, we may lose everything: the ship’s personality, which is my concern, and perhaps the only chance to solve this mystery, which ought to be your concern as much as..."
"I'm trying to tell you, Karil. It's too late."
"What do you mean, too late?"
"The story is already being distributed. It went online several minutes ago."
Karil and Johanna looked at each other in shock. "I'm very disappointed," Johanna said, with a touch of threat in her voice, "that you've abandoned your policy of giving Security twenty-four hours notice before..."
"But we did. In fact, Security was informed close to two days ago."
"But we’ve been directly involved in the investigation. We left to come here as soon as we were informed. I'm sure our supervisor..." She stopped in mid-sentence. If Mitsu had known for days, why hadn't he informed them?
"I'm sorry if Security is less efficient than it should be," the Bureau Chief said. "Perhaps your obsession with secrecy is to blame."
"Thank you for your trouble," Johanna said. "Come on." She grabbed Karil's hand and headed for the door.
"Wait!" the Chief said. "Perhaps Karil..."
"No interviews today," Johanna called back. She dragged Karil into the elevator, and they dropped to the lower level.
"What's happening?" Karil wanted to know. "Why weren't we informed sooner?"
"I don't know," Johanna growled. "There’s something fishy about this whole business. Obviously, we weren't supposed to know anything until the story had already been released. It's almost as if somebody wanted it to get out."
"Sources close to the investigation."
"Are you thinking what I'm... Watch out!"
Johanna dragged Karil back into a doorway. "I recognized a Security operative. I'm sure he's looking for us. Come on." She led him back into the building complex, where they found a freight elevator to take them to the lowest level. Karil followed her through a maze of tunnels where machines hummed and pipes stretched overhead, up and down ramps, on and off slidewalks, through doors, up and down little-used stairways, until he was totally lost.
At one point, they emerged onto a catwalk far above a skating rink. Below them, a figures pair was performing a throw-quintuple-axel to thunderous applause. At another point, they crossed the Plaza Galilei. Far below them, at a merging of the city’s main canals, was a magnificent fountain--Io in mid-metamorphosis, her body already half-bovine; Europa clutching at the neck of the enormous bull that was carrying her off; Callisto and her son, becoming the strange long-tailed bears that form the Ursine constellations; and of course, Ganymede in the clutches of the eagle; all supporting the figure of Galileo, peering through his telescope.
"Wow," said Karil.
"You like that?"
"Yes, except that Galileo is shown in cleric's robes and in real life he refused to wear them."
"I'm going to smack you one day, Karil."
After a few minutes, he was lost again. Karil only knew that he was somewhere near the Rim, where the walls were not so brightly painted, the people dressed more shabbily, the air not so well conditioned, and the places of entertainment more raucous and sleazy than those in the city's core. Occasionally they spotted Security personnel hanging about the corridors, and Johanna avoided them by taking an even more circuitous route. Soon they were among the shrimp-tanks. The air was moist and smelled of brine. The structures about them had the neglected air of warehouse districts everywhere. Here and there the paint was peeling, and pools of water lay on the floor. Even the lighting seemed dim. The sense of danger was overwhelming.
"Up here," Johanna said. She hopped up on a freight belt and Karil vaulted after her. The belt carried them down a long, gloomy tunnel where the throb of machinery was deafening, and the walls seemed to vibrate with power.
"Get ready to jump," she said. A tiny bay opened in the wall beside them, and they hopped off. As crates and boxes continued to rumble past, Johanna punched out a skeleton code on the panel beside the door and it opened before them. There was another stairway to descend, a steel spiral that seemed to drop into infinity. At the bottom, Karil found himself following her through a tunnel carved in the ice itself, dank and oppressive as a catacomb.
"It's not much farther. We're in a space-attack shelter beneath the Spaceways Complex." She stopped before the door of a freight elevator, tapped out a code, and the doors parted. Inside, she shut the doors behind them and punched a button. Karil could feel the elevator rising what seemed like kilometres, until it lurched to a halt and the doors opened. Johanna led him down a brightly lit and well-carpeted corridor.
"We're approaching the hangar from the other side," she whispered. "Wait!" She flattened against the wall and pulled him after her. "Take a look around the corner," she said, "but be careful."
Karil peered into the hangar. There were two guards standing beside their cutter. As he watched, one pulled a laser from its clip, checked the gauge, and replaced it. Then they crouched behind the ship where they could watch the main entrance at the far end without being seen. Aside from these two, the hangar, the catwalks, and the observation deck seemed deserted.
"Does this mean that all of Galilean Security is after us?" Karil whispered.
"I would think so."
"On Mitsu's orders?"
"Presumably."
"We have to get to Io. There’s no telling what danger Loris might be in."
"She may be dead already. Or perhaps Mitsu's waiting for us to show up. Or there’s a slim chance Loris got away with Atty. In any event, we still have to get to Io."
"And do what? Break into the most heavily guarded installation in the Galilean, with all of Security waiting to capture us?"
Johanna explained her plan. Karil listened with mounting admiration and incredulity. "The trouble is," she went on, "our cutter isn't shielded for landing on Io's surface, and we can't take the chance of grabbing another ship. We don't know whether they're spaceworthy at all, and we'll probably only get one chance at this. Once we land, we'll have to get underground as soon as possible, before we absorb too much radiation. Are you with me?"
"I'm with you. What choice do I have? There's not only Atty now, there’s Loris, and Annie besides."
"Can you kill if you have to?"
"If I have to, I will."
"Good. I'll try to disable these two, but you'll have to cover me, and you may have to shoot. Just don’t shoot me, okay?"
"I'm a good shot, Jo. I hunted with my father on High Africa."
“Okay. Let’s go.”
At the entrance to the hangar, Karil turned and kissed her. She kissed back with a vengeance, and they clung together for a moment, then she slipped into the shadows behind a nearby ship. Karil waited in silence, trying to stay calm. Once or twice, he thought he saw her flitting noiselessly from concealment to concealment. The hangar seemed even more colossal in silence than it had been when filled with the hum of voices and the clang of steel. The grip of his laser was slippery against his sweaty palm. He wiped his hands on his suit.
Suddenly Johanna appeared, leaping. One foot connected with one guard's jaw as he turned his head, and he went flying, his limbs slack, unconscious or dead. The other guard was on his feet, turning to face her, off balance. She whirled like a dervish, thrust her other foot into his gut, and he collapsed like a rag doll.
Karil joined her. "Are they dead?" he asked.
"I hope I'm better than that! They'll be out for a while, though. You'll have to fire the ship while I set the lock controls to function automatically. I'm glad they cleared the hangar."
"Why did they? And why only two guards? If I wanted to catch you, I'd send an army or two."
"You're sweet, Karil." She was busy collecting the guards’ weapons. "I think Mitsu can't trust too many people, especially since he must be sending orders from Io. If we'd walked in, unsuspecting, two would have been enough." She bounded across the hangar and scrambled up the ladder to the control centre. Karil opened the hatch and crawled into the ship. As he fired the drivers, he could see her through the windows above, tapping out instructions to the computer. She emerged from the door and started down the ladder.
Suddenly there was a flash, a beam of light across the hangar. Johanna slipped from the ladder and fell to the deck. Karil reacted automatically, diving for the lock as he drew his laser. A uniformed figure with a laser-rifle in his hands appeared from behind a ship, bounding across the hangar toward Johanna's crumpled form. He barely had time to notice Karil emerging from the hatch and to swing the beam-end of his rifle toward him, before Karil squeezed off a shot. The guard fell slowly forward onto his knees and slid to a sprawl on the deck, his rifle careening away from his lifeless fingers. Karil had burned away a considerable portion of his skull.
I've killed a man, Karil thought. He dropped from the hatch and crouched, laser in his hand, senses alert, his blood pounding in his ears. There were no other gunmen. In an instant he was beside Johanna.
There was a neatly cauterized laser-hole straight through her heart. Her brain, deprived of oxygen, would already be beyond saving. He gathered her up in his arms and knelt on the floor, rocking her body in his lap like a child, tears streaming down his face.
There was a sound behind him. He dropped her, rolled away, and whipped his laser around to take aim. It was only the ship rising on its launch-pad, the hatch in the ceiling sliding back to receive it.
He vaulted across the hangar, clipping his weapon. His last leap was barely high enough. His fingers gripped the edge of the pad and he hung, dangling. With Terran muscles, he pulled himself up and rolled onto the pad as it slipped into the open hatch. Another moment and his fingers would have been severed, and the fall to the deck below would have crippled him at least, even in this gravity. He heard the hiss of escaping air even as he wriggled into the ship and shut the hatch behind him. Another hatch was opening above, revealing black sky dotted with stars. He lashed himself into the pilot's couch. The instruments were a blur before his eyes. He wiped away the tears and his hands darted over the control panel.
He could not remember if he was doing it right. If he stopped to think about it, he would be lost. Half by instinct, half by memory, he set the ship for vertical lift, and pushed the deadstick forward.
Acceleration crushed him to the couch, forcing the air from his lungs. Pain arced through his ribcage and the flesh of his face flattened in an evil grin. He struggled to retain consciousness until Ganymede had fallen far beneath him. He was alone in space, well beyond pursuit, and falling swiftly toward Jupiter.
Johanna dead, her eyes staring up at him. So how do you like your blue-eyed girl, Mr. Death? He shook his head to clear the image from his mind, concentrated on shooting the stars. Where was Canopus? For a horrible moment he was unable to find it. All his knowledge fled from his mind. The instruments at his hands were alien, unfathomable. Intercept. Azimuth. Heading. What did they mean? He fell helplessly through space, toward Jupiter’s gaping maw.
It was coming back to him now. With the star-tracker, he found his targets, determined his position, his course. Understanding came with the action, one movement led to another. The computer ephemeris gave him Ganymede's position, Io's position. He was going to miss Io by a wide margin, fall into orbit about Jupiter. He would have to alter his trajectory to go into parking orbit about Io.
No, parking orbit would bring him to the attention of Security. What was Johanna's plan? He would have to achieve impact trajectory without orbit, calculating for impact on the primary side, where no one in his right mind would land, then brake to avoid the crash. Simple!
Going over his calculations again and again, constantly re-checking his course, kept him from thinking about Johanna. Every time he did, there was that hollow feeling, that horrible sense of loss, and the tears welled up in his eyes again, blurring his vision. But gradually, as Jupiter rushed toward him, anger rose to fill the void. He found himself shaking so much with rage that he dared not make his final approach corrections until he had calmed down.
He calmed himself with a resolution: he would terminate Mitsu on sight, burn him down, and watch him die. He must not let Io kill him until he had killed Mitsu first. He promised it to Johanna's ghost.
He was tranquil now. He moved as if in a dream, corrected his course, watched Jupiter expand as it rushed upon him. Europa was swinging toward him now, smooth and icy, its surface covered with intersecting hairline cracks. For a time, as he swung past it, he was entranced by the beauty of its traceries and forgot his troubles, and then the remembrance of Johanna came home to him again: her joy as she pointed out the beauties of the Jovian system, the touch of her skin... No!
Io came upon him with reckless haste. To his eyes now, Jupiter and Io were the same size, one landscape of sulphurous desert below, another of kaleidoscopic cloud above, fading into black shadow. For an instant he panicked, his senses telling him the two were closing in to crush him between them. He fought to control himself, to keep his eyes on his instruments.
He trimmed to vertical and found himself staring up into Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. He tore his gaze away, kept his eyes on the radar altimeter, glancing occasionally at the gyro readout to make sure it was retaining vertical. Then, a few kilometres from impact, he fired the retros and watched the accelerometer register negative as his descent was slowed, watched the altimeter count down more and more slowly.
He was surprised to find his vehicle sitting motionless on the surface of Io, Jupiter a low, striped ceiling above him. All about him lay a desolate waste of orange dust. The radiation counter was clucking away at him, not frantically as yet, but accusingly.
He paused for a moment to let a wave of trembling and weakness pass, but the counter urged him into action. He took the controls in his sweating palms, lifted the ship on a cushion of plasma, tilted it forward, and let it slide over the surface. With a little practice, he could zip over the plains as easily as in a Hum Bug. Sulphurous dust rose in yellow clouds behind him. Black volcanoes appeared on the horizon and rushed toward him. He veered east to avoid them, hoping to find his course again by dead reckoning. The term made him chuckle morbidly to himself.
The shadow sweeping across the face of Jupiter could almost be seen to move, as Io's revolution about her primary took less than two days. Soon the pale sun was gone, swallowed up, and the ceiling was black and flickering with eerie lightning. But he ignored the blackness about him and concentrated on keeping control of the cutter, lest the plasma blast that held him above the surface should suddenly turn on him and slam him to the ground. In a crippled, perhaps leaking ship, in this landscape, he might as well slit his throat.
He seemed to be surrounded by caldera now, looming in the dark. The hole in the star-field that was Jupiter was sinking below the horizon and the sky was filling with tiny lights. Karil was beyond exhaustion. The counter was shrieking at him, and he knew that particles were streaming through the ship's inadequate shielding, streaming through his body. He fought to keep his mind alert, peering through the mountain gaps to the horizon. He knew that the mountain he sought was alone on the plains, near a great fissure, visible for many kilometres. He would see it towering over the landscape, blotting out the stars. Unless he missed it in the dark.
Then, suddenly the horizon appeared, a bow of golden light, and the brightness rushed toward him. The mountains were falling behind, and he was flitting across the brightening plains. And just as suddenly, he was engulfed in a blue snowstorm.
He blinked, trying to clear his fatigue-fogged brain. But this was no hallucination; blue snow was falling all about him. He looked up and saw the sun appear from behind the limb of Jupiter. Sulphur-dioxide leaking from Io's interior through a nearby fissure was freezing in the near-vacuum, falling as snow-crystals that the sunlight dyed a lovely blue.
He could see the fissure, a hellish canyon snaking across the red and orange-streaked plains. And, as the blue snow fell away behind him, he could see great mountains rolling toward him over the horizon.
He relaxed, and suddenly found the ship skidding sideways, swinging wildly, turning turtle. His hand flashed out and killed the drivers, and the ship ploughed into the dust with the sound of wrenching metal. He was suspended upside-down in his couch-webbing, his foot twisted at an awkward angle beneath him. He worked himself free, tested his ankle. It wasn't broken, praise Allah.
But he was in big trouble. He had kilometres left to cover, protected only by a p-suit, its shielding totally inadequate for the lethal rain of Io's surface.
Several minutes later he was dressed for vacuum and working his way out through the lock. He was lucky the ship had not been breached in the crash, and lucky that the outer hatch was not blocked. But he would have to be luckier still to make his way across the plains and under secure cover before receiving a lethal dose of radiation. He ploughed on in a ground-devouring lunar kangaroo-hop, the mountains inching toward him.
He stumbled and sprawled in the poisonous dust. He rose and went on, stumbled again. His body was betraying him, demanding rest. But rest was death, and he ignored the demands of his tortured limbs, struggled on without noticing the weaving pattern his footprints were leaving in the sulphur. Finally, his legs gave out entirely, and he was reduced to crawling for a time, until he collapsed and lay panting in the suit, fogging his faceplate with his tears.
"I'm sorry, Jo," he said. "I couldn't get to her. I'm sorry."
Something lifted him and turned him over on his back. He was looking up at a robot. The monster picked him up in its powerful arms and carried him off. Some glimmer of presence of mind made Karil reach up and snap off its antenna before he fainted.
After what seemed like the merest split-second, he found himself lying on a hard floor, cool air upon his face. The robot stood over him, holding his helmet in its great claws. They were in an airlock, somewhere deep in the mountain. The walls were rock, the hatches on either side cold steel. He heard the robot’s voice.
"...unable to send for help because the Master accidentally broke my antenna. I will do so now." It turned toward the communicator on the wall.
"No!" Karil said. His voice cracked. "No, do not send any messages."
"The Master is injured. I must request medical aid."
Karil tried another tack. "First help me remove my suit. I need immediate attention."
"It may be dangerous." The machine was hesitating, confused as only a robot can be in the face of human needs.
"Help me or I will die!" Karil began to strip off his suit. The robot hesitated a moment more, then bent over him and helped to peel off the fabric with surprising gentleness.
"I'm sorry," Karil found himself saying. He drew his laser and fired point-blank into the machine's chest. It fell back in a shower of sparks and flailing limbs, and finally it lay still.
Karil struggled to his feet, opened the inner hatch and made his way with difficulty down the tunnel, his laser still in his hand. If only he could find his way to the right hangar before meeting anyone.
Luck was with him still. He found an illuminated map somewhere in the warren, figured out how to reach the hangar. It wasn't far--one level down and a few hundred meters along the corridor. He tripped on the stairs going down, fell noisily the rest of the way. In the corridor he heard someone coming toward him, footfalls echoing long before anyone could be seen, and he managed to hide in a suit-locker until it was safe. He did not want to have to kill anyone but Mitsu.
At last, he was at the hangar. He slipped in through the door and stood in shock. He collapsed against the wall beside the entrance and tried to collect his thoughts.
Atalanta was gone. Anais sat alone in the great vaulted chamber. Had Loris managed to spirit her away, after all? Perhaps they both were safe. But how could she leave Anais behind? He stumbled up the ladder into Annie’s interior.
"Annie, where's Loris?"
There was silence.
"Annie?"
On the bridge, he discovered wiring, fused and blackened, hanging from a gaping fire-crater where Annie's higher functions had been. Isfahan appeared from some hiding place in the ship, miaowing plaintively. Karil bent down. The cat arched and hissed, trembling with terror.
"It's all right, Izz," he said. "It's me. Karil. I won't hurt you."
"Mew?"
"That's right. What happened to Loris, eh?" Isfahan allowed himself to be picked up. He purred and snuggled into Karil's arms.
"I wish you could talk, Izzy. I really wish you could talk."
Karil carried him aft and down the ladder. He stood in the centre of the lifeless hangar, lost in despair. There was nowhere to go. In a matter of minutes, he would be slipping into a coma from which he would not awaken.
Johanna was dead, Anais was dead. Loris and Atalanta were missing, like Shagrug. Mitsu, he supposed, was still alive.
But Karil was dead.
He felt his knees give way. Karil twisted as he fell so as not to land on the cat. He was unconscious before his head struck the floor.