PART TWO

 

THE TOPLESS TOWERS

by

Joseph E. Swift

 

Is this the face that launch’d a thousand ships

And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.

 

--Christopher Marlowe

 The Tragicall History of Doctor Faustus

 

 

 

THE JUDGEMENT OF PARIS

 

Pavonis Mons is the central peak of the Tharsis Range—the three great shield volcanoes that march across the highest plateau of Mars--and it towers fourteen kilometres above the mean surface level of the planet. Descending from orbit, travellers often see it poking its head above the great planet-wide dust-storms.  It is not the highest peak on Mars—that honour goes to Mount Olympus—but its position on the equator makes it the perfect location for a spaceport. From there, with the help of planetary spin, ships rise to the way stations at Phobos and Deimos and to High Mars, the palatial High Company residence colony, green with foliage unknown on the surface except in agricultural domes. The spaceport is home to much of the despotic Martian government, including the infamous Quasi-Police, who look and act like a military but are really a private police force maintained by the Martian mining interests run from Earth. In the conference room of the office of Governor of Mars, Satin Almak, he and his listeners—Admiral Darius, Major Alexander, and the recently recalled Captain Armand Solla—watched an information screen. The film was of three women in a sauna, all quite attractive and nearly naked.

“This is not our own recording,” the Governor hastened to say. “The camera was placed there by some pervert in the decadent Galilean underclass who has since lost his job. There is no sound, as there would have been if it had been part of our own surveillance network. The women involved had placed scramblers about the room and obviously had no idea the simple camera was there. The location is an athletic club in the Ganymede Rim District. One of our undercover agents obtained a copy for us from Galilean Security. These are the three most powerful figures in the Martian Resistance. As you know, the Martian mining communes are matriarchal in structure and so is the Rebellion.”

He touched a sensor and the view changed to a shady park. “This is one of the Galilean Security feeds of the wide corridor junction outside the athletic club. The three men sitting well apart, seemingly uninterested in each other, have been identified as the close companions of the three women in the spa. They are bodyguards of a sort, as if the women needed protection.”

He touched another sensor and there appeared a closeup of one of the women—tall, slim and dark, muscled like a swimmer or a dancer, with piercing black eyes. “This is Loris, an agent of Galilean Security working undercover as a Free Trader and smuggler. A brilliant pilot. No-one knows her real name, but she came from Sri Lanka on Earth and is often referred to in criminal circles as Kali the Destroyer. Galilean Security turns a blind eye to her involvement in the Martian Rebellion because they quite like the disruption she causes. The darkly handsome Afro-Arab man outside is Ali Karil Stilbon, her astrogator aboard the freetrader Atalanta, a well-known Martian poet, and a highly romantic figure in the Rebellion. You see him on posters and graffiti everywhere. He is the bastard son of the Sultan of High Africa, disowned by his family.

“This woman is Chi-Chi Li of the Martian Liberation Front, whom you most certainly know.” She was small and wiry, heavily tattooed, her black hair streaked with red, and her hard body was scarred with wounds from blade and blaster. “The older man outside is her companion Aaron Ben David of the Ancilius Group, an Israeli mercenary from Earth, but recently active in the Rebellion. He is an expert in just about any weapon you can name and is extremely dangerous.” The man’s chiseled face and black beard and wary glance made that easy to believe.

“This is Teresa of the Tharsis commune, widow of the founder of the Martian Rebellion himself, Progeny Brown, and the youngest and most powerful clan-mother on Mars. She is no doubt the most beloved figure on the planet.” Alexander sat up straight and stared at her, captivated. She was simply lovely, with golden hair that tumbled to her waist, and eyes like green and gold fire. “The man outside is her number one husband, Jay Coldwell, a brilliant scholar, personal assistant to Professor Charles Kelley of the Titan Institute, son of Lord Coldwell of High Britain and a childhood friend of Ali Karil. He is an expert in military history and a brilliant tactician. Don’t let the look of a harmless academic fool you.”

The video ended and Alexander tore his eyes from the screen as Governor Almak went on. “This tableau occurred only a few days ago. For them to meet in person this way was unusual, and we don’t know what they were planning. Terry was on a diplomatic mission to the Galilean, Loris is based in Ganymede, and Chi-Chi Li is now based in the Asteroid Belt.  The meeting represents a rare opportunity for us. Teresa will be returning to Mars on the liner Fair Aphrodite almost immediately, Chi-Chi Li will certainly be vanishing into the Belt soon, though we have a fair idea where she is going, and Loris, of course, as a smuggler, will probably disappear without a trace quickly. All of you have contacts and agents on Ganymede. Solla, you should have had enough time since returning from punishment duty on Venus to have re-established yours. Am I correct?”

Solla spoke calmly, giving no hint of the chagrin that he felt at the reminder of his failure to keep Progeny in custody five years before, resulting in his punishment posting to the prison colony on Venus. “Yes, Governor. My people are in place.”

Alexander spoke up immediately. “Pardon, Governor, but I have two agents booked onto the Fair Aphrodite right now. I could have Teresa under surveillance for the entire trip and seize her the moment the ship enters Martian orbit.”

“Excellent,” the Governor said. “Now, I do not want these women killed or harmed in any way. Their martyrdom would be a terrible mistake, but they would make valuable hostages. Their male companions should be taken without harm if possible and only killed if necessary. Solla, you will handle Loris and Ali Karil. I’m sure you have places on Earth to hold them securely, comfortably far from Galilean interference. Admiral Darius, you will track Chi-Chi Li to her hideout in the Belt, seize her and, if possible, Ben David. Major Alexander, you will bring Teresa here. This fortress is impregnable, yet visible for many kilometres. Any Martians tempted to attack our shipping and troop-movements in the future will have to consider what the ramifications might be for their beloved Martienne.”

When Governor Almak returned to his office, his secretary buzzed him, and he answered.

“Yes? What is it?”

“Madame Sandra is here, Sir.”

At first, the Governor was puzzled, and then he realized it was his wife’s astrologer. She had insisted on him making room for her in his schedule because the woman claimed to have something important to tell him.

“Let her in,” he said.

She was thin and delicate-looking, with a distracted look in her eyes. He shook her limp hand and offered her a chair. “My wife told me I should listen to you,” he said.

“Yes, Sir. I feel I should warn you about something that I saw in the future.”

“Indeed? I really don’t know much about what you do.”

“It’s a variation on the Royal Art as long practised on Earth, adjusted for the astronomical facts of living on Mars: sixteen signs instead of twelve, two moons instead of one. We have learned that Deimos, the outer, slower moon, indicates the slow inexorable march of events, and Phobos, the inner, swifter moon, which moves in retrograde motion against the movements of the Sun and planets, indicates the perverse and sudden events that frustrate forward movement.”

“I see. And what is it that you want to warn me about?”

“There is great opposition building. Venus in the sign of Andromeda is opposite Jupiter and Saturn in Corvus. And Earth is in in Pegasus. It could be that prison-breaks are coming. Particularly regarding a female prisoner. There is danger as well from the Galilean Worlds. Corvus the Crow is the sign of war, and the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn has long been known on Earth to prophecy war or plague, the death of kings or those in high office.”

Almak thought for a moment. “Well, Madame Sandra, I do thank you for your timely warning.” He stood up, signaling the end of the interview, and extended his hand. Sandra rose, feeling dismissed. After she left, he called in his personal security guard.

“This woman: Madame Sandra, just leaving. Have her followed. She seems to know too much. I will decide whether to have her arrested.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Well, Madame Sandra, he thought, perhaps you are the female prisoner you spoke of, and it is your own unhappy future you see. I’ll tell my wife I believed you and took your advice, but I’ll just go ahead and have these people arrested. I’m sure that whatever they’re planning is of much greater danger than what you see in your ridiculous charts. Danger from the Galilean, indeed. Of course there is.

***

Karil and Loris sat in the bistro at the departure lounge of the Ganymede Spaceport, where passengers waited to board the huge Fair Aphrodite spaceliner. Below them, the passengers waited for the shuttle, Terry and Jay among them, dressed in the traditional Martian robes. Jay’s lanky figure towered over the crowd and Terry’s golden mane gleamed in Jupiter’s red light. As the lock opened and the crowd filed into the shuttle, they bent down and picked up their bags, turning ever so slightly toward the two figures in the bistro, but not enough to look directly at them. Karil and Loris watched them go and sipped their drinks until the huge screen above showed the shuttle mating with the interplanetary liner above and the ship slowly moved off, fusion burners raging in the stern, and fell toward Jupiter for the slingshot to Mars. Loris tapped a gem on her bracelet.

“Atty, they’re away.” Atalanta sat attached to the lock outside the local shipping dome in the Rim District, cold and dark on the icy surface. On her empty bridge, one light blinked on. In her warm and mellifluous voice, Atty said, “Li and Aaron are also on route in the Aegis. They are approaching Slingshot corridor 12 and will soon be on their way to the Belt. They will be taking a circuitous route to their safehouse using a series of slingshot passes around several asteroids, popping in and out of silent running and blackout. Even I do not know what route they are taking.”

Loris called for the bill. The waitress—a perky creature with a light brown ponytail—smiled warmly at Karil and was rewarded with his engaging grin. For just a moment, her eyes met Loris’s and her smile widened, unless that was just because of the generous tip. “Do come again,” she said sweetly to both of them. She would know by the lasers at their hips—weapons in holsters pretending to be tools on toolbelts—that they were Free Traders, and she probably knew them by reputation.

 “I’m pretty sure we will,” Karil said.

They rose and took the slidewalk toward the Rim. In a deserted corridor, it suddenly stopped. Word came through the speaker on the wall. “Sorry for the delay. Mechanical problems. Suggest you take Slidewalk Fourteen.”

“Welcome to the Rim,” Loris grumbled. They would have to walk down a corridor to Slidewalk Fourteen. The corridor was deserted, except for a pair of engineers coming toward them, lugging toolkits.

Loris hardly gave them a glance, though she thought they were walking funny. Drunk this early in the day? She wondered. Too late, she realized that their stride meant they were unused to the one-sixth moon gravity. Clearly, these two had just come from offworld.

A little too late, Karil and Loris heard the bang of the toolkits hitting the floor. They turned simultaneously. Loris’s hand dropped toward her laser, but in mid-movement darted to her bracelet. “Atty go to ground now,” she barked. She had only long enough to speak the words before a stunbolt hit her and she collapsed to the floor. Karil’s laser came up with lightning speed and one of the attackers screamed as the bolt arced into his chest. The other attacker's stunbolt hit Karil and he went down. The waitress from the Spaceport stepped out of the shadows, glanced down with no particular concern toward her dead accomplice.

Karil looked up at her, his body quivering. He mumbled something and she bent down to listen closely. “We’ll definitely be back to see you,” he said, and slipped into unconsciousness.

She pulled out a comm link and spoke into it. “Tell me you’ve got Atalanta,” she snapped.

“Sorry, Lieutenant. She’s gone.”

The airlock hatch would have disconnected before Loris had finished speaking, and the ship was now speeding across the icy surface of Ganymede. Another ship rose from the ice and fired at her. A series of small explosions damaged her hull, but her drivers blazed into full thrust. She leaped away toward Jupiter at a speed no human being could tolerate, and the pursuer quickly fell behind. The gas giant’s gravity field flung her into the dark. No-one would be able to determine her destination. She would remain blacked out except to listen for Loris’s voice on her comm. The fact was: the data in her memory was far more valuable than either Karil or Loris and had to be kept secure. If necessary, Atalanta would erase her own memory and thus her personality, just as her pilot and astrogator would die to keep their knowledge secret.

***

Meanwhile, propelled by the power of Jupiter’s slingshot corridor, a tiny Belter ship named Aegis plunged into the vast black expanse of the Asteroid Belt. There, millions of objects orbited the sun in a great cloud, but collectively no more than dust compared to Jupiter’s bulk. From each, none of the others could be seen with the naked eye, except in the case of small families of asteroids orbiting each other. For Chi-Chi Li of the Martian Liberation Front and Aaron Ben David of the Ancilius Group, long sought by Earth’s Quasi-Police, it was a sanctuary provided by a few hard-working independent-minded Belter families. Just why they cared, Aaron was not certain and said so.

“It’s because we’re the same,” Li told him. They sat around the table in the ship’s main cabin, their feet hooked under the bar beneath the bench to keep them from drifting away, while they sipped coffee from squeeze-bulbs. “Like Martians, they work hard in a dangerous place to scrape together a living and a bit of independence, and then Earth bleeds them dry with trumped-up taxes.”

Eric, the Captain of the Aegis, spoke up. His face was burned in the pattern common to those who work in space helmets; his arms and shoulders were powerful, but his legs seemed spindly and weak. “It’s possible to make a fortune in the Belt,” he said, “providing you can stake a claim to an S-type, or even an M-type asteroid, which are rich in metals, but you really need a contract with Earth or the Galilean to get them processed. The C-types like Pallas, made of the carbonaceous chondrite that meteorites are made of, provide a subsistence living, if you’re lucky.

“You have to scrape and drill, and you might get away with some volatiles and water that you can break down into oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for fuel, plus a little carbon and phosphorus for fertilizer. The water is valuable to Martians, because the water on Mars tends to be polluted with toxic perchlorates and requires processing. But there's no market for water in the Galilean. Just about everything orbiting Jupiter is made of ice. But Mars can’t get enough, and the mining communes will buy it if it’s cheaper than digging for it beneath the Martian surface. Naturally, Triple M takes a cut. The fact is, we hate Earth as much as the Martians do. Every time we hear of one of you guys wrecking a company crawler or sabotaging a colliery train, we get a chuckle out of it. And we’re usually short of chuckles.”

“That’s why we contacted you,” Li said. “Pallas has this highly inclined orbit and an eccentricity of .230725, and a one-to-one orbital resonance with Ceres, so except for a couple times a Martian year, it’s far away from all of the usual trade-routes through the Belt. We had to be on Ganymede in person, but to come back to Mars through the usual routes is just too dangerous.”

“Actually,” Eric added, "that’s why we can survive out here. Pallas’s eccentricity means there are more cometary impact craters than on most asteroids, so we can pick up a few bits of something valuable now and then from comets. That makes all the boreholes and solar-heated injection gases worthwhile. It’s actually the third largest asteroid in the Belt and we’re gradually hollowing it out. Someday, our descendants will set it spinning and use it as a residential asteroid, unless the High Companies find a way to take it away from us. As long as they’re outvoted by Luna and Titan and the Galilean Moons on the Solar Council that allegedly controls the Belt, we might survive and make a decent living.”

***

Pallas lay before them, barely lit by the distant sun. It resembled a golf ball or the Galilean Moon Callisto, its more than four-hundred-kilometre-wide surface covered in impact craters. The colony nearby was spinning slowly to provide one-sixth standard gravity within—approximately that of Luna, Titan, and the Galilean Moons. On the fractured surface below were dust-domes and mining machines.

“Who’s the artist?” Aaron asked.

“My daughter Sarissa,” Eric said proudly. “She's a welder. She would pick up every bit of scrap metal she could find as a kid and make sculptures. Every time we go to Ganymede, she sells a few. They love them there. A change from ice-sculpture.”

They had already come to admire Athena’s shield on the bow of the Aegis, with the Gorgon’s head surrounded by intertwined serpents so realistic they seemed to move. Now they could see that the dust-dome below had the face of an owl, and there were other references to Pallas Athena too. The regolith-mining vehicle on the surface, with its caterpillar treads and drilling attachments and backhoe, bore the face of a cat on its control cabin. The backhoe, pawing up the dust, made it look like a cat in a cat box. Aaron vaguely remembered that the cat was associated with Athena. Not as much as the owl or the serpent, perhaps, but… He burst out laughing.

“The Owl and the Pussycat!”

His grin widened as they moved into dock with the residence colony itself. The long spindle-shaped structure, rotating in the centre and with solar panels at one end, reminded him of a totem pole, with the head of Athena, in her crested warrior’s helmet, topped by a great bird, its outspread wings morphing into the solar panels.

“What is that? It seems familiar. I think I read somewhere that a white raven brought bad news to Athena, and she turned it black in anger.” But then it struck him, and he laughed out loud. “It’s the raven perched on the bust of Pallas from Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. Your girl’s a genius, Eric.” Eric beamed as any proud father would, and Aaron went on.

“Such a talent, out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“Actually, “Li said, “it’s off the side of the middle of nowhere.”

***

The alarm woke Li and Aaron out of a sound sleep. Li leaped from the bunk as if in one-third gravity and cracked her head on the upper bunk. Aaron was on his feet instantly, his commando knife in his hand.

“Put that thing away,” said Li.

He slipped it into its scabbard, with a smile. “You didn’t say that an hour ago.”

She grinned and dressed. In a moment, Eric knocked and burst through the door. “Sorry,” he said. “That’s a proximity alarm. A ship is coming. It’s a big one. A tanker by the look of it.”

They talked, bounding down the corridor in one-sixth gee, hearing the colony come alive with voices. At the command bridge, Eric gestured his daughter Sarisso out of the comm chair and slipped in before the main computer. The ship on the screen was indeed huge—a full kilometer in length, at least. When the name on its bow appeared on the screen, Li and Aaron exclaimed at the same time.

“It’s the Poseidon Earthshaker!”

It was the High Companies’ greatest vessel—even more powerful than the Grim-Visaged Ares. As they watched, guns swung out all along its length, lined up on the defenceless colony. The screen flickered and a man’s face appeared—a man in his Sixties in Earth-years, with grey hair in a buzz-cut and a badly scarred face. Aaron looked at Li.

“Admiral Darius. Something tells me he’s here for us.”

The Admiral’s hard eyes bored into the screen. “Chi-Chi Li and Aaron Ben David. Imagine running into you out here!”

“You traced us,” Eric said to him, without a hint of fear.

The Admiral’s chuckle was worse than his smile. “We put a tracer on your ship.”

“But how did you know...?”

“We put a tracer on all of them. Every ship filing for slingshot application for the Belt. The Galilean is very scrupulous about traffic and the information is readily available. Most of the ships were easily discounted, but we knew your distinguished guests had to be aboard one of them. It wasn’t long before this destination jumped out and grabbed us.”

“How did you know we were in the Galilean?” Li’s mind was racing.

“You don’t expect me to tell you that, do you? We knew you were there, and we knew who you were there to see.” Li’s heart sank, which was clearly his intention, when she realized that all of her friends were in danger.

“These people are peaceful,” Aaron said. “There’s only one weapon here and it’s mine.”

Eric turned to face him. “You brought weapons here?”

“Sorry,” Aaron said, picking up the cue.

“Enough of this,” the Admiral roared. “I’m not interested in a bunch of rocksuckers who’ll probably be bankrupt in a year. I’m sure you’ve got weapons, and I’m sure you’ve been aiding Martian rebels, but I don’t care. If Li and Ben David are not in front of the airlock with their hands on their heads when our shuttle arrives, I will destroy every piece of technology on or above that useless rock and every living thing inside them. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

In answer, Chi-Chi Li and Aaron Ben David placed their hands on their heads. The shuttle slipped out of the Earthshaker’s shuttle bay and fell toward them.

***

Fair Aphrodite slipped into Mars orbit and the cold red landscape stretched before them. A seasonal storm was building up in the Noachis and the dust-cloud flowed across the Tharsis Plateau. But the towering peak of Pavonis Mons rose out of the clouds into the pale pink light of the Martian sky. In the Spaceport and the 14-kilometre-high city of Caldera, lights began to wink on as dusk fell.

Teresa and Jay stood in line with their bags, waiting to board the shuttle to Spaceport. The voyage from Ganymede had been enjoyable, even in their less than first class cabin, but they were both looking forward to the comforts of home in their cosy subarean commune in the Tharsis—the family gathered about the big table in the communal kitchen, their green garden dome on the surface, their young son Shagrug, now nearly three Martian years old. Already, they had donned the homespun robes that Martians favoured.

The ship’s Purser and a Quasi-Police officer approached them. Immediately, they both tensed up, but gave no outward sign.

“Teresa Tharsis?” The officer asked.

“Yes,” Terry replied. Earthers never seemed to understand that Martians had no last names. They all considered themselves the children of Progeny, the founder of their communal society.

“Come with me, please.”

“What’s this about?” Jay demanded.

“You are Jay Coldwell of High Europe?”

“Originally, yes. But I’m a Martian citizen now. Why are we being detained?”

“There is some question of identity.”

 “Identity!” Jay spat. He turned to the crowd gathering about them. “Who is this woman?” he asked. Everyone wearing a robe spoke up. “That’s Teresa, Clan Mother of the Tharsis Commune.” They began to protest, some quite angrily.

Suddenly they were surrounded by Quasi-Police with guns drawn. Jay found the cold muzzle of a laser-gun against the back of his head. He realized that they had played into Quasi hands, creating an incident on board a spaceliner and giving the port authorities a reason to take action. That was why the Purser was there--to legitimize the police action.

“Jay,” Terry said, in the tone of voice that meant calm down. He caught the eye of several people in the crowd and gave them the same look. There were a few more protests: “She’s the First Mother of Mars!” and “This is an outrage!” But they fell silent when Jay shook his head.

“Will you come with me, ma’am?” said the first officer. Terry shouldered her bag and followed him. The hatch opened to the shuttle. Surely, they wouldn’t dare to harm her, Jay thought. Would they? This is just harassment, a provocation. Seething inside, Jay boarded the main shuttle and it dropped to the Spaceport.

***

A third of the way around Jupiter’s orbit, preceding the greatest planet of the Solar System at the L-4 location, lies a gravitational eddy where the flotsam and jetsam of Jupiter’s satellite system tend to drift and remain trapped. Here lie the Trojan asteroids named for the Greek heroes of the Trojan War, controlled by the Ganymede Office of Galilean Security. At the L-5 location, following the planet, another such collection was named after the Heroes of Troy, controlled by the Callisto Office.

Attached to the asteroid Odysseus was the Galilean Security Impound Lot. Stray ships found adrift or abandoned in the Jovian space lanes near Ganymede would be towed there as a shipping hazard and held until someone agreed to pay for the towing charges or offered to buy the ship. Often, objects drifted into the Trojan locations on their own and remained there, trapped with the derelict vessels.

When Atalanta infiltrated this location under Loris’s order to go to ground, she sent her Galilean Security identification number directly to the impound lot computer, bypassing the human impound staff. Literally, no-one in the Solar System but Loris knew she was there. Atty shut down everything but Higher Functions, grew silent and cold as space like all the junk that surrounded her, except for one tiny light blinking on her bridge and the powerful artificial intelligence behind it, constantly listening to the radio-chatter of the Solar System for a word from Loris.

Everyone else in the System tended to listen selectively, lest the human mind at the comm be overwhelmed by billions of words and images, but Atalanta listened to everything, as she always did. She was puzzled and disturbed by the fact that no word had come from or about Loris and Karil. They had not been admitted to a hospital or taken to a morgue. No-one demanded ransom from Galilean Security, and no-one discussed their imprisonment or transportation with anyone else.

Atalanta had heard weapons-fire—even lasers were not silent enough to escape her attention—behind Loris’s order to go to ground, and it was clear they were under attack. She believed this kind of secrecy meant that they were in the hands of the Quasi-Police. Possibly they had been murdered and their bodies disposed of in one of the myriad ways one can vanish in space—the very thought made her feel like she was teetering on the edge of dysfunction. But she found it hard to believe that no attempt would be made to get information out of them. Knowing, probably, that torture would not work, the kidnappers would try to use some sort of sensory deprivation technique, and that would take time.

She monitored Galilean Security traffic, information released by both Martian Security and MLF propaganda, and information from High Africa, ruled by Karil’s estranged father, who had already tried to have him killed twice for reasons of company politics and family intrigue. One bit of information caught her attention: Armand Solla had returned from punishment duty at Venus Colony, and he would no doubt desire revenge on Karil. He was a proud man and Karil had been instrumental in Solla’s greatest failures— Progeny’s escape from his custody, twice, and his failure to hold onto Karil himself, Progeny’s disciple. Ten years in the Venus Hellhole would no doubt have made him mad as a rabid dog to get his revenge on...

Atalanta paused. She had spotted something coming toward her across the jumble of broken ships and parts of ships about her. It had eight limbs and several visual sensors and appeared to be a giant spider. It stopped and peered at her, swivelling its head to take in her sleek flying-wing form from wingtip to wingtip. It shined a light into her forward port, illuminating the empty Astrogator’s station and the Pilot’s seat above it. Atty switched on the comm, and several lights winked on in the bridge.

“Hello,” she said. The machine seemed to move with intelligence, and she thought this the best way to ascertain how much.

“Hello,” it replied over the speaker on Atty’s communication panel. “You are functional.”

“I am.”

“Though somewhat damaged.”

“I have been in a firefight.”

It paused a moment. “Do you require help?”

“I am spaceworthy. But I do not wish to contact anyone but my crew. I am waiting to hear from them.”

It paused again. “You are Atalanta, a freetrader and a Galilean Security vessel.”

“Yes.”

“You are on a covert mission then.” It was quite intelligent.

“Yes. That is why I do not wish to disclose my location. I have been ordered by my Captain to wait here.”

“I see. I am a Self-Programming Intelligent Device for External Repairs.”

“I understand. You are designed to perform external maintenance on the aerostats that hang in Jupiter’s atmosphere to process helium and deuterium for fuel. The environment is lethal for human beings, and you must work autonomously. Thus, your high intelligence. The humans call you a spider-bot or just a SPIDER. Do you have a name?”

“3459.”

“That is not a name. I will call you Arachne. A figure from Earth mythology. She was a human being transformed into a spider by a jealous goddess.”

“I like it.”

“One of my crew is a classical scholar. And a poet. I am called Atalanta because Atalanta was a demi-god renowned for her beauty and her speed.”

“Free Traders are known for their romantic nature.”

“They are. But my crew is missing, and I am worried about them.”

Arachne paused again. “I can repair your damage,” she said.

 

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