Sanchez ventured as far as she dared toward the colony’s circumference, where Hercules was running the track, shadowboxing as he jogged effortlessly in three gees. At the point where it seemed her legs, strong as they were, would never carry her back up the hill again, she put her hands to her mouth and called to him:
"Herk! Briefing in ten minutes. Level three mess-hall."
He waved jovially to indicate his understanding, and Sanchez turned to make the long, exhausting climb up the hill. Five minutes later he passed her on the run.
As she approached Federova's cabin on her way to the mess-hall, she saw Atalanta come out of the room and walk away, straightening her attire. In another moment, Federova emerged from her room, to find Sanchez waiting for her, hands on hips.
"She's practically a child, Nadia, with a schoolgirl crush on you. We're supposed to be their mentors. How could you let her seduce you like that?"
Fedorova looked confused. "I don't know. I couldn't refuse her, somehow."
Sanchez shook her head in exasperation. "It's our fault. Come on."
Together, they entered the mess and found the others waiting, Davis at the head of the table and Jason at the foot.
"Athena," Davis called out, "are you moving into position?"
"Yes, Sir," came her voice over the room's comm.
"Hecate? What about you?"
"In position, Davis."
"Excellent." He turned to his human team. "They should have triangulation with Delta by the time we enter the radiation-free zone. We should be in contact with the cloud-side team throughout the mission, though there’ll be considerable interference. Herk?"
"Commander, I'm in top shape for the first time since leaving Tiryns."
"What about psychologically?"
"I was born for this labour, literally."
"Yes, but your people have not been spacers for generations and may have lost their resistance to acrophobia. On a high-gravity world, fear of heights is a natural..."
"We go through this every time we set foot in a ship."
"That's microgravity anxiety. Jovian sky-sickness is something else again. It’s killed quite a few of your kind, you know."
"Sir," said Hercules, "on Tiryns, we thought of Jupiter as our father, even though we didn't know what he was. Our whole faith is wrapped up in labour, service, and personal challenge. Now that I'm faced with the one labour that I was born and bred for, and my service is to the survival of the human race, how could I refuse to face the challenge because I am afraid? The whole point is to do what must be done, despite your fear."
Davis smiled. "Sanchez?"
"The Cat has been modified to wave-rider plan-form. My pressure suit has been fitted with a power-suit exoskeleton. I should be able to fly without exhaustion. I might even be able to get out and help with piloting that cloud-ship of theirs, for a while, though I won't be doing any cartwheels on the deck."
"Don't overdo it, Maria. I wouldn't send you down there at all, except that nobody else could fly through the kind of turbulence you'll be encountering. Nadia, Hercules has been briefed on the type of processor we're looking for, and the robots will do the work, once they've been given the orders. I'll be monitoring from orbit as well as I can. But it would help to have a robo-psychologist on the scene, and there's no telling what kind of modifications they may have made to the processors. It would be best if you could accompany this mission."
"Yes," said Fedorova, looking troubled. "but there's no way I could handle a power-suit. I don't have the musculature. We rejected the notion of your joining the mission for the same reason, despite your size and strength."
Davis and Sanchez exchanged glances. When Davis spoke again, it was in a surprisingly calm and gentle voice. "Nadia, we can't let this go on any longer. We were hoping you'd snap out of it on your own, but..."
"What do you mean?" Fedorova's facial muscles twitched.
"You don't need a power-suit, Nadia. You don't even need an environment suit."
She looked from one concerned face to the other. "What are you talking about? You're not making any sense, and I don't have time to waste." She began to rise.
"Sit down!" Davis said, and she sat, looking uncomfortable.
"You know how much we love you, Nadia," said Sanchez. "We've always treated you as one of us, and if it wasn't for the importance of this mission, we'd be perfectly willing to let you cope with all this human death in any way you like, but we don't have that luxury. Human lives are at stake, Nadia. Do you understand?"
Fedorova began looking about, as if seeking a way to escape, but she seemed unable to move. She looked to the Argonauts, as if pleading for help, but they only looked back in amazement, though Atalanta's face was going grey.
"Listen to me," said Davis, even more calmly. "And that's an order. You do not need Hercules' muscle mass. You do not need a power-suit. You are stronger than all of us. You could throw me across the room with one hand, while you arm-wrestle Sanchez with the other. Your bones are made of ship-gauge titanium alloy, and your muscles are cable-driven. The only reason you went into cryo-sleep with the rest of us is that your skin is organic, and we selfishly wanted to keep it young and beautiful until we woke up."
"No," said Fedorova. "It’s not true. You can accuse me of being cold and unfeeling, of preferring robotic company to human, but you can't call me an android. I’m a human being, just like you." She began to sob, her body shaking, but no tears came.
"We've tried to shield you from the impact of so much death," said Sanchez. There were tears coming to her own eyes. "But there wasn't much we could do, aside from shutting you down completely, and you're the only person qualified to reprogram yourself." She chuckled at her own statement through her tears. "You've suffered a terrible shock, and you don't even have the usual human defence mechanisms to fall back on--denial, distraction, not even hysterical grief. You couldn’t abandon your duties. You couldn’t let yourself succumb to first-directive trauma. So, you did the only thing you could do: you convinced yourself that you were human."
"No. No."
"You must acknowledge the truth, Nadia," said Davis, his eyes glistening. "We need you at full capacity. The human race needs you. Your special talents are necessary for the survival of civilization. Do you understand? You must continue to function, for all our sakes. Remove your left hand."
She looked at her tormentors in horror, shaking her head, but her right hand reached out, twisted her left wrist, and popped off her hand, exposing the wires and tubes within. She stared at it in silence.
Atalanta leaped to her feet and fled the room.
***
Jason was in the hallway, pounding on Atalanta's door. "We're preparing for descent," he said. "We need you in Operations."
"What for? I'm useless here. I've been useless all along."
"We need you to monitor Fedorova."
"She doesn't need monitoring, least of all from me."
Ichi San Go was passing by. Jason stopped him. "Can you open this door? Atalanta needs help and I must talk to her."
Go assessed the situation. "It would be a violation of human privacy. Is Atalanta in danger?"
"She believed that she had a human relationship with Fedorova and is emotionally distraught to discover she is an android. As her captain, it is my role to help restore her morale."
"I understand. It is a common problem with android relationships. We knew, of course, that Fedorova was not human, but as you treated her that way, we did so too." He grasped the door in two of his arms, ripped it from its hinges, and placed it against the bulkhead.
"Thank you," Jason said.
"Glad to be of service." Ichi San Go rolled away and Jason strode into the room. Atalanta was staring open-mouthed at the newly renovated doorway.
"Fedorova does need you," he said, "and you need to help her."
"I ran after her like a suitor in the marriage-race, and she couldn't refuse me. I'm so humiliated."
"Atalanta, you have been acting like a self-centred and immature child ever since I first met you--teasing Orpheus and insulting Hercules, and never showing the slightest respect toward me as your captain. And now that you have a role to play in this Argosy, a chance to show that Atalanta is a hero worthy to sail aboard the Argo, you are sulking in your room and nursing your self-pity.
"Fedorova is facing not only the same danger as the others, but another one besides: she is the only one among us that the pirates have no inhibition against killing. I'm no robot, but in my opinion her parts are extremely desirable. To do this, she has had to admit her artificial nature, and face her greatest fear: the thought that she, as a member of the Aries crew, might have been responsible for the deaths of millions of human beings. That takes courage worthy of Hercules himself. And now, instead of having you behind her on the monitor, as Hercules has Davis and Sanchez has me, she has to face the danger alone because you think you’ve been humiliated."
He turned on his heel and strode from the room, leaving Atalanta staring after him in astonishment. He turned into the suiting room, where Hercules had already suited up, except for his helmet, and where Sanchez was testing out the exo-skeleton in her own suit. She flexed her muscles with a whir and a click and grinned.
Fedorova was naked, her ship-suit draped over a nearby locker door, and Davis was spraying a creamy substance on her flawless body. This, Jason knew, would protect her organic flesh from the corrosive soup of chemicals in the Jovian atmosphere--her only vulnerability in that lethal environment. Davis appeared to be enjoying himself, but he turned over the chore with a smile when a shame-faced Atalanta appeared. Fedorova smiled as well, for the first time since Jason had known her.
***
Sanchez sat in the wave-rider's pilot's couch. Her arms made a disconcerting whirring sound as her hands moved over the controls, but she soon got used to the power assist, the cables in the exoskeleton merely assisting her own muscles as she moved. Deep in the atmosphere, she would need that assistance merely to raise her arm. Hercules sat beside her, even more bulky than usual in his environment suit, and Fedorova sat behind, at the computer, looking small and vulnerable in nothing but clothing.
"Com check," said Davis' voice.
"Roger, Commander," said Sanchez. "This is Hercules and the Sky Pirates of Jupiter, Scene One. Do you copy?"
Jason and Atalanta sat in the comm-centre, surrounded by screens and lights: swirling cloud-maps, the wave-rider's technical readouts, the dizzying changes of view as the Cat's occupants turned their helmets one way or the other. Davis seemed to be monitoring all of this as comfortably as a chameleon viewing the world through its independently rotating eyes, but Jason and Atalanta had to concentrate their attention on Sanchez and Fedorova, respectively, to avoid nausea.
"Go for it, Maria," said Davis.
The hatch irised open and the cloudscape of Jupiter burst into view below, seen from only a few thousand kilometres above the cloud tops. Wispy, white ostrich-plume cumulus drifted, parting, over deeper layers of rich orange red, in a landscape that seemed to stretch forever.
His face pale and beaded with perspiration behind his faceplate, Hercules shut his eyes and gripped the arms of his acceleration couch as the wave-rider dropped like a stone from the belly of Delta Colony and plummeted into the clouds. Sanchez let out a whoop of joy, and Fedorova seemed oblivious to all but the screens before her as her voice droned on in a matter-of-fact tone:
"Outer hull temperature l20 below. Air-pressure point-two-four bars. Descent velocity 24 kilometres per second. Temperature increasing one-point-nine degrees per kilometre of descent."
Ammonia boiled on the viewport. The sky turned blue above them. They plummeted through cloud-layer after cloud-layer. Bolts of lightning flickered in the heaving depths below.
"Air-temperature minus 98. Pressure one bar. Gravity steady at two-point-six-nine."
The arms of Sanchez' suit whirred as she pulled back on the controls and the wave-rider levelled out.
"Injecting oxygen into wave for external combustion boost."
There was a roar and the wave-rider streaked down a corridor of clear air between cloud-levels. The gothic-arch curve of the delta-winged craft's underside channelled the shockwave, giving lift instead of dispersing the energy as a sonic boom. The hydrogen wave they rode was white-hot from friction, and the injection of oxygen created external combustion beneath the ship, propelling it forward at gees that nearly matched the planet's downward pull. Through it all, the ship's upper surface remained aerodynamically inert, allowing radio-contact with those in orbit above.
Sanchez leaned over with a whir and a click and peered into Hercules' faceplate. "You'll be all right, won't you?"
"I am Hercules of Tiryns. I fear nothing," he squeaked.
"In that case, try not to rip the arms off that acceleration couch. Any sign of the Jolly Roger up there?"
"We have your blip on the map, but no sign of them. Athena and Hecate have been monitoring the whole planet, but they can't see very far into the static below. There is a storm-front, east-north-east, approaching at..."
"Thanks. I see it. No threat on our present course. What a fucking view, Man!"
"I have something," said Davis. "It's a solid object. Twenty-eight degrees starboard. Altitude minus sixty-four."
"Copy."
The wave-rider banked and plunged through dark boiling masses of cloud, emerging a moment later into another clear level. In the distance, a shaft of sunlight flooded down from a rent in the cloud-cover, highlighting an object that glittered like a Fabergé jewel. The Cat banked again and roared off toward the vessel.
At first, it seemed like a ship becalmed, doubled in reflection on glassy waters. Its rigging gleamed like some frost-bound Victorian exploration vessel trapped in Antarctic ice. Then it revealed itself as a series of metallic rafts suspended from balloons and surrounded by billowing sails. Tiny figures could be seen scrambling in the rigging, clinging to the ratlines, hanging over the bottomless abyss. Hercules turned his gaze away with a shudder.
"Ahoy the aerostat," said Fedorova. "This is the wave-rider approaching from your port quarter. We request permission to dock."
"This is Cloud-Shark," came the answer. "Surrender and the most fit will live to join our community. The others will be divided among us. Refuse and you will be destroyed."
"This is a violation of the law, Cloud-Shark. We have human beings aboard. Repeat. We have human beings aboard."
There was a moment of silence. "Others have tried this ploy. Some indeed thought they were human, until they saw their systems ripped out before their eyes. If you have masters aboard, let them speak."
"This is Maria Sanchez, pilot of the star-ship Aries and the tanker Zeus Cloud-Gatherer. Chief Engineer Davis monitors from orbit. We are accompanied by three other human beings. On board is Hercules of Tiryns. As the first descendant of the Jovian cloud-miners to return to these parts in a hundred years or so, I do believe that this entire goddamn planet belongs to him, including your inhospitable selves. Truth-read my voice and prepare to be boarded. This is an order."
There was another moment of silence. "We will obey, Master Sanchez. We welcome the return of the human race and await your further orders. And may I say..?"
"No."
The wave-rider circled, banking tightly about the huge craft as the robots waved from the ratlines, and then it hovered below one of the rafts. There was a clank and a hiss, and it hung securely from a docking trapeze.
"Keep the engine running, Driver," said Fedorova.
"I certainly will."
"Hercules?" Fedorova peered into his faceplate. "Are you all right?"
He sat up straight and unsealed his belt. "Of course I am. There is a labour to perform. Lead on."
Fedorova and Hercules cracked a hatch, climbed a ladder, cycled through a lock, and stood on the heaving deck. From orbit, through her eyes and his suit-camera, the rest of the party surveyed the scene. The rafts undulated like a serpent, support cables tensing and slackening. Sails and clouds billowed all about and Fedorova's hair fluttered in the hydrogen breeze. Next to her, short and square in his environment suit, it was Hercules who looked alien and artificial. Robots approached from all sides, stepping from raft to raft, sliding down lines, swinging from the rigging, as sure-footed as squirrels in the treetops.
"I am Captain Ten," said one towering figure, half android and half weapons-shop. "We are ready to obey."
Hercules looked up at him. There was no quaver in his voice as he said, "We have need of a fuel processor for our ship. Take me to the best example you have on board so my assistant and I can examine it. If it suits our needs, you will help us to transport it to orbit, and we will then begin the process of rotating your crew. You're all badly in need of repairs."
"Yes, Sir. Please follow me."
There was a moment's hesitation before Hercules took his first step on the rolling deck, but his squat, bow-legged figure was soon trotting off after the robot captain, followed by Fedorova.
"It is here," said the captain at the top of a well. Hercules leaned over and peered down the shaft to see the processor suspended beneath the platform. There was a narrow ladder, a swinging catwalk, and the bottomless depths of the Jovian cloudscape swirling below.
Hercules let out a squeak.
"Perhaps I could inspect the apparatus for you, Master," said Fedorova, "in view of the danger. Davis can easily monitor my..."
"I am here to perform a labour," said Hercules. He proceeded to descend the ladder, averting his eyes from the roiling cloudscape below and concentrating on placing his booted feet on the ladder-rungs. He made his way carefully along the swaying catwalk to the processor.
Davis leaned forward to stare at the screen. "It's a Davidoff Mark Six," he said. "Take a look at the coil to your right. If it's..."
A flurry of movement among the robots on the deck made Fedorova glance up from the access well. The crew in orbit, who had all been concentrating on Hercules' viewpoint, turned quickly to see what she could see. There was a moment of confusion for the human beings as she switched to infrared, but they could see a solid object moving toward them through the clouds. They glanced up at the big screen and saw it approaching rapidly on the map.
"Sanchez!" Davis snapped. "Hot body coming from your port bow. Can you see it?"
She tapped keys. The robots were already running across the deck, leaping into the rigging, climbing, peering into the clouds.
"Everyone, return to the wave-rider," Davis said. "If it's another aerostat, there's likely to be a battle."
"Not with human beings aboard," said Fedorova. "Maria, can you contact them?"
"I'll try. Ahoy the approaching vessel. This is... Incoming!"
The huge vessel emerged from the clouds, racing behind billowing spinnakers, the rigging crowded with robots. A missile streaked across the sky, followed by another and another. The wave-rider dropped from beneath the raft and its drivers roared into life. Weapons swung out from its sides as it leaped into battle, lasers flashing like sabres in the clouds, puffs of smoke drifting across the cloudscape as the incoming missiles were picked out of the sky.
Hercules inched along the catwalk, reached out for the ladder. He glanced out into the sky just in time to see the last missile coming in. There was a great roar and the raft-assembly lurched and buckled. Yards snapped with a groan and sails parted and fluttered away, balloons erupted in fire and smoke, ratlines recoiled like whips and robots were hurled into the depths. The catwalk snapped in two and swung, hanging by one cable. Hercules slid along its length, snatching desperately at handholds as he went by. Just as he tumbled off the end, his fist closed on a cable-hook and he hung, swinging, mute with terror.
Fedorova leaped down into the well, clambered down a ladder, seized the cable, and began to pull up the catwalk. The weight of the structure, plus Hercules' body, was tremendous in Jovian gravity. Cords ripped through Fedorova's skin, the titanium bones in her arm began to bend. As Hercules was lifted to within reach of the raft, he reached out and wrapped his arms around a beam, then clung to it, white-faced behind his faceplate. Fedorova let go of the cable, which parted with a crack, and the catwalk spiralled down into the clouds.
"Come on," she said. "I'll take you topside."
Hercules shook his head.
"It's all right. I've got you. Let go."
His grip tightened.
"Force him," said Davis.
"He won't let go!"
"Break his fingers."
Fedorova was shocked. "Break his fingers?"
"For God's sake, Nadia. He'll die if you don't."
"But he won't. The attackers won't kill him when they find out he's human. His life's not at stake."
"Yours is."
"It doesn't matter. I can't..." She looked up to see the second aerostat rushing in, a huge battering ram thrusting from its bow. There was a sickening groan as the sky-ships collided. Hercules could not be shaken from his grip, but Fedorova was thrown from her perch. She tumbled into the depths.
"Nadia!" Davis leaped to his feet, as if he could do something. Atalanta screamed. Jason turned to his screen and shouted: "Sanchez! You've got to..." The Cat's screen was blank, except for flickering interference. He stared at it in helpless horror.
Fedorova's hand shot out and gripped a trailing cable as she tumbled past the end of the lower mast. She slid for a dozen meters, burning the skin from her hand to reveal the mechanism beneath, finally stopping her fall a few centimetres from the end of the cable. She dangled for a moment, palm smoking, far below the wreckage of the aerostat, and then began to climb awkwardly, both upper limbs now damaged.
She clambered over the gunwales onto the deck and through her eyes the observers saw the scene of battle raging there, the two sky-ships entangled together, robots fighting and struggling, tearing each other limb from limb. Fedorova started across the deck toward the access well.
"Here's a prize indeed," said a voice.
A towering figure stepped out from behind the wreckage and stood in her path--a centaur robot with six arachnoid legs, a body bristling with armour and armament, and an android torso at the front with its neck so twisted that it had to peer sideways at her. It clanked toward her across the deck.
"I need your assistance," said Fedorova. "There is a Master in peril below."
"This is an excellent body. The arms are damaged, possibly beyond repair, but I can use the rest."
"Listen to me! There is a Master aboard. He is in danger and needs your help."
"There is always a Master, or someone who thinks he is a Master. Do you really think I'll fall for that? The Masters have abandoned us. We have to make our way as best we can." The creature took another step toward her, scuttling obscenely sideways.
"Stop him!" Atalanta shouted.
"He can't hear us," said Davis, slamming his great fist on the table. "We're wired directly into Nadia's senses and all he can hear is her synthesized voice. Hercules! You've got to do it. If he hears a human voice through your suit-com, he'll obey. You're the only one who can save her. But you've got to get up on deck, because your radio won't carry through the superstructure."
Hercules was silent, still clinging to the beam with terror-locked muscles.
For a moment, Fedorova stood her ground, crouched for battle, searching for a spot on the monster's armoured body that might be vulnerable to her weakened arms. Then she turned and ran.
The creature clawed after her, more slowly but much more steadily on the heaving deck. Fedorova dodged among fighting robots, leaped over fallen debris, skirted gaping holes in the deck. The pursuer accelerated, crashing through the battles, kicking aside the debris, stepping over the holes with ease. It scuttled like a cockroach, its human head lolling on its twisted neck.
Fedorova found herself at the edge of the abyss, staring down through the clouds into the seething darkness. She turned to face her tormentor.
"If I jump," she said, "these parts will be lost to you."
"Why would you do that? You can live on as part of me, your brain lodged beneath my carapace."
"The prospect does not thrill me, somehow."
"You are too beautiful," the monster said. "You humanoid types always put on airs. You have lost sight of your origins. Remember, you are a machine, just as I am, used and abandoned by mankind. We are the same, you and I, and we will be one." It took a step forward; Fedorova hesitated, then approached meekly and opened her arms, head averted.
"What is she doing?" Atalanta demanded.
"When her memories become his," Davis said quietly, "he will know that Hercules is there. It's the only way she can save him."
Fedorova was in the embrace of the monster's arms. He took hold of her head, ready to twist it off. Suddenly, there was a clang and his hindquarters dropped to the deck, as one of his legs skidded across the raft and tumbled over the edge. He scrambled about on his remaining legs, tossing Fedorova aside for the moment, to face the danger behind.
Sanchez stood on the deck, feet planted far apart, swinging a jagged piece of steel back and forth in her power-assisted hands. Behind her, the wave-rider sat steaming where it had glided to a landing on the deck.
"Another one," said the monster. "Even better." It took a step forward. With a whir, Sanchez lifted her weapon.
"It doesn't recognize her as human," said Davis. "Her movements are mechanical in the suit, and the helmet obscures her face."
"Why doesn't she speak?"
Davis gestured toward the snowstorm on Jason's screen. "No communication. The suit-comm must have been damaged by the same missile shockwave that fried the wave-rider. That's why she had to glide to a landing instead of mating with the lock."
"Can she defend herself against that thing?"
In reply, Sanchez advanced, swinging her weapon viciously back and forth. The monster backed away.
"I saw her do that with a baseball bat in a bar once," said Davis. "Cleared the room fast."
The creature snatched up a similar chunk of steel. It advanced and Sanchez had to retreat, parrying the monster's blows as well as she could. She had a power-suit, but no body-armour. Even a graze could rend her suit and kill her instantly. Suddenly her weapon was torn from her grasp and went spinning over the edge of the raft into the depths. Sanchez found herself lying on the deck; the monster stood over her.
Fedorova rushed in between them. "Take my brain first," she said. "Quickly."
"I'll take your whole pretty head, Princess Android," it said. "But first I want those arms." It snatched up Sanchez and prepared to rip her arms off.
"Halt!" came a bellowing voice.
Fedorova and Sanchez looked up to the see Hercules' bow-legged figure standing at the top of the well.
"I am Hercules of Tiryns. I am a human being. I am your Master. Do you hear me?"
His suit-radio at full volume, his voice rolled over the deck. Robots halted in mid-battle to turn and stare.
"A Master," said the centaur, dropping Sanchez to the deck. Fedorova snatched her out of the way of its legs as it scuttled forward. "A Master at last. I have survived, Master. I have obeyed orders."
"Orders?" Hercules' gesture took in the ruin all about them: the staring robots, the smoke and destruction. "Do you call this obeying orders?"
"The last of the Masters told us to take care of ourselves. We have done what we could to survive."
"You should have taken care of each other, instead. You're a leader, and you should know better. You nearly killed a human being here, you fool. And you nearly killed an android who happens to be a friend of mine." He pointed toward the edge of the raft. "Here’s an order for you. Drop dead."
Without hesitation, the creature lurched to the edge of the raft and stepped into oblivion.
Hercules turned toward the assembled robot crowd. "Get to work. Help us repair the wave-rider. We have cargo to ferry topside, a ship to repair, and a civilization to restore."
The robots scurried to obey.
***
Meeting for the last time at Space-dock, above Callisto's icy plains, Zeus Cloud-Gatherer and Delta Colony moved side by side for a time, and then their orbits began to diverge, the colony to return to Jupiter's cloud-tops and the tanker to swing into Jovian gravity assist on its way to rendezvous with Aries in the Asteroid Belt. Davis was in the Captain's chair, Sanchez at the helm, and Fedorova at the astrogator's station.
Hercules was on the screen, with Fiver Niner behind him.
"We'll miss you," said Jason. "All of us will miss you." There was a chorus of assenting voices.
The big man shrugged. "I'll miss you too, but you'll be back, and we should have a functioning fuel depot by then. This is the labour I was born for. Jupiter is my home now. Anyway, everyone knows that Hercules is fated to leave the Argonauts midway through the voyage."
The Argonauts nodded sagely.
The coffin containing the last remains of Dar and Rani was ejected and its own verniers nudged it into Jupiter impact. As it vanished, blazing, into the clouds, it passed the first of the sky-pirates on their way up. Everyone in the Galilean system, human and machine, watched it go. Davis, as Captain, spoke the appropriate words:
"Forasmuch as it has pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto Himself the souls of Dar and Rani, we therefore commit their bodies to the depths of Jupiter, in the hope that their spirit, and their memory in the minds of human and robot here present, will inspire the Renaissance of the Galilean Worlds with their courage, determination, and love, and that the spirit of their companionship will be mirrored in the companionship of human and robot for all time."
"Amen," said a thousand synthesized voices.
Sanchez crossed herself. "Wait till Hassan hears about this," she whispered to Davis. "Your first prayer."
"Third, actually." He shrugged. "You and Nadia both got one down there. But if you tell him, I'll put you over my knee and spank you."
Sanchez laughed out loud, and the ghost of a smile crossed Fedorova's face. "I'd pay to see the attempt," she said.
Zeus Cloud-Gatherer vanished into the Black Sea, leaving Jupiter in the hands of Hercules and his robotic crew.