Jupiter (41 page)

'That's us!' Karlstad yelped.

The same picture flashed back and forth among each of the Jovians in the screen's display.

'They've seen us,' O'Hara said, in an awed whisper.

'They know we're here,' Krebs agreed, her own voice hushed with astonishment.

'My God,' said Grant,'they
are
intelligent.'

Gulping down the streaming food greedily, Leviathan realized it had been congratulating itself too soon. A lone member of the Kin was always prey to the darters, and it was too far from the giant storm to use the same tactics that had saved it from the earlier pack.

Speed. Speed was Leviathan's only hope. If it could get back to its own Kin, rejoin the others, then the darters would not dare to attack. Even if they were foolish or desperate enough to try, an entire gathering of Kin could crush the darters with ease. Darters almost always broke off their attacks when they saw a whole gathering swinging into a defensive sphere. They preferred to attack lone members, waiting until one of the Kin moved off by itself to dissociate and begin budding.

But the Kin were still far, far off. And the darters were moving in fast. It was going to be a race, Leviathan knew, urging its flagella members to their utmost speed. A race against time. A race against death.

'Nonsense!' Krebs snarled. 'Just because they can mimic what they see doesn't make them intelligent.'

'It doesn't make them stupid,' Karlstad quipped.

'Parrots can mimic human speech,' Krebs said. 'Dogs, horses, many animals can respond to human commands. Does that make them intelligent?'

'Dolphins speak with us,' O'Hara said.

Krebs shook her head stubbornly. 'Intelligence requires culture, technology. Dolphins have none.'

How could they, Grant wondered, living underwater, without hands to manipulate their environment, without the ability to make fire. They're stuck with their own muscle power, and that's a dead end.

'Ants have culture and technology,' Karlstad said.

Before Krebs could respond, O'Hara countered, 'The mark of intelligence is the ability to communicate abstract ideas among others of your species. The dolphins do that.'

'Abstract ideas?' Muzorawa asked.

'Yes,' replied O'Hara firmly. 'They can understand friendship and loyalty. They have family ties.'

Krebs, still looking utterly unconvinced, said, 'We are not here for philosophical debates. Maintain the same course and speed as the whales. The more data we get on them, the better.'

The pain in his back was getting worse. Grant closed his eyes and visualized the faulty thruster. The pain told him that it was sputtering again.

Before he could call out the problem, Krebs complained, 'I need full power from all the thrusters, Mr Archer.'

'Number two is failing again,' he said.

'I can see that. Fix it!'

'If I could shut it down… just for half an hour…'

Krebs seemed to consider the possibility. Then she shook her head. 'No. We will lose the whales.'

Muzorawa spoke up. 'Captain, we know the herd's course and speed. We could catch up with them once the thruster is repaired.'

'We are barely keeping pace with them now,' Krebs growled. 'Once they move away from us we'll never catch them.'

'The stream of organics that they are grazing on follows a curving path,' Muzorawa said, calmly reasonable, displaying Grant's map of the ocean currents with the organics' course highlighted. 'We could cut across the current, once the thruster is repaired, and intercept the herd.'

Krebs closed her eyes. She's visualizing Zeb's map, Grant thought, using the implants to give her a picture that her eyes can't see. The pressure must be affecting her optic nerves, not her visual cortex.

Krebs opened her eyes, but they stared blankly. 'Very well,' she said reluctantly. 'O'Hara, reduce speed to minimum cruise. Archer, shut down number two thruster for repair.'

As Grant began to bubble out a sigh of relief, Krebs added, 'And get the repair finished in thirty minutes! Not one second more!'

'Yes, Captain!'

Twenty-eight minutes later Grant surveyed the relined plasma tube. Through his implanted chips he felt the ceramic lining as if he were caressing it, running his hands along its smooth length, still warm from the star-hot stream of ionized gas that had been flowing through it. Yes, he told himself, it's the proper thickness and surface smoothness. All within the specifications. The liquid nitrogen coolant was refrigerating the superconducting coils on the other side of the tube. The coils were well below their critical temperature.

'Well?' Krebs demanded. 'Are you finished?' With a single small nod, Grant said, 'Yes, Dr Krebs. Thruster number two is ready to go back on-line.'

'Good,' she said, and Grant realized that this would be as close to a pat on the back as he would ever get from this dour, hard-driven woman.

As the thrusters roared up to full power, Grant fought to pull his attention away from the impulses his chips were sending through his nervous system. It took an effort, but through clenched teeth he asked Muzorawa, standing next to him: 'Have we lost them?'

The wallscreen showed nothing but empty darkness. It took a moment for Zeb to reply. 'They've moved off beyond our sensor range,' he answered, rubbing his eyes, 'but if they are still following the organics, we should intercept them in an about one hour.'

And if they've changed course we've probably lost them forever, Grant thought. And it will be my fault. At least Krebs will blame me for it.

Then he asked himself, Are there other herds in the ocean? There must be. There couldn't be just one group of a few dozen of these creatures. There must be others of their kind… and other kinds of creatures in the sea, as well. We have a whole world to explore, a whole ecology, an ocean thousands of times bigger than Earth.

If the thrusters hold out, he reminded himself. They're working fine now, but you've used up all the reserve ceramic. If anything goes wrong again, we either head back for the station or die here. There's nothing left to repair them with. And we're running them full-out. If one of them fails, we're gone.

Grant glanced at Muzorawa, then at O'Hara and Karlstad, all at their consoles, all straining their senses to find the herd of Jovian whales. They're not whales, Grant chided himself. They're nothing like whales. They make whales look like minnows, for God's sake.

None of the others seemed to know that the thrusters were in critical condition. Looking over his shoulder at Krebs, though, Grant felt that she knew. Those blind eyes notwithstanding, she knows that the thrusters are on the knife-edge of breakdown. And she doesn't care. She'd rather die than give up this quest.

'I see one!' Muzorawa sang out. It reminded Grant of old stories about whalers, iron men in wooden ships, and their cry of, 'Thar she blows!'

Everyone tried to tap into the sensor data at once. Grant got a sensation of a faint, trembling touch along his arms, as if someone was stroking his skin, gently, very gently.

'Give me visual imagery,' Krebs snapped.

'It's too far off for anything but sonar right now,' Zeb replied.

'Let me
see
it!' Krebs demanded.

'In a few minutes,' Muzorawa said. 'Ah! It's lighting up the water! Can you see the glow?'

Grant saw a faint deep red shimmering in the otherwise black visual imagery.

'It seems to be alone,' Muzorawa said, sounding puzzled. 'I can't detect any other creatures near it.'

O'Hara chimed in, 'It's not on the same course that the herd should be following. And it's moving at much greater speed.'

'It's an intercept course,' Krebs said. 'But it's coming from a different direction than we are.'

'I'm starting to get visual imagery,' Muzorawa said.

'Yes, I see,' said Krebs.

'It's alone,' Karlstad said.

'Yes,' Muzorawa agreed. Then, 'No, I don't think it is — there are others coming with it. Two… six… ten and more! They're smaller, though. Different in shape.'

Grant saw them, faint and fuzzy at this distance. But the scene made a dreadful kind of sense to him.

'They're chasing him!' Grant yelped. 'The smaller ones are chasing the big one.'

'The
smaller ones
are five times the size of this ship,' Karlstad pointed out.

'Predators,' said Krebs. 'Archer is right. They are chasing the whale. We're seeing a hunt in progress.'

'What can we do?' O'Hara asked.

'Get closer,' Krebs snapped.

'Closer?'

'Yes! Before it runs away from us.'

The thrusters were running at full power, straining to cut across the Jovian's path and close the gap between them. Grant felt as if he were running a marathon; every muscle in his body ached.

'It's going too fast,' O'Hara shouted. 'We'll never catch up with it.'

Tapping into the sensor net, Grant saw the mammoth Jovian streaking through the depths, pursued by the ten smaller beasts.

'Get closer!' Krebs demanded. 'Muzorawa, are the sensors getting all this?'

Zeb did not reply immediately. 'Muzorawa!'

'Yes, Captain,' Zeb said, his voice shaking. 'The sensors… I…"

Grant pulled out of the sensor imagery and turned toward Zeb. Muzorawa just stood blankly at his console, his legs bent slightly at the knees, his feet held down by the floor loops, his arms floating chest-high, his head lolling to one side.

'I… can't… breathe…' he gasped. 'Pressure…"

'We're too deep!' Karlstad yelled.

'What's wrong with him?' Krebs demanded.

Karlstad stared frantically at his console. Grant could see a string of baleful red lights glowering along its screens. 'His breathing rate's gone sky-high. Something wrong with his lungs. Capacity is down, still sinking—'

'Archer,' Krebs ordered,'disengage Dr Muzorawa and get him back to his berth.'

Grant quickly began to yank the optic fibers loose from Zeb's legs.

'I'm sorry…' Muzorawa panted. 'Too much… can't…'

'Don't talk,' Grant said, trying to sound soothing. 'Save your strength.'

Muzorawa's eyes closed. His head rolled slightly, then slumped down, chin on chest. He's unconscious, Grant realized. Or dead.

'You're the life-support specialist,' Krebs was snarling at Karlstad. 'What should we do?'

'Get the hell out of this pressure!' Egon snapped.

'No!' she shot back. 'Not yet. Not now, with those animals so close.'

'You'll kill him!' Karlstad insisted. 'You'll kill us all!'

Turning back toward Grant, Krebs said, 'Take him back to his berth. Lower the pressure in the chamber there.'

Feeling helpless, confused, Grant began to ask, 'How do I lower—'

Krebs said, 'Seal the hatch once you get him into his berth. I'll take care of depressurizing.'

'You can't depressurize it enough to help him," Karlstad wailed. 'Not unless we go back up toward the surface.'

Krebs turned toward him, looking as if she were ready to commit murder.

'I make the decisions here,' she said to Karlstad, her voice venomously low. Turning back to Grant, 'Get him back to his berth! Now!'

'Yes'm.' Grant began pulling his own optical fibers free.

Suddenly the ship lurched as if it had been hit by a torpedo. Grant was torn free from his foot restraints and went sailing across the bridge, optic fibers popping loose. He banged painfully against the far bulkhead as all the lights went out.

The emergency lamps came on, dim, scary. Grant blinked in the shadowy lighting. Everything looked tilted, askew. Then he realized that he was floating sideways next to the food dispenser, his right shoulder and side afire with pain. Red lights blinked demandingly on all the consoles.

'… back on line!' Krebs was shouting. 'The auxiliaries can't power the thrusters for more than a few minutes.'

Muzorawa was floating in the middle of the bridge, a haze of blood leaking from his open mouth. Krebs bumped into him and pushed him aside, in the general direction of the sleeping quarters. O'Hara was at her console, but doubled over as if in overwhelming pain. Only Karlstad seemed to be unhurt, but he looked bewildered as Krebs rattled off commands rapid-fire.

'Get back to your console,' she said to Grant, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and shoving him toward the console. Grant's shoulder and ribs were thundering with pain. I must have hit the bulkhead there, he realized.

'What happened?' he asked dazedly as he fumbled with his optical fibers.

'No time for linking,' Krebs snapped. 'Go to manual control. Get the generator back on line.'

'But Zeb—'

'There's nothing you can do for him now. Get the generator back on line!'

Grant saw that the same floor loop that had torn loose earlier was flapping again, held only by one remaining bolt. He slid his foot into the other and scanned the glowering red lights of his console.

'O'Hara!' Krebs barked. 'Disengage and take care of Dr Muzorawa.'

Lane looked sick, positively green in the eerie light of the emergency lamps. She nodded and began pulling off her optical fibers.

'I'll handle the ship,' Krebs went on. 'Karlstad, take over the sensors. Archer, why isn't the generator back on line?'

'I'm working on it,' Grant said, fingers racing across the console touchscreens.

The bridge seemed to be rising and sinking, twisting as if on a roller-coaster ride. Glancing to his right, Grant saw Krebs at O'Hara's console, moving her fingers along the touchscreens, her mouth a thin, grim, bloodless line.

The ship lurched again, and this time Grant heard a definite thump, as if they had banged into an undersea mountain.

'Those sharks are attacking us,' Krebs said, her voice strangely low, controlled. 'They think we are food.'

Karlstad screeched, 'The hull can't take this kind of pounding! It'll crack!'

'I am trying to get away from them,' Krebs agreed. Turning to Grant she bellowed, 'For that, we need
power
!'

'It's not the generator,' Grant reported. 'The generator's working fine. It's the power bus; it shorted out from the first concussion.'