Saturn Rukh (18 page)

All of a sudden, the proboscis pointed downward, stiffened, and a spray of liquid shot from the tip, driving the mother bubblefloater upward and off the top of the viewing window.

“What’s going on?” exclaimed Sandra. She was reaching for the telescope slew icon to recapture the magnified image, when a winged creature flashed through the high-magnification window and back onto the low-magnification background view. The creature was so large that its shape was easily seen even at low magnification. Sandra quickly raised the background magnification so they could see the interaction, even if they could not see the details of the participants.

“Looks like a hawk among the pigeons,” said Rod, as the large winged shape closed in on another balloon, a small one this time. The bubblefloater deflated and dropped, but the flying wing shape had expected that maneuver and easily scooped up the dropping bubblefloater into its cavernous maw.

“Looks more like a manta ray or devilfish than a hawk,” remarked Dan. “Body built like a flying wing airplane, and a long whip-like tail—except this creature has big horizontal and vertical fins at the end of its tail—probably to give it better turning radius.”

“Flaps its wings just like a manta ray,” remarked Sandra in awe as the winged devourer hunted down another balloon. This was a large one, and it successfully avoided the first rush by using the water jet from its proboscis to jet out of the way, but also pointed the jet so the cloud of water blinded the onrusher.

“I bet that stings the old eyeballs and nose,” said Rod. “A faceful of shit and piss.”

“The balloon can probably only do it once,” remarked Dan as they watched a second winged hunter go after the same balloon. Dan was right. The balloon had expended all of its “ballast” in the first encounter. This time its options were limited to the “deflate and drop” maneuver. It was not enough. With a few strong flaps of its decameter-sized wings the winged hunter drove itself downward faster than the balloon could fall and it was all over.

Dan turned from the screen and looked at Sandra, who had a grim look on her face. “What are you going to call that devilfish-shaped winged hunter?” he asked.

“You just came up with a good name for it yourself,” said Sandra. “Jeeves? What is a good Latin name for a devilfish-shaped winged hunter?”

“One suggestion would be
Diabolus alavenator,”
replied Jeeves.

“Diabolus alavenator
it is,” said Sandra. She turned to Dan. “But we’ll use ‘winghunter’ for short.”

After the attack, the winghunters circled as a flock as they digested their catch, and Sandra got a chance to look over the creatures at high magnification. The typical adult was three meters thick at the middle and had a twenty-meter wingspan, with a long tapering quadruple-fluked tail for steering. There were large eyes, almost two meters in diameter, built into the wing-shaped body on each side of the cavernous mouth.

“They need eyes that big if they are going to be good hunters during the typical dark Saturnian day,” remarked Sandra as she and Dan documented the images they had selected for their hyperpaper on
Diabolus alavenator.

“The wings must be full of inflated compartments to give them the size needed without too much weight,” remarked Dan, “but they are definitely not floaters—not even partial floaters. I have yet to see one of them stop flapping. They must use up an awful lot of energy.”

“They seem to be very efficient hunters,” said Sandra. “As long as the supply of balloons holds out, they’ll do just fine. I noticed that they aren’t leaving the area. They’re keeping this cloud of balloons in sight.”

“Probably saving them for tomorrow’s breakfast,” suggested Rod. Suddenly a worried look appeared on his face as his command responsibility thought up scary scenarios that he might have to cope with some time in the future. “Say ... there isn’t any possibility that there could be specimens of these winghunters big enough to cause us problems, is there?”

“I doubt it very much,” Sandra reassured him. “The adults we saw are probably at their optimum size. If they got any larger, their wings would be too big to flap quickly and they would be poor hunters.”

“Good. If they got any bigger—I’d start to worry about the balloon,” joked Rod.

~ * ~

Two months later, Rod was giving his weekly status report to the crew at the Space Unlimited Mission Control Center.

“Things are going fine. The meta plant is working well. The fuel tanks are over half full with sixty-two tons of meta in them out of the one hundred and twenty needed. I have used the fans to move us out of the strong wind bands at the equator, and we are now at twenty degrees north where the winds are lower. I will continue to move us north, primarily to make sure we are clear of the equatorial region where the Great White Spot phenomenon is known to occur. Although the predicted time of occurrence based on past records will be sometime after we will be leaving, I want to make sure we are well clear of that turbulence if it arrives early. I will stop at about twenty-four degrees north to stay below the turbulence features like the UV Spot that show up at higher latitudes. Other than that, we have no plans. Will report in again next week. In the meantime, we are glad the scientists and the news channels are enjoying the pictures we are sending back of the weird lifeforms we have found here.”

~ * ~

They were all gathered around the galley having breakfast of coffee and fruit bars—or in the case of Seichi, who had just finished the night watch on the control deck, a late supper of green tea and sweet bean cakes.

There was a sudden jolt as the floor rose under them, followed by a deep humming sound. Within seconds, Rod, Chastity, and Seichi were up the ladder and at their posts, their squeezers leaking their contents onto the lower deck floor.

“Report, Jeeves,” commanded Rod as he scanned the pilot console screen. He didn’t want to take over from the autopilot as long as Jeeves seemed to have things under control.

“Something struck the balloon tether at a point about five hundred meters up from the capsule,” replied Jeeves. “I suspect it was a ribbonswimmer.”

“Tether status?” asked Rod, concerned that their link to their support might be jeopardized.

“Tether seems okay,” replied Seichi from the scottyboard. “Two secondary strands were stressed past their elastic limit at the five-hundred-fifteen-meter point, but they are still intact.”

By this time Sandra had climbed up the ladder to where her head was above the opening in the upper deck grating. The loud humming noise that had started with the jolt continued on, fading only slowly with time.

“Ribbonswimmer?” she asked. “Are you sure?”

“That’s right!” said Rod, slightly perturbed. Certainly Jeeves could not be accused of slacking off on duty, but it was still strange that the semi-intelligent ship’s computer had let something large hit the ship without taking evasive action. “I thought ribbonswimmers always flew in large flocks. Didn’t you see them coming?”

“My radar and sonar detect many flocks of ribbonswimmers flying past each day,” reported Jeeves. “The trajectory of the flocks is normally very predictable. The flocks also seem to avoid not only the balloon and the capsule, but also the tether. I am certain they can detect its presence with their sonar, since I can detect the side scatter from their location pulses. Although this flock was passing very close to the tether, they had already adjusted their track to miss it, so I assumed they would pass by without incident, as had happened many times before. This time, however, they were attacked by a formation of wing-hunters diving down out of the cloud deck above. The ribbonswimmers scattered in panic and one of them struck the tether.”

“Must have sliced the poor creature into pieces,” said Chastity.

“Not completely,” said Jeeves. “Although one end of the creature was severed and has fallen away, the remaining portion is still entangled in the tether strands.”

“How can you tell?” asked Chastity. She quickly figured out the answer. “Of course, your sonar is getting a stronger return signal from that point on the tether.”

“The sonar evidence is additionally corroborated by analysis of the vibratory modes of the tether,” said Jeeves. “The vibrational frequencies that make up the humming tone you hear are consistent with a three-hundred-kilogram mass being attached to the tether at the five-hundred-fifteen-meter point.”

“A three-hundred-kilogram sample of a ribbonswimmer!” exclaimed Sandra in delight. “I’m going to climb up and get it!”

“A half-kilometer climb in a saturnsuit!” objected Pete from the deck below. “You’re crazy. Let one of the outside mechbots do the job, either Tabby riding up on the balloon, or Mouser in the nosecone tether compartment, whichever one Jeeves needs least.”

“Pete is right, Sandra,” said Rod. “Let Mouser bring back some chunks for you to cut up and analyze.”

“My one chance at a biopsy of a major Saturn lifeform is not going to be done at long distance using Mouser’s clumsy claws,” replied Sandra, as she started down the ladder. “Help me on with my saturnsuit, Doc.”

“Sandra!” exclaimed Rod, concerned. “I forbid you to take the risk.”

“I’ll go with her, Rod,” said Dan up through the grate as he put his empty squeezer into the galley dishwasher. “Seichi? Would it be possible for you to fix us up with some half-kilometer-long emergency lines in case we need to get back down in a hurry?”

“I can easily accommodate your request,” said Seichi. “There are spare reels of tether lines in the nosecone for use in repairing broken strands on the main tether.”

Sandra and Dan put on their saturnsuits and donned backpacks containing extra tanks of oxygen, and Seichi cycled them through the airlock. As the outer airlock door opened, Mouser clambered down the side of the conical capsule on four legs, holding two small spools of string in its two front claws. Sandra looked at them suspiciously.

“That looks like kite string!” she exclaimed. “I’m not going to trust my life hanging from that stuff! I want a rope!”

“Those lines will most certainly hold you,” said Seichi. “They are rated for three metric tons. They are made of the strongest tensile material known, macromolecular hextube polycarbon. Each molecule is a minimum of a meter long, so the strength is nearly that of a pure carbon-carbon bond. Your real problem will be handling the line without cutting your saturnsuit or yourself. That is why I used the mechfab to fabricate this reel controller for you.” He took the reels of line from Mouser and snapped them into the mechanical contraptions. They consisted of a handle to hold the reel, with a thumb brake that controlled the payout of the reel.

“When you are ready to come down, attach the free end of the line to the balloon tether, hang on to the handle at the bottom of the reel, and press .the friction controller with your thumb to control your rate of descent.”

Sandra looked at the contraption dubiously and tucked it into her chestpack, which was already full of sample bags and various biopsy instruments. Dan’s chestpack contained more sample bags and some surgical tools from his medical kit, including a bone saw, in case the ribbonswimmer surprised them and had hard portions in its internal anatomy.

Moving their safety lines along in front of them, Sandra and Dan made their way to the nosecone tip of
Sexdent.
The twelve main lines of the balloon Hoytether were fastened to twelve capture hooks that encircled the one-meter-diameter hole that led to the tether compartment. Stretching between adjacent main lines of the tether were pairs of slightly thinner secondary lines. The two secondary lines connected to the primary lines crossed over to form an X before they reached the connection point a meter higher up on the adjacent line. The whole multi-line tether looked like a tubular cat’s cradle a meter in diameter and a kilometer long. Dan and Sandra squeezed their way between two of the taut primary lines that were carrying the main load of the eighty-five-ton load of
Sexdent
and meta plant, and its slowly increasing multi-ton load of vital meta fuel. The way was made easier since the secondary lines were slack. The secondary lines would only be called upon to carry the load if the primary line segment they bridged was cut. Because the primary lines were taut while secondary lines were slack, there was no tendency for the tether to neck in, so Sandra and Dan had a clear path to the top with almost no danger of falling, since they were surrounded by tether strands and had only to stick out an arm or a leg to break a fall.

Sandra took a look upward, trying to see her target. It was too far away to discern in the slightly bent column of white lines that curved gracefully away in response to the wind far above. Holding on to two of the taut primary lines of the Hoytether, she placed her instep into the narrow V-shaped notch between the two crossing secondary lines a half-meter above and pulled herself up. Her next step was in the notch formed at the connection point between a primary line and a secondary line.

“Two rungs is one meter, so a half a kilometer is one thousand rungs,” she said as she continued her way upward. “Only nine hundred ninety-eight to go.” After letting her have a head start, Dan started climbing up after her on the other side of the tether.

They made a number of stops, during which Sandra was glad that Dan had insisted on hauling drinking water along. The saturnsuits were designed to conserve body heat—not necessarily the best idea under the present circumstances. Finally, they came to their goal.