Authors: Ben Bova
Venus (13 page)
C
aptain Duchamp and Dr. Waller were waiting for us when we came through the airlock. I could hear her demanding questions, muffled by my helmet, directed at Rodriguez.
aptain Duchamp and Dr. Waller were waiting for us when we came through the airlock. I could hear her demanding questions, muffled by my helmet, directed at Rodriguez.
“What happened out there? What was that about the safety rail?” And finally, “Are you all right?”
Rodriguez started to explain as I lifted my helmet off. Waller took it from my trembling hands and I saw Marguerite hurrying up the passageway toward us.
While we both worked our way out of the spacesuits, Rodriguez gave a clipped but thorough explanation of what had happened to us. Duchamp looked blazingly angry, as if somehow we had caused the trouble for ourselves. I kept glancing at Marguerite, standing behind her mother. So much alike, physically. So strikingly similar in the shape of their faces, the depth of their jet-black eyes, the same height, the same curves of their figures.
Yet where the captain was truculent and demanding, Marguerite looked troubled, distressed—and something
else. Something more. I couldn’t tell what it was in her eyes; I suppose I subconsciously hoped it was concern for me.
else. Something more. I couldn’t tell what it was in her eyes; I suppose I subconsciously hoped it was concern for me.
Duchamp and Rodriguez headed for the bridge. Waller went without a word back toward his cubbyhole of an infirmary, leaving Marguerite and me alone by the racks of empty spacesuits.
“Are you all right?” she asked me.
Nodding, I said, “Fine. I think.” I held out my hand. “Look, I’m not even shaking anymore.”
She laughed, a delightful sound. “You’ve earned a drink.”
We went down to the galley, passing Waller’s closet-sized infirmary. It was empty, making me wonder where the doctor might hide himself.
As we took cups of fruit juice and sat on the galley bench, I realized that I did indeed feel fine. Was it Churchill who said that coming through a brush with death concentrates the mind wonderfully?
Marguerite sat beside me and took a sip of juice. “You saved Tom’s life,” she said.
The look in her eyes wasn’t adoring. Far from it. But there was a respect in them that I’d never seen before. It felt terrifically good.
Heroes are supposed to be modest, so I waggled my free hand and said merely, “I just reacted on instinct, I guess.”
“Tom would have been killed if you hadn’t.”
“No, I don’t think so. He—”
“He thinks so.”
I shrugged. “He would’ve done the same for me.”
She nodded and brought the cup to her lips, her eyes never leaving mine.
I had to say something, so I let my mouth work before my brain did. “Your mother doesn’t seem to have a molecule of human kindness in her. I know she’s the captain, but she was practically chewing Tom’s guts out.”
Marguerite almost smiled. “That’s the way she reacts when she’s frightened. She attacks.”
“Frightened? Her? Of what?”
“Tom nearly got killed! Don’t you think that scared her? She is human, you know, underneath the stainless steel.”
“You mean she really cares about him?”
Her eyes flashed. “Do you think she’s sleeping with him merely to keep him satisfied? She’s not a whore, you know.”
“I …” I realized that I had thought precisely that. For once in my life, I kept my mouth shut while I tried to figure out what I should say next.
The speaker in the ceiling blared, “MR. HUMPHRIES WANTED ON THE BRIDGE.” Duchamp’s voice.
Saved by the call of duty, I thought.
I sat scrunched down on the metal deck plate of the bridge between Duchamp’s command chair and Rodriguez’s. Willa Yeats, our sensors specialist, was in the chair usually occupied by Riza, the communications tech.
The four of us were staring hard at the main display screen, which showed a graph of the heat load the ship had encountered during entry into the atmosphere.
“No blip,” Yeats said, with an
I told you
so tone. She was on the chubby side, moonfaced and pale-skinned, with the kind of dirty-blond hair that some people charitably call sandy.
I told you
so tone. She was on the chubby side, moonfaced and pale-skinned, with the kind of dirty-blond hair that some people charitably call sandy.
“There was no sudden burst of heat during the entry flight,” she said. “The heat shield performed as designed and the sensors show all heat loads well below maximum allowable levels.”
Duchamp scowled at her. “Then what caused the charring on the envelope?”
“And weakened the safety railing?” Rodriguez added.
Yeats shrugged as if it weren’t important to her. “I haven’t the faintest idea. But it wasn’t a pulse of heat, I can tell you that.”
She had a very proprietary attitude about the ship’s sensing systems. As far as she was concerned, if her sensors didn’t show a problem, no problem existed.
Duchamp obviously felt otherwise. The captain looked past me toward Rodriguez. “I suppose we’ll have to go out there again and see just what those charring marks are.”
Rodriguez nodded glumly. “I suppose.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said. Before either of them could object I added, with a pinch of bravado, “I’m an experienced hand at this, you know.”
Duchamp did not look amused, but Rodriguez chuckled and said, “Right. My EVA lifesaver.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Yeats said, obviously disappointed at our obtuseness. “If you simply pressurize the envelope the sensors will tell us if there’s a leak.”
“And what if we rip the damned envelope wide open?” Duchamp snapped. “Where are we then?”
Yeats looked abashed. She didn’t have to answer. We all knew where we’d be if the envelope cracked. There was a set of emergency rockets hooked to the bathysphere; in theory it could serve as an escape pod. But none of us wanted to test that theory. The thought of all eight of us crammed into the tiny iron ball and rocketing up into orbit was far from comforting.
“Inspect the charring,” Duchamp said with finality. “Then we can pressurize the envelope.”
“Maybe,” Rodriguez added, morbidly.
Gripping the arms of their two chairs, I pulled myself up to my feet. “Very well, then, we’d better—”
Marguerite burst into the bridge, nearly bowling me over.
“Life!” she exclaimed, her eyes wide and shining. “There are living organisms in the clouds! Microscopic but multicelled! They’re alive, they live in the clouds …”
She was babbling so hard I thought she was close to hysteria. Her mother snapped her out of it with a single question.
“You’re sure?”
Marguerite took a deep, gulping breath. “I’m positive. They’re alive.”
Rodriguez said, “I’ve gotta see this.”
I took Marguerite’s arm as gently as I could and maneuvered
her out into the passageway. Otherwise there was no room on the bridge for Rodriguez to get up from his chair.
her out into the passageway. Otherwise there was no room on the bridge for Rodriguez to get up from his chair.
We trooped behind Marguerite to her cubbyhole of a lab. As we stopped there I realized Duchamp had also left the bridge to accompany us. We stared at the image from the miniaturized electron microscope displayed on the wall screen. I saw some watery-looking blobs flailing around slowly. They were obviously multicelled; I could see smaller blobs and dividing walls pulsating inside them. Most of them had cilia fringing their outer edges, microscopic oars paddling away constantly. But weakly.
“They’re dying in here,” Marguerite said, almost mournfully. “It must be the temperature, or maybe the combination of temperature and pressure. It’s just not working!”
Straightening up from the microscope’s eyepiece, I said to her, “By god, you were right.”
“It’s a major discovery,” Rodriguez congratulated.
“Send this to the IAA at once,” Duchamp commanded. “Imagery and every bit of data you have. Get priority for this.”
“But I’ve only—”
“Do you want a Nobel Prize or not?” Duchamp snapped. “Get this data to IAA headquarters
this instant.
Don’t wait for Fuchs to get in first.”
this instant.
Don’t wait for Fuchs to get in first.”
Marguerite nodded with understanding. For the first time since she’d burst into the bridge she seemed to calm down, come back to reality.
“I’ll get Riza to establish a direct link with Geneva,” Duchamp went on. “You bang out a written statement, two or three lines will be enough to establish your priority. But do it
now.”
now.”
“Yes,” Marguerite said, reaching for her laptop computer. “Right.”
We left her there in her lab, bent over the computer keyboard. Duchamp headed back toward the bridge. Rodriguez and I went toward the airlock, where the spacesuits were stored.
“RIZA,” we heard Duchamp’s voice over the intercom
speakers, “REPORT TO THE BRIDGE AT ONCE.” She didn’t have to repeat the command; there was no room for doubt or delay in the tone of her voice.
speakers, “REPORT TO THE BRIDGE AT ONCE.” She didn’t have to repeat the command; there was no room for doubt or delay in the tone of her voice.
“Bugs in the clouds,” Rodriguez said to me, over his shoulder. “Who would’ve thought you could find anything living in clouds of sulfuric acid?”
“Marguerite did,” I answered. “She was certain she’d find living organisms.”
“Really?”
I nodded to his back. I had just witnessed a great discovery. Duchamp was right, her daughter would get a special Nobel for this, just like the biologists who discovered the lichen on Mars.
She expected to find living organisms on Venus, I told myself again. Maybe that’s the secret of making great discoveries: the stubborn insistence that there’s something out there to be discovered, no matter what the others say. Chance favors the prepared mind. Who said that? Some scientist, I thought. Einstein, most likely. Or maybe Freud.
We commandeered Dr. Waller and Willa Yeats to help us into the spacesuits. With his bloodshot eyes watching me intently, Waller hummed quietly as I pulled on my leggings and boots, then wormed into the torso and pushed my arms through the sleeves. I found myself wondering how Marguerite’s discovery was going to affect his thesis. I almost laughed aloud, thinking how the doctor’s quiet voyage without interruptions had backfired on him.
Two meters away, Willa chattered like a runaway audio machine as she watched Rodriguez get into his suit. They checked out our life support backpacks and made certain all the lines and hoses were properly connected. Then we sealed our helmets.
Rodriguez stepped into the airlock first. I waited for the lock to cycle, my heart revving up until I thought Riza at the comm console on the bridge must be able to hear it through the suit radio. Relax! I commanded myself. You’ve been outside before. There’s nothing to be scared of.
Right. The last time Rodriguez had nearly gotten himself
knocked off the ship. I had no desire to go plummeting fifty-some kilometers down to the rock-hard surface of Venus.
knocked off the ship. I had no desire to go plummeting fifty-some kilometers down to the rock-hard surface of Venus.
The airlock hatch slid open and Rodriguez stepped back among us.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
This close, with the ship’s interior lighting shining through his bubble helmet, I could see the puzzled, troubled look on his face.
“Got a red light on my head-up.” The suit’s diagnostic system, which splashed its display onto the helmet’s inner surface, showed something was not functioning properly.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Gimme a minute,” he snapped back. Then, “Huh … it says there was a pressure leak in the suit. Seems okay now, though.”
Dr. Waller grasped the situation before I did. “But it went red when you cycled the air out of the airlock?”
“Yeah. Right.”
We spent the better part of an hour pumping up the pressure in Rodriguez’s suit until it started to balloon. Sure enough, there was a leak in his left shoulder joint. The suit fabric had a resin compound that self-repaired minor leaks, but the joints were cermet covered with plastic.
“It looks frayed,” Dr. Waller said, his voice brimming with curiosity. “No, more like it was singed with a flame or some source of heat.”
“Damn!” Rodriguez grumbled. “Suit’s supposed to be guaranteed.”
I remembered the old joke about parachutes: If it doesn’t work, bring it back and we’ll give you a new one. It was a good thing the suit’s diagnostics caught the leak in the airlock. Outside, it could have killed him.
So Rodriguez unfastened his helmet and wriggled out of his suit and put on one of the backup suits. We would have to repair his suit, I thought. We only carried four spares.
Finally he was ready and went through the airlock. No problems with the backup suit. I heard him call me in
my helmet earphones, “Okay, Mr. Humphries. Come on through.”
my helmet earphones, “Okay, Mr. Humphries. Come on through.”
I went into the airlock and got that same old feeling of being locked into a coffin when the inner hatch slid shut. The ’lock cycled down—and a red warning light started blinking on the curving face of my helmet, flashing into my eyes like a rocket’s red glare.
“Hey, I’ve got a problem, too,” I yelled into my microphone.
The entire EVA excursion was a bust. Both our original suits were leaking and Duchamp decided to scratch the EVA until we could determine what the problem was.
I thought I knew.
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