The Jupiter Plague

Only tiny glow tubes illuminated the steps as they wound their way down, deeper and deeper into the spaceship. Other cables came in through open doorways or through ragged holes cut in the metal wall until there were more than a dozen spiraling down with them, sprawling across the steps. Then the end came, suddenly, as they walked around the turn of the steps where all the cables bunched together and ran out through an open door.

“What’s out there?” the general asked, “at this level.”

Yasumura frowned at the stenciled number on the wall, then counted off on his fingers: he looked surprised. “Why — there’s nothing here, we’re in the fuel levels. There should be nothing but tanks out there, empty tanks, the fuel here would have been used up on the outward flight.”

They eased out through the door, stepping carefully over the tangle of cables, and faced the white wall into which the cables dived.

“That shouldn’t be here!” the engineer said.

There was a chill in the air and Sam leaned over and ran the muzzle of his gun along the wall, knocking off a spray of fine ice crystals. Massive, crudely formed girders ran from the wall to the frame of the ship. There was an ordinary TV phone fixed to the wall above the spot where the cables entered. Yasumura pointed at it.

“That phone shouldn’t be here either; there’s no phone station at this point. And the number is blank—”

Sam stepped by him and turned the phone on, but the screen remained dark.

“You’re going to talk to me whether you want to or not,” he said, then waved the others to stand back. Before they could stop him, or even knew what he was doing, he had sighted his gun and fired a short burst at the outer edge of the bundle of cables. The bullets screamed away and two of the insulated cables jumped and were severed.

The phone hummed and the screen came to life.

The Jovian looked out at them.

13

Jupiter had a new moon. Just beyond the fringes of the atmosphere the massive form of the “Pericles” swung in orbit, probing the invisible bottom of the sea of gas below them. It had been a week of constant frustration since they had arrived. One after another of the radio probes had been dropped into the turbulent atmosphere with less than satisfactory results. The thick, frozen soup had swallowed them up. Their sensitive instruments had probed and reported back. Nothing solid. The atmosphere grew denser and denser until it became liquid. Then the radio reports had stopped as the probes vanished one by one into the frigid sea.

All except one.

“A winner,” Commander Rand said. “With this one we have hit the jackpot, Captain. Five hundred bucks of back pay says that I’m right.”

Captain Bramley made a noncommital grunt and looked at the blank screen. “I wish I could share your enthusiasm, Rand,” he said. “Without betting I would be happy to pay a month’s salary to prove you right.”

“You’ll see.” Rand tapped the screen. “While the others just went splash and cut off this one was reporting something well after the time it should have cut out. What we heard was scrambled by the atmospherics, then we lost it as the planet rotated out from under us. But if the probe is on something solid it will be over the horizon soon,” he looked at his watch. “Right about now in fact.”

“I don’t see it.”

“Patience, my captain. Even if it is over the horizon it still has too much atmosphere to punch through. Too much atmospheric static. And the last thing I did was turn off the radio to save the battery.”

“Is it back on?” Rand looked at his watch again and shook his head.

“Too early. But — why not. A few minutes will make no difference. I’ll give the transponder a shot and we’ll at least know if it is still there.”

He turned to the control panel and made adjustments. The other men in the room were silent, listening. They had come so far, had journeyed so long, that they could not bear the thought of the voyage ending in failure. There had to be something solid down there.

The message was sent to the probe ordering it begin broadcasting again. Rand turned on the speaker and the rustle and crackle of lightning storms washed over them. The computer would be listening too, far better than they could, sorting through the random noise for a patterned broadcast. But they wanted to hear it for themselves. If it existed.

“Just trash,” First Officer Weeke said. “Nothing at all…”

“Listen!” Rand said. “Quiet.” He turned up the gain and the room was filled with the sound of radio waves crashing on the stellar shore.

Then they heard it. A thin peep of sound, instantly gone — but it returned again. And louder still until it was clearly the rapid beeping of a digital transmission.

“It’s still there!” Rand shouted. “Not in the ocean but on something solid. We may have found our landing site.”