The Jupiter Theft

“How … how could they do a thing like that with smells?” Maggie asked, motioning toward the hogtied Cygnan, whose whole body was pulsating, lengthening and contracting like an accordion.

Dmitri shrugged. “How does the Pesis wasp mesmerize a tarantula, get the tarantula to stand still while the wasp digs its grave, cooperate while the wasp walks under its fangs, paralyzes it, and lays an egg on its abdomen? I don’t know. Maybe these pink teddy bears release super-pheromones, thousands of times more powerful than the natural variety, the way synthetic analogs of morphine like etorphine are thousands of times more powerful than morphine itself. Maybe the synthetic pheromones initiate powerful endocrine reactions that cause exaggerated versions of normal Cygnan syndromes—pleasure, fear, torpor, docility, autointoxication, anything!”

“In a creature that evolved on a different planet?” Jameson said.

Dmitri shrugged again. “The humanoids seem to be virtuoso scent-producers. And they’ve been around Cygnans a long time. No wonder they were kept behind glass.”

Jameson wound nylon cord around the Cygnan’s snout to keep it from sawing away at its bonds when it recovered from its trance. The two humanoids watched him with huge intelligent eyes.

“They ought to find it in a day or two,” he said. “By that time we’ll have made it, or we’ll have been too late.”

“Do you really think leaving that individual alive is going to make a difference in what the Cygnans think about human beings?” Ruiz asked wearily.

“I don’t know,” Jameson said. “Probably not.”

He picked up his duffle and got to his feet. The humanoids seemed reluctant to follow suit. They kept trying to drift back to the helpless Cygnan.

“Tod,” Maggie said. “Do you think…?”

“I don’t know,” Jameson said. “And I don’t want to know.”

“They didn’t take any food with them.”

Jameson gestured violently for the humanoids to get away from the Cygnan. Their spicy aroma was irresistible. They smelled like a bakery. He was suffused by a feeling of tenderness and warmth toward the little creatures.

“Stop that!” he barked.

“Tod,” Maggie said hesitantly. “I have the weirdest feeling in my breasts, as if they were full…”

Jameson advanced on the humanoids, making threatening gestures. They cowered and backed away, jabbering unhappily. The bakery smell diminished. After a longing, saucer-eyed look at the trussed Cygnan, they scampered off, leading the way to an exit.

“Cute little fellers,” Ruiz said.

They crawled across the sky, looking down at the queer landscape below with its little manicured parks and gardens; and straight-edged lakes with their bright Wind-sock sailboats, and the crowded city streets squeezed between latticed towers.

“How high up are we?” Maggie said.

“About five miles,” Jameson told her. “But the top layer that we’re looking at now is probably only a quarter mile down.”

“I’d hate to fall just the same,” she said. “Even at this low gravity.”

The sky had been poorly maintained over the centuries. What looked like unbroken luminescence from below was a tangled spaghetti of stained and broken transparent plumbing, supported by a girder like framework. A glowing liquid gurgled through the pipes, pulsing with brilliant white light. Suspended beneath the girders were sheets of a frosty, translucent material that diffused light. Some of the panels were missing or torn, and it was through these gaps that Jameson was able to get his bird’s-eye view of the landscape as he crawled along the supports. He wasn’t worried about being seen from below; distance made them specks, and the specks were masked by the glare.

“Bioluminescence,” Dmitri said. “Some kind of microscopic fluorescent plants being pumped through these pipes. The Cygnans have had a long time to select for brightness—maybe even do a little genetic engineering. I wouldn’t be surprised if it doubles as their air plant.”

Jameson managed to restrain him from breaking a pipe to collect a sample. The last thing they needed was a fiery rain calling attention to them. The already-broken sections of pipe were dark; probably a computer turned off little pumping stations by the hundreds when pipes lost pressure.

Crawling was easy in the low gravity. Their weight, low to begin with, had diminished considerably during their long climb to the roof of the mini-world. But none of them could match the ease with which the humanoids traveled. They prowled ahead on all fours, maintaining the pliant arch-shape that kept their noses close to the girders, sniffing out Klein’s trail.

From up here, Jameson was able to get a feeling for the overall layout of the environmental pod—one of the three pods swinging round the shaft of the ship. For a moment he felt a pang of regret that he would never get to see the other pods. Were they identical to this one? Or had history and jerrybuilt growth over six million years turned them into different countries?