The Jupiter Theft

It took them another two days to reach the hub. They were able to climb an average of half a mile per hour in the rapidly diminishing gravity, but they had to stop to hide frequently, whenever the humanoids’ sensitive noses sniffed out the presence of Cygnans. They stopped to sleep twice; Ruiz slept fitfully, hopped up by the stimulants Janet had given him. Jameson scrupulously called a halt for ten minutes every hour to let them rest, and every four hours he made them eat some of their rations and drink some water. They were able to refill their jugs at any number of places where condensation caused by the chill outer walls of the shaft had run into hollows, making respectable pools. Once there was a rainstorm that lasted a half-hour; the interior spaces of the arm were vast enough to cause weather.

Jameson never saw the humanoids eat or drink. During the humans’ rest periods they frequently disappeared, coming back when it was time to play bloodhound again. Jameson never inquired into the reason for the humanoids’ little side expeditions. He prayed fervently that humanoid and Cygnan biochemistry were incompatible, and that the humanoids’ incredible sense of smell was leading them to stores of synthetics they could snack on. If there was anything edible within miles, Dmitri assured him, they would be able to home in on it.

The spaces they traversed were between the outer skin of the folding arm and the yawning central well that contained the corkscrew tubeways. From time to time, with the humanoids to warn him of danger, he cautiously checked their progress by poking a head out of an inner compartment and peering into the dim abyss beyond, where the flashing shapes of Cygnans whizzed through the transparent spirals. They were too far away and moving too quickly to notice him; what he was afraid of was being seen by a Cygnan on one of the nearby adjacent ledges that overhung the chasm. But the humanoids’ sense of smell was infallible.

The Cygnans used the spaces around the core of the arm—but mostly for storage. It could hardly be otherwise, when down became up and up became down every few years. They wouldn’t have wanted to go to the trouble of refurbishing every single cubby and cell. But every mile or two Jameson and his party came across clusters of gimballed containers that were as big as houses. What were they? Low-gravity luxury housing? Factories or biological laboratories? Slums? It was impossible to tell. But some of them had windows, and Jameson gave them a wide berth.

They avoided open spaces like the plague, climbing the pipeline beanstalk as it wound its way through the niches and flues and chambers that riddled the outer layers of the shaft, and leaving it for alternate routes whenever it emerged into some roomy expanse.

Twice more they came upon dead Cygnans. One had been turned into orange hamburger by Klein’s automatic weapon. The other had been burned—perhaps by Chia’s laser—and hacked apart needlessly by an ax. Klein had left a trail of minuscule spy instruments, but the humanoids were adept at finding these by the scent of the human oils that had been left on them. Jameson destroyed them as fast as they were found and tried not to worry about them.

“They’ll be terrified if they see us coming after them,” Ruiz grunted. “Kitchen knives and wrenches and a couple of cute pink mascots.”

“They might not have seen us,” Jameson said. “They won’t be monitoring their bugs continuously—just spot-checking them.”

They were bobbing around like balloons by this time, in gravity that was too weak to notice, launching themselves upward in giant swoops. For the vertical ascents, the humanoids changed their mode of travel, boosting themselves along the ducts and cables, their faces never far from a surface.

Eventually they found themselves in a small, crazily shaped room whose ceiling was a doughy substance that dimpled when Jameson experimentally poked a finger into it. The dimple began, slowly, to fill itself as he watched. Around them was the terrifying hiss of escaping air. The whole chamber was part of a huge gasket—a gasket with a faulty seal, as it happened—and Jameson knew that the leviathan bulk of the starship’s, main body hung above, with its three-sided forests and leaning turrets and the inconceivable energies of the interstellar drive sleeping within its spine.

There was a puckered area in the center of the ceiling. Without hesitation, one of the humanoids leaped straight upward. Its head and shoulders sank into the navel-like depression. It wriggled briefly, and its legs disappeared from view. The second humanoid gibbered encouragingly, exuding an odor of perspiring feet.

“I’ll go first,” Jameson announced. “Then you, Hernando—careful not to stab me with that spear. Maggie, you’re next. Dmitri, you bring up the rear.”