The Jupiter Theft

He looked reprovingly at Li. Li looked back blandly through his visor, without even the grace to blush. He probably hadn’t known the thing was there. After all, it had almost killed him too.

Why? Jameson wrinkled his forehead and had the answer immediately. The Callisto lander would normally be tucked up in an external module next to an engine pod. The Chinese hoped to get a few pictures that would give an insignificant clue or two to the size and configuration of some component of the boron drive, so they could add the information to all their other pieces. They were capable of going to ridiculous lengths. The other day someone had caught a Chinese engineer with millimeter markings painted on his thumbnail, sneaking a measurement of one of the unconnected fuel pellet delivery pipes.

He stowed the bogus bolt head in a leg pocket of his spacesuit. He’d turn it over to one of the security boys later. No official complaint would ever be lodged. The polite fictions that made the joint mission possible had to be maintained at all costs.

Li had looked away nonchalantly while Jameson pocketed the spy device. He’d be talking to his own security representatives later. Now he said, as if nothing had happened, “Here they come now.”

Jameson craned his neck and saw reflected earth-light glinting off an open tetrahedral framework festooned with clinging objects. It was about a half mile away. Whoever was jockeying the repair rig was good; he’d coasted all the way without correction. Suddenly there were a couple of brief flares of hydrazine jets, and the thing was hanging motionless in reference to the Callisto lander.

Two bulky dolls floated from the cage: the co-foremen. Jameson could make out the American-flag shoulder patch on one and the red-star patch on the other. They conferred briefly, helmets together, and then two repair lobsters detached themselves from the frame, accompanied by a swarm of spacesuited attendants.

Sue Jarowski’s voice sounded in his helmet again. “Mission Control says you and Li can call it a day, Tod. They’re scratching the training exercise until Thursday.”

Jameson conjured up an image of Sue’s face while she talked: dark hair, strong almost-pretty features with wide cheekbones, snub nose, generous mouth. She was crisp and alert, and a damn fine communications officer.

“I think I’ll stick around here, Sue, until they finish the repair. I can borrow a bottle of air from the repair crew.”

Sue hesitated, then said: “Ray Caffrey wants to see you.”

“I’ll bet he does. Tell him I’ll check in with him later.”

Caffrey was the security rep. On the official mission roster he was listed as “Safety Engineer.”

“I understand. I’ll tell Ray.”

Jameson turned back toward the repair rig. The two lobsters, bright orange against blackness, were maneuvering themselves into position, getting a helpful nudge or two from the men swarming around them. A repair lobster was nothing more than a simple cylinder with a plastic bubble for the head of its operator at one end. It got its name from the two big clawlike waldos at the forward end and the twin rows of smaller specialized limbs down its ventral surface.

One of the lobsters anchored itself on the Callisto lander’s hull and grasped the embedded landing foot. It tugged gently, trying to do as little further damage as possible. The leg came free. There was a little frosty explosion of particles of trapped air. A couple of spacesuited men took charge of the damaged leg and ferried it back to the repair frame. One was Chinese, one American. Jameson grinned without humor. Even the garbage detail had to be binational.

There was a frying sound in his helmet, and Li’s voice said: “I be going back to Eurostation now. See you Thursday.”

Li’s stocky figure was already mounting his scooter. He gave it a couple of squirts, aiming it toward the big wheel in the distance.

“You’re not going to watch the repair?” Jameson said in careful Standard Mandarin.

“No. What for?”

Li hunched over the steering bar, and the scooter dwindled against the stars. Jameson watched it until it was too small to see. Li obviously had been recalled to explain why he hadn’t managed to retrieve the spy camera first. Perhaps if those security clowns had had the sense to confide in Li, he would have.

Jameson sighed. It was a sticky business. As co-commanders of the Callisto lander, he and Li would depend on each other utterly when they set down on the frozen surface of the Jovian moon. They had to trust each other without reservation. But Li had his loyalties, just as Jameson did. Jameson shrugged mentally. You had to work within the system.

He gave a start as a pair of mittened paws grasped his upper arms and a helmet clinked against his. He found himself staring into the raw red features of the U.S. repair-crew foreman, a likable, plain-spoken man named Grogan. Grogan was being smart enough not to use his suit radio.