Could take some deep borings, even find a vent for access to deeper, get a good metal abundance measurement, make the ExoGeo boys Earthside happy
Trouble is the ice is all carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, not much water
We’d do better to send down that submersible gear
What’re you sayin’ use that subsurface stuff
Sure it works on Ganymede we brought it along for just exactly this kind of case
That ice skin is, what, fifteen klicks thick
There’s cracks and vents we already spotted them on recon
Sure, work your way down those, subs will take that pressure easy remember the gravity’s less than a fifth g
Penetrate the ice surface Christ
I dunno strip mining is safer and you can lift off if anything goes wrong
Sure but it takes three times the work crew and you have to hunt around for veins of water
Yeah the submarines are better, they can scoop up lots, and it’s pure water, no impurities from meteorites
Ted I’ll recommend that if you want somethin’ official
I have no problem with that no need to be so formal Bob we’ll be sending a pretty big team I want that deuterium out fast
No reason to wait aroun’ with that Watcher close by
If I might butt in I must say I still don’t like mining Pocks with that Watcher in range, bloody risky
No easy alternative as we decided yesterday, where’ve you been Nigel, there’s no other moon here that has the right topography—rest of ’em are rocks
Whole system’s bone-dry must have all the light elements locked up in the gas giants
Pocks is a typical snowball moon, fraction over two thousand klicks radius, ninety percent slush inside with an ice crust
Lot like Ganymede only more craters lot of crustal movement too
Nigel you been out of the loop too long shoot him the recap on that probe we sent to the Watcher
What! You poked your nose into—
Don’t get all fluffed up now look at it this way we were testing Walmsley’s Rule, giving it a last chance
It failed too you’ll notice
Lookit the robot probe walked all over the Watcher, banged on the hull, took a sample—nothing special, gamma-hardened alloy—tried radio and IR and
Found bunch of old sensors and stuff on the surface dead as can be
Burrowed inside maybe twenty meters all the circuits inactive, no acoustic pattern, no sign of anything working
Funny equipment pretty simpleminded circuits looked to me all crapped out it’s old as hell too
Still that doesn’t mean you sods didn’t awaken something—
Nigel this is Ted, we’ve got work to do here and you can get all this on recap I’d advise you drop off the net and come back when you
Sounds to me like he’s pissed his Rule didn’t work out
No, that’s not it at all, I merely meant
Well hell Walmsley first place we try it your theory isn’t worth a fart that moon’s never had any life on it lookit those surveys no bioproducts on the surface no atmosphere just lots of ice and rock that’s been pounded for billions of years
So that Watcher’s not waiting for life there hell the thing probably ran out of gas explorin’ this system an’ went dead looks like a kinda crude low-velocity ship burning its own rock for reaction mass
Yeah a ham-fisted piece of tech you ask me
Take forever to get to the next star
Well if you’ve got sodding forever—
Face it Walmsley the Watchers aren’t all the same they’re leftover weapons or explorers no reason to think they’re related to each other
Stuff in orbit lasts long time is all
There’s too much evidence to ignore, my damned Rule aside—
No Nigel this is Ted now I’d like you to drop out of the net take a rest maybe look over the recon stuff file a report with us later if you want to say your-piece but we can’t be squabbling over theory when we have to do a big minimax calculation on the mining operation
I’ll say
Very well Ted I’ll do that but
Good now I want a touchdown to begin excavations within forty-eight hours Sheila get those submersibles in the surface landers I want backup crews all down the line too
Good-bye you lot
Six
He had never meant for him and Nikka and Carlotta to choose up and play Nuclear Family, but the old times between them had called up a blood-rush swelling, as each slid over the others’ love-slicked skin, gasping at the dazzling slides of fingers, seeking the sag of aging muscles without judgment, yielding to the jut of bone. He dimly recalled how furious it had been between them. Then came the cooling, time leaching away the weight of each other. Now the past ambitions unspoken surfaced, and Carlotta was smothered in apparatus.
Nigel gingerly unhooked himself from the machine. He sealed the cap on his leg vein input. The memories surfaced often now. He had regained a good deal of his old mental equilibrium, enough to permit the old hurts and joys to resurface. Whatever in him had learned to repress was now itself in retreat.
Nikka moved to help him up but he waved her away. “I’m feeling a lot better. Stronger.”
“I’d still like you to rest more. You’ve been working in the gardens too much.”
“No, just barely enough. I’m beginning to think this whole blood imbalance thing, the buildup of ruddy rogue cells and that rot—quite literally, rot—it’s all been due to something from that injury in the damned fluxlife-cleaning job.” He stretched, enjoying the delicious pop of his joints.
Nikka smiled tolerantly. As she opened her mouth to speak he saw in an instant her fatigue, pushed back beyond notice, silted up inside her by the currents of despair she must have suffered in these years of watching him slowly go dull and listless. The fretwork of lines near her eyes had deepened and turned downward. Her laugh was blunted now, seldom heard, weighted.
“Things are going to be better now,” he said impulsively. “I’m sure I’ve beaten it.”
“Yes,” she said, and put her arms around him. “Yes.”
He saw that she did not believe. She thought his words meant no more than the compulsive optimism of a man who knew deeply that he would die. “No, I want you to see it … see better. I am getting—”
A knock at the door. They went into the living room, closing the bedroom door to hide the medical machines. Nigel opened the door. He kept his face blank when he saw it was Carlos and Ted Landon. Carlos had been coming by regularly, but Nigel had decided it was best for the moment to be neither friendly nor hostile. Simple distance might be the best.
Carlos was nervous, sweating. He said abruptly, “Nigel, I told you it wouldn’t last, that medmon dodge. While I was in the Slots a systems inventory turned up a glitch, where I’d covered for you. They just now unraveled it and—”