Mr. Jablons shuffled nervously. We waited, watching the line climb faster and faster. The only sound was a background whirr of air circulation.
The line rose, rose—and then dropped. It fell straight down to zero.
Dr. Kadin frowned. “It should not do that.”
We waited.
My face began to feel hot.
The line didn’t move.
“The Faraday cup may have shorted out,” Mr. Jablons said finally.
“Yes. It would seem so.” Dr. Kadin glanced at me, then looked quickly away. “Unfortunate.”
My father cleared his throat. “If the instrument has failed there is nothing to be done.”
“But it couldn’t fail!” I said.
“Quiet, son. Remember, Dr. Kadin, Satellite Fourteen crosses the same region above the pole in—” a look at the display screen—“three hours. We can get some data then.”
“Yes. Good.” He looked at me, not smiling. “The old Faraday cup would have given at least some information throughout the satellite’s passage over the pole. Hummm. Well—I shall return in three hours.”
With that he swept from the office, red robes fluttering.
Dad and Mr. Jablons tried to cheer me up but I wasn’t having any. We all knew that design worked. I must have installed it wrong. Maybe the job on Fourteen, with Jenny helping, was okay. Maybe.
One thing was clear; the radiation level in the Van Allen belts was rising fast. Dad made a note to advise the bridge and recommend that no men or craft be allowed outside the Can for the duration of the storm. I fooled around in the Hole, keeping tabs on Satellite Fourteen while it orbited up from the equator toward Jupiter’s north pole, toward the splotchy indigo storms.
After a while I took a break and wandered down to the Center. I was feeling pretty rotten. I ran into Jenny and she told me about a square dance that evening. That cheered me up; it would take my mind off everything that was going wrong with my life. Normally I dance as if someone was firing pistols at my feet, but with Jenny…
That’s when I got an idea. I looked around for an intercom phone and asked Jenny to wait a minute.
“Bridge.” a flat voice answered.
“This is Bohles. I’d like a provisional trajectory computed for rendezvous of shuttle Roadhog with Satellite Fourteen. Departure in, umm, two hours fifty minutes from now.”
“Well, okay, but we’re expecting to close down external operations any minute now. Background count is too high.”
“Transmit it to Roadhog’s computer anyway, will you? I can clear the computer tomorrow if the program is invalidated.”
“Okay, if you just want to make work for yourself. I’ll beam it over in a couple of minutes.”
“Right, thanks.”
I hung up and went back to Jenny.
“What’s up?”
“Oh, nothing.” I said. “Had lunch yet?” I kept my voice cool and casual. Inside I was tense, calculating, making plans.
“Yes, I ate earlier…” Jenny peered at me, looking puzzled. I avoided her eyes.
“Uh, okay, I… I think I’ll go get something.” I waved good-bye and moved off.
I got a snack. Then I went for a walk, alone. I didn’t really want to talk to Jenny, or anybody else. Things were boiling up in me, things I couldn’t explain.
I watched the faces in the curving corridors. Tight faces, sad ones. Frowns. Scowls. Distracted looks. Dazed expressions. People who seemed like they’d just come from a really terrible argument. Usually you see smiles. But now…
The spirit we once had was seeping away. I could feel it. We’d all been special out here. A pocket of light and air, bathed in hard radiation and unbearable cold. An outpost.
But now… They all knew we were going back. Crawling back home, defeated by the mysteries of Jupiter and the blindness of Earth…
Ignorant bastards, I thought moodily. People passing by glanced at me. I realized I must have said it out loud.
I leaned against a bulkhead, feeling suddenly dizzy. Christ, what was happening to me? I was wandering at random, talking to myself.
Things were moving too fast. Problems were coming up and nobody was solving them. Dr. Matonin went around with her oh-so-concerned smile, but that did no good. And Commander Aarons had already written off any chance of a kid staying here. The plain truth of the matter was that, to them, kids were just kids. In a tight situation, it was the adults who counted. Adults knew best. Kids only thought they had problems…try to tell an adult what was really eating at you, and you’d get the old chuckle and a nod of the head, and then a piece of warmed-over advice. They didn’t really see us as equals, as people, at all…
I marched through the decks, muttering to myself, hands clenching and unclenching.
Dr. Kadin arrived a few minutes after I got back to Monitoring. I studied the reports from equatorial satellites. The radiation being fed into the belts had dropped in the last hour, almost down to the permissible level for shuttlecraft operation.
“Do you suppose the storm is dying out?” I asked Dad. He peered at his viewscreen, which at the moment was focused on a gigantic orange whirlpool in the ammonia clouds. “There isn’t any way to tell. The storm activity seems to be related to the number of vortex formations in the atmosphere, and there aren’t any new ones building up right now.”
“There may be a relatively quiet time coming up.” Dr. Kadin put in, “much like the eye of a hurricane. I must say this is all very queer and extraordinary. There has been nothing like it in the nine years we’ve been here. I hope Satellite Fourteen will give us the data we need.”
“Where is Fourteen?” Mr. Jablons asked.
Dad switched to another input and reported. “Two minutes until anything significant could register.”
Dr. Kadin got a distant look in his eye. “You know,” he said, “so many curious things are happening at once, it is enough to make one wonder. We have recorded massive thunderstorm activity deep in the atmosphere. Great bolts of lightning.”
“The formation of living cells requires lightning, doesn’t it?” I asked. “Electricity can energize the manufacture of molecules—like the ones we know are down there in the clouds—to produce living compounds.”
“So experiments on Earth have shown,” Dr. Kadin agreed, raising his eyebrows and sighing. “But we have never found such things in Jupiter. Perhaps lightning is not all that is needed.”
“What about those meteor swarms?” Mr. Jablons put in. “What’s the explanation for them?”
“I am afraid today is not a bright one for the scientists. Our expert on the asteroid belt says they may come from there. Another says the orbits trace back to Jupiter’s own moon system. There remain many questions; we do not have sufficient data. The odd thing is that the swarms strike Jupiter near the poles, not the equator. Very unusual—”
“The Faraday cup on Satellite Fourteen is beginning to register an increase,” Dad said.
We all crowded around his desk. Dr. Kadin fidgeted at his robes. Mr. Jablons tapped a pencil on his knee. Distant murmurs from the Can underlined the silence between us.
The black line rose again. I clenched my fists, watching it, not daring to move. The only sound was the pinging of a recorder.
“Looks good,” Mr. Jablons said hopefully.
Dr. Kadin said nothing.
The line shot up, climbing to nearly the same level Seventeen had registered. It held there, steady, steady, holding—
And fell.
In a moment, the readings dropped to zero. The Faraday cup wasn’t working.
“Well.” Dr. Kadin said. “I had hoped—”
I couldn’t listen to it. I turned and bolted from the room.
“Matt!” my father called after me. I didn’t look back.