O’Hara, still at her comm console, said, “Captain, Dr. Wo wants to speak to you on the private channel.”
Krebs nodded and slipped a headset over her bald pate.
“When does she sleep?” Karlstad whispered.
Muzorawa nodded. “I don’t think she’s disconnected herself since we first linked up.”
Grant shrugged and headed for the food dispensers. He felt jumpy inside, weary yet keyed up. Maybe a nap is what I need.
It still made him squeamish to plug the feeding tube into the socket in his neck, but Grant did it. When the counter on the dispenser’s metal face clunked and the flow of liquid shut off, he pulled the tube free with a shuddering grimace.
“What’s the matter, doesn’t it taste delicious?” Karlstad jibed.
Grant headed for his berth without answering, leaving the three others huddled at the dispenser.
Knowing that he’d have to be awake and alert in a few hours, Grant could not sleep. He kept thinking about the thrill of power he’d felt when linked to the ship. Will it get easier as we go on, he wondered, or will it become more seductive, more corrupting? God, help us! he prayed. Give us the strength to resist temptation.
He thought about composing a message for Marjorie, even though he wouldn’t be able to send it until they returned from this mission. If we return, he found himself thinking. Then he heard the other three come into the catacombs, talking quietly, grumbling really, and finally slipping into their own berths.
Grant gave them enough time to fall asleep, then crawled out of his bunk as quietly as he could and swiftly stripped off his tights and pulled a fresh pair from the storage bin in the common area. Wide awake, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to sleep, he slid the screen open and floated into the bridge.
Krebs was sleeping, bobbing gently up near the overhead, eyes closed, a soft burbling noise that might have been a snore in normal air emanating from her half-open mouth. And she was still connected to the ship. Grant saw that the wires from the overhead compartment were still firmly linked to the electrodes in her chunky, hairless legs.
She sleeps connected, Grant said to himself, wondering what that must be like. Then he wondered if that was a good thing. Is she addicted to it? He asked himself. Is that the joy she gets out of life?
One by one Muzorawa, Karlstad, and O’Hara returned to the bridge, almost like sleepwalkers, and took their stations at their consoles. Krebs still snored gently, bobbing up near the overhead. Grant slipped his feet into the floor loops and saw that his console was showing all systems normal. Nothing but green lights. He ran a finger across the console’s central touchscreen to check the subsystems. He frowned, slightly nettled at the cumbersomeness of the manual procedure. If we were linked I could feel all the systems, I’d know how they’re doing with my eyes closed.
But they would not engage the linkage unless Krebs gave the command, and she was still asleep, floating behind the four of them.
“Well, at least we knows she sleeps,” Karlstad stagewhispered.
“That’s good,” O’Hara whispered back. “Everyone needs to sleep sometime.”
“You are eager to work.” Krebs’s cold, hard voice slashed at them. “Good.”
Karlstad rolled his eyes toward heaven.
“Connect your linkages,” Krebs commanded.
Grant linked up smoothly this time, actually finishing before Karlstad. He felt a glow of anticipation warming him, saw that O’Hara looked the same way.
“Engage linkage,” said Krebs.
Again Grant felt the power of the fusion generator surging through him, felt the music of electrical currents racing through every section of the ship. The thrusters, he begged silently. Ignite the thrusters.
Instead, Krebs patiently checked through the navigation system, waiting to reach the precise point in their orbit around Jupiter’s massive bulk where they were to insert the ship into its deorbit burn and plunge toward the hurtling, multihued Jovian clouds.
“Approaching the keyhole,” Muzorawa called out.
Without asking permission, Grant closed his eyes and linked momentarily to Zeb’s sensors and saw what they were showing: the racing multihued clouds of Jupiter, streaming madly as the planet’s tremendous spin whirled them into long ribbons of ocher, pale blue, and russet brown. Lightning flickered through the clouds, crackles of vast electrical energy. He felt the heat radiating up from those clouds, he heard the eternal wailing of winds that dwarfed the wildest hurricanes of Earth.
And he realized that there was a storm, a vast swirling whirlpool of dazzling white clouds, screaming its fury in the area where they had expected to make their entry into the cloud deck.
“The entry area’s covered with a cyclonic system,” Muzorawa said tightly.
Grant opened his eyes. Zeb’s face was set in an expressionless mask. Turning, he saw that O’Hara and Karlstad both looked concerned.
Krebs made a sound that might have been a grunt. Or a suppressed growl. “Very well. We’ll go on to the alternate injection point.”
Grant glanced up at the main wallscreen display. It showed their orbital path against the swirling clouds. The alternate entry position was a quarter-orbit away. Closer to the Red Spot, Grant saw. Not close enough to be dangerous, he knew. Still, getting closer to that titanic storm was unsettling.
No one spoke for the forty-nine minutes it took to reach the alternate insertion point. Grant occupied himself by concentrating on the fusion generator; it was like standing by a warming, crackling fireplace on a cold winter’s day. Soon we’ll be in the clouds, he told himself. And then the ocean. That’s when we’ll see how accurate my mapping of the currents has been.
“Automated countdown,” Krebs called out at last.
Grant unconsciously licked his lips as the countdown timer began clicking off the seconds. For the first time since their immersion, Grant consciously thought about the taste in his mouth. It was odd, not unpleasant, but the perfluorocarbon liquid was unlike anything his taste buds had encountered in the past. He had no memory references for it, down at the cellular level where instinct lived.
“Retro burn in ten seconds,” the computer’s synthesized voice called out. Despite himself, Grant trembled inwardly with the anticipation of the thrusters’ power.
The thrusters blazed to life. Grant felt their strength surging through him like a tidal wave smashing down seawalls, trees, buildings, leveling hills, tearing away everything in its path. He gritted his teeth, fighting with every atom of his willpower against giving way to it. He was strong! So powerful that he could tear the ship apart with his bare hands. Eyes squeezed shut, he could see the blazing plasma hurtling from the thrusters, feel the energy streaming from the fusion generator as if it were his own arms, his own muscles driving the ship deep into the clouds of Jupiter, down into the unknown, beyond the reach of help or the understanding of the pitiful frail twolegged apes clinging to their cockleshell station in orbit around Jupiter.
Outside, wind began to howl and shriek, as if protesting their entry into the atmosphere. Grant laughed inwardly. Come on, do your damnedest! he challenged Jupiter. The power of the ship’s thrusters was his own might, his own body standing against the fury of this alien world’s resistance. The ship staggered and bucked but it kept on its course, driving steadily deeper into the wild tangle of clouds. Grant felt like a pitiless conqueror forcing himself into a violently struggling woman. He was raping Jupiter, and no matter how the planet resisted he was too powerful, too ruthless, too driven to show mercy or restraint.
Abruptly the thrusters shut off. Grant felt it like a blow to his groin. He gasped, almost retched. For an endless moment he stood swaying in his foot straps, arms floating before him, hands clenched into fists. He was aghast at his own thoughts, his own emotions. Guilt, shame, terror at the primitive savagery buried within him racked his soul. He could hear the wind shrieking louder as the ship’s furious, howling plunge through the deep Jovian atmosphere continued. He could feel the ship’s outer skin glowing with the white heat of friction.