Jupiter's Reef (6 page)

Mary knew that Christine was discussing her mother. For Mary, the pain of Johnny’s tortured, yet limited, responses was palpable.

Alex was resigned to the idea that the conversation would last until they got out of signal range of Christine’s personal phone. Of course Alex realized that the little rich girl or her husband could move to some of Mars’ bigger radios. Being Johnny’s daughter, Alex reasoned, she probably could enlist long range deep space blasters that were used planet to planet.

“Didn’t she know he was leaving?” Alex asked Mary rhetorically.

“He’s never left except once when Christine was small ...” Mary cut herself off, realizing that she being too casual about her secret ability. In a way, having Alex know her secret freed her from secrecy. Now that he knew her secret and wasn’t threatened by it, she didn’t care if the whole universe knew she could read minds. But one quick warning glance from Alex told her she’d nearly given away the store.

She could see that secret was still safe. Johnny was still talking to Christine, joking and cajoling her.

At one point Johnny looked over at Alex with a “can we turn around?” expression. Alex mouthed, “No,” silently. Johnny mouthed back that he was “just kidding.”

Eventually the crackle in the line got the best of the Baltadonis family and Christine could be heard giving her dad a sad, if garbled, goodbye. “Please see her, dad. For me.”

Johnny pushed the small disconnect button when all he could hear was static, then he tucked the phone into his pocket.

Alex looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “If I were you I’d jettison that dinger into space.”

Johnny didn’t smile. He was now focused on the weightlessness in the cabin. “You’re running the Null-Gee system? I’ve never experienced that before.”

“No,” said Alex. “We’re between burns. That’s the real thing.”

“You’re gassin’ me,” said Johnny.

“I’m an old gasser, all right,” replied Alex, keeping half an eye on the dash. “But we’ve got another trans-Earth injection burn coming up in five seconds. Floaters may perish, I warn you.”

The burn was sudden and relatively short. Though expected, it still caught Johnny by surprise. When weightlessness returned he moaned like a queasy dog as he listed in his seat.

Alex opened the view screen to a wide angle view. “Not safe to open the windows, yet. Best to use cameras instead. Micro-meteorites. The glass is clearform polycer and couldn’t shatter, but it does scratch.”

It didn’t seem to matter to Johnny if the view was real or virtual. He gasped all the same.

Alex turned on the viewer just as they passed Mars’ tiny moon Demos. He said that the ship was using the tiny moon’s gravity to assist in their escape from Mars gravity well. All the while, Alex congratulated himself. His timing was perfect. Demos was silhouetted against the rusty face of Mars. As they passed close to the moon, its orange-brown cratered surface became more visible. As their speed increased the scene changed and they were soon looking at stars.

Johnny was speechless. And he looked a little green.

“Pretty,” said Alex, looking past the back of Mary’s seat at Johnny.

“See ya,” said Mary, showing her perfect teeth. “Okay, enough of this. When do we start watching Earth?”

It hadn’t sunk in to Alex’s mind yet that he was actually headed back to Earth. Mary’s statement brought him back to reality. “It’s telescope meat for at least a week. But I’ll get it on the screen as soon as we clear Mars.”

Alex was true to his word. Within a few seconds the computer located Earth and zoomed in on it. The image, a small mottled blue ball surrounded by a sea of stars, was there for her to gaze at. Her pretty smile was all the thanks Alex wanted.

Every once in a while he would find himself lost in her beauty. And Alex knew that it wasn’t just skin deep. He admired her. He wanted to protect her. But also he was somewhat afraid of her. Alex had no illusions about her, nor any expectations. It was a feeling in his gut. It told him to be near her.

“That’s so much better,” she said, and then blew Alex a kiss.

“A kiss I gladly accept, Mary Seventeen.” he said with a wink. “Look at it, Mary. The blue Earth. Blue from sky and water. As blue as Mars is red.” Alex looked toward Professor Baltadonis. “It’s the stuff of fables ... for us fringers, that is.”

“Fringers,” mused Johnny, obviously trying to get his mind off his stomach. “Let’s see. I’ve heard ... ‘rim jobs’ ... ‘jovers’ ... ‘dingers’ ...” one hand was still fumbling with the radio his pocket.

Alex frowned. “Get a grip, Johnny. And stow it tight.”

Johnny laughed despite a pained expression. “Didn’t you say that you were from Earth?”

“Originally,” said Alex.

“How originally is that?”

“When I was seventeen,” said Alex. “But you’re the guest, didn’t you say you’d been to Earth? When was that?”

“Fifteen years ago to monitor a shipment of Earth plants. Most of the time I was in weightlessness. I remember touching down in the Siber Base. I thought we were still accelerating. I mean they couldn’t convince me that we’d landed.” Johnny laughed and looked at Mary.

“The gravity! My oath! You haven’t been there, have you, Mary?”

“No. And I prefer weightlessness,” said Mary. As if punctuating her statement Mary pushed with a slight twitch of her toes and floated gracefully toward the rear of the cabin. “Would you like a squeezer of anything, Professor? Juice? Coffee?”

The Professor was clutching the sides of his chair. “I’m not ready to put anything in my stomach yet, thank you, Mary.”

“Geebrew,” said Alex. “Passes the time. Real fine.”

“What’s that?” groaned Johnny.

“It’s like an electrolyte beer. It charges your body and because it’s laced with some stuff it takes care of the woops.”

“You’re serious?”

“If I’m not I’ll be cleaning the decks, won’t I?”

Mary laughed. “You look a bit greenish,” she said. “Are you sure I can’t make you one?”

“Can you do it quickly?”

Alex knew that all this talk about cures for space sickness wasn’t helping Johnny a bit.

Mary had Johnny’s Geebrew prepared in seconds and floated back to his seat with the squeezer pointed at him. “I didn’t ask you what flavor. I chose lemon.”

Johnny took the bottle and sucked the yellowish bubbly liquid from its straw tip. He stared thoughtfully at the image of Earth on the screen as he forced himself to swallow a few times.

“How do you feel?” asked Mary. She was floating a few feet above the floor with one hand on his shoulder.

Johnny smiled at her. “You look like a pixie in flight. And you’ve given me a magic elixir, I suppose.”

“Geebrew,” said Alex, raising an eyebrow. “Just enjoy the ride for a while, Johnny. It takes a while for the body to balance itself and it’s a bit tougher if you’re older.”

“Older than what?” protested the Professor. “The face on Mars?” he giggled almost involuntarily.

Mary shrugged. “I may have called for too strong a mix. I figured he’d only manage a sip or two.”

Johnny’s eyes began to roll in his head.

“Let him sleep, love,” Alex said. “We’ll be halfway to Earth when he wakes up.”

Mary looked at Alex’s chest hairs peeking from his unzipped flight suit.

“Jeeps,” she said. “Maybe we can ...” she reached out and her fingernail tugged at the soft blue fabric. “He’ll sleep for hours.”

“Zero-gee shower is all we got, my love,” said Alex. He looked over at the Professor who was slowly curling into a ball. “Maybe just a little good clean fun.”

2
The Professor slept for ten hours. But as the trip wore on, everyone would have more than their share of sleeping while
Diver
roamed interplanetary space.

They would be busy as they neared Earth. But that was two weeks away. For now there was little to do.

After forty-eight hours aboard
Diver
, Johnny grew accustomed to sudden brief tugs of acceleration followed by endless hours of falling and he began poring over Alex’s recordings.

“You showed me the short form of this when we first met,” he said. “I confess I’ve been dying to see the whole data set.”

Alex smiled. “Be my guest.”

Professor Baltadonis took it from the very beginning when Mary and Alex entered Jupiter’s atmosphere. He marveled at the impossibly huge sky that spread out around the tiny ship; a flat table-land of cloud. He saw
Diver
’s balloons deploy as they came closer and closer to the cloud tops.

Johnny insisted that Alex and Mary be on hand during Johnny’s initial examination of the disks, to give their impressions and fill in details as he reviewed the record. He had brought with him what Alex called his gizmos, and soon they were spread all over
Diver
’s cabin.

“Just remember whose data you’re reading, Johnny,” said Alex.

“I know what you are saying, Alex. But data is data,” continued the Professor. “Facts are facts. Can you name the man who discovered Pluto? Or invented the Null-Gee field dampener?”

Alex thought for a moment but the Professor didn’t wait for an answer. “My point is, that it may be your data now, but eventually it’ll be everyone’s facts. No one owns the truth.”

Alex smiled patiently. “Captain says, I discovered it and I’m delivering it to a scientist on Earth. A scientist named Harold Stubbs. Understood?”

“Aye, Captain,” said Johnny in a gruff voice. “When will ye be passin’ out the grog.”

“Geebrew for you,” said Alex. “All you want.”

The Professor spent hours downloading certain portions of optical data into a machine that Alex didn’t recognize. Alex was pleased when Johnny told him that it was a spectral analyzer and explained how it worked. He was even beginning to relax in the old guy’s presence.

Johnny kept Alex apprised of everything he did, and, when Alex didn’t understand the details, Johnny would explain.

After several hours each day of watching the Professor perform his analysis, Alex began to understand the relentless discipline and attitude necessary for professional research. It boggled his mind to see the Professor joyfully crunching numbers and checking details. There was a purpose and rhythm to the man’s work.

Watching Johnny, a real scientist, examining his data convinced Alex that nothing would really be proven until humans went back to Jupiter and mounted a serious exploration of the reef. And Alex’s radar plots would be the template used to plan the mission.

Many times during Johnny’s examination of Alex’s disks, he stopped work to congratulate Alex on the fine work he and Mary had done. He complimented details like the long duration camera work; those times that
Diver
just cruised the reef wall and watched.

Alex listened happily to all of Johnny’s praise, but if he suspected that despite the congrats there was doubt lurking behind the Professor’s smile Alex was never able to pull it out of the man.

Eventually Alex lost interest in the analysis. His mind wandered ahead, past Earth and the publication of his discovery to what he now realized was a necessary conclusion to his odyssey; the return to the Reef.

3
Mary kept busy on the exercise machines, wisely trying to ready her slender frame for the rigors of one full gee when they arrived on Earth.

It seemed to take forever but they finally reached the halfway point between Mars and Earth. On the morning of that day, Mary called for a celebration with some synthetic bubbly and passed out the squeezers.

“Today we start decelerating for Earth,” she announced. “We should celebrate, don’t you think?”

Johnny had gotten used to sleeping in an upright position. He opened his eyes and unstrapped himself from his chair and stretched. “You’re suggesting we drink our breakfast?”

Alex emerged from the shower stall in time to hear the conversation.

“Up late again last night, Professor?” he said, toweling his hair. “Like a kid with a new toy. You and those data cubes.”

Johnny sat up, and his grey eyes looped around the room as he rediscovered weightlessness. “It’s tough waking up to this. You seem at home in zero gee but me, I’ll never get used to it.”

While the Professor worked his data, Alex had erected a makeshift wall tarp so that the bathroom area was more private. Behind the white fabric, he watched the Professor try to orient himself.

“Okay,” said Alex, “Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

Alex ignored the Professor’s question while he finished putting on his flight suit. Then he unsnapped the privacy curtain from the wall. All this took concentration in zero gee.

“Shower, anyone, or shall I stow this?” he asked, looking back at Mary and the Professor.

No one seemed interested, so he snapped the fabric tight to the wall and, with a push, catapulted himself toward his seat.

“Tell you what?” repeated old Johnny as Alex lowered himself into the pilot’s chair.

“The
but
,” said Alex. “All your shmoozy praise was setting me up for something. The ‘
but
. What is it?”

Johnny looked at his squeezer of Mary’s bubbly, the stuff she called her stab-in-the-dark synthetic champagne, and raised it to his lips. “Maybe this isn’t such a bad idea after all,” said Professor Johnny and he took two long gulps. “Christine would have my butt for drinking this,” he added, smacking his lips.

Alex didn’t seem to wait for an answer. He looked over the console as though ready to take control of the ship, but all he did was punch key pads and watch the displays.

“Let’s hear it,” he said. “Captain’s orders.”

It’s simple, really, Alex. You have data. But you have no proof. Specifically no physical evidence. No specimens.”

“Oh sure,” said Mary, nearly spitting bubbly all over herself. “Become the quarantine stars of the outer rim.”

“She’s dead right,” said Alex. “It’s on the record that we burned the goo off our hull when we aerobraked into Mars. It’s on record that we had ‘unknown biological deposits’ on our hull. Reef monster spit it was, and it ate through the hull. Dingers! Are you saying we made it up?”

Alex began to turn red. Mary had seen him change color before, with dire results. Things got broken. So she gritted her teeth and waited for the worst.