Leviathans of Jupiter (51 page)

“Why does it do that?” Corvus asked.

“To protect the core programs, keep them from getting infected or overstressed.”

Deirdre said, “But it's harming Dorn.”

With a bleak nod, Yeager said, “His human half needs the mechanical systems. He's got pumps inside him that run his endocrine system and servomotors that power his mechanical parts. His heart is mechanical; its function depends on those systems, too.”

“His heart's shutting down?”

“It's slowing,” Yeager replied. “The blood flow to his brain is too little to let him stay conscious.”

“But why's the computer doing this?” Corvus demanded. “It's killing him.”

Yeager shook his head. “Goddam bucket of chips is protecting itself and letting his human half die.”

“You've got to do something, Max!” Deirdre insisted.

“Yeah, I know. We've got to get out of here. But how? Dorn's our pilot. I'm just his backup. You expect me to run this bucket while he's unconscious?”

*   *   *

Leviathan began to wonder if the Elders had been right. Perhaps the alien isn't really intelligent at all: It merely mimics the images we flash at it.

The vision Leviathan had idealized began to fade from his hopes for the future. The world might be much bigger than we had thought, it told itself, but there are no truly intelligent creatures in it, no one that we can communicate with, no one that we can learn from.

RESPONSIBILITIES

“We've got to get out of here,” Corvus repeated.

“I know,” Yeager agreed. His tone sounded tense, almost angry.

“Can't you pilot this ship?”

Yeager hesitated, then answered, “In theory.”

“In theory?” Corvus yelped.

Grudgingly, Yeager explained, “I designed this bucket, all its systems. But that doesn't mean I have the reflexes, the skills to actually pilot her.”

“You said it was highly automated,” Corvus said, almost accusingly.

Deirdre piped up, “The ship ran completely automated, all by itself, didn't it?”

Looking miserable, Yeager said, “Yeah, but to set it up that way means reprogramming its central computer. That could take hours.”

“We don't have hours,” said Corvus. “We've got to get Dorn out of here
now.
At least up to a higher level, where the pressure isn't so bad.”

Yeager seemed frozen with indecision. “I know,” he muttered. “I know. But … piloting … suppose I screw it up? I could kill us all.”

“We need Dorn?”

“We need Dorn.”

Deirdre listened to the two men while still focusing her eyes on the figures that the leviathan drew, again and again.

“Andy,” she called, “could you wake Dorn up with your DBS equipment?”

“He's in a coma, almost.”

“But couldn't you make contact with his mind?” Deirdre asked. “Get him to wake up? Maybe if he were conscious he could override his computer.”

Corvus bit his lip, glanced at Yeager, then said tightly, “It's worth a try.”

*   *   *

Leviathan saw that a message was flashing toward it from the Elders, lighting up the waters in stern blue as it passed outward from one member of the Kin to the next.

Finally the member next to Leviathan transmitted the Elders' question: If the alien is truly intelligent it would communicate freely with you. Has it done so?

Fighting down its first instinct to admit that the alien's intelligence was limited to mimicry, Leviathan replied carefully, Its mind works very slowly. We have asked it where it comes from and are waiting for a reply to our question.

Leviathan could foresee the Elders' next response, their sneering disdain for this slow, dull alien creature. They are afraid of the alien, Leviathan thought. Behind their scornful belittling is the fear that the alien will upset the Symmetry.

Wondering how it could communicate meaningfully with the alien before the Elders decided to drive the stranger away, Leviathan saw with a flash of grateful joy that the alien was lighting up again.

It's trying to communicate! Leviathan thought hopefully.

*   *   *

Deirdre saw out of the corner of her eye that Andy was fitting one of his DBS circlets onto Dorn's head. Maybe that will work, she thought. Max looks terribly nervous, frightened. If they can't wake Dorn, Max is going to have to try to fly us back to the station.

It took an effort of will for her to concentrate on the message the leviathan was drawing. The same imagery again. A picture of the leviathan with us beside it. Then it shows us rising above the leviathan, going up farther and farther, until we fade out and dis—

Of course! Deirdre realized. It's asking where we come from! It knows we came down to this level of the ocean from up above. It wants to know where we originated!

Deirdre worked her keyboard swiftly, calling up the earlier imagery she had shown the leviathan. She patched it together with the leviathan's question and transmitted it to the lights on the vessel's hull.

Her imagery showed the leviathan's original picture of itself with
Faraday
beside it, then the vessel rising until the leviathan figure dwindled and disappeared. But now, instead of fading away—Deirdre figured that was the leviathan's way of asking its question—the imagery of their vessel continued upward, out of the ocean, through the clear atmosphere populated by spider-kites and Clarke's Medusas, on through the wide smear of clouds and out into space. The tiny sphere that represented
Faraday
moved on away from the planet until the imagery showed Jupiter as seen from space, a flattened sphere streaked with many-colored clouds.

Smiling with satisfaction, Deirdre wondered if the leviathan could possibly understand what she was trying to tell it.

*   *   *

The pictures made no sense to Leviathan. The alien seemed to rise up into the cold abyss above, and then moved on to realms that became stranger and stranger.

Gibberish? Leviathan asked itself. No, it decided. The alien is trying to tell us something, trying to explain where it comes from. Of course it would all seem strange, even senseless, to us. It comes from a different part of the Symmetry. Naturally its realm would seem strange, totally unlike anything the Kin has experienced before.

We were right! Leviathan told itself. The alien is intelligent—and the Symmetry is much larger and more complex than we had ever thought.

It began to signal these new thoughts inward through the Kin, toward the Elders.

*   *   *

“It's working!” Yeager said. Then he added, “I think.”

Corvus was linked to Dorn: Both of them had DBS circlets on their heads. Yeager was peering eagerly at the readouts on the diagnostic screens.

“I'm talking with the leviathan,” Deirdre called to them, then added, “I think.”

Dorn's prosthetic eye began to glow red, feebly, then his human eye slowly opened.

“Dorn!” Corvus said eagerly. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Your central computer's shutting down. Can you override it?”

“No.”

“But it's killing you!”

Slowly, obviously in pain, Dorn replied, “It is following its programming.”

“But it's killing you!” Corvus repeated.

Dorn said, “The prosthetics are protecting themselves. The fact that the flesh is dying is an unfortunate side effect.”

Corvus looked up at Yeager. “Max, you'll have to pilot us out of here. It's up to you.”

Yeager uttered a heartfelt “Shit.”

ESCAPE

Deirdre could see that Max was clearly frightened as he orally set up the command console's navigation program.

“It's up to you, Max,” she whispered to herself. “Dorn's life depends on you.” Then she realized that all their lives depended on Max's ability to pilot their vessel.

The leviathan was flashing signals at them again, the flickering of its glowing hide lighting up her communications screen.

Dorn seemed conscious, but barely so. Floating lethargically in the perfluorocarbon, the cyborg watched in silence as Yeager set up the navigation program.

Corvus unconsciously touched the optronic circlet crowning his head and said to Yeager, “Dorn's thinking that you've got to cancel the buoyancy program. You have to do something called ‘blow negative' before the vessel can start to rise above this level.”

“Right,” said Yeager, and he resumed murmuring instructions to the central computer's voice-recognition system.

Deirdre shook her head, wondering if they were going to get out of this alive. Dorn's too weak to speak now, but Andy's picking up his conscious thoughts through the DBS link. Max is learning the difference between designing the ship and making it work.

“Dee,” Andy called to her, “you'd better keep your eyes on your screens. Looks like the creature's signaling again.”

Turning back to her console, Deirdre saw that the leviathan was flashing a different image. She hunched forward slightly, leaning against the deck loops her feet were wedged into. The leviathan was picturing several of its own kind, with a broad swath of tiny dots flowing down toward them. Then the picture abruptly changed to show
Faraday
in the middle of the little dots, all alone.

Even slowed by the computer, the imagery made little sense to Deirdre. The dots probably represent the organic particles that drift down out of the clouds, she thought. That's what they eat. But why does he put us into the stream? What's he trying to say?

“Better tell our friend that we're going to be heading up,” Andy told her.

Deirdre nodded and began drawing a picture on her touch-sensitive screen with her outstretched finger.

*   *   *

Leviathan's sensor members studied the message the alien was drawing. It made no sense.

Leviathan was patiently asking the alien what it ate, but the alien seemed to be ignoring the question and instead showing that it came from higher in the Symmetry, from the cold abyss above.

We know that, Leviathan thought. The alien is stating the obvious. Why won't it answer our question about its food? Is it refusing to answer? Is it hiding something from us?

*   *   *

“I've got it set to fire up,” Yeager announced, a shaky grin on his drawn face.

“Then go,” Corvus said, without hesitation.

“Ten-second countdown,” said Yeager. “Ten…”

“Wait,” Corvus interrupted. “We ought to get Dorn strapped in before we start jouncing around.”

Yeager nodded. “Yeah, right. Slide him into his sleep compartment.”

“I'll help,” Deirdre offered.

Together, she and Corvus pushed Dorn's barely conscious body into the sleep chamber and slid him into his coffinlike bunk.

“He'll be okay in there,” Corvus said as he fastened the safety web at the foot of the enclosure. Deirdre heard the uncertainty quavering in his voice.

“It's the best we can do,” she said.

With an abrupt gesture, Corvus waved Deirdre through the hatch back onto the bridge, then followed her. They both slid their feet into the deck loops.

“Fire away, Max,” said Corvus. Then he turned toward Deirdre and winked.

Surprised, she smiled back at him. Andy's trying to reassure me, she thought. In the middle of all this, he's trying to tell me not to be afraid. But she was afraid. And so was Andy, she knew. And Max.

“Ten seconds,” Max said stiffly. “Nine … eight…”

*   *   *

The alien suddenly spurted up on a spray of heated water, heading for the cold abyss above. That's what it was trying to tell us! Leviathan realized. It's leaving us. It's heading home.

For several moments Leviathan considered what it should do. Follow the alien, or remain here with the Kin? Leviathan knew it should ask the Elders for their decision, but there was no time to wait for their deliberation. Without further thought, without asking the Elders for their guidance, Leviathan followed the alien, remaining far enough from it to avoid being scalded by the heat it was pouring out. Like a squid, Leviathan thought. It propels itself with jets of heated water. Of course. How else could it move? It has no flagella members.

The alien was ascending rapidly but Leviathan easily kept pace with it.

How high will it go? Leviathan wondered. How far can we accompany it? Will it have anything else to tell us?

*   *   *

Pointing to the diagnostics screen, Yeager sang out, “His readouts are picking up! His prosthetics are coming back on-line!”

Deirdre glanced at Max and saw the absolutely joyous look on his face. Andy was grinning, too. Then she turned back to her sensor screens. The leviathan was still alongside them, keeping pace with their ascent, staying off to one side to remain clear of their exhaust of superheated steam.

“All systems in the green,” Max said, with pride in his voice.

“You're doing it,” Andy said, his grin nearly splitting his face. “We'll have to start calling you Captain Max.”

The leviathan was signaling to them again, Deirdre saw. She repeated the message she'd been sending: We're leaving. We're going home.

*   *   *

How far into the cold abyss will the alien go? Leviathan wondered, flashing that question as it swam alongside the ascending hard-shelled creature. Fish and squid and other creatures teemed through the chilly waters of this level. No darters in sight, Leviathan's sensor members reported. We're too high for darters, Leviathan thought. Still, it's good to be on the alert for them. They will attack a solitary leviathan if given the chance.

Still the alien rose.

*   *   *

The hatch to the sleeping area slid back and Dorn floated onto the bridge.

“Look who's here,” Yeager announced.

Deirdre thought that Dorn looked weary, strained. Even the metal half of his face seemed somehow haggard, dulled.