The Ganymede Club (26 page)

"Tonight? It's late already. Where are we going?"

"Another professional secret. Don't overdress, though. Dark shirt and slacks, no jewelry. Plain shoes—we'll be doing some walking. And be ready for a long night. Now, finish your work. I'll be back in one hour exactly."

He turned and was gone, before she could ask any more. Lola smiled to herself as she turned off her display. Good thing Conner didn't realize how little notice she had been taking of the display, or how little work she had done since he left. He had a high-enough opinion of himself already.

She followed his instructions and was wearing a plain, tight-fitting blouse of dark blue and matching pants when he arrived. He had changed to sober clothes of charcoal grey, and nodded his approval. "Perfect. Tonight you'll see how the other half lives."

He wouldn't say any more as he led them to a high-velocity transit chute and they climbed in. The little car dived at once into its evacuated tunnel and sped over two thousand kilometers vertically downward. When they emerged, Lola stared around her with genuine curiosity. In five years, she had never been anything like this deep. The residential levels lay far above them. She knew little about the middle of her adopted homeworld, except that it was supposedly all industrial.

She found herself standing on a flat platform that overlooked a curved and close horizon. The gravity was much less than on the residential levels, hardly enough to secure her footing. It meant that they must be close to the center of Ganymede. The ceiling was kilometers above them, lit with high-power sonoluminescent strips.

She looked around in vain for any sign of other people.

"This is
nowhere.
Are you telling me that we'll be having dinner down here? I don't believe it."

"Wait and see. Come on, I want to show you something." He took her hand and led her to the edge of the platform, away from the transit-chute exit. They descended a long ramp, floating more than walking, and moved to a waist-high guard rail.

"I've been exploring this region. I want you to go right to the edge and look down." Conner, still holding Lola's hand, eased her forward. "This is one of the best points to see things from. What do you think of that?"

Lola followed his gesture and found she was staring down at a billowing sea of blue-green. The glassy surface moved in great, steady waves, although there was no breath of moving air.

"Stirred from below by paddles, to provide circulation," said Conner. He had moved so that he stood right behind her, his hands about her waist. "The surface tension is provided by a monomolecular layer on top of it; otherwise, the brew would be frothing about all over the place. The surface isn't very strong—if I jumped off here, I'd float down and right on through. But the layer does its job, and if it ever gets damaged or ruptured, it's self-renewing. It's slightly acid, too, underneath there. Once I went under, I'd become part of the nutrient supply in a few days."

"Is it for agriculture?" Lola eased back a little from the edge, pushing into Conner.

He laughed in her ear and moved his hands up to rest on her shoulders. "Nervous? Don't worry, I've got you. It's strange, but everyone from the upper levels who ever comes down here says, 'Agriculture.' Apparently all that you people think about is eating. This, though, is far more vital. You are looking at the main source of Ganymede's air supply: blue-green prokaryotic bacteria, busy in photosynthesis. They produce a thousand times as much oxygen as the agricultural regions near the surface. Food, too, though it's not the sort you are used to." He turned her toward him. "And speaking of that, I promised you dinner. So if you're ready, let's go. We can come back here if you want to—after the restaurant."

"A restaurant down here? Who is there to feed?"

"A very good restaurant. You'll see the clientele for yourself. I told you, you're going to see how the other half lives."

The path that they took was a narrow causeway, with the restless blue-green lake churning on either side. It went on and on for several kilometers, until Lola admitted the importance of his advising her to wear walking shoes.

"Are we ever going to get there, or do we walk all the way around the world?"

"We're nearly there. Look. See the white arch?"

From a distance it was small and sharply angled, like the open jaw of a shark. As they came closer, Lola saw that she had drawn the wrong animal from the oceans of Earth. The arch was enormous, three times as tall as she was, and a sign hung down from its apex: "The Belly of the Whale."

No one greeted them at the entrance. Given the late hour, Lola was not really surprised. They walked on through, past half a dozen curtained booths. Conner led them to an empty one with undrawn curtains.

"No human servers, of course," he said as they sat down. "If we leave the drapes open it's a breach of manners, but we'll do it for just a few minutes so that you can take a look at a couple of other customers. Don't stare at them, that's all. Here's a couple now, leaving."

Lola kept her eyes fixed firmly on her menu and stole a quick glance from the corner of her eye. She saw two men, as simply dressed as she and Conner. They seemed serious, almost dour, and as they passed the booth they offered a glare of disapproval.

"I guess we ought to close the curtain," Conner said as soon as the men were out of earshot. "When you've seen one, you've seen them all. Everyone down here is pretty much the same."

"What's wrong with them?"

"Not a thing, in their terms. They wonder what's wrong with
you.
They would ask why we like to talk so much to other people. The big mystery to me is how they find out to come here, because it sure isn't by word of mouth. The deep interior has its own society rules, and it practices its own form of courtesy. Rule number one: Mind your own business. Rule number two: Speak only when you're spoken to. It's a wonderful place for anyone who has had it with other humans."

"But that's awful." Lola stared at the curtained booths. "These people should have treatment."

"Down, girl. Stop being a haldane for a while, and let's have dinner. From what I've seen, the people down here are as happy as people anywhere else. And if you ever want to be alone for a while, or escape from something or somebody, can you imagine a better place?"

Lola formed the sudden conviction that this was where he had spent the past four days. His comment—"If you ever want to be alone for a while"—was not lost on her. Haldane hooks and unanswered questions to one side, had she come on too strong to him? No matter how good things were physically, lots of people became uneasy if a partner hinted too soon at something permanent or even long-term. Maybe she had been doing that, without realizing it. People gave out signals at so many different levels.

"All right, I'll try not to be too much of a haldane for tonight." She waved the menu. "Even if I were, I can't read your mind, and I can't make sense of this thing. I've never heard of any of the dishes. Tell me what I ought to eat."

"I'll do better than that. I'll order for both of us. Suspend your prejudices and go with your taste buds." He began to make entries in the tabletop order panel. "Just remember that everything you eat in The Belly of the Whale is made out of single-celled organisms, and it started in the vats out there. The people down here prefer it that way. No dead animals, no complex vegetables. Prokaryotic forms are the top of the line. If there was a rule number three, it would probably be: Don't eat any cell with a nucleus."

Lola tried to do as he said and put her prejudices to one side—all of them. She wanted tonight to be as pleasant as the first night that she had spent with Conner. She didn't even want to think. It was a relief to find that yeast was a simple-enough life-form to be acceptable, which meant that wine was definitely on the menu.

He made it easy for her to forget her worries. He filled both their glasses, and across the table he kept smiling at her with a warm and possessive expression in his eyes that made her feel infinitely desirable and wanted. When each dish arrived he tasted it carefully, cocking his head to one side as he chewed the first mouthful. Only once did he frown, glance down, and say, "Sorry. This isn't what I thought it was. I suggest we skip it—unless you want to try it and give a second opinion?"

Lola shook her head. This was another evening on which she wanted to let him make the decisions. He certainly knew what he was doing. The food at The Belly of the Whale was strange to her, in flavor and even more so in texture, but his instruction to suspend her prejudices had been the right one. And so was his question—"Want to?"—asked after the last course had been served and eaten.

"I sure do. Is that too forward?" She frowned at the curtain. "You mean in here?"

"Hardly." He was laughing at her. "Just because you can't see through that doesn't make it soundproof. The clientele might not say anything, but they'd certainly think a lot." He stood up. "Come on."

"You mean we have to go all the way back?" Lola felt warm and ready, and her apartment was at least an hour away.

"I don't see why." He was leading her out through the great arch of the door. "The restaurant is the center of civilization this far down, but you won't see anybody wandering around so late at night. We ought to be able to find a thousand quiet places outside."

"One will be enough." Lola wondered how many times he had been here before with other women. Then she decided that she didn't really want to know. He was with her, and not with them, whoever they might be, and she could tell already how excited he was—the hand holding hers felt very warm, with a definite tremor in the long fingers.

"Be patient. We have plenty of time." She tried to slow him down, but he was hurrying her along a path that branched off to the left and went around the back of The Belly of the Whale.

"I have been patient," he said, in an odd, breathless voice. "You don't know how patient."

"Well, you won't have to be patient much longer." She could see where he was taking her. They were approaching a deserted double bend in the path, shielded from above and from both sides. They would be invisible unless someone were to walk right by. The nook was equipped with a broad, resilient bench, where anyone could lounge at ease and stare at the endless sea of rolling blue-green.

Or, if they chose, do other things. She had never felt more excited.

Lola sat down, then at his gentle urging moved to lie full-length along the bench. She lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling with its glowing strips of luminescence. Conner's face suddenly loomed above, cutting off part of the light. He was smiling down at her.

"This is nice," he said dreamily. "I've looked forward to it for a long time. This is going to be really, really nice."

He leaned over and kissed her gently on both eyes, closing them, and then sensually on the mouth. As his head lifted away from hers, she felt the touch of his right thumb. It was on the pulse in her throat—exactly where he had touched her before, when he believed that she was sleeping. His other hand moved so that both thumbs touched each side of the front of her neck, while his fingers curved gently around toward the back. He was lying more heavily on top of her, pinning her down, so that she could not move her legs or trunk.

"Conner!" She opened her eyes.

"It's all right." His fingers moved up to caress her ears, then slid down and around to grip the back of her neck. "This is going to be just fine. Perfectly fine."

Lola did not have time to think, but excitement turned to instant panic. As his hands tightened, she gabbled out the haldane protection sequence. She felt a moment of absolute terror. She had left it too late—it was not working. His hands were still squeezing, twisting to one side and at the same time turning her head. It hurt terribly—another second and the vertebrae of her spinal column would snap and shear. She knew what came next, the long drop into the billowing, bacterial sea, but that would not matter. She would be already dead.

She heard a long, shuddering sigh. The pressure on her neck eased. After a moment she realized that he was lying totally immobile on top of her. Even in the low gravity, she needed an effort to release herself from his grip and wriggle free.

She stood up, shivering. Less than an hour earlier she had drunk three big glasses of wine. Now she felt as cold and chillingly sober as if she had been plunged into a bath of ice water. She could still feel those strong fingers on her throat. She had absolutely no doubt that she had escaped death by only a fraction of a second.

She stared down at him—he was lying prone with his face invisible to her. What now? She was safe enough while the haldane protection continued to work, but she had no idea how long that might be. Should she leave him here and flee? But then he could pursue her, and she would never be sure where he was or when he would catch up with her.

The conclusion, unpleasant as it might be, was obvious: She had to take him with her. She dare not, under any circumstances, allow him out of her sight until he was too heavily sedated to move. The drugs to permit that were in her office—forbidden for nonmedical use, but the hell with regulations. The rules do not apply when your life is in danger.

Meanwhile, they were an awfully long way from her office. The first question was the important one: He had resisted her earlier questions, but did she now have
physical
control over him?

And if she did not? She glanced over the edge at the blue-green sea and knew that no matter what happened, she could not do that. If she had been struggling for her life, and had found a chance to throw him over and save herself, maybe she could have done it. But in cold blood it was out of the question.

"Jinx. Can you hear me?"

Lola could not see his lips, but she heard a faint "yes."

"Sit up and face me." And, as soon as he had done so, "Are you really Jinx Barker, or are you really Conner Preston?"

"I am Jinx Barker."

"Is there a Conner Preston?"

"No."

"Was there?"

"Yes."