Jupiter's Reef (25 page)

“Am I crazy,” asked Johnny, “or are these things attacking us?”

“Donno,” muttered Alex. He looked at Mary, wondering if she could fathom what was happening but she shrugged as their eyes met.

As they moved nearer the cloud, two more gas bag critters came into view. Each was attached to a slender black cable that led into the clouds below. One of them had a dark delta shaped thing clinging to its side. As he watched the gas bag burst and collapsed, then fell into the cloud deck.

Alex moved a rear external camera so that it gave a view the balloon package and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw they were still fully inflated.

“Maybe those dagger-birds, I think that’s what you called them, maybe they are mistaking us for one of those gas bag animals,” said Johnny.

“That’s possible,” said Mary.

“Let me know if one looks like it’ll hit us, Johnny,” said Alex. “Maybe I can ...”

“Yes, there’s ...” Johnny tried to warn Alex, but there was no time for evasive moves. A black dagger-bird hit one of
Diver
’s balloons. It clawed at the balloon, trying to hold on to it and, as they all watched it in horror, the thing slapped a sharp pickax shaped tail against the balloon’s polyceramic skin. The strong material withstood the brief assault and the creature slid off the balloon’s slick cream colored surface and fell out of sight.

“Dingers,” shouted Alex. “That didn’t happen before!”

Alex touched the control panel in front of him. “Time to electrify the exterior,.”

“We’re losing you,” said the garbled voice of Matt Howarth. “See you on the next pass.”

“I hope,” said Tony, his voice hardly audible over the sudden increase of static on the speakers.

Alex watched the clouds, wishing he had Johnny’s wraparound view. All he could see was the single remaining gas bag.

“I need your eyes, Professor. Tell me if any more head this way.”

“Okay,” said Johnny. “Nothing there now.”

Diver
’s balloon package wobbled in the breeze as Alex increased their forward velocity. “Maybe if I pick up speed they won’t have such any easy target,” he said.

“Two more,” said Johnny. “Below, left!”

Alex cut the drive stick hard to the right. Immediately two dark shapes flew past them and headed back into the clouds. Alex got a good look at them this time. They resembled black delta shaped paper airplanes, the kind Alex remembered making in grade school. The wings were stiff and unmoving while the rest of the creature, hanging below them, opened and closed talon-like grippers. There were several of these set in two rows like legs, and behind them a tail that bore a nasty looking ax head.

“Reminds me of a scorpion,” said Tony, his voice close by. Alex looked over his shoulder and was surprised to see Tony standing there, gripping the back of his seat.

“Maybe you should sit down,” said Alex.

“Bothering you?”

“No, but I might have to take evasive action.”

“I can’t see shit where I’m sitting,” argued Tony. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll take my chances.”

“Suit yourself.”

Alex steered the ship closer to the balloon creature. As they neared, its surface details could be clearly seen. Vertical stripes divided its body into sections, like a melon, and its rubbery skin was dotted with blue-green blisters that looked like eyes. The center of each blister was a pool of blackness.

“I swear those are eyes,” said Johnny.

Alex glanced over at Mary. She gripped the arm of her seat with her right hand and stroked the kitten with her left. The kitten was relaxed with its eyes closed; a marked contrast to the tension that was written plainly on Mary’s face.

There was a thump on bottom of the hull. Then another. Alex felt it through his feet.

“Another hit,” he said. “What’s the problem with those things? We don’t even resemble those gas bags.”

“Move into the clouds, Alex,” said Johnny. “Or climb.”

Alex chose the latter. He gunned
Diver
’s engines and the ship rose quickly back into the sky. Tony almost fell over when he did so.

“Whoooa,” said Sciarra, gripping Alex’s chair with both hands.

It took only a second or two for the ship to move high out of range of the marauding creatures. There, they leveled off and cruised for a while.

“What’s with the dagger-birds?” asked Alex. “Any ideas?”

“It must be our balloons,” said Tony. “The only thing up here other than clouds. Not so surprising they’d be fooled. Maybe they have poor eyesight.”

“Who knows if they have eyesight as we know it. But they have to have some way of locating those balloons. We have to try not to jump to conclusions. Considering the shape of the ship we might look like one of those birds,” said Johnny. “Maybe they think we’re competition.”

“That’s an idea,” said Alex. “Computer, Auto-pilot ... now.”

“AUTOPILOT ENGAGED,” said the voice of the computer. “HOLDING ALTITUDE ... HOLDING COURSE.”

Alex swiveled his chair to face Johnny and Tony.

“I think we need to talk a bit,” he said. “First off, Mary and I didn’t get this kind of reception when we visited last.”

Mary swiveled her chair around as well, but then she stood up and put her kitten gently into the seat, trying hard not to disturb its sleep. She moved toward the food panel.

“Time to take a refreshment break,” she said.

Everyone took a moment to consider their stomachs, and when they had all decided what they wanted Mary punched the numbers into the wall panel. Minutes later everyone was eating hot peppiza and drinking coffees or Geebrew..

Johnny sat sideways in his seat. He leaned out to pet the kitten who had awakened as soon as Mary left her chair. Alex noticed that the kitten seemed comfortable in the heavier gravity. It was acting frisky as it played with the silver ties on Johnny’s boots. Mary put a small bowl of food next to the kitten and slid back into her seat next to Alex.

When the conversation turned back to the situation at hand everyone but Alex seemed sullen. Alex opined that the dagger birds seemed formidable but were hardly a threat. He had to ask several times if anyone objected to their proceeding into the clouds. Finally their reticence overwhelmed his patience.

“Dingers,” he said. “What’s the problem?”

“Perhaps we should spend more time with the mapping,” said Johnny.

“I’m in no hurry to get killed,” said Tony.

Alex shook his head in disgust. “You saw that bird thing attack one of the balloons. It did nothing. No damage. It could have hammered away all day. Those things can’t hurt us.”

“Really?” asked Johnny. “Why’s that?”

“It’s a question of mass,” said Alex. “These things live in Jupiter’s atmosphere. How massive can they be?”

“Are you forgetting the damage that your ship sustained last time?” asked Tony.

“Not at all but that was after a full assault by a very specialized monster, I think,” argued Alex. “These things are high flyers and all they do is pop bubbles for a living.”

“I wonder why,” said Johnny. “Why do they pop those gas bag things?”

“They go down with them after they pop,” observed Mary. “Maybe they lay eggs in them or something?”

“Gestation,” said Johnny. “Good, Mary. That’s one theory. Any more?”

“Lunch,” said Sciarra as he bit down on a wedge of peppiza. “Maybe they eat ’em.”

“Sustenance,” said Johnny.

“Habit,” said Alex. “Or some weird reason we can’t fathom. But the fact is, we’re not going to learn anything up here. You wanted to see the reef, Johnny. Let’s get on with it.”

“Alex is right,” said Tony. “It’s a question of mass. I doubt if anything down there, floating on a mat of air is massive enough to hurt us. We’re like supermen to them.”

“That’s reassuring,” said Mary.

“You’re our wonder woman,” said Alex, with a wink.

“Do we study those balloon things or do we go on into the clouds?” asked Johnny.

“If you want to get pelted with dagger birds, we can hang out there a while,” said Alex. “We can open the door and let one in, put the sample in a can and take off for Ganymede, too.”

“What?” said Johnny.

“Never mind. I’m waitin’ for orders here. What do you want me to do?” said Alex.

“Into the clouds, Alex,” said the Professor. “Better to use our thermal vision while safely hidden by clouds.”

“We still have at least fifty kilometers to go,” said Alex, swiveling his chair back into position. Everyone took Alex’s gesture as a cue, doing likewise. Three chairs clicked into their forward position. “Night’s coming soon, anyway, Alex. We may as well dive.”

“Alex Rose, pilot of the starship
Diver
,” Alex quipped as he grabbed the drive stick. “Preparing to dive, sir,” he added jokingly. “That’s
Diver
’s job. That’s what we do! COMPUTER. DISENGAGE AUTO PILOT.”

Before heading back down to the clouds, Alex reeled in
Diver
’s balloons until they were flush with the body of the ship. “Tightening our profile a bit,” said Alex, then he pushed the stick forward.

5
Mary was wearing her tabs. Alex reasoned that it was to filter out the clicker men. But all she said was that while
Cornwall
was out of range, there was no need to listen to the static.

Everyone else was soaking up as much of Jupiter as they could. Now that they were in the clouds it was time to test their much touted technology. Johnny’s bubble was full of radar imaging provided by Sciarra’s modified radar sensors and the computer programs that analyzed them and turned the signals into three dimensional data.

While Tony focused on the structure of the great whirlpool, Johnny looked at its content; studying the data for clues to the makeup of the clouds. His primary interest, or so he said, was in finding how closely the gases near the reef matched those of Earth at sea level. While the pressures beneath the reef were far more than those at the cloud tops, there was still an evident Earthly life zone that started at the cloud tops and extended down over sixty kilometers. He saw Earth’s five kilometer zone as a microcosm of the reef.

“Everything’s bigger, thicker, if you want to call it that,” he said. “Tsu wrote a paper on it. A very good one. Stubbs and I wanted her on board because of it.”

For once Alex kept his mouth shut. But Mary knew what was going on inside his head. He thought Johnny was merely stating the obvious.

But Alex knew that it all had to be quantified. And, again, he reminded himself that he was merely the chauffeur for the scientific community.

Diver
plunged deeper into the clouds without incident. Johnny interrupted his own dialogue with frequent comments about the number of gas bag tethers he was seeing on the radar. He estimated that they were spaced roughly half a kilometer apart and, though they were much denser than the surrounding cloud, they were still very diaphanous structures. Mild but detectable electrical fields transferred energy between the cloud tops and the reef. “One could see them as nerve fibers, but they’re probably just convenient grounding wires that protect the gas bag creatures from death by electrocution,” Johnny observed. “And I think they benefit from the tethering by simply not being as vulnerable to winds aloft.”

Alex hadn’t thought of either of those notions, and they were very compelling.

While Johnny looked at his bubble world and offered his running commentary Tony offered little in the way of analysis. His attention was almost exclusively on his instruments.

After an hour of their slow descent,
Diver
passed silently into a mammoth clear space beneath the cloud deck. Johnny announced it as they entered.

“We’re out of the clouds,” he said. “Didn’t know it was coming. I mean, I didn’t interpret the signal corr–”

“Since I can’t see dingers out these windows, why not patch me into your bubble?” said Alex. “It would be nice to have some idea where I’m going.”

Just then, lightning flashed, illuminating the scene outside.

“Dingers,” said Alex as he saw the clear space.

Diver
was a few hundred feet beneath the overhanging deck, moving slowly past a hanging stalactite of cloud. The clear space was lit for only a second, but Mary and Alex were both watching the window when it hit.

“We’ve been here before,” said Mary. “Haven’t we, Alex?”

Mary’s kitten was back in her lap. It seemed to see the scene outside and sprang toward the window. In so doing its feet padded across the com. Mary’s lightning reflexes let her nab the kitten even before Alex could shout a warning. A bellow of protest from Johnny told him that the kitten had interfered with one or all of the Professor’s gadgets. Alex found the problem – a disconnected power coupling – and quickly corrected it.

What followed was the first real argument since the mission began. Johnny started it by admitting that he’d had second thoughts about the cat but hadn’t voiced them. Then Tony echoed the sentiment but added that he was against the idea of a cat being aboard from the outset.

“Well, who gave me the cat in the first place?” Mary argued, looking at Johnny angrily. “Don’t worry,” she added. “It won’t happen again.”

“And how will you manage that?” asked Tony. “Twenty-four hour vigil?”

Mary looked at Alex for support but he just shrugged. A look of pain spread across her perfect face. “No harm was done, was it?”

Johnny sighed. “We’ve got to solve this one.”

“Any ideas, Mr Engineer?” asked Alex, looking over his left shoulder.

“Simple. A leash,” said Sciarra without taking his eyes off his instruments. “Tie it to the back wall. Use some of the opticord.”

“But then she can’t sit in my lap,” protested Mary.

“Maybe you’d prefer your pet to kill us all,” said Tony, still not looking up for his instruments.

“Leash him to yourself when he’s with you in the chair,” said Johnny. “Tony’s right, of course. Surely you see that we can’t risk ...”

“I know, I know,” said Mary. “I don’t see why you’re all jumping on me about it. She hasn’t been a problem until now.”

“Okay, everybody,” said Alex. “You heard Johnny. That’s enough. That’s a good solution there. Enough said.” Then he looked at Mary. “We don’t want any more trouble, Mary, so I’d rig a leash as soon as possible.”