Tabby, the mechbot assigned to the now-defunct reactor, was too radioactive to leave with a rukh. Instead, it was recalled to take Kitty’s place as outside mechbot, while the humans took over Puss’s inside tasks, which had mostly consisted of making coffee and washing dishes.
With an anxious Rod reminding them almost hourly about the dwindling meta supply, the crew completed their preparations. After a hunting dive where the flock had allowed Peregrine to stay at the feeding point of the hunting cone until its gizzards were full, Peregrine flew around to each member of the flock to say good-bye and left for the equator. Since Uppereye now had its own video monitor on its mechbot, one of the last things the humans did was to bring in the portable console that Sandra and Uppereye had been using for language lessons and reinstall it back at the commander’s position.
Sexdent
was now ready for liftoff as soon as Peregrine got it into position.
~ * ~
“Say,” said Chastity as she turned over the watch duty to Rod two days later. “Peregrine is really moving along. With Lowereye hunting at high speed during the day to make up for Uppereye’s slower climb at night, our speed has been averaging a hundred kilometers per hour, which adds up to a thousand kilometers a Saturnian day. We should be at the equator in another eighty hours.”
“Good,” replied Rod grudgingly. “The faster we get there the more meta we’ll have.”
~ * ~
They spent the next daylight period pulling in and storing the habitats. Rod wanted to leave them behind, but Dan objected on medical grounds. “We each need a separate tube to get our daily gravity exercises. Besides, having your own place, where you can get away from everyone else for a while, is going to be essential for maintaining our sanity on the journey back. I know for sure I couldn’t stand to see
your
ugly mug nonstop for a whole year.”
Since the thin-walled habitat tubes only weighed eighty-five kilos each and they had identified a couple of tons of other pieces of equipment and hardware that could be unbolted and dumped, Rod reluctantly agreed. Seichi’s habitat and all the other nonessential equipment were then cycled through the airlock and placed outside on Peregrine’s back to decrease the mass
Sexdent
had to haul into orbit. Plumber Dan then spent a day re-plumbing the air and water tanks, adding dump valves leading to the outside on some of them.
~ * ~
The time to leave came sooner than they thought. Four Saturnian days later, as the light from the rising Sun was turning the ammonia clouds above them a bright reddish-orange, Rod checked in on the control deck after breakfast, taking over the pilot console to give Chastity a chance to have something to eat too. “How’s it going?”
“Real good,” said Chastity, relinquishing the pilot seat. “We’re approaching four degrees north.”
“Only a few days more and we’ll be at the equator and can head for home,” said Rod.
“Actually, we might be better off if we make our ran today,” said Chastity.
“How so?” said Rod, somewhat surprised.
“I’ve been having the orbiters obtain detailed Doppler maps of the horizontal wind speeds along the limb,” said Chastity. “Right now, the eastward velocity of the winds increases as the latitude decreases, but instead of peaking right at zero latitude, there seems to be a double peak in wind speed on either side of the equator. The maximum wind velocity is now at about four degrees north and south. Another orbiter should be coming over soon. Its Doppler should be able to get a good measurement of the wind speeds right at our position. We should be close to the peak.” Rod took her seat as she climbed down the ladder to the galley. She was halfway through her breakfast of biscuits and sausage gravy when Rod called down.
“You were right, Chass,” he said. “We’re smack-dab on the peak. We can go today as soon as Saturn rotates us around to the proper takeoff point on the opposite side of the planet from Titan. I figure three-and-a-half hours.” There was a pause. “That’s funny ...”
Chastity didn’t like the tone, so she left her breakfast to cool in the galley and was back up the ladder in seconds.
“The video picture coming from the satellite shows there’s a big white spot growing under us,” said Rod, pointing to the screen. The console had a small blinking dot that indicated the position of the
Sexdent.
Surrounding the dot was a large white region that showed up in sharp contrast to the typical “Saturn-orange” color of the rest of the equatorial band.
“That white cloud wasn’t there five hours ago when we went into darkness at the beginning of my shift,” said Chastity. “I distinctly remember, since I was having the orbiter make wind velocity measurements as we crossed the terminator.”
Rod now had an enlarged version of the white spot on his screen. “It’s really growing fast,” he said. “Looks like a gathering of thunderheads building up in the afternoon after a long hot muggy summer day.”
“That must be the Great White Spot that the scientists have been asking us to keep a lookout for. According to them, it comes once every Saturn year, right around aphelion. Looks like it’s early this time. I’ll ask Sandra, she’s out saying goodbye to Uppereye since it’s almost time for Uppereye’s daytime nap.” She slipped into the scotty chair and activated the comm link to Sandra’s helmet. She didn’t talk immediately, since she could feel the rumble of Peregrine’s voice through the floor of the capsule, so she knew Sandra was busy listening to the version frequency-shifted by Jeeves.
“What is the problem?” Sandra was saying to Uppereye. There was another rumble, then Uppereye left rapidly, its eye blinking nervously and its multitude of claws pushing against the feathertops to assist the contraction of the inflated neck as Uppereye headed toward the prow of the bird. With Uppereye gone, Chastity spoke.
“What
was
the problem?” asked Chastity. “Although I think I know what the answer is going to be.”
“Uppereye got a mind link from Lowereye right after he woke up,” said Sandra. “Something about the mythological millistoma.”
“I don’t think it’s mythological,” said Rod from the pilot console. “Here’s a max-res video image from the orbiter of what is right down below us.” He punched icons on his console, and the holoviewport in front of Chastity and the holovisor on Sandra’s helmet both lit up with a strange sight. The entire screen was filled with a myriad of cloud columns that looked like a pot of oatmeal boiling on the stove, rapidly rising higher in the pot and about to boil over.
“What a storm!” said Sandra, awed. “We’re in for some turbulence.”
“More than that,” said Rod. “This is a max-res radar scan taken by the orbiter that shows what’s beneath those clouds, and rising up with it.”
The image in the holoviewports now had superimposed on the visible cloud image a speckled artificial radar image of a pattern of circles. The circles were very close together and formed a semi-regular pattern that covered the image from side to side.
“What is it?” asked Chastity. “Looks like the spots on a leopard skin—although they’re all of different sizes.”
“I’ve seen something like that before,” said Sandra, in a bemused scientific tone. “Remember the ribbonswimmer that Dan and I dissected after it hit the tether? It consisted of nothing but a lot of mouths, each a separate primitive animal, but all connected together into one larger creature, like a sponge or a coral reef. The pattern here is similar. Simple basic element ... different sizes ... semi-regular pattern ... but this is so much bigger than a ribbonswimmer. How big is it, anyway?”
“As big as a small state,” said Chastity. “Nothing but a lot of mouths, stretching from horizon to horizon to horizon to horizon—”
“Mouths,” said Rod grimly. “Thousands of mouths, wouldn’t you say, Sandra?”
“Looks like I’d better change the name from
Millistoma mythicus
to
Millistoma gigas,“
said Sandra. “Next time Uppereye tells me something, I’m going to believe it, no matter how mythological it sounds. But it’s beginning to make some sense,” she added, her scientist brain trying to comprehend the meaning of what her eyes were seeing. “All the lifeforms in the clouds eventually fall into the depths—a constant ‘rain’ of food. This creature probably normally lives down in the boiling hot depths, just like an algae mat at the bottom of a hot spring on Earth, living off that falling detritus. Has to stay simple to be able to survive in such hot air. The rising air column has lifted it up to our altitude.”
All of them could feel the acceleration surges beneath their feet as the jets on either side of Peregrine increased their tempo and strength as the giant bird climbed in altitude in an attempt to escape the uprising millistoma.
“You’d better get in here, Sandra,” commanded Rod. He met her a few minutes later in the airlock. Instead of turning his back to let her strip down and get into her coveralls, he took her helmet from her hands the minute she raised it from her head. “Forget about changing into something comfortable. I’m going to need you to raise Uppereye on the mechbot communicator right away. You
have
to convince Uppereye to keep Peregrine on a due east course until we get to the right launch point.”
Fortunately, the radar images from the orbiter showed that the best escape route lay to the northeast, so both Rod and Lowereye were adequately satisfied with Peregrine heading in that direction. Uppereye brought the air-speed indicator down to where Lowereye could see it, and soon Peregrine was on a course that slowly increased in altitude while maintaining a high speed. Lowereye protested that he could make Peregrine fly much higher and faster if the humans would hurry up and leave. Uppereye passed his concern on to Sandra, who promised that they would leave as soon as they could, and immediately if the danger got any greater.
“You shouldn’t have made that promise,” growled Rod as Sandra closed down the laser link to the mechbot. “I’m the one that has command responsibility for the crew.” Sandra turned to face Rod, her face clouded with exasperation.
“The crew you are responsible for is not made up of just us humans,” she said forcefully. “It includes Peregrine. If it weren’t for the hard work and bravery of that volunteer member of your crew, we humans would now be slowly starving to death at twenty-two degrees north!” She didn’t wait for an answer but headed for the ladder. “I’m going to get out of this sauna-suit and into something more comfortable.”
“She’s right,” agreed Rod in a chastened tone as she left. “We’re all in this mess, humans and rukh together, and I’ll do my damnedest to get us
all
out.” He turned to Chastity. “How does the situation look? Can Peregrine escape the millistoma at its present speed?”
Chastity started tapping on her pilot console, the pinky on her left arm punching Function and Shift icons while the five fingers on her right hand tapped at the letter and number icon keys. The bodies of the crew rocked slightly at each accelerating jet pulse emitted by the giant body beneath them as they waited for Chastity to take Jeeves through the calculations. Soon she had on her screen a cross-sectional view of the surface of the millistoma as determined by the radars on the various orbiters circling Saturn. It contained gently curved “hills” where the upwelling warm air currents had raised the blanket-like body of the millistoma higher, with shallow “valleys” in between. Above the curving “terrain” was a line indicating the climbing slope of Peregrine’s trajectory with a flashing white point indicating Peregrine’s present position. The trajectory passed well over the highest “hill” on the millistoma surface. At a point farther along the trajectory, on the other side of the hill, was a reddish-purple flashing dot with the notation “Launch Point.”
“Right now Peregrine is on an escape path,” said Chastity. “We should reach the launch point in two hours.” She paused as she studied the drawing more closely. “But the millistoma is still rising, so I’d better have Jeeves make some future projections.” She started punching the icons on her screen again. Rod turned to Dan, who had taken over the scottyboard after Sandra had gone.
“In the meantime, Dan, you’d better get Tabby busy cutting all the lines holding us on Peregrine’s back. We may have to leave sooner than we thought.”
“It’s going to be close,” Chastity finally concluded. “There is a portion of the millistoma that is rising up right in front of us. According to Jeeves’s projections, it might intersect Peregrine’s trajectory before we get there.”
“How about another trajectory?” suggested Rod. “Preferably one heading due east.”
“Tried that option,” said Chastity. “There’s a ‘pass’ through the ‘mountains’ toward the east, but it could close before we get there. The projections are just not certain enough.”
“As long as we’re not in immediate danger, then we’ll wait until the projections are firmer,” decided Rod.
The minutes dragged on. When Sandra returned in her coveralls, Rod had her take over his command console so she could open up contact with Uppereye again.
“Explain the situation to her,” said Rod. “Do you think she can understand Chastity’s diagram?”
“I’m pretty sure she can,” said Sandra. “She seemed to understand orbital trajectory diagrams when I drew them on the screen.”
“And reassure her that I’m as concerned about Peregrine’s safety as I’m concerned about my own ... and that of the rest of the crew, of course.”
Unfortunately, Chastity had to depend upon the radars in the orbiters to obtain accurate maps of the altitude of the surface of the millistoma, so the information on the present position of the millistoma only came sporadically.