2010 Odyssey Two

THE TRIAL Chapter 3: DISCOVERY Chapter 15 Escape from the Giant
When Floyd reached the observation deck - a discreet few minutes after Zenia - Jupiter already seemed farther away. But that must be an illusion based on his knowledge, not the evidence of his eyes. They had barely emerged from the Jovian atmosphere, and the planet still filled half the sky.

And now they were - as intended - its prisoners. During the last incandescent hour, they had deliberately jettisoned the excess speed that could have carried them right out of the Solar System, and on to the stars. Now they were travelling in an ellipse - a classical Hohmann orbit - which would shuttle them back between Jupiter and the orbit of Io, 350,000 kilometres higher. If they did not - or could not - fire their motors again, Leonov would swing back and forth between these limits, completing one revolution every nineteen hours. It would become the closest of Jupiter's moons - though not for long. Each time it grazed the atmosphere it would lose altitude, until it spiralled into destruction.

Floyd had never really enjoyed vodka, but he joined the others without any reservations in drinking a triumphant toast to the ship's designers, coupled with a vote of thanks to Sir Isaac Newton. Then Tanya put the bottle firmly back in its cupboard; there was still much to be done.

Though they were all expecting it, everyone jumped at the sudden muffled thud of explosive charges, and the jolt of separation. A few seconds later, a large, still-glowing disk floated into view, slowly turning end-over-end as it drifted away from the ship.

'Look!' cried Max. 'A flying saucer! Who's got a camera?' There was a distinct note of hysterical relief in the laughter that followed. It was interrupted by the captain, in a more serious vein.

'Goodbye, faithful heat shield! You did a wonderful job.'

'But what a waste!' said Sasha. 'There's at least a couple of tons left, Think of all the extra payload we could have carried!'

'If that's good, conservative Russian engineering,' retorted Floyd, 'then I'm all for it. Far better a few tons too much - than one milligram too little.'

Everyone applauded those noble sentiments as the jetti soned shield cooled to yellow, then red, and finally became as black as the space around it. It vanished from sight while only a few kilometres away, though occasionally the sudden reappearance of an eclipsed star would betray its presence.

'Preliminary orbit check completed,' said Vasili. 'We're within ten metres a second of our right vector. Not bad for a first try.'

There was a subdued sigh of relief at the news, and a few minutes later Vasili made another announcement.

'Changing attitude for course correction; delta vee six metres a second. Twenty-second burn coming up in one minute.'

They were still so close to Jupiter it was impossible to believe that the ship was orbiting the planet; they might have been in a high-flying aircraft that had just emerged from a sea of clouds. There was no sense of scale; it was easy to imagine that they were speeding away from some terrestrial sunset; the reds and pinks and crimsons sliding below were so familiar.

And that was an illusion; nothing here had any parallels with Earth. Those colours were intrinsic, not borrowed from the setting sun. The very gases were utterly alien - methane and ammonia and a witch's brew of hydrocarbons, stirred in a hydrogen-helium cauldron. Not one trace of free oxygen, the breath of human life.

The clouds marched from horizon to horizon in parallel rows, distorted by occasional swirls and eddies. Here and there upwellings of brighter gas broke the pattern, and Floyd could also see the dark rim of a great whirlpool, a maelstrom of gas leading down into unfathomable Jovian depths.

He began to look for the Great Red Spot, then quickly checked himself at such a foolish thought. All the enormous cloudscape he could see below would be only a few per cent of the Red Spot's immensity; one might as well expect to recognize the shape of the United States from a small aeroplane flying low above Kansas.

'Correction completed. We're now on interception orbit with Io. Arrival time: eight hours, fifty-five minutes.'

Less than nine hours to climb up from Jupiter and meet whatever is waiting for us, thought Floyd. We've escaped from the giant - but he represents a danger we understood, and could prepare for. What lies ahead now is utter mystery.

And when we have survived that challenge, we must return to Jupiter once again. We shall need his strength to send us safely home.