2010 Odyssey Two

THE TRIAL Chapter 6: DEVOURER OF WORLDS Chapter 46 Countdown
No one would ever believe this without my photos, thought Max Brailovsky as he orbited the two ships from half a kilometre away. It seems comically indecent, as if Leonov is raping Discovery. And now that he came to think of it, the rugged, compact Russian ship did look positively male, when compared with the delicate, slender American one. But most docking operations had distinctly sexual overtones, and he remembered that one of the early cosmonauts - he couldn't recall the name - had been reprimanded for his too vivid choice of words at the - er, climax of his mission.

As far as he could tell from his careful survey, everything was in order. The task of positioning the two ships and securing them firmly together had taken longer than anticipated. It would never have been possible at all without one of those strokes of luck that sometimes - not always -favour those who deserve them. Leonov had providentially carried several kilometres of carbon filament tape, no bigger than the ribbon a girl might use to tie her hair, yet capable of taking a strain of many tons. It had been thoughtfully provided to secure instrument packages to Big Brother if all else failed. Now it wrapped Leonov and Discovery in tender embrace - sufficiently firmly, it was hoped, to prevent any rattlings and shakings at all accelerations up to the one-tenth of a gravity that was the maximum that full thrust could provide.

'Anything more you want me to check before I come home?' asked Max.

'No,' replied Tanya. 'Everything looks fine. And we can't waste any more time.'

That was true enough. If that mysterious warning was to be taken seriously - and everyone now took it very seriously indeed - they should start their escape manoeuvre within the next twenty-four hours.

'Right - I'm bringing Nina back to the stable. Sorry about this, old girl.'

'You never told us Nina was a horse.'

'I'm not admitting it now. And I feel bad about dumping her here in space, just to give us a miserable few extra metres per second.'

'We may be very glad of them in a few hours, Max. Anyway, there's always a chance that someone may come and pick her up again, one day.'

I very much doubt it, thought Max. And perhaps, after all, it was appropriate to leave the little space pod there, as a permanent reminder of Man's first visit to the kingdom of Jupiter.

With gentle, carefully timed pulses from the control jets he brought Nina around the great sphere of Discovery's main life-support module; his colleagues on the flight deck barely glanced at him as he drifted past their curving window. The open Pod Bay door yawned before him, and he jockeyed Nina delicately down on to the extended docking arm.

'Pull me in,' he said, as soon as the latches had clicked shut. 'I call that a well-planned EVA. There's a whole kilogram of propellant left to take Nina out for the last time.'

Normally, there was little drama about a burn in deep space; it was not like the fire and thunder - and always present risks - of a lift-off from a planetary surface. If something went wrong, and the motors failed to come up to full thrust - well, matters could usually be corrected by a slightly longer burn. Or one could wait until the appropriate point in orbit, and try again.

But this time, as the countdown proceeded toward zero, the tension aboard both ships was almost palpable. Everyone knew that it was the first real test of Hal's docility; only Floyd, Curnow, and the Orlovs realized that there was a back-up system. And even they were not absolutely sure that it would work.

'Good luck, Leonov,' said Mission Control, timing the message to arrive five minutes before ignition. 'Hope everything's running smoothly. And if it's not too much trouble, could you please get some close-ups of the equator, longitude 115, as you go around Jupiter. There's a curious dark spot there - presumably some kind of upwelling, perfectly round, almost a thousand kilometres across. Looks like the shadow of a satellite, but it can't be.'

Tanya made a brief acknowledgement that managed to convey, in a remarkably few words, a profound lack of interest in the meteorology of Jupiter at that moment. Mission Control sometimes showed a perfect genius for tactlessness and poor timing.

'All systems functioning normally,' said Hal. 'Two minutes to ignition.'

Strange, thought Floyd, how terminology often survives long after the technology that gave it birth. Only chemical rockets were capable of ignition; even if the hydrogen in a nuclear or plasma drive did come into contact with oxygen, it would be far too hot to burn. At such temperatures, all compounds were stripped back into their elements.

His mind wandered, seeking other examples. People - particularly older ones - still spoke of putting film into a camera, or gas into a car. Even the phrase 'cutting a tape' was still sometimes heard in recording studios - though that embraced two generations of obsolete technologies.

'One minute to ignition.'

His mind flashed back to the here and now. This was the minute that counted; for almost a hundred years, on launch pads and in control centres, this was the longest sixty seconds that had ever existed. Countless times it had ended in disaster; but only the triumphs were remembered. Which will ours be?

The temptation to put his hand once more into the pocket that held the activator for the cut-out switch was almost irresistible, even though logic told him there was plenty of time for remedial action. If Hal failed to obey his programming, that would be a nuisance - not a disaster. The really critical time would be when they were rounding Jupiter.

'Six... five... four... three... two... one. IGNITION!'

At first, the thrust was barely perceptible; it took almost a minute to build up to the full tenth of a gee. Nevertheless, everyone started clapping immediately, until Tanya signalled for silence. There were many checks to be made; even if Hal was doing his best - as he certainly seemed to be - there was so much that could still go wrong.

Discovery's antenna mount - which was now taking most of the strain from Leonov's inertia - had never been intended for such mistreatment. The ship's chief designer, called out of retirement, had sworn that the safety margin was adequate. But he might be wrong, and materials had been known to become brittle after years in space.

And the tapes holding the two ships together might not have been located accurately; they might stretch or slip. Discovery might not be able to correct for the off-centre of mass, now that it was carrying a thousand tons piggyback. Floyd could imagine a dozen things that could go wrong; it was little consolation to remember that it was always the thirteenth that actually happened.

But the minutes dragged on uneventfully; the only proof that Discovery's engines were operating was the fractional, thrust-induced gravity and a very slight vibration transmitted through the walls of the ships. Io and Jupiter still hung where they had been for weeks, on opposite sides of the sky.

'Cut-off in ten seconds. Nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three,.. two... NOW!'

'Thank you, Hal, On the button.'

Now that was another phrase that was badly dated; for at least a generation, touch pads had almost entirely replaced buttons. But not for all applications; in critical cases, it was best to have a device that moved perceptibly with a nice, satisfying click.

'I confirm that,' said Vasili. 'No need for any corrections until mid-course.'

'Say goodbye to glamorous, exotic Io - real estate agent's dream world,' said Curnow. 'We'll all be happy to miss you.'

That sounds more like the old Walter, Floyd told himself. For the last few weeks, he had been oddly subdued, as if he had something on his mind. (But who did not?) He seemed to spend a good deal of his scanty free time in quiet discussions with Katerina: Floyd hoped that he had not developed some medical problem. They had been very lucky so far on that score; the last thing they needed at this stage was an emergency that required the Surgeon-Commander's expertise.

'You're being unkind, Walter,' said Brailovsky. 'I was beginning to like the place. It might be fun to go boating on those lava lakes.'

'What about a volcano barbecue?'

'Or genuine molten sulphur baths?'

Everyone was lighthearted, even a little hysterical with relief. Though it was far too early to relax and the most critical phase of the escape manoeuvre still lay ahead, the first step had been safely taken on the long journey home. That was cause enough for a little modest rejoicing.

It did not last long, for Tanya quickly ordered all those not on essential duty to get some rest - if possible, some sleep - in preparation for the Jupiter swing-by only nine hours ahead. When those addressed were slow to move, Sasha cleared the decks by shouting, 'You'll hang for this, you mutinous dogs!' Only two nights before, as a rare relaxation, they had all enjoyed the fourth version of Mutiny on the Bounty, generally agreed by movie historians to have the best Captain Bligh since the fabled Charles Laughton. There was some feeling on board that Tanya should not have seen it, lest it give her ideas.

After a couple of restless hours in his cocoon, Floyd abandoned the quest for sleep and wandered up to the observation deck. Jupiter was much larger and slowly waning as the ships hurtled toward their closest approach over the nightside. A glorious, gibbous disk, it showed such an infinite wealth of detail - cloud belts, spots of every colour from dazzling white to brick red, dark upwellings from the unknown depths, the cyclonic oval of the Great Red Spot -that the eye could not possibly absorb it all. The round, dark shadow of one moon - probably Europa, Floyd guessed - was in transit. He was seeing this incredible sight for the last time; even though he had to be at maximum efficiency in six hours, it was a crime to waste precious moments in sleep.

Where was that spot that Mission Control had asked them to observe? It should have been coming into view, but Floyd was not sure if it would be visible to the naked eye. Vasili would be too busy to bother about it; perhaps he could help by doing a little amateur astronomy. There had, after all, been a brief time, only thirty years ago, when he had earned his living as a professional.

He activated the controls of the main fifty-centimetre telescope - fortunately, the field of view was not blocked by the adjacent bulk of Discovery - and scanned along the equator at medium power. And there it was, just coming over the edge of the disk.

By force of circumstance, Floyd was now one of the Solar System's ten greatest experts on Jupiter; the other nine were working or sleeping around him. He saw at once that there was something very odd about this spot; it was so black that it looked like a hole punched through the clouds. From his point of view it appeared to be a sharp-edged ellipse; Floyd guessed that from directly above, it would be a perfect circle.

He recorded a few images, then increased the power to maximum. Already Jupiter's rapid spin had brought the formation into clearer view; and the more he stared, the more puzzled Floyd became.

'Vasili,' he called over the intercom, 'if you can spare a minute - have a look at the fifty-centimetre monitor.'

'What are you observing? Is it important? I'm checking the orbit.'

'Take your time, of course. But I've found that spot Mission Control reported. It looks very peculiar.'

'Hell! I'd forgotten all about it. We're a fine lot of observers if those guys back on Earth have to tell us where to look. Give me another five minutes - it won't run away.'

True enough, thought Floyd; in fact it will get clearer. And there was no disgrace in missing something that terrestrial - or lunar - astronomers had observed. Jupiter was very big, they had been very busy, and the telescopes on the Moon and in Earth orbit were a hundred times more powerful than the instrument he was using now.

But it was getting more and more peculiar. For the first time, Floyd began to feel a distinct sense of unease. Until that moment, it had never occurred to him that the spot could be anything but a natural formation - some trick of Jupiter's incredibly complex meteorology. Now he began to wonder.

It was so black, like night itself. And so symmetrical; as it came into clearer view it was obviously a perfect circle. Yet it was not sharply defined; the edge had an odd fuzziness, as if it was a little out of focus.

Was it imagination, or had it grown, even while he was watching? He made a quick estimate, and decided that the thing was now two thousand kilometres across. It was only a little smaller than the still-visible shadow of Europa, but was so much darker that there was no risk of confusion.

'Let's have a look,' said Vasili, in a rather condescending tone. 'What do you think you've found? Oh...' His voice trailed away into silence.

This is it, thought Floyd, with a sudden icy conviction. Whatever it may be.