Cold as Ice (19 page)

Nell did the conversion as she checked her appearance in the mirror. (Simple clothes, no makeup. Just the one plain brooch on her blouse. She should have had the sense to prepare herself this way before the first time she met Brandt.) Four-fifty Ganymede time meant four and a half decimal hours, which was a bit less than half the day of ten decimal hours. So it was still morning, and four-and-a-half tenths—nine-twentieths—of the way through the day. Nine-twentieths of twenty-four. A bit before eleven o'clock in the old Earth measure.

Which meant that she was close to being late. And late was the same in
any
system of measurement.

Nell hurried along the corridor from her sleeping quarters, making slower progress than she desired because she could not find an efficient low-gravity gait. She was off the floor too long between steps, and if she tried to speed up, she simply lifted higher and went slower. The maintenance machines knew. They froze at her approach, although they carried on their work as usual around everyone else. The Ganymedeans whom she passed didn't freeze. They just watched, and grinned at her efforts.

She finally reached the elevator leading toward the surface and jumped aboard, wishing that she felt more like grinning herself.

At the moment, she felt betrayed. Logic told her that the feeling was nonsense. Jon Perry had not
asked
her to come with him to the Jovian system. It had not been his idea at all. She had forced herself on him, explaining that Glyn Sefaris wanted to do a program about the Galileian satellites. It had taken another effort to persuade Jon that since they were both going, it made sense for them to travel on the same transit vehicle. And yesterday she'd had to push him to introduce her to Hilda Brandt.

He had promised her nothing, made no commitment to her. He owed her not one thing, except perhaps to return the trivial favor of her providing him with a place to stay while he was in Arenas.

So just what was upsetting her so much about the obvious way that Jon Perry and Wilsa Sheer had been bowled over by each other? She liked Jon. She admitted that. Liked him a lot. But did she like him
that
much? And in
that
way?

Glyn Sefaris, in his passing reference to Nell's old affair with Pablo Roballo, had been giving her a warning: "You have a job to do. Don't let your personal feelings get in the way of it—the way you did before." Did she need that warning? Nell resented even the suggestion. Her job required that she stay physically close to Jon Perry, but that didn't mean she had to be
emotionally
close. She would find a way to go to Europa with Jon, but that was only to fulfill her assignment. And the need to reach Europa made her imminent meeting with Hilda Brandt more important than any self-indulgent notions of personal rejection.

Nell pushed aside her memory of Jon's quiet confidence in an emergency, of beautiful hands skipping across controls with uncanny speed and accuracy, of eyes that lit up with enthusiasm whenever he talked of the mystery and wonder of the deep ocean. It was the wrong time for
that
sort of thinking. She had reached the Assembly Suite, where she was to meet the Europan research director.

Hilda Brandt had told her to go right along to the end of it, where Brandt would be found tucked away in the private-dining area. Nell glanced at her wristwatch again. Four fifty-six. Which meant in Earth time that it was eleven—eleven? She struggled to do the conversion in her head, and failed. Damn all decimal times. Why the devil didn't they give her a watch with
both
timekeeping systems on it?

But she knew the answer to that. As long as you were allowed to use the old, you would never change to the new. People were people, here on Ganymede just as much as on Earth. That was why the Ganymedeans themselves had not managed to introduce a time system based on their own day-night cycle of a little more than an Earth week, matching the moon's revolution around Jupiter. Maybe in another generation they would force themselves to do that, too, and throw away all the old watches.

Hilda Brandt was there as promised, sitting staring at a fist-sized woolly pink ball on the table in front of her. Nell had the incongruous thought that the woman was
knitting
, until she saw that the ball was moving.

Brandt looked as motherly and good-natured as ever, her hair drawn back from her temples and her bright brown eyes peering at the round object as it crawled along the tabletop. She glanced up as Nell approached and chuckled at the expression on her face.

"No, Nell Cotter, it's not alive. Not quite. And it's perfectly harmless. This is a form of Von Neumann they use on Callisto for the collection of surface metals. Vanadium, this one is after, and it must be disappointed with the tabletop. I'm being asked to test it on Europa."

"I thought Europa's surface was all water-ice, except for Mount Ararat." Nell was delighted to move the conversation at once to the inner moon. "How can there be metals?"

"Oh, metals don't
stay
on the surface. They gradually sink down into the ice, because Jupiter's field induces eddy currents that keep them warm. In a few million years they finish up on the Europan seabed. But there's a steady resupply from meteorite impact—all sizes from dust specks to big boulders. Anything bigger than gravel sinks and is gone in the first second because of impact heat, so this little dear isn't designed to swallow anything more than a couple of millimeters across. But you'd be surprised at how much it can snuffle up over a few months."

"So you'll approve the Von Neumann's use on Europa?"

"Oh, no." Hilda Brandt was firm and matter-of-fact. Nell sensed a lot of strength beneath the easygoing exterior. "As I said, it's not quite alive, but there are live components to it. That makes it too big a risk of contamination. The whole point of Europa is that there must be
no
transfer of living materials. We are keeping it as a perfectly sterile world. A pristine planet." She smiled again. "But this one is awfully nice and cuddly. Here, feel it."

She passed the warm ball across to Nell, who took it gingerly. The woolly tendrils ran across the surface of her hand, pronounced her vanadium-free, and settled quietly into her palm. If Hilda Brandt would not accept the risk of contamination by this little Von Neumann, how must she be feeling about the discovery of
native
life on Europa? But maybe protection of that life was the main reason Brandt was so worried about contamination . . .

Life on Europa.
Nell stroked the furry little pink ball—could it make a popular pet back on Earth?—and returned to her own worries.
Never mind life on Europa, what about getting Nell Cotter on Europa?

"What did you decide, Dr. Brandt?" No point in putting it off.

Hilda Brandt could have had no doubt of what Nell meant, but she stared at her in surprise. "Didn't Dr. Perry tell you? I met with him first thing this morning. The submersible that he brought from Earth cannot be shipped to Europa for another few days, not until changes are made to remove any danger of contamination from it. But a primitive Jovian submersible that we already used for travel on Europa is ready for use again, and it is big enough to hold two people. There is no reason why another person should not go with Dr. Perry on his familiarization visit."

It was going to be yes
! Nell felt her anxieties wash away.

But Hilda Brandt was continuing. "However, since a readily available vessel will initially be used, and since no serious exploration can be done with that vessel, your experience on the
Spindrift
is not relevant. Dr. Perry requested that Wilsa Sheer go with him, instead of you, on the first trip to Europa. And since after her concert she now has celebrity status with the General Assembly, in the interests of public relations I did not object. I'm sorry. I can't think why Dr. Perry didn't tell you this before he left."

* * *

Don't kill the messenger.
It was the oldest rule for dealing with bad news, but the hardest to apply. Nell felt shock and anger. Hilda Brandt was not the cause, but she was
there.
Nell had an urge to pick a fight with the woman.

And Hilda Brandt knew it. Her expression of concern made things worse.

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I thought that you and he would already have discussed all this. Never mind. When the
Spindrift
is shipped to Europa, and the
real
exploration begins—"

Nell wasn't sure of how she was going to reply. Not politely, that was certain. Fortunately she was saved by the unexpected and noisy arrival of Tristan Morgan, clattering into the dining area—unexpected to Nell, for it would be a little while before she realized that people did not "accidentally" drop in on meetings in the private suites of the General Assembly.

Tristan looked as bad as Nell felt. He gave her a troubled nod. "Hilda—"he began. And then, "Miss Cotter! Do you know what's happened?"

"I do now."

"Did he mention anything about this to you?"

"I haven't even seen him since last night. Did she tell you?"

"No. I thought I'd be seeing her this afternoon, but she just left a message for me to say that she was going. She sounded excited, bubbling over at the idea of visiting another world. She wants to compare it with deep-cruising Jupiter."

Maybe Jon had left a message for Nell. She hadn't thought to look. Maybe there was even another explanation. Maybe she had not simply been dumped as a clinging nuisance in favor of Wilsa Sheer.

Maybe.

She and Tristan stared at each other, recognizing fellow victims, until Hilda Brandt said at last, "They'll be gone for only a couple of days. Then we'll sort this out. Tristan, you're all the time looking for more publicity for
Starseed.
Nell Cotter is a reporter, you know, and I hear she's a first-rate one. If you have the afternoon free—"

"I do
now
."

"—then you ought to show your work to Miss Cotter. I'm sure she has cameras with her."

Always, and everywhere. Nell lifted her work bag and showed them the multiple recorders. The subvocal mike was in position, too, but Nell never advertised that. And she didn't admit the presence of the micro-video concealed in the brooch on her blouse.

Tristan, from the look of him, wanted nothing less than Nell's company. But he had already admitted that his afternoon was free. Finally he nodded at her. "Last night you said that
Starseed
will use a helium-3/deuterium drive rather than a Moby. So you're not starting from scratch. How much do you know?"

Confession time.
"I edited a documentary on your project three or four years ago. That—what I remember of it—is all I know."

"Fine. Let's go teach you something substantial." Tristan Morgan sighed, but his old energetic manner was beginning to creep back. "Get your skates on—we'll be moving fast."

Run away, run away. Away from rejection.
Nell nodded, while Hilda Brandt looked on benevolently.

"Don't let him rush you," she said to Nell. "He considers that anything he knows must be easy, so he goes twice as fast as he ought to. Next time I see you, I hope you have a useful program in the bag. Be nice to her, Tristan."

She said
bag
, thought Nell as they left. But she was staring at my
brooch. I don't think I'd like to get into an argument with Hilda Brandt.

* * *

To run all the way out to the Jovian system, then to return weeks later with nothing more than a documentary about Project
Starseed
; Glyn Sefaris would skin her alive. Worse yet, he would be
amused.
She could hear him now: "How are the mighty fallen!"

Nell couldn't stand that. No matter how much Tristan loved his pet project, there had to be
something
more newsworthy than
Starseed
somewhere in the Jovian system. She would have to keep her eyes open.

The afternoon did not start well. Tristan rushed her over to a lab close to the Ganymede surface, sat her in front of a screen, and played a recording.

She endured it for ten minutes, while dozens of pictures of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Persephone, along with all of their moons, rolled by to the accompaniment of a woefully adenoidal voice-over.

"Tristan, I don't
watch
shows, I
make
shows. What's the point of all this?"

"Sorry. This is designed to point out that more than half of the useful resources of the solar system are beyond the orbit of Jupiter. We're not yet to the good stuff, but it's coming now."

They were beyond the known planets of the solar system, cruising from body to body in the Oort Cloud.

"Courtesy of DOS," said Tristan, overriding the spoken commentary. "A few weeks ago we didn't have anything like these pictures. Comets in the making, though I'm sure we'll get to most of them long before they start to fall into the solar system, and use them for something else. That one's about thirty kilometers across. According to the spectroscope, it's pure volatiles. DOS could spot something on its surface the size of a mouse. Of course, if there
is
life in the Cloud, it would be microscopic. And hidden away inside."

Useless for a program.
Nell was adding comments automatically, although she was not recording any video.
The only thing worth having on record is Tristan Morgan's intensity. That would come across—if he had anything worth hearing.

". . . and when we reach the edge of the Cloud, what then?" The adenoidal voice-over was back. "Well, then we are still less than a quarter of the way to our nearest stellar neighbors. So let us examine the nearer stars . . ."

Nell was reaching the limit of her tolerance. But so, apparently, was Tristan.

"I know, dull stuff." He switched off. "It's all very useful for a hundred years from now, but what you saw at the
beginning
is a lot more important to us. The Outer System, beyond Jupiter. That's where the action's going to be. The old Inner System—Earth, Mars, even the Belt worlds—that's all dead."

Just the words to include in a show that would have its largest audiences on Earth and Mars. But strange words, too, from a man whose life work was supposedly devoted to the unmanned probes that would explore the stars, the same stars that he had casually dismissed as dull stuff.