Cold as Ice (23 page)

The blow of the fist had shattered the world below into concentric circles. Chromatic rings spread across the planet. Those outgoing ripples of color in turn set up musical resonances. A melodic fragment expanded and took shape inside her. She began the conscious, near-sensual process of thematic development.

That she and Jon held widely divergent views of the approaching world of Europa did not worry her, or even arouse much interest. Anyone with a talent for polyphony knew that two themes, totally different in style, mood, and content, could coexist in perfect harmony. She saw, as Jon probably did not, that both of them were right about Europa.

Even the strange bond between the two of them, created at their first meeting, did not worry her. So much of her internal world would not yield to logical analysis. Take the themes that were drifting even now inside her head. They surely would not have appeared without the multihued panorama of Europa, Mount Ararat, and the bright shaft of the landing laser. But how could an impact on one sense stir the creative impulse in another?
The synesthesia of inspiration
: That was something she had never seen explained, scarcely heard discussed. And yet it happened, again and again. Visual inputs could transmute and then emerge from the crucible of the mind as golden music; architecture could give birth to great sonnets; music could inspire immortal words.

Wilsa drifted on toward Europa, her soul singing. The final planet-fall at the Mount Ararat spaceport came as no more than an annoying interruption.

* * *

Jon had heard Hilda Brandt talk of an uncontaminated Europa and had wondered how she—or anyone—could hope to keep it that way.

Now he knew. The only access to the untouched interior of the world was through Blowhole, with the surface elsewhere protected by an unbroken breastplate of ice. And to reach Blowhole, any living thing would have to do what he and Wilsa had just done: travel across twenty kilometers of open ice from Mount Ararat, in a temperature so cold that escaping air would freeze and drift down as tiny flakes of oxygen and nitrogen.

But suppose that by some miracle of hardiness, a living organism were to escape the settlement on Mount Ararat, survive the cold, and drift out toward Blowhole? Then it would have to endure an even deadlier attack. The particle flux on Europa's surface was lethal to any unsuited creature. The outside of the suits that Jon and Wilsa were wearing needed no human-designed sterilization program. Nature had provided.

With such safeguards, there was only one threat to the sanctity of Europa's interior ocean: the submersibles that might descend into it. And those were protected by a small but vigilant staff.

In the first two minutes, Jon had recognized the female and two males assigned to receive them at Mount Ararat spaceport and accompany them across the ice to Blowhole. He had not recognized them
individually
, of course, but as a familiar type. They were matter-of-fact, knowledgeable, casual, and impersonal. They were Jon himself, transported across a billion kilometers of space.

Or rather, they were Jon as he had been before his beloved hydrothermal-vent project had been axed. After that, he had been thrown away, first into the political mixer of Arenas, then out across the solar system with Nell Cotter. He was not sure how much of the old Jon still survived.

The staff of Mount Ararat recognized Jon, too. He might be their savior, by confirming the existence of native Europan life forms and protecting the world from a development they did not want. But even if he could not do that, he was someone who shared their language of science and technology.

They did not know at all, though, what to make of Wilsa. Famous she might be throughout the Belt, and now on Ganymede, but her reputation had not carried as far as the Europan scientific community. No one reacted to her name. They registered only her naive comments and questions. Jon was amused to note that after the first few minutes they addressed all their explanations of mechanisms and procedures to him.

"When you're inside, you'll be hermetically sealed off from the exterior." One of the men, his muscles bulging beneath his tight suit in a way that made nonsense of the low-gravity environment, had opened the top of the submersible and was pointing within. "You'll have your own air and food, even your own water supply. It sounds silly, I know, with water all around you, but we don't want any danger of mixing and contamination. If water has a way to get in, pee might find a way out. Oh, and don't forget that the ship doesn't have a particle-flux shield. You mustn't take your suits off until you're at least a few meters under water. At that point, you'll be safe. All right, let's take a look at the controls."

He climbed inside, gesturing to Jon and Wilsa to follow. Wilsa went first, up the three steps that led to the snug elliptical interior. Jon trailed behind to take a last look around. He had stood like this in central Antarctica, back on Earth, and had been overwhelmed by the thought that beneath his feet lay a mile and more of ice. If he walked for a hundred days in any direction, that would still be true. Here he had that same mile of ice beneath his feet—although below it lay not land, but more miles of water; and he could walk not for a hundred days, but
forever.
Except for the insignificant pimple of Mount Ararat, Europa's icy girdle was complete and unbroken.

Jon looked up, searching for Jupiter. Then he realized that he would never see its looming presence here. The king of the Outer System remained forever on the far side of Europa, holding the moon so that Mount Ararat faced always away from the great planet. But even after sunset, and without Jupiter's reflected sunlight, it was not dark. Ganymede and Callisto were visible in the sky to provide a sinister twilight. They showed the long, smoothed ramp leading from the submersible to Blowhole, to open water that sat like a black, staring-eye pupil a hundred meters away.

Jon finally managed to make his legs work, and climbed the steps.

"Of course, you're used to those terrific water submersibles you have back on Earth." The man had waited for Jon before he began his gruff explanation. "I doubt if you've ever seen anything as primitive as the
Danae
here. But everything works. The controls and dials will just be somewhat unfamiliar and take a little getting used to. Sit down, and I'll run you through checkout. We'll go really slow at first. Don't be afraid to tell me if you want anything repeated. Use "Sandstrom" as your info ID—that's me, I'm Buzz Sandstrom—to get you into the system."

Jon nodded and began to move to the pilot's seat. Before he could get there, Wilsa pushed ahead of him and set her hands on the
Danae
's controls.

"Level-One check," she said. And then her fingers were traveling across the console of keys and switches at a speed that even Jon—PacAnt's fastest, four years in a row—was not sure he could have beaten even on his own familiar equipment. Displays flickered and raced, audio beeped, tiny warning lights flashed on and off.

"Clear on One," said Wilsa in a cheerful, witless voice. "Hold your hats. Beginning Level Two."

The second and more complex phase of the checkout began. And ended even more rapidly.

"Clear on Two." Wilsa turned to beam at Sandstrom. "Ready for operation. I guess we can go anytime."

"Well."
The man gave Jon and Wilsa a black glare through his suit visor. "Well, I guess you damn well can." He climbed out of the
Danae
submersible without another word or a backward look.

The sealing cover came crashing down like an accusing voice aimed right at Jon. It said,
"You bastard. Why didn't you tell me you brought a hotshot Jovian pilot with you? Then I wouldn't have made an ass of myself."

"Wilsa. How the devil were you able to—"

"Sorry." But she didn't look it, not at all. "They said that this submersible was like the ones used to monitor the Von Neumanns down in Jupiter's atmosphere. I didn't realize until I saw the control board that it would be
identical.
I don't think they've changed a switch. This one is direct control, and I piloted using a remote. But direct is easier."

"Well, you didn't have to show off like that. Now Sandstrom thinks I set him up."

"That's right." Wilsa was smiling. "That's what you get for cutting me out of the conversation. I have feelings, too, you know. I don't like it when people talk
around
me, as though I'm some sort of animated pumpkin, just because I'm not a trained scientist. Do you want to take over now?"

"No." Jon wasn't angry. Not quite. "You be my guest. But just remember one thing. This is
real.
If you're stupid enough to smash into a rock face or take us too deep for the hull, you won't find yourself safe on Hebe Station when it's over. You'll be dead. Now go ahead."

Jon had three reasons for saying that. First, Wilsa had shown no inclination to move from the pilot's seat; second, he liked the role of observer of this new world; and third, he wanted to see how well she could
perform.
She had extraordinary physical coordination; he had known that since the first minute of her concert on Ganymede. The dazzling and independent finger speed of two minutes ago had confirmed it.

But checkout was one thing, routine and standardized. Piloting was another. How would Wilsa handle the hundred little decisions that had to be made in submarine cruising? He could take over if she got into trouble, but he was ornery enough to avoid doing that unless he really had to. Let her stew and find out for herself that there was more to piloting than ten-finger—or twenty-digit—exercises.

But before he became too cocky, he needed to confirm a few facts for himself about the
Danae.
This wasn't the
Spindrift
, designed to wander the deepest of Earth's oceans and with a hull strengthened accordingly. The
Spindrift
was rated to stand fifteen hundred Earth atmospheres, more than enough to allow it to plumb Europa's farthermost seabed; but the
Danae
, quickly converted from Jovian atmospheric use, didn't have that strength. The plan, after they returned to the surface, was to modify it to withstand full oceanic pressure, but for the moment its hull was rated at only a meager couple of thousand tons per square meter.

Jon called the Europan depth profiles onto his observer screen. This was a small, light world, lacking Earth's dense metallic core, but if you went deep enough, you would still meet huge pressures. And in Europa's ocean, you
could
go deep—a hundred kilometers and more if the bathymetry charts were accurate. He would visit that abyss eventually and be the first being to explore the deep Europan seabed directly.

Not today, though. He read off the tabulated values. They shouldn't go below fifteen kilometers in the
Danae.
Fifteen was deep enough to reach a couple of the shallow hydrothermal vents but not to visit the one he really cared about; Scaldino was forty-seven kilometers down, where the water pressure was six hundred atmospheres and the seafloor temperature might rise to within a few degrees of blood heat. For Europa, that was a superheated black smoker, the equivalent of Earth's Hotpot.

So today stay above ten kilometers for safety and forget any idea of real work. Hilda Brandt had been right. This could be no more than an exercise in familiarization and sight-seeing.

Jon felt a vibration in his seat, stared out of the curved, transparent screen in front of them, and realized that the sight-seeing had already begun. The
Danae
was being guided steadily forward along the grooved downward ramp that led into Blowhole. Already the observation screen was dipping below surface level. Jon had a last glimpse of Europa's icy plain, with the four rounded hills of Mount Ararat rising gently in the background; then dark water was lapping at the smooth sides. The stars, visible through the transparent roof of the submersible, were the last to go. They became quivering pools of light, slowly fading as the depth increased and then vanishing instantly as the
Danae
's searchlights went on.

The ship was sinking steadily at five or six meters a second. Jon was convinced of that, even without consulting a readout. This was one of the things that he had wanted to test. Back in PacAnt, he had a reputation for possessing his own private inertial navigation system, an internal sense that told him whether he was rising or falling underwater, and how fast. He scanned the dials to confirm his feeling. Five-point-five meters a second. It was nice to know that his absolute positional sense worked just as well on Europa.

He glanced at Wilsa, gave the control board a more thorough inspection, and relaxed. The
Danae
had its own warning systems to tell if they went too deep, or were heading for a solid shelf of rock or ice. It was at least smart enough to keep them out of life-threatening trouble.

But they weren't going to need those built-in safeguards. Wilsa, annoying as it might be to Jon, was as competent as she was confident. She was making instinctively timed sweeps of the main indicators of the environment, both inside and outside the submersible: power level and power reserve; submersible speed, depth, and pressure; internal and external temperature; water turbidity; air supply rate; and air composition. At the same time she had an eye on the ultrasonics that gave the distance in all directions to the nearest solid objects.

A natural.

"Well? Satisfied?" She wasn't even looking at him, but she was smiling as though she had seen his expression. "In a few more seconds we'll reach the lower limit of Blowhole. We'll be under the ice shield proper."

So she could read his mind. He had been all set to give
her
that same information. But at least she had been forced to read it from the instruments. He had
known
it, from some internal resource.

"What do we do then?" Wilsa went on. She was scowling at the screen, where the forward lights showed a vertical ice face maybe forty meters away.

"Don't ask
me
." Jon leaned back in his seat. He could be awkward, too. "You're the pilot. I'm just the passenger. Take us wherever you like."