Cold as Ice (36 page)

That stopped Sandstrom. Jon looked for any sign of guilt on the man's face, and saw only surprise and anger. If Shelley had worked with accomplices on Europa, Sandstrom was not one of them.

"And it's worse than you think," Jon went on. "The report that you've been reading says
contamination
, because I assumed that it was accidental. Now I know that it wasn't. It was done
deliberately
."

"Nonsense! Why would anyone ruin a world on purpose?"

"I can't tell you that. All I'm saying is that the contamination of the Europan ocean was
intentional.
Modified forms of Earth life were planted here, specially designed forms. I can prove it."

Sandstrom had been reaching across the desk to flip a switch on a panel. Now he sat down again. "Do it." His expression had moved from anger to glacial coldness. "I liked Shelley Solbourne. She'd had a hard life, and she liked to grumble about it. But she did good, solid work, and I won't see her slandered when she's not here to defend herself. You say you can prove what you said. Go on, then. I'll give you five minutes."

Jon took the data storage unit out of his pocket. "This contains the scanned genomes of the Europan-vent life forms. I've inspected them, and I'm sure that they're not naturally evolved organisms. They're hybrids, gene-supplied from existing Earth forms for adaptation to the Europan deep-ocean environment. Shelley Solbourne planted them here. And I
can
prove it. All I have to do is to match their DNA against the appropriate Earth forms."

"So why haven't you done it?"

"The genome maps for the organisms I need aren't in the Europa data banks. But they
are
in my data storage bank on board the
Spindrift.
We can just go back to Blowhole—"

"Are you out of your mind? Mount Ararat has been placed in
isolation mode.
Dr. Brandt told me to put us there. You can't go to Blowhole now."

"She was referring to
off-world
communications—so no one could leak word of what's going on until she decides how. to handle it. I'm sure she didn't mean it to apply to trips out onto the surface. I'm saying, one quick visit to the
Spindrift
—"

"And I'm saying, forget it. You have the nerve to stand there and ask me to give you
another
chance to take a submersible and mess up the inside of Europa even worse than you have already? I wouldn't do that, even if I didn't have specific instructions not to.
Isolation is isolation.
You've had your five minutes."

"I've not had half that!"

"It doesn't matter. It's over, Perry. We won't let Europa be destroyed." Sandstrom was staring past him. Jon turned and found three men in the doorway, each as muscular as the deputy.

"See? So don't try anything." Sandstrom nodded to the newcomers. "All right, take him to Suite Four, with the new arrival. Don't say nothing to nobody. And make sure it's
secure
there, until I figure out what comes next."

* * *

Jon was almost to the point of deciding that he must be guilty of
something;
he wasn't sure of what, but if the way he was being treated was anything to go by, it had to be a major offense.

Because Wilsa Sheer was even angrier than Buzz Sandstrom. She had been pleasant for maybe thirty seconds, until she realized that the door was being closed—and locked—behind Jon. Then she had swelled with fury, all five feet of her, and looked around for someone to thunder at. There was only one candidate.

Jon waited for a break in the weather, then explained the whole thing as carefully and systematically as her outraged interruptions would allow. It went slowly, but by the time he came to the contents of the data storage unit, still clutched in his sweaty hand, and his need to compare that with files held on the
Spindrift
, Wilsa's lightning flashes had gone. There was still an occasional rumble, but it was not directed at him.

"Buzz Sandstrom's going to keep us here until Hilda Brandt returns?" She was eyeing the walls and the door of the suite.

"That's not quite what he told me. Until he decides 'what comes
next
,' he said."

"And Hilda Brandt asked you who else you told, and you said nobody?"

"Right. What of it?"

"Maybe nothing. Or maybe I've been exposed to too many opera librettos. But I can't help recalling the look on their faces when they stuffed you in through the door. Those goons follow orders. You and Sandstrom—and now me—are the only ones who know that the Europa life forms aren't native. We're the only ones who can ruin Europa's official status of an off-limits, untouchable world."

"Hilda Brandt knows, too."

"You take comfort from that if you like." Wilsa's face was calm now, but she was sitting barefoot, and her long, modified toes were curling and uncurling. "Me, I'm thinking of how convenient it would be if you and I weren't around to explain your findings. Wouldn't it be nice for the Europan administration if your new analysis disappeared, and you and me with it?"

"Nonsense. Brandt wouldn't go along with that."

"Why would she have to know? Sandstrom's in charge until she gets back."

Wilsa began to wander from room to room, although Guest Suite Four was too small for effective prowling. A main living area, furnished with a table and three soft chairs, led to a small kitchen. Wilsa went into it and began opening drawers, banging cupboards, and muttering to herself. Beyond the living room, separated from it by a sliding door, lay the bedroom and a compact bathroom. There was just one external door, leading to the outside corridor. When Wilsa finished her inspection, she returned to stare at it.

"Locked. There's no other exit." Jon could read her thoughts. "Come and sit down, you're making
me
nervous."

"We
have
to find a way out." She swung around to glare at him. "I'm not going to stay locked up. I
won't.
It's different for you. You were raised on Earth. Earth people are used to physical restraint."

"That's not true! Where did you get that idea?"

"You still have
jails
on Earth, don't you? But I was raised in the Belt. Belters must have freedom to move, or they suffocate."

"You were happy in a submersible. That's a lot more like a jail than this apartment."

"It's totally different. I was in a submersible because I
wanted
to be there. It's the principle of the thing."

"Suppose we could get out of here." Jon wasn't sure of how seriously to take Wilsa. "We couldn't escape from Europa. There's no ship available, for one thing—Hilda Brandt had to call one in to take her to Ganymede."

"I'll settle for getting away from Mount Ararat. How about the
Spindrift.
Is it working?"

"It should be. But it's over at Blowhole."

"So we escape from here and we go to Blowhole and the
Spindrift
."

"Yeah. Sure. We escape. Like to tell me
how
?"

"There's no food in this kitchen. I just checked. They have to come and feed us, unless they've decided to starve us to death. When they bring food, you overpower the guards."

She had to be joking.

"Sure. All three of 'em. Then I grab their weapons, right?"

"That's it. Then we run away through the corridors. We put on suits, we take a ground car—" But Wilsa was grinning.

"You're right, you
have
been reading too many opera librettos. You saw those muscles. If you can take their weapons away, be my guest."

"Maybe I can't." Wilsa came to sit down again. "But I'm dead serious about one thing. I won't stay cooped up here if there's any way at all to get out."

"So do you have any
real
ideas?"

"Not a thing. Not yet. But you're the scientist. I'm the artist. It's
your
job to think of something."

"Prison escapes aren't science. They're
engineering
." Now it was Jon's turn to prowl the suite. "The ceiling's solid. Same with the walls and the floor. The air ducts are only a few centimeters wide."

"Door?"

"Honeycombed graphite matrix. Harder than steel. It would be easier to break the walls. I give up."

Wilsa shook her head. "Not me. I don't give up. I told you how I feel about lockups." She stood up again and wandered through to inspect the kitchen cooking utensils. "Nice sharp knives."

"Forget it. Unless you're going to be the one to use' em."

"How about this thing? It's a pressure cooker, isn't it? If we block the safety valve, fill it with water, and set the heat high enough–"

"You'd have a bomb, of unknown strength. Do you like that sort of gadget? Because I don't. It wouldn't destroy the apartment, but it would blow superheated water all over. Make a hell of a mess of the kitchen. Of us, too, if we were anywhere near it."

"We could hide in the bedroom. And if we could make it explode near the door—"

"It wouldn't make more than a scratch." But the challenge was raising Jon's interest; he was hunched over the stove. "Even if you blocked the safety valve, there'd be no way of getting it to the door at the exact moment it blew up. You'd have to keep the heat underneath the pot right 'til it exploded. Nice try, but you'll never blow your way free with a pressure-cooker bomb."

"So we need something different."

"I never said that." Jon was bending over the pot of glossy black ceramic, studying the safety valve. "It
would
be easy enough to block this—see, right here. That's a start. Let me try it."

"You have an idea?"

"Not an
idea
, exactly . . . call it a thought. We've got one thing going for us. Sandstrom expects us to behave the way
I
would behave if you hadn't been pestering me. He doesn't realize that you're a lunatic, so he doesn't
expect
us to go all-out to escape. That gives us a shot—
one
shot—at surprising him."

"But we have no surprise."

"I didn't say that, either. Come sit down, and let's talk about cooperation. You have to find a way of buying me five minutes after they get here."

21
Out and Down on Europa

By the time that the door to the suite was finally unlocked from outside, Jon Perry had begun to take seriously the idea that he and Wilsa Sheer could be left to starve to death. He had sat by the stove, ready for action, for six endless hours. The pressure cooker had boiled low and been refilled eight times. All feeling of tension had long since given way to hunger, and he was drifting off into an uneasy half-sleep when Wilsa, kneeling with her ear to the door, suddenly whispered, "Now!"

He jerked awake, forced the improvised safety-valve baffle into position, turned the heat to its maximum setting, and hurried after her into the bedroom.

The next big question was whether their captors would follow. They might prefer to drop off food in the living room or the kitchen and leave. Jon already knew that they were carrying dinner—the smell was making him salivate.

"We're in here," called Wilsa as the outer door swung wide. "In the bedroom. Bring it in. We thought you were going to leave us hungry forever!"

They had agreed that as far as possible she should do the talking—"Because you're not
used
to public performance," as she put it.

Quite right. Jon was not. And even though he knew that as a keyboard performer she was a consummate master, he was still amazed that she could now make her
voice
project such a plausible mixture of worry, relief, and irritation.

The same muscle-bound trio of males came in, and their actions ruined at once the idea that they were not expecting an attempt at escape. The first one came through to the bedroom and peered around suspiciously on the threshold before he entered. He saw Jon and Wilsa seated on the bed, but even so he made a tour of the whole room before summoning the others.

"Put them down on the side table." Wilsa pointed, but she did not move. "And tell us when we'll get
out
of here. I'm sick and tired of doing nothing. I didn't come all the way to Europa to be locked up. And I need to practice for my next concert."

"It depends on Buzz," said the first man in the room, as the others placed two plastic trays on the table. He was almost apologetic. "Buzz is the boss. Though of course"—as an afterthought—"we all report to Dr. Brandt."

Jon decided that the men had no idea of why he and Wilsa were locked away. But Wilsa was right; they followed orders, and it was enough that Sandstrom said so.
Dump these two out on the ice. Yes, sir. No, I've changed my mind; stick them down Blowhole and drown them. Yes, sir.

And all the while a pulse inside Jon's head was ticking away like a manic metronome. He had tried to make estimates of the cooker's blowing point, but he had been forced in his experiments to err on the side of safety, stopping before he could be sure. His final best guess was between four and five minutes. But it might be anything from two seconds to never. Suppose that the material was just too strong and nothing happened?

Wilsa was performing miracles of casual self-control. She had stood up very slowly, and somehow she was ushering one of the men with her toward the loaded trays.

"Neither Dr. Perry nor I are used to the Jovian food, you know," she said. "I'm not sure that we will even know what it is, or how to eat it. If you would just explain to me what you have brought, and how it was prepared . . ."

The man was bemused—he knew that Wilsa had been to Europa before—but he did not seem worried. With his two companions standing against the wall and monitoring Jon's every move, there was no reason for alarm. Jon and Wilsa were unarmed. He allowed Wilsa to remove the covers of the dishes on the tray and bent over them with her.

As he did so, it came.

Jon had been expecting it, willing it to happen, steeling himself for the shock. He thought he was prepared for anything, from the mild pop of a loosened lid to a God-hurled thunderbolt. Even so, the sound that hit his ears was so loud that it
hurt.
His head rang and his heart froze. Knowing what was happening, he was nevertheless shocked and disoriented.