Jupiter's Reef (10 page)

During a brief video link with EarthCorp International he made a joke about the big bad wolf getting them and received an angry rebuttal instead of the smile Alex expected.

“Your ship’s ID is 4638 ROSE,” said the man in the dark suit. “Remember it.”

Alex switched off the radio and sighed. “I hate those Corpy dingers,” he said. “They’re a humorless bunch of sulphur bombs.”

They headed out to sea, bound for a palace Mary had read about in a place called London.

Diver
lifted swiftly into the skies over the North Atlantic, and it wasn’t long before they slipped above a broad flat cloud bank.

The computer and data supplied by EarthCorp made the clouds transparent. Aircraft, ships and small islands stood out on the vid screens, but because they were far at sea, Alex decided to dip below the clouds and see the Atlantic.

At one thousand feet EarthCorp hailed them. “4638, Rose,” said an unfamiliar voice. “You have deviated significantly from your course. We have aircraft ready to assist you, if there is a problem. Please state the reason for your course deviation.”

“Well, my friend, the lady and I wanted to see the waves of the Atlantic. We’re touring.”

“Return to your prescribed flight path. You are violating Atlantian space.”

“What is Atlantian space?” asked Alex. “The ocean is a territory?”

Diver
was traveling about two hundred feet above the sea, headed due east. Mary was standing despite the gravity, watching passing chunks of ice that bobbed mysteriously just below the surface.

“Look at the ice. That’s ice, Alex!” shouted Mary. “How fabulous!”

Suddenly, about a mile ahead of them, Alex saw two white plumes of foam as twin interceptor aircraft appeared from somewhere beneath the sea.

Alex saw them and pointed. “Sit, Mary, those are combat sub planes. We better get out of here!”

Alex kicked in
Diver
’s plasma thrusters and tried to make missile speed as he returned to their flight path. The planes didn’t follow. Mary’s keen eyes saw them circle twice, then arc back into the sea. She touched her temple. “The chatter I hear says that we were lucky enough to cross the path of a super sub,” said Mary. “You were a war exercise, Alex. You made everyone’s day.”

“Like a rabbit that happens on a snarling pack of dogs,” said Alex.

“Something like that,” said Mary with a wink.

By the time
Diver
was over the British Isles they were at their prescribed altitude. Mary saw the city, but only at a distance.

From there they went to Paris, Rome, and out across the Mediterranean.

“This’ll leave you hungry for more, Mary,” warned Alex. “There’s so much to see. Even if the ocean has claimed some places.”

“You and the Professor keep saying that. What’s gone?” asked Mary as they punched out of a cloud bank and caught sight of the island of Cyprus on their left.

“Dingers, Mary,” said Alex. “I’m not the one to ask. But I remember talk about the Netherlands and a city where they used to make music or something. Venice. It was full of water anyway.” Alex smiled hopefully. “But we’re going to see the pyramids of Egypt. Nothing’ll wash them away.”

Diver
was under orders to stay well away from most cities or fly over them at altitudes high enough to be non-threatening to air traffic. So Mary and Alex had to sightsee through
Diver
’s eyes.

Mary kept a log of the places they saw. On it were listed; “Icebergs, White cliff sea coast, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Malls, Paris, Neu Eiffel Tower, Coliseum ...”

Mary had hopes of seeing all these places close up and personal. After all, she’d read about them all her life. So it frustrated her that visiting them meant enduring Earth gravity non-stop every second she was off
Diver
’s decks. After spending all her life in gravity that was no more than half that of Earth, there was no way she could endure the hours of travel required to visit. To make matters even more difficult,
Diver
was licensed only for major airfields, and most of them were located miles from the cities Mary wanted most to see.

Alex did his best to use
Diver
’s cameras to spot landmarks as they flew over.

“Jeeps, Mary, I wish we could go in closer, but even if I turn off the G-field ...”

Mary leaned back in her co-pilot’s seat and sighed. “It’s all right, my love.” she said. Then she rolled her head sideways and looked at him. “If this is as close as I ever get, well, at least I got this close.”

“That’s the idea, Mary,” said Alex.

The issue of null gee reminded Alex of their tour of Jupiter’s reef. He recalled that they had it turned up to nearly full power at times. It bothered him then and it haunted him today as he contemplated their return to the reef. In his excitement to explore the reef he might have committed a terrible blunder. His observations everywhere showed that Jupiter’s creatures hated reduced gravity. Turning it on had been a repellent to creatures that ventured too close, and at times the field even did damage to the reef itself.

Now, flying high above the old cities of Earth, he began to wonder if returning to the reef was a good idea. He glanced over at Mary, wondering if she could endure another trip to the reef. That was another matter that preyed on his mind. When the idea of a return trip had come up, though, Mary had reacted positively. Alex wondered if she had forgotten the torturous cacophony of the reef creatures. They seemed to know she could hear their radio chatter and had even assaulted her with it at times. Or so it seemed.

Alex hadn’t managed to find the right time or the right words to ask her how she felt about returning to the reef. And seeing her looking out
Diver
’s window, eagerly awaiting the sight of the Giza Pyramids, he still couldn’t ask.

Cairo control hailed them while they were still ten miles out at sea. Mary took the call.

Alex could see that she was talking quietly to someone but the hum of
Diver
’s engines masked the sound of her voice.

And before he could ask what was happening, Mary had disconnected. “You can stay on this heading and this altitude,” she said, her eyes returning to the horizon. “We’ll pass right over the pyramids.”

“But we’re too low,” Alex protested. “Only at a thousand feet. They should be asking us to climb to at least ten thousand. Like every other city on our flight path.”

“Not this time,” said Mary. “I told them we were photographing the pyramids. Turn on the cameras. Don’t make me a liar,” she added with a grin.

“Dingers, Mary,” complained Alex. “You’re gonna get us kicked off this planet.”

“We’re not flying over Cairo,” she said, leaning forward with her eyes fixed on the horizon. “They said we couldn’t fly low over cities. And that our present altitude was fine.”

Mary pointed to the horizon. “I see them,” she said. “Those points.”

A minute later Alex, too, could see the pyramids. He looked at the flight systems monitor. They were at subsonic speeds, but he throttled back so they could at least take some evasive action if Cairo changed its mind and sent in the troops. His mind was still reeling from his run-in with the Atlantians, whoever they were. He made a mental note to ask someone about them.

“I asked for their permission,” said Mary.

“Cairo? Did they give it?”

“They said they’d get back to me,” said Mary.

“Dingers, Mary,” said Alex, gripping the drive stick a bit tighter. “We’ll be over the pyramids in a minute. What if they deny us permission?”

“I’ll tell them they were too late. We got our shots.”

So, while Mary gleefully watched the pyramids, Alex watched the radar for warplanes.

“Sheesh,” he snarled. “This was supposed to be fun.”

“Lighten up, Alex,” said Mary. “They’re not going to shoot us down for flying over a pile of stones. What harm could we do? And who’s at war anyway?”

Alex shook his head. “This is Earth, Mary. If you knew anything about this place you wouldn’t say those things. You seem to think this is one happy planet. That because this is where we all came from, there must be some harmony that exists here. You know that’s not true.”

“I know what the media says,” said Mary. “Mars is where the politics cause life threatening problems. Earth is where people can be free. On Mars the Terraformer’s Imperative is on the line when one of us strays. Mars is where it’s a matter of life and death.”

“It’s not Mars or Earth. It’s people and their property,” said Alex, shaking his head adamantly. “People and their interests. Call it whatever you want.”

The taller of the twin Pyramids at Giza passed below them. Mary looked down and smiled. “It’s a pretty old pile of stones, Alex,” said Mary. “Looks younger in person.”

She touched her temple and smiled. “Message from Cairo. They gave us permission,” she said with a coy expression.

“Please, Mary,” said Alex. ”Next time let me do the talking.”

“But I’m the radio operator.”

“Sorry, Mary. It slipped my mind, I guess.” Alex pulled on the drive stick and
Diver
banked to the left. Soon Mary could again see the complex at Giza shining in the noon sun. Alex did three full circles of the complex, then throttled up and headed east toward India and Asia.

Their political argument didn’t continue. They were too caught up in the scenery; the deserts, the seas. And just as the subject of politics didn’t last, neither did their attempts to fly over centers of population. Even if they were welcomed by a city, Alex’s paranoia ruined it for Mary anyway. She was about to complain when she remembered that Alex was originally from Earth.

“Alex,” she said. “You’re from Earth. Don’t you have family you want to see?”

“Don’t know where they are. And I don’t really care,” said Alex. “Last I heard from my father was an email forwarded by IoCorp. That was almost six years ago. My mom died on Thanksgiving Day five years before that. I don’t know anyone else.”

“Don’t you even want to try to find other family?”

“There must be a million people with the last name Rose,” said Alex. “Anyway, I have my family right here.”

5
By the time
Diver
had circumnavigated Earth, two days had passed.

Now they were on the last leg of their whirlwind tour.

Mary sat in her customary co-pilot’s chair, reading from notes she’d made in her personal log.

“Listen to the places we’ve visited, Alex,” she said holding up her electronic note pad. “Jerusalem, Arabia, India, Tibet, China and its Great Wall, Japan, Hawaii, Los Angeles, Grand Canyon, where you took me down into it and followed the Colorado River.”

She especially loved flying over the snow-capped mountains, so Alex had elected to fly from New California up the Rockies, then over the forests of Northern Canada before returning to the United States via the Great Lakes.

Finally they returned to where they started; to a large field in Milton, Massachusetts near the home of Harry Stubbs.

EarthCorp tracking had watched
Diver
’s journey around the globe very carefully. Over the Great Lakes they began receiving radio transmissions that admonished them for ‘indiscretions and anomalies’ along their flight path.

Alex was surprised and responded angrily.

“Bag it, boys,” he answered. “Nobody’s hurt by buzzing a few mountains.”

Ground control cut him off. “You deviated from the flight path, Mr. Rose. It’s on the record and it’s my job to inform you. But you won’t be fined.” Before Alex could reply another flight controller gave them instructions for landing at ‘Stubbs Field’, as they called it.

“Don’t be surprised at the crowd,” the voice added before signing off.

Diver
did a vertical landing using its fan lifters. Alex didn’t like hovering because it caused too much drain on the power cells, leaving less available power for the null-gee lifters. But he told himself it didn’t matter. EarthCorp was calling the shots. They’d probably be replacing the power cells anyway.

The null-gee system was still giving them 50% gee. Alex had decided to keep it running for Mary’s sake when ground control told him to power it down. There was urgency in the ground controller’s voice.

“You were told to shut that field off,” shouted the voice. “We’ve got sensitive equipment down here that your gee dampers could damage.”

“That’s dingers,” Alex radioed back. “We picked this field so we could visit Professor Stubbs and keep the field
on
!” shouted Alex angrily. “I have class one Sensor here who needs reduced Gees to function!”

Mary grimaced. “Alex,” she whispered.

“It’s expensive portable equipment, we’ve got here.” said the man.

“That
portable stuff
is there because we need to be near Stubbs
and weightless
!”

Alex’s face was red with rage. He stared at the radar beacon on the console’s screen.

He shut off the radio and looked at Mary.

“I hate those shit gobs, Mary, Oh, God in space, I swear I do,” he snarled. “They live to make life one way, their way, and snivel like imps when you point out their fascist mentality.”

“I know,” said Mary, looking at him blankly. “It’s really just conservatism. There’s safety in the status quo. And you, Alex, apparently haven’t learned that.”

She smiled devilishly and blew Alex a kiss. “But you’re still a great fuck and I guess can live with one gee for a while.”

Mary’s flight suit was unzipped down the front to her navel. She fingered the round disk that guided along the fabric’s edges closing the suit, edging it lower. Her eyes never left Alex’s as she continued to lower the clasp. Finally, a tuft of platinum hair came into view.

“We could fuck our way to the ground,” she said. “Would that be revenge enough for you?”

Alex was defused in an instant as his anger edged into lust. Some days and some moments, like this one, he couldn’t believe that a woman so beautiful could have chosen him for companionship. But when she spoke to him, or said his name, her friendship embraced him and calmed him.

“You are a pistol, Mary Seventeen, but I have a notion EarthCorp will shoot us down if we don’t comply.”