Jupiter's Reef (32 page)

The Professor sighed. “There’s always something you leave at home when you pack.”

“What did we leave,” asked Mary.

“A medical staff. We haven’t a bloody clue about Tony’s condition.”

While everyone wanted to just go barging into the reef to rescue Tony, the actual mechanics of doing it became more complicated the more they considered that option. No one doubted
Diver
’s ability to punch through the reef. But, as Johnny pointed out, the balloon package made the ship less than streamlined. Pushing the reef material aside as they punched through to Tony might prove impossible. They might pack him tighter into the reef when
Diver
got close.

Tony groaned ominously. “I still feel like something’s pushing me.”

“This is strange. Are we sinking?” asked Johnny.

“Why do you ask?” said Alex.

“Well, now there’s about fifty meters between us and Tony,” said Professor Baltadonis.

“Maybe something’s pushing him,” said Alex.

“Feels like it,” said Tony. “My legs aren’t numb any more. But I can’t move them. They’re stuck in something. It’s pushing hard.”

“Try kicking a leg.”

“It’s the gravity,” said Johnny.

“I can’t move my legs much at all.”

“Jeez,” said Johnny. “The gees must really be horrible. I mean ... you must be ...”

“Bone weary,” said Tony. “I can’t believe this. How did it happen? The airlock’s pressure was close to the air pressure outside, wasn’t it?”

“Not close enough,” said Johnny. “It doesn’t take any more than a few pounds per square centimeter to blow a hatch and everything else out into space,” said Johnny. He got out of his bubble chair and walked to the airlock door. “Someone’s got to go in there and check the seal.”

“It sealed itself,” said Alex. “My instruments show that the door sprang closed and sealed automatically as it’s supposed to.”

“Why didn’t it seal when we were docked?”

“I think it did seal. Otherwise it would have blown long ago ... in space,” said Alex. “As near as I can figure it, the seal was closed but not secured. It had a hair trigger and opened when Tony touched the handle before the pressure equalizers did their job.”

Tony had been listening. He interrupted, sounding more weak and exhausted. “I just touched the hatch release ... it blew.”

Johnny carefully opened the outer door, bracing himself in case he had to force it shut again. But the door opened without any problem. Johnny went quickly inside the hatch and tightened the outer door’s latch. Satisfied that the airlock was secure, he resealed the inner door and returned to his seat. “The hatch is fine. The tether is gone. The end of it must still be attached to Tony.”

“Tony. Do you remember what happened?” asked Alex, watching the Professor. “You were out for a while.”

“Yeah ... falling. I remember falling. Shit.”

“That’s true,” said Johnny laughing. “Apparently you did.”

“Funny,” said Tony.

“What’s this?” exclaimed the Professor. “Look. I don’t know what’s happening, Tony, but ... now I have you at forty meters. You seem to be rising!”

“Anything on radar?” asked Tony. “Something’s pushing me.”

“Is it hurting you?” asked Mary.

“No, nothing sharp, nothing solid,” grunted Tony. “Uhh, there it goes again. Push ... ing ...”

“Dingers,” said Alex. “What the heck is happening?”

“Tony. Can you feel with your hands?” asked Johnny. “Can you reach out? If you could try to move, stick out an arm or something, I might be able to read the radar picture better. There’s stuff under you. Something ...”

“This isn’t fun, guys,” said Tony. “A little help, maybe?”

Johnny reinstated the cockpit hologram so Alex could help Johnny interpret the image. Then he had Alex move
Diver
to the left and to the right to get a better vector on the structure of the reef. He said he saw a pocket in the reef a few meters above Tony’s position. “Whatever’s pushing you, Tony, is going to move you into some kind of hole in the reef. It’s empty, I’m pretty sure. You’re sliding up the same hole your body made in the reef. If you could get into that air pocket...”

“Hard to lift my arms,” said Tony. “Gravity. The stuff around me feels like snow. Cold, gritty. I ... Okay ... hey, I can feel the tether. It’s all around me .... not attached to anything. Nothing ... when I pull on it.”

“Can you climb?” asked Johnny.

“Hard ... to lift ... arms. No.”

“That’s it. Gravity,” exclaimed Alex. “That’s the problem! We can burrow in and get Tony using null-gee.”

“We’ll have to think about that, Alex,” said Johnny. “I can’t see how that would help Tony to climb.”

“No,” said Alex. “I’m saying we can use the null-gee to soften the reef so we can go in and get him. It’ll take a lot of power. We’ll have to nose in.”

“That’s right,” said Tony. “You’ll be in zero-gee ... but the balloons ... still lifting the ship. You’ll need motors to push.”

“That’s right, Tony,” said Alex. “We should nose in easily. If you can just get to the pocket.”

“I think I’m headed there anyway. The ... pushing ...” Tony groaned loudly. “I hope whatever you plan to do ... you do soon,”

“A vote,” said Alex. “I say do it.”

“Go,” said Mary.

“It’s a quorum,” said Johnny. “But we should wait until Tony gets to the air pocket before we do it.”

“Try to climb, Tony,” said Alex. “It’s only a few meters to the space. If you get to that open space your suit lights should show what’s pushing you.”

“I’m not sure I want to know,” answered Tony.

Alex powered up
Diver
’s null-gee generators and tipped the ship’s nose toward the reef. When the anti-gravity field came on a number of reef creatures scurried from their hiding places and disappeared into the darkness.

Alex had his hand on the dive stick, waiting for Tony to get to the air pocket. It seemed to take forever but eventually, grunting and exhausted, Tony made it to the pocket.

“I’m ... there ...” he said. “Shit all over my helmet ... I can’t see too well ...”

Alex nosed the ship into the reef very slowly. Moments later they started carving a path toward Tony’s position. As the reef material slid along the windows, its structure became apparent. It was made up mostly of stuff that looked like black fiber insulation. And as the stuff moved along the window, they could see other things mixed into it; blue vine-like tendrils that branched little polyps every meter or so; long rubbery tubes that splattered red powder all over when they broke. The powder smeared along the glass looking like dried blood. But soon it was wiped away as more fibrous matter pushed along the glass.

Some of it looked like string, some like hair or spaghetti, but all of it was fiber of one kind or another and it all flowed in generally the same direction.

The reef yielded to
Diver
’s steady pressure. Alex was confused with what he saw. All the fibers that seemed to have the strength to hold Tony’s body now tore apart easily.

“This is amazing,” said Johnny. “The null-gee seems to be doing the trick, like you said. You never did this on the previous mission, did you Alex?”

“We never needed to,” said Alex, keeping his eye on the window. “Never wanted to.”

The virtual image in the cabin showed the pocket Johnny had described. Near it was the ghostly trace of Tony’s body. They could see he was standing vertically in a tube-like shaft his falling body had made as it burrowed into the reef.

As the ship neared Tony’s position they were seeing him in greater detail. But they were also seeing the structure of the reef around him. Now visible underneath Sciarra’s body was something that seemed sheathed around Tony’s legs but was otherwise anchored to the fibers of the surrounding reef.

“What’s that sack that’s under him?” asked Professor Baltadonis.

“Looks like it’s wrapped around him ... around his legs.”

What?” said Tony. “Are there teeth?”

“No teeth ... in fact, no parts that show up on radar,” said Johnny. “I don’t really know what the hell it is. It’s just a ghost but it seems to be all that’s keeping you from falling through the reef. If we get any closer with our field , the null-gee might break you loose. You and that thing might fall. I guess we’ll have to cut the null-gee and let that thing keep pushing you.”

Johnny suggested they knife the ship into the clear space with a sudden burst of speed, cutting the null-gee as they did so, and then coast into the air pocket or as far as the ship would go.

“Did you copy that, Tony?” asked Alex.

Tony was breathing hard. “The thing’s still pushing. I can see one of my suit lights. There’s cord ... the tether. I’m pulling on it but ... it doesn’t ... nothing to hold on to.”

Alex gave the thrusters a goose to thirty percent then cut the power to the null-gee. He let the gravity rise as the ship coasted downward.

They were right on target.
Diver
crossed the thirty meter gap quickly and came to a stop with part of the left cockpit window in the pocket Johnny’s radar imager had found in the reef. Alex saw it and shouted to the Professor.

“I can’t believe we did it,” said Alex. “But there it is.”

Mary was already out of her seat and staring into the dark hole. “I think I see him. Jeeps, it’s dark.”

Professor Baltadonis leapt out of his seat and ran to a locker at the rear of the cabin. Moments later, armed with a flashlight, he was peering into the pocket in the reef.

“Tony can you see the light?” he yelled.

Something reflective moved in the hole. Alex saw it and crowded in next to Mary and the Professor. Finally the Professor’s light found Tony. They were looking at the back of his head and part of his left shoulder. Tony had an arm inside the air pocket and was waving.

“I see your light. Shit, I’m turned around,” Sciarra wrestled with the reef matter that clung to him like mud and vines.

Johnny played his light around the pocket. A green netting coated the walls and clinging to it were what looked like short stubby transparent worms.

“Sheesh, god,” said Tony. “Maggots.”

“It looks like a nest,” said Johnny.

3
The more they examined the interior of the pocket the more it appeared that whatever was pushing Tony was doing it for some reason other than to help out. The thing was relentless; pushing and resting, pushing in slow regularly spaced efforts. Since it would take a tremendous effort to fight Jupiter’s gravity, Alex suspected that the creature was resting between shoves. Within a minute most of Tony’s lower body came into view, and with it, the thing that was pushing him.

“There it is,” said Johnny. It’s ... it looks like an amoeba.”

Tony’s legs were still inside the thing in an apparent death grip. His body stuck into the hole at an odd angle.

When Tony saw his friends at the window staring at him, he waved. “Nice to see you guys,” he said. “Now if you can just get my friend to let go ...”

“What now?” said Mary, looking at Alex. “That thing’s holding on so tight.”

Alex noticed that the worms that had been clinging to the mesh lining of the hole began to come to life. They all started waving in unison, as though stimulated by something. Alex guessed they were feeling the effects of the null-gee field or sniffing the air.

“What kind of nest is this?” said Tony. “These maggots are starting ooze some kind of liquid. And ... um ... I think they’re coming to meet me.”

The Professor was playing his flashlight’s beam over the object that held Tony in its grasp. It was pinkish and completely transparent like the worms, and it was also covered with liquid. “I’m looking at your suit ... inside your friend.” said Johnny. “It doesn’t look damaged. How hard is it squeezing you?” Johnny moved the beam back to Tony’s helmet. Tony’s looked frightened, his face covered with sweat.

“Hard enough,” he said.

“I take it you’re not enjoying this,” said Alex.

“Not a whole lot, no,” said Tony, forcing a smile back at Alex.

Alex gave Tony a thumb’s up. “We’re almost there, Tony. We’ll have you out of there soon.”

“Hey, take a moment to enjoy this, Tony,” said the Professor. “You’re making history there.”

“We’re all making history. I just don’t want to
be
history?” answered Sciarra.

Now the worms were fully animated. They were all moving toward Tony.

Tony continued to struggle to free his legs but the creature wouldn’t let go. Finally he got a grip on the edge of
Diver
’s window and pulled as hard as he could. His legs slipped out of the creature’s grip and it flowed back into the reef and out of sight.

“I think mama just fed you to her babies,” said Mary.

Johnny looked at her with alarm. “I wouldn’t put it that way,” he said.

“The question is whether these things can penetrate my suit,” Tony said, panting from exhaustion. “If I can get a grip on the ship maybe you can pull me out.”

Alex didn’t say a word. He moved quickly to his chair.

“Let’s see,” said Johnny, watching the worms begin to slide toward Tony. “If we turn up the null-gee, that should disrupt the worms and help Tony to get a better grip.”

“It would soften the reef, too,” said Tony. “Do it.”

As Alex powered up the Null-Gee system Johnny shouted in delight. “Great! The worms hate it. They’re ... ugh ... coming apart.”

The reduced gravity had a devastating effect on the creatures in the hole. Almost in unison they disintegrated into wet globs that floated around the hole. Tony didn’t watch the action. He clawed his way closer to the ship, then started feeling around the base of the window with one hand while holding the tether in the other hand. Finally he found what he was looking for; the front of the skirt that inflated to become a deck that ran along the front and sides of the ship.

“I found the railing,” said Tony. “I love this null-gee.” Tony glanced up at the faces watching him. “Did you hear me? I said I liked weightlessness. Never thought I’d hear myself say that.”

Everyone inside laughed.

“Are you tied on?” asked Alex.

“Go, Alex!” shouted Tony.

Alex carefully pulled back on the stick and the ship’s nose began to lift. In seconds Tony disappeared from view. In his place was a cloud of debris that moved slowly past the window.