Jupiter Project Read Free Page A

bad choice. Just let me give you a little advice. Whatever you want, use the remaining six months to improve your qualifications for the job. I don’t believe staying on at the Laboratory is going to be a simple matter for you kids.”
    “Why?”
    “The Project can’t support a Laboratory staff that continues to grow. The Earthside administrators agreed to send complete families out here only because they are socially more stable than groups of singles. There were a lot of other arguments—and good ones—against shipping an eight-year-old kid like you off to Jupiter.”
    “I pulled my weight!” I said indignantly.
    “I agree. But some children have to be sent back when they come of age, or the Can will pop its seams in a few more years. And remember, appropriations for space research have leveled off. Commander Aarons is looking for ways to trim our costs.”
    “ Some body will get to stay.”
    “Certainly. I am merely pointing out that it might not be you.”
    That worried me. Dad always says that worry is just wasted energy. It wasn’t like him to cry wolf.
    I glanced at him. He was gazing distantly at a big display screen on the office wall. It showed the placement of all tugs, shuttles and general traffic around the Lab, color-coded in orange and blue according to priority.
    “Dad?”
    “Yes?”
    “I guess you’re trying to tell me it’s not obvious that I’m supervaluable to the Lab.”
    “Something like that.”
    “There are a lot of smart kids about my age. I guess I’d better shift into high gear,” I said slowly.
    Dad sat upright and looked at me steadily. “The competition is not going to be easy, and you’re all trying for the same brass ring,?” he said seriously.
    “Great. I’ll give Commander Aarons a demonstration of what I can do,” I said grimly. “But what were those rumors you mentioned?”
    “Forget them for now. Maybe I can tell you more later. Right now you’d better grab lunch.”
    “Okay,” I said reluctantly.
    Dad stood up and handed me a thick pamphlet. “When you have the time, read this.”
    I looked at the cover. It showed two guys talking earnestly under a tan palm tree. It was a catalog for Caltech.
    And that unnerved me more than anything he’d said.

Chapter 2
    The foldout tables in the rec room were mostly filled, but I saw Jenny Fleming and Zak Palonski at a large table in the corner.
    “Can I join the great debate?” I asked Jenny. She smiled and moved over to give me room, straightening the collar on her orange blouse and fiddling with her braids. Yes, braids—pretty unfashionable, back Earthside. Makes her look younger than she is, when everybody knows a mature, mysterious look goes over better Earthside this season. But braids also keep your hair from straying inside a spacesuit helmet.
    “My, you do look a little peaked, Matt.” Zak said. “I trust you trounced Yuri?” Zak has unruly black hair and is a touch fat. He was rapidly finishing off a plate of goulash.
    “‘The vanquished have no tongues,’ my son,” I said, quoting a line of his own poetry at him.
    “Then I must play Yuri for the championship?” I hadn’t noticed Ishi Moto was in the cafeteria line behind me; he had come over to the table just in time to hear the news.
    “Right. Watch out for—” Then I stopped. Better to tell him later, in private. “—his dink shot. It’s subtle. Our last game was a breathtakingly narrow twenty-one to thirteen.”
    “I shall prepare,” Ishi said in a way that implied a lot. Ishi is always calm and it’s hard to read that politely expectant look he has. You have the feeling he’s sitting back, watching the circus around him with a slightly amused interest, unhurried, enjoying it all. He chuckles at things a lot and there’s a bemused twinkle in his eye when he talks.
    “Why didn’t you challenge me?” Jenny said brightly to me. “I’m out of practice.”
    “Why?” Zak said. “Working too hard?”
    “My shuttle needs some