Jupiter Project Read Free Page B

repair.” Jenny said. “I’ve been overhauling it with the help of some people in maintenance.”
    “Why should that take all your time?” I said.
    “It is a long task,” Ishi said, “and it must be done as quickly as possible. There are only two shuttles assigned to satellite maintenance. That is the minimum number possible under the safety regulations, since there must always be a backup shuttle in case the first fails while on a mission.”
    “Yours is still operating, Ishi?” Zak said.
    “Yes. I have not been out, though. There have been no malfunctions among the data satellites while Jenny has had the Ballerina in the shop.”
    “ Ballerina , is it?” I said. “I thought you’d named her Winged Victory. ”
    “After that meteorite damage last month. I’m surprised you didn’t make it Victory Winged ,” Zak said.
    Jenny wrinkled her nose at him and turned to me. “I like Ballerina better, and since I was sprucing her up—”
    “Fine,” I said. “Be sure to change the entry in the Lab log, or twenty years from now a little man in a black suit will come around and ask you to cough up for a misplaced orbital shuttle.”
    “I know enough to do that, ” Jenny said flatly. She straightened her braids again.
    I remembered the sandwich I had made, and dug in. The bread wasn’t made from wheat, of course, but from a sort of half-breed seaweed that grows better in low-g hydroponics tanks. After nine years I’ve almost convinced myself I like the seaweed better. Almost.
    Zak launched himself into a monologue about a poem be was writing, using terms I couldn’t follow. Zak is the local Resident Character, junior grade: he’s short, intense, and talks faster than most people can think. Faster than he can think, sometimes.
    “Hey, Zak,” I said through a mouthful of sandwich, “have you thought about sending those poems back to Earth? You know—to build up a following?”
    “Ah, sir,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “You reveal your abysmal ignorance of literary economics. Poetry, my friend, is unprofitable. It’s not worth the price of a ’gram to tightbeam it to Earth.”
    “Ummm,” Jenny said, “that doesn’t sound like the Zak I know. Why write poetry if there’s no percentage in it?”
    Zak looked shocked, and he was almost a good enough actor to be convincing. “Mademoiselle,” he said, “underneath this simple workshirt beats the heart of an artist. You—”
    “Your heart is on the left-hand side,” Ishi said mildly.
    “Oh. Yes. Jenny, you malign—”
    “Spare us your sensitivity,” I said. “Anyway, Ishi, the human heart is in the middle of the chest. It only sounds like it’s beating on the left side.”
    Jenny leaned across the table—which wasn’t hard, considering how small everything is in the rec room—and stared Zak in the eye. “Okay. Zak. I’ll accept the assumption that you have non-larcenous impulses, despite evidence to the contrary. But I’ve seen you scribbling away in a notebook, and there has got to be money in it somewhere. ’Fess up.”
    “Oh, you mean my diary,” said Zak.
    “ Diary? ” Even Ishi was surprised.
    “Sure. I’ve been keeping one ever since I got here, seven years ago.” Zak looked around at us, surprised. “You mean you three don’t have diaries?”
    We all shook our heads. “Why bother?” said Jenny.
    “Thou art innocent of the profit motive? Well,” Zak said, shaking his head, “I hope you children have someone to lead you around by the hand when you get back to Earth.”
    “What profit is there in a diary?” Ishi asked.
    “Think about it,” Zak said, running his finger absentmindedly around the inside of his milkshake glass and then licking it. “Here we are six hundred million klicks away from Earth, orbiting the biggest planet in the system. The Lab is the farthest outpost of mankind. Don’t you think people back on Earth will read an account of life out here, written by—”
    “A brilliant young