The Ganymede Club Read Free

of formation. Strange. It looks like there's a milky layer of something across the end of it. See?"
    Except that Jason didn't. The image in his suit monitor had been deteriorating for the past minute. Now it was a dim and grainy picture that flickered and faded as he watched.
    He began, "I can't see what's—"
    "No further, Rios." Jing-li cut in. "We're losing your signal. We shouldn't be having a problem at that depth, but we are. I want you to start back up again—now."
    "Right. But I'm not getting . . ." The distortion was much worse: ". . . the over . . . up to the walls . . . coming . . ."
    A long pause. Then, ". . . touch it . . ."
    Faint crackling, like static—nothing more. Jason found himself unable to breathe. Captain Jing-li's voice, close and calm, cut in again: "I'm taking the Marklake to within two hundred meters. We'll be in position three minutes from now. Cayuga, what is your status?"
    "I'm ready."
    "Suit checked and sealed?"
    "Yes."
    "When I give the word, you head for the surface where Rios landed. Take a cable with you. Go into the hole, get her, come right back. Go slow. And no matter what you find, don't investigate. If you get stuck, signal along the cable. If you don't see her in the tunnel, come back. Costas and Munzer, into suits in case we need you. Dr. Polk, stand by for possible medical emergency."
    Jason stood at the lock, waiting for the go-ahead from Captain Jing-li. It took forever to come. He was shivering in his temperature-controlled suit. He did not feel excited at the prospect of a major discovery. He did feel scared.
    The cable attached to Jason's suit could stand a load of hundreds of tons, but it was light and perfectly flexible. He was scarcely aware of it as he drifted toward the waiting bulk of Helene. The Sun, off behind his right shoulder, seemed a remote and ineffectual spark of light. Saturn loomed as a half-disk to the left, the rings a thin bright line across the planet's equator. But it was Helene, the little planetoid that he had dismissed five days ago as insignificant, that now seemed to fill the sky. The pocked surface was fast approaching. The pinprick hole for which he was heading became a dark violet shaft, leading to unknown depths.
    "Go into the hole, get her, come right back," he had been told.
    If only he could.
    "Go slow"—that was the hardest order to obey.
    Jason took a deep breath and entered the tunnel. The light level dropped abruptly. His suit imagers compensated at once, and he could see far ahead. He peered down. There, no more than a few hundred meters away—he gasped with relief—he saw a familiar shape. Reflected light was gleaming from a white suit.
    Athene.
    "She's here," he said loudly. "Right in front of me. I can go down and get her."
    He heard the sudden buzz of conversation in his radio link, and realized for the first time that no one had spoken since he left the Marklake.
    In the same moment he realized that Athene had remained silent, though he was right above her and must be outlined against the sunlit shaft. She ought to be able to see him. Also, the arms and legs of the suited figure were not moving, except that the whole figure was rising slowly up through the shaft. He felt overwhelmed by the implications.
    Although his mind was stunned, he found that his body knew exactly what to do: He dropped farther, steadily and surely. In half a minute he was at her side. He saw, far below, the odd milky surface that she had talked about. There was no time to worry about that now. He attached a grapnel to her, then jetted the two of them gently up to the surface and toward the Marklake.
    "Polk to the air lock, if you please," he said, surprised at the calm tone of his own voice. "Dahlquist, prepare the emergency treatment facility. We have a medical problem."
    And pray it was no more than that.
    The Marklake loomed ahead. Jason used the grapnel to pull Athene close and move her in front of him into the lock. Her suit felt stiff and unbending, as