Saturn Rukh, page 12
“You squeak too!” Sandra exclaimed.
“I’ve changed the air mixture,” Dan replied. “The velocity of sound is three to four times higher in helium than in air, so your voice box has a higher natural resonant frequency. You’ll get used to it.”
They all did—after a long time—but sometimes, especially after a long period of not talking, such as right after waking up, hearing the voice of Donald Duck squawking from their mouths was a rude surprise.
Both Dan and Sandra were busy soon after daybreak. Dan was scanning the horizon for any sign of flying lifeforms from the scotty console holoviewport, while Sandra was operating the high-resolution telescope from the science console. Rod was piloting the ship from the pilot console, turning the capsule at Sandra’s direction so she could get a panoramic record of the clouds around them in the multispectral camera.
“Just as expected,” said Sandra as she took a quick look at the data piling up in Jeeves’s almost-bottomless memory. “With the multispectral camera we can get the chemical components of the various cloud formations. We’ve got orange-tinged ammonia clouds above, white water clouds below, and an occasional gray ammonium hydrosulfide cloud in between. See anything out there more interesting for me to focus on, Doc?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Dan, lowering the biviewers with a sigh. “We need to get down to the water cloud layer.”
“We’re on the way,” promised Rod. “But it will take us a day or so. Do you two want to do another scan?”
Dan looked at Sandra and she shook her head.
“It would be a waste of time,” said Dan. “We might as well do something else.”
“Like make ourselves a decent place to sleep!” suggested Sandra.
“Lunch first,” said Rod, putting the balloon on autopilot and heading down the ladder.
After a quick lunch of green pea soup with microwave “puffed” croutons expanded from compact cubelets, the crew set to work making their “house” a “home.” The habitat tubes were pulled up out of each other and reinstalled. The last time they did this, they were in free fall. Back when they were in space and in free fall, the habitat tubes were massive—nearly eighty-five kilograms—but they were not “heavy,” and could be easily wrestled into place by hand. Now, the near-Earth-normal gravity pull of Saturn made the habitat tubes dangerously heavy. The crew had to use a winch, along with plenty of muscle power, to install them in place.
“Last one!” said Rod with relief as he cinched down the last of the seals.
“Now we can sleep like civilized beings again,” said Sandra, watching out her open habitat hatchdoor from her recently installed bed, “instead of hanging in a sack.”
The light through the viewport windows faded swiftly as the Sun set once again on the rapidly rotating planet.
“Well,” said Rod. “I guess it’s too dark now to get any work done on the outside. We might as well go to bed and get started early tomorrow morning.”
“It’s too early to go to bed,” complained Pete. “Besides, the night is only five hours long here—you’d just barely get to sleep before you’d have to wake up again. Let’s have a party and stay up all night instead!”
Rod looked dubious.
“That sounds like fun!” said Sandra with a giggle.
“It would be a great way to celebrate our safe arrival—and our billion dollars,” Dan added.
“I could make some hors d’oeuvres,” said Chastity. “On those long trips out to Mars and back, I developed a number of ways to turn our standard entrees into something different— and tasty.”
“I could contribute some music,” said Seichi. “I played keyboard in a dance band during college.”
“And I can contribute the drinks,” said Pete. “I’ve had the chemsyns in my lab busy producing ethanol. I mostly use the stuff to clean the optics on my lasers—but I’ve got plenty of bottles to spare. It won’t take me more than a few minutes to go outside and get some.”
“Now that’s beginning to sound like a real party!” said Rod, finally convinced. “Let me help you on with your saturnsuit.” The two started down the ladder to the airlock.
“I think I’ll go take a shower,” said Dan, following them down. “I’m all smelly and sweaty from fighting those habitats.”
“I’ll get my keyboard,” said Seichi, crawling headfirst into his habitat.
“And I’ll put on my party dress,” said Sandra, ducking back into her habitat and pulling the hatchdoor shut. “It’s got a real skirt—great for polkas!”
“Party dress!” said Chastity, shaking her head to herself as she was left alone on the control deck. She looked down at her utilitarian jumpsuit—the only costume she wore in space. She had brought along three more outfits for this trip—all the same. She thought briefly of putting on one of her nightgowns for the party. They were pretty—although a little thin—but the elastic band at the ankles would make it impossible to dance. She thought for a bit, then reached up to her chest and lowered her zipper a little. Now dressed for the party, she climbed down the ladder to the galley on the facilities deck to start work on the party snacks.
As Chastity arrived on the lower deck, Rod was shutting the inner airlock door on Pete, who was putting on his helmet, ready to go out. Rod’s eyebrows rose when he saw the level of Chastity’s zipper. He hadn’t seen that much of her cleavage in weeks. He turned to the airlock controls and cycled Pete out.
Dan came out of the head. From his wet hair it was obvious that he had opted for a complete shower instead of a sponge bath. Chastity was pleased to smell the aroma of Old Spice in the air—the chemsyns did a good job on that aroma. It was going to be nice consorting with “male” men at a party this evening, instead of the “guy” men she worked alongside every day. She was beginning to look forward to the party. While the reconstituted hot dogs were plumping in the microwave, she ducked into the “ladies’ “ and opened her personal locker. Some of her large collection of bracelets were there. She put them all on, decorating both wrists this time. She would be maneuvering men, not spacecraft, for the next few hours, so bracelets would be more of a help than a hindrance. While freshening up her lipstick and putting on some perfume, she had another thought and got out her nail polish collection. Soon the short nails on her “astronaut” right hand were decorated as prettily as the longer nails on her left hand. She took a look in the mirror at the level of her zipper.
“Don’t want to look too eager,” she said to herself, pulling the slider up a few teeth.
As she exited the ladies’, she looked up to see Seichi coming down the ladder. He too had “dressed up,” in a brightly colored “Hawaiian” shirt. He was followed close behind by Sandra, wearing a bright red skirt, red stockings, and black Velcro-bottomed slippers.
“No peeking now,” said Sandra, as she stepped out onto the open grating above them and headed for the ladder. The men studiously avoided looking up until Sandra was stepping off the last rung.
Humph, thought Chastity to herself as she saw how deeply the front of Sandra’s blouse was scooped. I wonder why she was so concerned about them peeking up her skirt—they can see almost as far peeking down her front. Still, she was relieved to see Sandra’s low neckline—she wasn’t the only one being a little naughty tonight.
As Sandra let loose of the ladder, Rod stepped forward, and giving a gallant bow, asked in his most gentlemanly manner, “Ah would be most pleased if you would honor me with the first dance, Miss Ruby . . The gallant effect was slightly spoiled by Rod’s high tenor voice.
“Wye, certainly, Colonel Montrose,” said Sandra, limping her hand at him. She turned to Seichi. “Can you do a polka?” Then she had another thought. Miss Ruby—the vixen—disappeared and Sandra Green—the scientist—took her place.
“Say, I wonder how that’s going to sound? Will it be pitched up in tone like our voices?”
“I don’t know,” said Seichi. He played a chord, then a short tune. “Sounds the same to me—”
“It is,” said Dan. “Since that keyboard has no resonant structures, it’ll sound pretty much the same. The reason your voice changes is that your vocal cords just make a buzzing sound. It’s the resonances in the voice box that pick out the frequencies that get emphasized, and, for a certain-sized box, the resonant frequencies change with the speed of sound.”
Seichi quickly segued into a polka, and Rod and Sandra started to dance, trying to avoid the ladder in the middle of the facilities deck as well as the spectators trying to keep out of the way in the “corners” of the two-meter-diameter hexagonal room.
When the tune came to an end, Sandra was beaming but Rod was tired from the strain of trying to avoid hitting something. “Once we get Pete back, we can use the airlock for the wallflowers, and let the dancers have the floor.”
“In the meantime, there’s room for two couples on the floor if we slow-dance,” said Dan. He came up to Chastity and bowed. “May I have this dance?”
Seichi switched to a slow waltz and Dan took Chastity in his arms, his eyes carefully avoiding looking down as he did so.
~ * ~
Pete soon returned with a number of plastic bottles. While Pete set up the bar in the airlock and Chastity arranged the hors d’oeuvres on the galley area, Rod and Dan removed the ladder so they would have more dancing room. It took some effort, but they finally got the ladder sections unhooked and shoved up on the top deck grating, out of the way. Soon all were drinking various fruit juices spiked with Pete’s “laser juice,” and nibbling expanded bread wedges spread with liver pate or cream cheese and hot sauce, and dipping hot dog chunks into a barbecue sauce and mustard mix.
After a number of dances, Dan asked Seichi to show him how the keyboard worked.
“My mother made me take piano lessons when I was a kid,” said Dan. “Maybe I can make enough music so you can have a turn dancing with the girls.” The keyboard had a number of features, including instant memory, so shortly Dan was blasting out a loud polka, while Seichi and Sandra twirled violently around the room.
After an hour, it soon became obvious that Pete had skimped on the food and loaded up on the laser juice. He was too drunk to either dance or talk. Dan and Rod wrestled him into a sleeping bag and hung him in the back of the airlock to sleep it off.
The next time Dan locked arms with Chastity for a slow dance the liquor made him lose control of his eyes and they looked down. Chastity caught him doing it, but instead of ignoring it, she smiled and winked at him. So far on this trip he had resisted her invitations. Maybe this time .. .
“Like what you see?” she asked, moving closer so that her long fingernails were scratching lightly at the back of his neck. “You can have more—”
“I like what I see,” replied Dan. “And I like you ... but I can’t have you ... I’m sorry.” He started to back out of her arms, but she pulled him back.
“Stay and dance anyway,” she said, snuggling into his chest.
“You’re nice... and I like you ... even if I can’t have you…”
The party slowed down. The dancing stopped and they all just sat on the floor, finishing off the last of the food and talking. Rod had Sandra giggling in one comer, and Dan, Seichi, and Chastity sat on the dressing benches in the airlock and talked about Earth.
A little while later, Rod put up the ladder, then loudly said, “Well, goodnight all...” as he and Sandra headed up to their habitats. After a polite interval, Dan left too, leaving Chastity and Seichi alone.
“Can you make that keyboard play automatically?” asked Chastity as she and Seichi finished off the last of the liver pate.
“Certainly,” said Seichi, reaching for it.
“Then have it play something slow for one last dance—just you and me,” said Chastity.
~ * ~
Over the next few days, Rod and Chastity took turns “driving” the balloon north using the electrically powered flexfans.
“Whoops!” said Chastity as the balloon suddenly dropped a few hundred meters, producing a sinking feeling in her stomach. “I’ll sure be glad when we get out of this equatorial jet stream with all of its turbulence.”
“Pete will be glad too,” said Rod, feeling queasy himself from the swinging motion of the capsule. “He’s taking a risk every time he goes outside to check on the meta plant. One of those ‘whoops’ at the wrong time and he’s gone....”
~ * ~
The next day they entered the white clouds below. Sandra and Dan were carefully watching the readings of the chemical analyzer monitoring the composition of the air outside. As they entered the cloud deck, the readings shifted slightly.
“Water,” said Dan. “Ice at these temperatures, but mostly water.”
“A little bit of ammonia and ammonium hydrosulfide, but not much,” added Sandra. “With the helmets to protect our eyes and noses, and the saturnsuits to protect our skin, it shouldn’t be too bad, although I wouldn’t want to stay out in it too long.”
“Once we get down under the cloud deck where it’s dry, it shouldn’t be bad at all,” said Dan. “Except when it rains.”
“Once we get down under the cloud deck, I’m counting on seeing some saganlife forms and perhaps catching a few specimens,” said Sandra. “Something really alien.”
“Although you can’t see any lifeforms up here in the clouds,” said Dan. “You might be able to catch some ... small ones ...riding on the water droplets.”
“You’re right!” said Sandra, getting up. “Help me get in my saturnsuit. I’m going out to set up a dew net and see what I can collect.”
“If you wait until we drop below the freezing point so we are collecting water droplets rather than ice crystals, I’ll come with you,” said Dan.
A few hours later, Dan and Sandra were standing out on the open outer airlock door in their neon-bright fire-engine yellow-green high-visibility saturnsuits. On their arms, legs, and helmets was a highly reflecting colored identification band. Sandra’s color was green, of course, while Dan’s was orange. Each had a safety line attached to rings on opposite sides of the door. They peeked over the edge. The water cloud layer they were in was thick and dark. The 1 percent of Earth-level sunlight that made it across the ten AU of distance to Saturn was now almost completely absorbed by the thick mist. Dan turned on the floodlights that illuminated the exit opening of the airlock, but the intense beams were swallowed up a few meters away by the dense white fog.
Sandra and Dan threw out a net made of absorbent string. After letting it hang over the side for about fifteen minutes, while Sexdent plowed its way through the mist, they pulled it back up, soaking wet, and stuffed it in a large plastic bag.
“Look!” said Sandra, as she held the bottom comer of the bag up into the bright beam of the floodlight. “A tiny jellyfish!”
Dan looked carefully at the tiny straggling creature. “Looks like it’s drowning to me.”
“Drowning?” said Sandra, taking another look.
“It may be built like a jellyfish,” said Dan, “but I think it prefers air to water.”
Later, inside, after fishing out the larger specimens that were visible as tiny specks in an intense light beam, and putting them into separate containers, Dan and Sandra went into a routine. Down on the lower deck, Dan would prepare a slide from some water drop that had something interesting floating in it, and hand the slide to Puss, who would clamber into the constricted confines of the engineering sector on its six feet, and insert the slide into a nanoimager there. Meanwhile, up on the command deck, Sandra, with the aid of Jeeves, would quickly scan the slide using the large display on the science console. Jeeves would save a detailed digital image for later analysis, while Sandra would look quickly at the larger specks to see if any of them were significantly different from the others. After a couple of hours, Sandra called a halt.
“My eyes have had it,” she said. “Let’s let Jeeves and Puss do the rest. There’s nothing but simple sinkers here—no floaters or swimmers—too small.”
“Sinkers?” asked Seichi, who was watching over her shoulder.
“The simplest of saganlife,” said Sandra. “Even if a creature is heavier than air, if it is small enough, the viscous drag of the air is high and its rate of fall is slow. These small sinkers are easily carried upward by convective air flows, such as the thermal that is lifting the warm wet air below us, where it condenses to form the cloud around us. The small sinkers use the thermals to rise up to where there is light and they can use photosynthesis to grow. But as they grow, they become heavier and are no longer buoyed up by the air currents. They sink deeper and deeper into the atmosphere until they get to the depths where the air is so hot they are pyrolyzed.”
“Pyrolyzed?”
“Cooked to a crisp,” said Sandra.
