Read Online Xeelee: Endurance by Stephen Baxter - Free Book Online
Authors: Stephen Baxter
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disembodied head spinning eerily. ‘There are options.’
‘Go on,’ Poole said.
‘You could immerse yourselves in the crater lake. The suits could withstand that. It’s cold in there, the briny stuff is well below freezing, but it’s not as cold as the open air. Kept warm by the residual heat of impact, remember. Even so you would only stretch out your time by a day or two.’
‘Not enough,’ Miriam said. ‘And we wouldn’t get any work done, floating around in the dark in a lake.’
I laughed at her. ‘Work? Who cares about work now?’
Poole said, ‘What else, Harry?’
‘I considered options where two people might survive, rather than three. Or one. By sharing suits.’
The tension between us rose immediately.
Harry said, ‘Of course those spiders also left you Bill’s suit. The trouble is the power store is built into the fabric of each suit. To benefit you’d have to swap suits. I can’t think of any way you could do that without the shelter of the gondola; you’d freeze to death in a second.’
‘So it’s not an option,’ Poole said.
Miriam looked at us both steadily. ‘It never was.’
I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or not, for I had been determined, in those few moments when it seemed a possibility, that the last survivor in the last suit would be myself.
‘So,’ Poole said to Harry, ‘what else?’
‘You need the gondola’s GUTengine to recharge your suits,’ Harry said. ‘There’s just no alternative.’
I pointed at the toiling spiders on the cryovolcano. ‘Those beasts have already thrown it into that caldera.’
‘Then you’ll have to go after it,’ Harry said, and, comfortably tucked up in the Crab , he grinned at me. ‘Won’t you?’
‘How?’ I was genuinely bewildered. ‘Are we going to build a submarine?’
‘You won’t need one,’ Harry said. ‘You have your suits. Just jump in . . .’
‘Are you insane? You want us to jump into the caldera of a volcano, after a bunch of metal-chewing monster spiders?’
But Miriam and Poole, as was their way, had pounced on the new idea. Miriam said, ‘Jovik, you keep forgetting you’re not on Earth. That “volcano” is just spewing water, lava that’s colder than your own bloodstream.’ She glanced at Harry. ‘The water’s very ammonia-rich, however. I take it our suits can stand it?’
‘They’re designed for contact with the mantle material,’ Harry said. ‘We always knew that was likely. The pressure shouldn’t be a problem either.’
Poole said, ‘As for the spiders, they will surely leave us alone if we keep away from them. We know that. We might even use them in the descent. Follow the spiders, find the engine. Right?’
Harry said, ‘And there’s science to be done.’ He displayed data in gleaming Virtual displays – cold summaries only metres away from Bill Dzik’s corpse. Harry said that his preliminary analysis of our results showed that the primary source of the atmosphere’s crucial methane was not in the surface features, but a venting from the cryovolcanoes. ‘And therefore the ultimate source is somewhere in the ammonia sea,’ Harry said. ‘Biological, geological, whatever – it’s down there.’
‘ OK ,’ Poole said. ‘So we’re not going to complete the picture unless we go take a look.’
‘You won’t be out of touch. I’ll be able to track you, and talk to you all the way in. Our comms link have a neutrino-transmission basis; a few kilometres of ice or water isn’t going to make any difference to that.’
A few kilometres ? I didn’t like the sound of that.
‘So that’s that,’ Miriam said. ‘We have a plan.’
‘We have a shared delusion,’ I said.
They ignored me. Poole said, ‘I suggest we take an hour out. We can afford that. We should try to rest; we’ve been through a lot. And we need to sort through these supplies, figure out what we can use.’
‘Yeah,’ said Miriam. ‘For instance, how about nets of ice as ballast?’
So he
‘Go on,’ Poole said.
‘You could immerse yourselves in the crater lake. The suits could withstand that. It’s cold in there, the briny stuff is well below freezing, but it’s not as cold as the open air. Kept warm by the residual heat of impact, remember. Even so you would only stretch out your time by a day or two.’
‘Not enough,’ Miriam said. ‘And we wouldn’t get any work done, floating around in the dark in a lake.’
I laughed at her. ‘Work? Who cares about work now?’
Poole said, ‘What else, Harry?’
‘I considered options where two people might survive, rather than three. Or one. By sharing suits.’
The tension between us rose immediately.
Harry said, ‘Of course those spiders also left you Bill’s suit. The trouble is the power store is built into the fabric of each suit. To benefit you’d have to swap suits. I can’t think of any way you could do that without the shelter of the gondola; you’d freeze to death in a second.’
‘So it’s not an option,’ Poole said.
Miriam looked at us both steadily. ‘It never was.’
I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or not, for I had been determined, in those few moments when it seemed a possibility, that the last survivor in the last suit would be myself.
‘So,’ Poole said to Harry, ‘what else?’
‘You need the gondola’s GUTengine to recharge your suits,’ Harry said. ‘There’s just no alternative.’
I pointed at the toiling spiders on the cryovolcano. ‘Those beasts have already thrown it into that caldera.’
‘Then you’ll have to go after it,’ Harry said, and, comfortably tucked up in the Crab , he grinned at me. ‘Won’t you?’
‘How?’ I was genuinely bewildered. ‘Are we going to build a submarine?’
‘You won’t need one,’ Harry said. ‘You have your suits. Just jump in . . .’
‘Are you insane? You want us to jump into the caldera of a volcano, after a bunch of metal-chewing monster spiders?’
But Miriam and Poole, as was their way, had pounced on the new idea. Miriam said, ‘Jovik, you keep forgetting you’re not on Earth. That “volcano” is just spewing water, lava that’s colder than your own bloodstream.’ She glanced at Harry. ‘The water’s very ammonia-rich, however. I take it our suits can stand it?’
‘They’re designed for contact with the mantle material,’ Harry said. ‘We always knew that was likely. The pressure shouldn’t be a problem either.’
Poole said, ‘As for the spiders, they will surely leave us alone if we keep away from them. We know that. We might even use them in the descent. Follow the spiders, find the engine. Right?’
Harry said, ‘And there’s science to be done.’ He displayed data in gleaming Virtual displays – cold summaries only metres away from Bill Dzik’s corpse. Harry said that his preliminary analysis of our results showed that the primary source of the atmosphere’s crucial methane was not in the surface features, but a venting from the cryovolcanoes. ‘And therefore the ultimate source is somewhere in the ammonia sea,’ Harry said. ‘Biological, geological, whatever – it’s down there.’
‘ OK ,’ Poole said. ‘So we’re not going to complete the picture unless we go take a look.’
‘You won’t be out of touch. I’ll be able to track you, and talk to you all the way in. Our comms link have a neutrino-transmission basis; a few kilometres of ice or water isn’t going to make any difference to that.’
A few kilometres ? I didn’t like the sound of that.
‘So that’s that,’ Miriam said. ‘We have a plan.’
‘We have a shared delusion,’ I said.
They ignored me. Poole said, ‘I suggest we take an hour out. We can afford that. We should try to rest; we’ve been through a lot. And we need to sort through these supplies, figure out what we can use.’
‘Yeah,’ said Miriam. ‘For instance, how about nets of ice as ballast?’
So he
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