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发信人: by (春天的小懒虫), 信区: SFworld
标  题: 2010 (15)
发信站: 哈工大紫丁香 (Wed Oct  6 14:37:22 1999), 转信

                          15
             Escape from the Giant

When  Floyd  reached  the  observation  deck  -  a  discreet few
minutes  after  Zenia  -Jupiter  already  seemed  farther  away.
But  that  must  be  an illusion based on his knowledge, not the
evidence   of  his  eyes.  They  had  barely  emerged  from  the
Jovian  atmosphere,  and  the  planet still filled half the sky.
  And now they were - as intended - its prisoners. During
the last incandescent hour, they had deliberately jettisoned
the excess speed that could have carried them right out of
the Solar System, and on to the stars. Now they were
travelling in an ellipse - a classical Hohmann orbit - which
would shuttle them back between Jupiter and the orbit of Io,
350,000 kilometres higher. If they did not - or could not -
fire their motors again, Leonov would swing back and forth
between these limits, completing one revolution every
nineteen hours. It would become the closest of Jupiter's
moons - though not for long. Each time it grazed the
atmosphere it would lose altitude, until it spiralled into
destruction.
  Floyd had never really enjoyed vodka, but he joined the
others without any reservations in drinking a triumphant
toast to the ship's designers, coupled with a vote of thanks
to Sir Isaac Newton. Then Tanya put the bottle firmly back
in its cupboard; there was still much to be done.
  Though they were all expecting it, everyone jumped at
the sudden muffled thud of explosive charges, and the jolt of
separation. A few seconds later, a large, still-glowing disk
floated into view, slowly turning end-over-end as it drifted
away from the ship.
  `Look!' cried Max. `A flying saucer! Who's got a camera?'
  There was a distinct note of hysterical relief in the laugh-
ter that followed. It was interrupted by the captain, in a
more serious vein.
  `Goodbye, faithful heat shield! You did a wonderful job.'
  `But what a waste!' said Sasha. `There's at least a couple of
tons left. Think of all the extra payload we could have
carried!'
  `If that's good, conservative Russian engineering,' re-
torted Floyd, `then I'm all for it. Far better a few tons too
much - than one milligram too little.'
  Everyone applauded those noble sentiments as the jetti-
soned shield cooled to yellow, then red, and finally became
as black as the space around it. It vanished from sight while
only a few kilometres away, though occasionally the sud-
den reappearance of an eclipsed star would betray its
presence.
  `Preliminary orbit check completed, said Vasili. `We're
within ten metres a second of our right vector. Not bad for a
first try.'
  There was a subdued sigh of relief at the news, and a few
minutes later Vasili made another announcement.
  `Changing attitude for course correction; delta vee six
metres a second. Twenty-second burn coming up in one
minute.'
  They were still so close to Jupiter it was impossible to
believe that the ship was orbiting the planet; they might
have been in a high-flying aircraft that had just emerged
from a sea of clouds. There was no sense of scale; it was easy
to imagine that they were speeding away from some terrest-
rial sunset; the reds and pinks and crimsons sliding below
were so familiar.
  And that was an illusion; nothing here had any parallels
with Earth. Those colours were intrinsic, not borrowed
from the setting sun. The very gases were utterly alien -
methane and ammonia and a witch's brew of hydrocarbons,
stirred in a hydrogen-helium cauldron. Not one trace of free
oxygen, the breath of human life.
  The clouds marched from horizon to horizon in parallel
rows, distorted by occasional swirls and eddies. Here and
there upwellings of brighter gas broke the pattern, and
Floyd could also sec the dark rim of a great whirlpool, a
maelstrom of gas leading down into unfathomable Jovian
depths.
  He began to look for the Great Red Spot, then quickly
checked himself at such a foolish thought. All the enormous
cloudscape he could see below would be only a few per cent
of the Red Spot's immensity; one might as well expect to
recognize the shape of the United States from a small aero-
plane flying low above Kansas.
  `Correction completed. We're now on interception orbit
with Io. Arrival time: eight hours, fifty-five minutes.'
  Less than nine hours to climb up from Jupiter and meet
whatever is waiting for us, thought Floyd. We've escaped
from the giant - but he represents a danger we understood,
and could prepare for. What lies ahead now is utter mystery.
  And when we have survived that challenge, we must
return to Jupiter once again. We shall need his strength to
send us safely home.

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:-( Helix@KALI.COM.CN                                                208CE12C
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