Mays stood slightly apart from the crowd of media-hounds who’d gathered to slice newsbites out of Inspector Ellen Troy and Professor J. Q. R. Forster. His new production assistant craned her neck to see the door, at present firmly shut, where the media victims were scheduled to appear. “Shouldn’t we be closer?” Marianne fretted. “They’ll be here any minute.”
“We’re quite well situated,” Mays replied, speaking into the microfiber that tight-linked him to the pick-up unit Marianne wore in her ear. When the time came to take his pictures and ask his questions, his great height and unmistakable voice would make it unnecessary to actually come in contact with the squirming mass of his fellows.
“I can’t see very well,” Marianne complained.
“I can,” said Mays, putting an end to the discussion. His assistant didn’t need to see in order to do her job—such as it was. Having decided he could use her help, Mays had been prepared to put up with bare competence in some areas provided he got complete cooperation in others. To his surprise, Marianne had proved far from useless; indeed, she had shown herself quite adept at making travel arrangements and appointments and generally keeping his schedule in order, using the phonelink in that half-efficient, half-sexy, American college girl voice of hers as if she’d been born to the device. She didn’t even balk at carrying his luggage; in his workmanlike old leather satchel she’d brought along his recorders and extra chips and the old-fashioned notebook he sometimes used as a prop.
If Mays were given to such thoughts, he would have had to credit Bill Hawkins with his good luck. But Mays wasn’t the sort to give credit to others, unless forced to it. After all, he’d decided to seduce Marianne no matter what; Hawkins had just made it that much easier. . . .
“Here they come, Randolph,” said Marianne. There was hissing and jostling in the pack of newshounds. She handed him the camera and microphone pick-up he’d specified.
Mays slipped into the rig and expertly framed the shot in time to catch the opening of the door. Professor Forster was first through it, followed by the rest of his crew. Last onto the dais was Inspector Ellen Troy, trim in her Space Board blues. Marianne stood by, thrilled, watching the scene unfold on her tiny auxiliary remote monitor.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” Forster began. “I would like to start by . . .”
“Why have you been avoiding the media, Forster?” someone yelled at him.
“What have you got to hide?” another screamed.
“Troy! Inspector Troy! Isn’t it true—”
“You, Troy! What about reports that you—”
“—that you’ve been locked up in an asylum for the past twelve months?”
“—tried to kill Howard Falcon and sabotage the Kon-Tiki expedition?”
Forster closed his mouth with an almost audible snap, tucked in his chin, and glared from beneath gingery brows, waiting for the questioners to wear themselves down. Finally there was a lull in the cacophony. “I’ll read a brief statement,” he said, clearing his throat with a growl. “Questions afterward.”
There were renewed shouts, but the majority of the reporters, realizing that Forster would go on ignoring them until he’d been given a chance to read his prepared remarks, turned on their fellows and shushed them smartly.
“If he says anything of the slightest interest, please make sure I’m awake to record it,” Mays drawled into his microlink.
“Thank you,” said Forster into the sullen and expectant silence. “Let me introduce the members of the Amalthea expedition. First, in charge of our vessel, the Michael Ven tris, our pilot, Josepha Walsh; our engineer, Angus McNeil; and our navigator, Anthony Groves. Assisting me in surface operations will be Dr. William Hawkins and Mr. Blake Red-field. Inspector Ellen Troy represents the Board of Space Control.”
“I’ll wager she represents rather more than that,” whispered Mays.
“Our mission is two-fold,” Forster continued. “We wish to determine the geological structure of the moon. More particularly, we hope to resolve certain persistent anomalies in the radiation signature of Amalthea. For over a century—until the termination of the Kon-Tiki expedition last year—Amalthea was observed to radiate more energy than it receives directly from the sun and by reflection from Jupiter. Almost all of the excess heat could be attributed to the impact of charged particles in Jupiter’s radiation belt—almost all, but not quite all. We should like to learn where that extra heat came from.”
“Especially now that the heat’s been turned up,” Mays kibbitzed.
“The question has become more urgent since Amalthea became geologically active. It now reradiates much more energy than it absorbs. What kind of heat engine is driving the ice geysers that are causing Amalthea to lose almost half a per cent of its original mass each twelve hours—every time the moon orbits Jupiter?”
“Oh, do tell us,” Mays pleaded, sotto voce.
“Finally, of course,” Forster said, speaking hurriedly, “we hope to learn what connection may exist between the recent events on Amalthea and the creatures called medusas which live in the clouds of Jupiter.” He glared at the audience of ostentatiously bored reporters. “We’ll take questions.”
“Troy! Where did you spend the past year?” shouted one of the loudest of the hounds.
“Is it true you were in an asylum?”
She glanced at Forster, who nodded. He knew who the real media star was. “I’ve been involved in an investigation,” she said, “the nature of which, for the time being, must remain confidential.”
“Oh, come on,” the man groaned, “that doesn’t . . .”
But other questioners were already shouting him down: What about the aliens, Forster? Aren’t you really going to Amalthea to find Culture X? You and Troy talking to these aliens, is that it?
A piercing female voice cut through the babble: “You claim your expedition is scientific, Professor Forster. But Sir Randolph Mays claims you’re part of the Free Spirit conspiracy. Who’s right?”
Forster’s grin was feral. “Are you sure you’re quoting Sir Randolph correctly? Why not ask him? He’s right there, in back.”
The whole pack of them turned to stare at Mays, who muttered, “What’s this then?” even as he continued to aim his photogram camera at the odd spectacle. “Be ready, my dear,” he addressed Marianne, “we’re going to have to spring our little surprise earlier than I’d hoped.”
“What about it, Sir Randolph?” the woman reporter called in his direction. “Don’t you think Forster’s one of them?”
He held the camera to one side, still pointed at the newshounds—enjoying their resentful attention—and at the crew of the Michael Ventris waiting uneasily on the dais beyond them. “I never said you were part of the conspiracy, Professor,” he called out cheerfully, a huge grin stretching his voracious lips over his sturdy white teeth. “Nevertheless I throw the question back to you. You know something known to the Free Spirit and unknown to the rest of us. Tell us the real reason you are going to Amalthea. Tell us the reason you are taking an ice mole. Tell us why you are taking a Europan submarine.”
Ice mole!
Submarine!
What’s all this in aid of, Forster?
“As for this Free Spirit of yours, Sir Randolph, I am wholly in the dark.” Forster’s grin was as fierce as Mays’s; they could have been a pair of feuding baboons disputing the leadership of the pack. “But as to the moon Amalthea, it seems you have chosen not to hear what I have just been saying. Amalthea is expelling its substance into space through immense spouts of water vapor. Therefore this moon must consist very largely of water, some of it solid—for which an ice mole is a useful exploratory tool—and some of it liquid, the sort of environment for which the submarines of Europa were designed.”
Josepha Walsh leaned forward to tap Forster on the shoulder; Forster paused to listen to his pilot’s whispered words, then returned his attention to the assembled reporters. “I’m informed that the countdown for our departure has already begun,” he said with gleeful malice. “Unfortunately that is all the time we have for discussion. Thank you for your attention.”
The cries of rage from the frustrated newshounds were frightening enough to justify the precaution of spaceport guards, who emerged from the doorway to protect the retreat of Forster’s crew; none but Sparta and Forster himself had said a word to the assembled media.
“Is that all they’re going to say?” Marianne asked, frustrated that her questions—thousands of them—were still unanswered.
Mays tore off his comm rig. “He mocks me.” He stared over the heads of his milling colleagues, seemingly lost inside himself. Then he looked down at his assistant. “We have only begun to report this story. But to carry on will require imagination . . . and daring. Are you still committed, Marianne?”
Her eyes shone with dedication. “I’m with you all the way, Randolph.”