“I told you—”
“If you don’t know what your guys are doing, it’s because they’ve hidden it from you or because you don’t want to know,” Vonnie said. “I’m sorry.”
Six men and one woman was a bad imbalance. Brazil had hurried its mission to Europa. Maybe they’d experienced a last-minute complication that caused them to switch the seventh man for Tavares.
She must feel restless, always waiting behind while the men go into the ice, Vonnie thought. She wants a friend. I can see it in her face, but she’ll never admit it.
I wouldn’t, either. That’s why I have the best chance of reaching her. If the personnel records we filched are accurate, Tavares is a lot like me and Ash, too nosy for her own good, hyper-educated, and committed to doing the right thing. Otherwise she wouldn’t have answered my call, and she hasn’t kept talking to me to practice her English.
“Please,” Vonnie said. “Just let me send two sims.”
“I… I will have an AI screen your files first,” Tavares warned her.
“Understood. I’m transmitting now.”
“My people are not killing sunfish,” Tavares said. “You will not have proof of it.”
“We have exact numbers and coordinates of the blasts. If your guys aren’t trapping or fighting the sunfish, what are they doing? Why do they isolate you when they’re programming your mecha?”
“I do not like you watching us.”
Vonnie shrugged again. “You’re watching us, too, you know. It’s part of the job.”
After a moment, Tavares nodded. “Do not leave,” she said. Then she blanked her screen, and Vonnie questioned Ash and Koebsch with one hand.
“We’re mute,” Ash said. “She can’t hear us.”
“I think she already suspected what her guys are doing. She resents not being included.”
“You don’t know how she feels,” Koebsch said.
“I think I do. It doesn’t help that they put her at the bottom of their totem pole — a woman sergeant with all those captains and colonels.”
“Ribeiro is the only colonel, Von.”
“You know what I mean. They have two captains, three lieutenants, and one noncommissioned officer. Guess who it is? The woman.”
“She’s a support tech, not a FNEE specialist like the rest of them,” Koebsch said. “You’re reading too much into the situation. I hate to tell you, but you always read too much into it.”
“If I didn’t, you’d never—”
“Tavares looks like she’s back online,” Ash said, stopping Vonnie from bristling at Koebsch.
The two of them had made their peace, but it was an uneasy truce. Partly that was because Koebsch wasn’t old enough to be Vonnie’s father, yet struck a paternal tone with her. Mostly it was because he constantly gave her more leeway than she expected, then second-guessed her. Why?
Vonnie thought he was attracted to her. Koebsch took his job seriously and wouldn’t compromise his own authority by wooing a subordinate, but they were a long way from home, and there were only four women including Vonnie among the eleven members of the ESA crew. Adding fuel to the fire, she was a celebrity. Koebsch had been compelled to give her too much of his attention, first in overseeing her recovery, then in debriefing her and fielding endless media requests for interviews and sims.
The rest of his time went into his job. In addition to managing the ESA crew, Koebsch was their liaison to the thousands of scientists back home who wanted specific data, experiments, or new missions into the ice. He also dealt with administrators and politicians who had their own questions. He’d been given a staff on Earth to assist with these demands, but he couldn’t have been busier if he’d given up sleeping, showering, and eating.
More than once, he’d mentioned to Vonnie that overseeing her media sessions was the most fun he’d had in weeks, a subtle kind of praise. Did he want more time with her?
Peter Günther Koebsch wasn’t bad-looking. Gene smithing had made age differences of ten or twenty years irrelevant. In many countries on Earth, the average lifespan had increased to a hundred and ten with the bulk of those years spent in active good health. But when Koebsch acted protective and possessive of her, Vonnie felt annoyed.
She didn’t need a daddy.
“Reopen channels,” she said, making sure she tamped down her irritation with Koebsch before turning to the showphone. “Hi.”
“I will need to study this data,” Tavares said.
“Please share it with Ribeiro. We’re prepared to denounce his actions to the Allied Nations if necessary.”
“Do not think you would be alone in that,” Tavares said. “Three weeks ago, we filed protests for a cyber assault on our operations.”
“I know,” Vonnie said.
Tavares stared at her. She opened her mouth to answer, stopped herself, then began again. “Was it you?”
Being a celebrity has its advantages, Vonnie thought. Like Koebsch, Tavares was more inclined to listen because she thought Vonnie was a living legend.
“The assault was non-lethal and it was a preventive action in accordance with A.N. Resolution 4545,” Vonnie said. “Ribeiro brought gun platforms into the ice in violation of international law.”
“That resolution has changed. Even your team has mecha in the ice.”
“Our mecha are intended for scientific and diplomatic efforts, not war.”
“And yet you have spies near our operations.”
“Claudia, the blasts we’re hearing aren’t small,” Vonnie said. “The NASA base is forty klicks from your base. They’ve confirmed the biggest explosions. My guess is you’ve felt the explosions yourself.”
“Sometimes there are cave-ins,” Tavares said, but now she sounded uncertain.
“We’ll give you eight hours,” Vonnie said. “Quit shooting. Extract your team. Maybe we can work together to repair the damage you’ve caused.”
“I will ask Colonel Ribeiro.”
“Thank you. We want to be friends, but if you’re killing sentient creatures…”
Tavares lowered her brown eyes, hiding her dismay and something else. Anger? Recrimination? “I will ask, Von,” she said, allowing Vonnie the smallest victory of calling her by name. Then she cut their connection.
29.
Thirty minutes later, after helping Koebsch arrange their next response to the Brazilians, Vonnie and Ash suited up and left Module 01. As usual, Ash took control of the jeep. Not letting Vonnie drive had become a private joke between them, deepening their friendship.
Vonnie loved being outside. There was room to stretch. She’d been trained to endure being cooped up inside their landers and hab modules, but she didn’t like it — and after five weeks of living inside Lander 04, it was a relief to look around.
Europa’s sky was peppered with other moons. Vonnie identified Io and Himalia as they trundled across camp, and there were other dim shapes set against the stars.
Jupiter had seventy-one satellites. That number included the four largest Galilean moons such as Europa and Io, four medium-sized bodies like Himalia, and sixty-three hunks of rock in a variety of prograde, retrograde, or irregular orbits. They formed a dizzying system which would have been deadly to ships without navigation AIs, which were vital to piloting spacecraft through the ever-changing revolutions.
In time, some of those tiny moons would be drawn too close to Jupiter, where its gravity would crush them into dust. A very few would drift away, expanding their orbits and tugging loose of Jupiter’s grasp.