Brake

Brake

Poul Anderson, excerpt

Many hours later, using orbital figures modified by further observation, a shuttle-boat from Ganymed came near enough to locate the Thunderbolt on radar. After maneuvering around so much, it didn't have reaction mass enough to match velocities. For about a second it passed so close that Devon's crew, working out on the hull, could see it – as if they were the damned in hell watching one of the elect fly past.

The shuttle-boat radioed for a vessel with fuller tanks. One came. It zeroed in – and decelerated like a startled mustang. The Thunderbolt had already fallen deeper into the enormous Jovian gravity field than the boat's engines could rise. 

The drifting ship vanished from sight, into the great face of the planet. High clouds veiled it from telescopes – clouds of free radicals, such as could not have existed for a moment under humanly endurable conditions. Jupiter is more alien than men can really imagine.

Her orbit on reemergence was not so very much different. But the boats which had almost reached her had been forced to move elsewhere they could not simply hang there, in that intense a field. So the Thunderbolt made another long, lonesome pass. By the time it was over, Ganymede was in the unfavorable position, and Callisto had never been in a good one. Therefore the ship entered Jupiter's atmosphere bor a third time, unattended.

On the next emergence into vacuum, her orbit had shortened and skewed considerably. The rate at which air drag operated was increasing, each plunge went deeper beneath the poison clouds, each swung through dear space took less time. However, there was hope. The Ganymedeans were finally organizing themselves. They computed an excellent estimate of what the fourth free orbit would be and planted well-fueled  boats strategically close at the right times.

Only – the Thunderbolt did not come anywhere near the predicted path.

It was pure bad luck. Devon's crew, working whenever the ship was in a vacuum, had almost cut away the after section. This last plunge into stiffening air resistance finished the job. Forces of drag and reaction, a shape suddenly altered, whipped the Thunderbolt wildly through the stratosphere. She broke free at last, on a drastically different orbit.

But then, it had been unusual good luck which brought the Jovians so close to her in the first place. Probabilities were merely reasserting themselves.

The radio said in a weak, fading voice: :Missed y” gain. Do know if we d'n come near, next time. Your period's getting' very short.”

“Maybe you shouldn't risk it.” Banning sighed. He had hoped for more, but if the gods had decided his ship was to plunge irretrievably into Jupiter, he had to accept the fact.

“We'll be all right, I reckon.” 

Outside, the air roared hollowly. Pressures incomparably greater than those in Earth's deepest oceans waited below.

On his final pass into any approximation of clear space – the stars were already hazed – Banning radioed: “This will be the last message, except for a ten-minute signal on the same band when we come to rest. Assuming we're alive! We've got to save capacitors. It'll be some time before help arrives. When it does, call me. I'll respond if we've survived, and thereafter emit a steady tone by which we can be located. Is that clear?”

A space-boat lost in space. Illustration by Elena.