Free Jupiter by Ben Bova Page B

information had been terribly out of date.
    'Let's break for lunch,' Muzorawa said, pushing his chair back from the small oval conference table. The wallscreen went blank and the stuffy little room's overhead lights came on.
    'Fine,' said Grant, getting to his feet.
    As they headed for the cafeteria, Grant noticed that Muzorawa seemed to be lurching as he walked; not staggering, exactly, but the man walked with a hesitant, slightly uncertain gait, as if afraid that he was about to bump into some unseen obstacle or stumble drunkenly into a wall. He was clad in another turtleneck pullover that hung loosely over the same bulky-looking black leather leggings, with metal studs running down their outer seams. His feet were shod in what appeared to be soft moccasins.
    Most of the station's other scientific personnel wore casual shirts and slacks, as Grant himself did. The engineers and technicians usually wore coveralls that were color-coded to denote the wearer's specialty. /
    Once they had filled their trays and found a table, Grant asked, I'm still not clear about what you actually do here.'
    Moving his lunch dishes from his tray to the table, Muzorawa asked, 'Do you mean me personally, or the station in general?'
    'Both, I guess,' said Grant, sliding his emptied tray under his chair.
    'This station is the headquarters for the ongoing studies of Jupiter's moons,' Muzorawa said, as if reciting from a manual. 'Almost everyone here on the station is support staff for those studies.'
    Grant shook his head, unsatisfied. 'Okay, I know there are teams studying the life-forms under the ice on Europa and Callisto—'
    'And the volcanoes on Io.'
    'And the dynamics of the ring system.'
    'And Ganymede and the smaller moons, too.'
    'But you're not involved in any of that, are you?'
    Muzorawa hesitated a moment, then replied, 'No. Not me.'
    'Neither are Egon or Laynie.'
    'She prefers to be called Lane.'
    'But none of you are studying the moons, right?'
    Reluctantly, Grant thought, Muzorawa replied, 'No, we are part of a small group that is studying the planet itself, not the moons or the ring system.'
    'And Dr Wo?'
    An even longer hesitation, then, 'Dr Wo's official title is Station Director. He runs the entire operation here. He reports directly to the IAA, back on Earth.'
    Grant saw that Muzorawa looked distinctly uneasy when Wo's name was mentioned. And no wonder. The director must have the power of life and death over all of us, just about, Grant reasoned.
    Lowering his voice to a near whisper, Muzorawa said, 'Wo is more interested in Jupiter itself than its moons. That's why he's split us away from the rest of the staff and set us up to study the Jovian atmosphere.'
    'And the ocean,' Grant prompted.
    Again Muzorawa hesitated. Grant got the impression that the man was arguing with himself, debating inwardly about how much he should tell this curious newcomer.
    'Wo has assigned a small team to study the ocean,' he said at last. 'There are only ten of us — plus Dr Wo himself. And the medical and technical support staffs, of course.'
    'Why do you need a medical support staff?' Grant wondered.
    'The ocean is Wo's obsession,' Muzorawa added, actually whispering now. 'He is determined to find out what's going on down there.'
    'So what do you actually work on?'
    'Me? The fluid dynamics of the Jovian atmosphere ^and ocean.'
    Grant said nothing, waiting for more.
    'The atmosphere/ocean system is like nothing we've seen before,' Muzorawa said, his tone brightening at last, losing its guarded edge, taking on some enthusiasm. 'For one thing, there's no clear demarcation between the gas phase and the liquid, no sharp boundary where the atmosphere ends and the ocean begins.'
    'There's no real surface to the ocean,' Grant said, wanting to show the older man that he wasn't totally ignorant.
    'No, not like on Earth. Jupiter's atmosphere gradually thickens, gets denser and denser, until it's not a gas any more, but a liquid. It's… well, it's something