Free Ilium by Dan Simmons Page A

broad-spectrum sensors and facilitators. The thing was obviously used to hard vacuum; its surface was pitted and sanded and repolished, then repitted again so many times that it looked as pockmarked as Io itself. Here in the pressurized conference room it used powerful source-repellers to keep from gouging the floor. Mahnmut kept his distance from the Ionian, taking a place across the communion slab from it.
    None of the others introduced themselves via either infrared or tightbeam, so Mahnmut followed suit. He connected to nutrient umbilicals at his slab niche, sipped, and waited.
    As much as he enjoyed breathing when he had the luxury of doing so, Mahnmut was surprised that the room was pressurized to 700 millibars—especially with the nonbreathing Ganymedan and Ionian in attendance. Then Asteague/Che began communicating through micro-modulation of pressure waves in the atmosphere—speech, Lost Age English no less—and Mahnmut realized that the room was pressurized for privacy, not for their comfort. Sound-speech was the most secure form of communication in the Galilean system, and even the armored, hard-vac Io worker had been retrofitted to accommodate it.
    “I want to thank each of you for interrupting your duties to come here today,” began the Pwyll prime integrator, “especially those who traveled from offworld to be present. I am Asteague/Che. Welcome, Koros III of Ganymede, Ri Po of Callisto, Mahnmut of the south polar prospect survey here on Europa, and Orphu of Io.”
    Mahnmut cycled in surprise and immediately opened a private tightbeam contact. Orphu of Io? Are you then my longtime Shakespearean interlocutor, Orphu of Io?
    Indeed, Mahnmut. It is a pleasure to meet you in person, my friend.
    How strange! What are the odds of us encountering each other in person this way, Orphu?
    Not so strange, my friend. When I heard that you were going to be invited on this suicide expedition, I insisted on being included.
    Suicide expedition ?
    “. . . after more than fifty Jovian years without contact with the post-humans,” Asteague/Che was saying, “some six hundred Earth years, we’ve lost track of what the pH’s are up to. It makes us nervous. It is time to send an expedition in-system, toward the campfire, and to find out what the status of these creatures has become and to assess if they are a direct and immediate threat to Galileans.” Asteague/Che paused a moment. “We have reason to suspect that they are.”
    The wall behind the Europan integrator had been transparent, showing the bulk of Jupiter above the starlit icefields, but now it opaqued and then displayed the various moons and worlds moving in their stately dance around the distant sun. The image zoomed on the Earth-Moon-rings system.
    “For the last five hundred Earth years, there has been less and less activity on the modulated radio, gravitonic, and neutrino spectrums from the post-humans’ polar and equatorial habitation rings,” said Asteague/Che. “For the last century, none at all. On the Earth itself, only residual traces—possibly due to robotic activity.”
    “Does the small group of original humans still exist?” asked Ri Po, the small Callistan.
    “We don’t know,” said Asteague/Che. The integrator passed his hand across the allboard and an image of Earth filled the window. Mahnmut felt his breathing stop. Two-thirds of the planet was in sunlight. Blue seas and a few traces of brown continents were visible under moving masses of white clouds. Mahnmut had never seen Earth before, and the intensity of color was almost overwhelming.
    “Is this a real-time image?” asked Koros III.
    “Yes. The Five Moons Consortium has constructed a small optical deep-space telescope just outside the bow-shock front of the Jovian magnetodisk. Ri Po was involved in the project.”
    “I apologize for its lack of resolution,” said the Callistan. “It has been over a Jovian century since we’ve resorted to visible light astronomy. And this