Jupiter (1973) Read online

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  ORIGINAL $1.25

  266

  23sk JUPITER

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  Be

  SPECULATIVE FICTION

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  BY SCIENCE FICTION’S

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  MASTER PROGNOSTICATORS.

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  EDITED BY CAROL AND FREDERIK POHL

  INTRODUCTION BY ISAAC ASIMOV

  “When / was a little boy I read astronomy books. I also

  read science fiction. Astronomy books told me a jew

  facts about Jupiter, but not many of the intimate details. Few intimate details were known in the prehistoric times in which l was a boy. Besides l preferred what

  the science-fiction tales said concerning Jupiter . .

  — Isaac Asimov

  (from his Introduction)

  What with all the P io n eer probes headed for that giant

  and mysterious planet, it won’t be long before we find

  out everything we ever wanted to know about Jupiter

  — well, almost everything! Meanwhile, let’s see how

  nine of our own pioneers in science fiction imagined the

  planet.

  Titles by

  FREDERIK POHL

  Short Stories

  Novels

  THE GOLD AT THE

  SLAVE SHIP

  STARBOW’S END

  EDGE OF THE CITY

  ALTERNATING

  DRUNKARD’S WALK

  CURRENTS

  A PLAGUE OF PYTHONS

  THE CASE AGAINST

  THE AGE OF THE

  TOMORROW

  PUSSYFOOT

  TOMORROW TIMES

  SEVEN

  THE MAN WHO ATE

  THE WORLD

  TURN LEFT AT

  THURSDAY

  THE ABOMINABLE

  EARTHMAN

  DIGITS AND DASTARDS

  DAY MILLION

  In collaboration with

  In collaboration with

  C. M. KORNBLUTH

  JACK WILLIAMSON

  THE SPACE MERCHANTS

  THE REEFS OF SPACE

  SEARCH THE SKY

  STARCHILD

  GLADIATOR-AT-LAW

  ROGUE STAR

  WOLFBANE

  UNDERSEA CITY

  THE WONDER EFFECT

  UNDERSEA FLEET

  UNDERSEA QUEST

  Anthologies

  THE STAR SERIES (No. 1 through No. 6)

  STAR OF STARS

  NIGHTMARE AGE

  All published by Ballantine Books

  JUPITER

  Edited, by Carol and Frederik Pohl

  Introduction by Isaac Asimov

  BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK

  Bridge, by James Blish, copyright © 1952 by Street & Smith

  Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author’s agent,

  Robert P. Mills, Ltd.

  Victory Unintentional, by Isaac Asimov, copyright © 1942 by

  Fictioneers, Inc., copyright renewed 1969 by Isaac Asimov.

  Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Desertion, by Clifford D. Simak, copyright © 1944 by Street

  & Smith Publications, Inc., copyright renewed 1972 by Clifford

  D. Simak. Reprinted by permission of the author’s agent, Robert

  P. Mills, Ltd.

  The Mad Moon, by Stanley G. Weinbaum, copyright © 1934

  by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of

  the author’s agent, Forrest J. Ackerman.

  Heavyplanet, by Milton A. Rothman, copyright © 1939, by

  Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of

  the author.

  The Lotus-Engine, by Raymond Z. Gallun, copyright © 1940

  by Fictioneers, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author’s

  agent, Forrest J. Ackerman.

  Call Me Joe, by Poul Anderson, copyright © 1957 by Street

  & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author’s agent, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

  Habit, by Lester del Rey, copyright © 1939 by Street & Smith

  Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author’s agent,

  Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

  A Meeting with Medusa, by Arthur C. Clarke, copyright ©

  1971 by Playboy. Reprinted by permission of the author’s agent,

  Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

  Copyright © 1973 by Carol and Frederik Pohl

  Introduction Copyright © 1973 by Isaac Asimov

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American

  Copyright Conventions.

  SBN 345-23662-9-125

  First Printing: December 1973

  Printed in Canada

  Cover art by John Berkey

  BALLANTINE BOOKS, INC.

  201 East 50th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  Contents

  Introduction: Jupiter the Giant

  vii

  Isaac Asimov

  Preface: Jupiter at Last

  xv

  Frederik and Carol Pohl

  Bridge

  1

  James Blish

  Victory Unintentional

  39

  Isaac Asimov

  Desertion

  65

  Clifford D. Simak

  The Mad Moon

  81

  Stanley G. Weinbaum

  Heavyplanet

  111

  Milton A. Rothman

  The Lotus-Engine

  125

  Raymond Z. Gallun

  Call Me Joe

  149

  Poul Anderson

  Habit

  193

  Lester del Rey

  A Meeting with Medusa

  211

  Arthur C. Clarke

  JUPITER THE GIANT

  Introduction

  01

  When I was a little boy I read astronomy books.

  I also read science fiction. Astronomy books told me

  a few facts about Jupiter, but not many of the intimate

  details. Few intimate details were known in the prehistoric times in which I was a boy. Besides, I preferred what the science-fiction tales said concerning Jupiter, and in many of them Jupiter was an inhabited

  world not terribly different from Earth, except that

  it might be the haunt of space pirates or intelligent

  insects.

  The truth dawned on me not through more careful

  reading of more up-to-date astronomy books, but

  through that remarkable phenomenon, John W. Campbell, Jr. Even before he became an editor and singlehandedly turned science fiction into a mature and rational branch of literature, he was educating us with a series of astronomical articles for Astounding Stories.

  These taught me, for the first time, that science could

  be as fascinating as science fiction.

  The best article in the series was “Other Eyes

  Watching” in the February 1937 issue. It was about

  Jupiter and never again did I think of Jupiter as anything but what it more or less was.

  In fact, the second story I wrote (in 1938) dealt

  with Jupiter’s satellite system, and in writing it I used

  some of the views I had read in Campbell’s article

  a year and a half earlier. I sold that second story to

  vii

  viii

  Jupiter

  none other than Fred Pohl, the male half of the editorial

  team of this anthology. He published it under the title

  of “The Callistan Menace” in the April 1940 issue

  of Astonis
hing Stories.

  I doubt that any self-respecting science-fiction writer

  would nowadays write any story about Jupiter that

  didn’t take into account what we know (or think we

  know) about the planet— as this anthology demonstrates. Naturally, then, we are all fascinated by the new knowledge that the space age may be on the point

  of bringing us.

  As I write this, the space-probe Pioneer 11 has taken

  off from Cape Kennedy in a long-drawn-out flash of

  blazing orange light. Beyond the atmosphere it reached

  a speed of nine miles a second, and it passed the Moon

  after eleven hours of flight. Some time in February

  1975, it will pass near Jupiter.

  But it will be only the second probe to pass that

  planet. Ahead of it is Pioneer 10, which took off on

  March 2, 1972, and has passed safely through the

  asteroid belt (as I write this) and is still transmitting.

  It will reach Jupiter on December 3, 1973 (about the

  time this book is published), and will pass only 85,000

  miles from the planet’s surface— still transmitting, if

  all goes well.

  Whipping about the giant planet, Pioneer 10 will

  gain enough speed to break out of the Sun’s gravitational grip and go skittering past the orbits of all the outer planets. In 1984 it will pass beyond Pluto, and

  will continue farther still.

  Pioneer 10 will be the first man-made object ever

  to leave the solar system. It will be moving in the

  direction of the star Aldebaran and will reach the

  neighborhood of that star (or the neighborhood where

  it now is) in about 1,700,000 years.

  On Pioneer 10 is a message from Earth, etched into

  Introduction

  ix

  a 6-by-9-inch gold-covered aluminum slab. It is not

  an ordinary message, but a mixture of figures and

  symbols that could be properly interpreted only by

  sophisticated astronomers of the type we would expect

  in any society advanced enough to detect the small

  probe in space and to pluck it out of emptiness—

  millions of years from now, if ever.

  But Pioneer 10 (and Pioneer 11, too if it follows in

  the tracks of the earlier probe) will have ceased transmitting long before it leaves the solar system. What will happen to it after it passes Jupiter we will never

  know. But that doesn’t matter. All we ask of it is to

  tell us something of the environment it encounters as

  it speeds by Jupiter and its twelve satellites.

  How strong are the radiation belts around Jupiter?

  What is the strength of its magnetic field? How many

  particles does it encounter? How strong are the pulls

  of Jupiter’s satellites? What is the appearance of the

  satellites’ surfaces? What is the appearance of Jupiter’s

  cloud cover at close range? Its colors? Its movement?

  Its chemistry? Its temperature?

  Question mark, question mark, question mark . . .

  And why do we want to know?

  Because Jupiter is different, enormously different,

  and we don’t know what to make of it.

  We live on a planet, and we know its characteristics.

  There are other planets in the solar system that are

  essentially like E arth-different in detail, but Earthlike overall. And since we know about the Earth, we automatically know something about them.

  We have landed on our sister-world, the Moon. It

  is smaller than Earth and has neither air nor water,

  but its soil and rocks are not very different from those

  of Earth. And the scenery of the Moon could be similar

  to that in some areas of the Earth if you allow for

  the lack of air and water.

  We have seen Mars close up, and it is different in

  *

  Jupiter

  detail from the Moon and Earth, but there is a broad

  similarity, too. We have touched the surface of Venus

  with several Soviet orobes and with radar waves, and

  it, too, is rough and hard and mountainous.

  And Mercury, no doubt, and the asteroids, and the

  satellites of the various planets— All different in detail,

  but all members of the same species. That Earth is

  sufficiently different to support life is the result of the

  accident that it is the largest of all these bodies and

  is at a distance from the Sun that allows water to

  remain liquid.

  Among all the bodies circling the Sun, there are only

  four that do not belong to Earth’s species, but to a

  different species altogether. These four are Jupiter,

  Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and the reason they are

  of a different species is that they are much larger than

  Earth— so much larger that they form in a different

  wav and end with a different composition and nature.

  Of them all, Juoiter is the largest and therefore the

  most extreme in its differences. It is the one closest to

  the Sun, so that it receives more energy from solar

  radiation and is more violently stormy than the rest,

  and also the one closest to us, so that it is most easily

  examined.

  To study this other species of planet, we must study

  Jupiter.

  Of course, though it is closest to us of any of its kind,

  it is still not very close. At its closest, Jupiter is nearly

  400.000,000 miles from us— sixteen hundred times as

  far away as the Moon, four times as far away as the

  Sun. Is it any wonder the probes take nearly two years

  to reach it?

  And it really is a giant.

  It has a diameter a little over eleven times that of

  the Earth. In other words, if you place eleven bodies

  like the Earth side by side, they won’t quite stretch

  across the width of Jupiter. That’s the usual way of

  Introduction

  xi

  comparing planetary sizes, but it doesn’t begin to show

  the difference.

  Jupiter’s surface area is 125 times that of the Earth.

  If you imagine the surface of the Earth peeled off and

  flattened out and pasted on the surface of Jupiter, it

  would cover about half as much of that planet as the

  United States does of the Earth.

  And if you consider volumes, Jupiter is fourteen

  hundred times as large as the Earth.

  Of course, Jupiter isn’t as well packed as Earth is.

  Although it has fourteen hundred times as much room

  as Earth has in which to pack away matter, it has only

  318 times the mass of Earth. That’s enough, to be sure,

  since it means that Earth is to Jupiter as your weight

  is to that of two African elephants, of the largest size,

  put together.

  Jupiter’s mass is enough to hold a far-flung system

  of satellites to itself. One of those satellites, Jupiter-

  VIII, can recede to a distance of 20 million miles from

  Jupiter— eighty times as far as the Moon is from

  Earth— without breaking away. Four of the satellites

  are Moon-sized or larger. The largest, Ganymede, is

  larger than the planet Mercury.

  The nearest of the four large satellites, Io, is exactly

  as far from the center of Jupiter as the Moon is from

  the center of
Earth (and it is almost exactly the size

  of the Moon, too). Earth’s relatively feeble gravity,

  however, can only drive the Moon into a motion of

  five-eighths of a mile per second, so that it does not

  complete its circle about the Earth for over twenty-

  seven days. Io, driven by Jupiter’s colossal gravity,

  moves at nearly eleven miles per second and circles

  Jupiter in less than two days.

  Everything about Jupiter is big and lavish.

  Well, not everything. Its density is small because,

  as aforesaid, there is only three hundred times Earth’s

  mass spread out through fourteen hundred times Earth’s

  xu

  Jupiter

  volume. Jupiter’s density is only one-quarter that of

  Earth.

  That alone should tell us that Jupiter does not belong

  to the same species as Earth. If Jupiter had anything

  like the chemical composition of Earth, its gigantic

  gravitational field would pull it together so as to make

  it considerably denser than Earth.

  To be less dense than Earth despite the pull of its

  gravity, Jupiter must be made up largely of materials

  less dense than those that make up Earth, materials

  common enough in the Universe to be found in quantities sufficient to build a giant planet.

  This leaves us with one possibility only—hydrogen,

  together with a few minor impurities such as helium,

  neon, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. Helium and neon

  don’t react with any other substances but exist only

  as single, standoffish atoms. Anything else must combine

  with the overwhelming quantities of hydrogen. Carbon,

  nitrogen, and oxygen must exist as methane (CH4),

  ammonia (NH3), and water (H aO ).

  And that’s what we find. In the last half century,

  astronomers have slowly gathered evidence to show

  that Jupiter’s atmosphere is largely hydrogen, with

  admixtures of helium and probably neon, plus some

  methane and ammonia. (Water is undoubtedly present

  also, but is frozen solid somewhere below.)

  Yet it is an odd atmosphere, filled with cloud banks

  through which we cannot see. And the clouds have

  colors, even though none of the constituents we can

  detect are colored.

  There is a great elliptical spot in Jupiter’s atmosphere