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Pumpkin

Written by Bud Sparhawk

Illustrated by Lee Kuruganti

Away from the station the wind was free. Out there, in the vastness that was Jupiter’s atmosphere, the wind hummed sweetly, bragging of its freedom to move. But when it encountered the sharp prow of the station it screamed as if angered by this barrier, this obstacle to its travels.

Jake Sands listened to the voice of the wind through the thick plating of the E-2 station. He could sense the power of the five hundred knot wind as it was split on either side by the station’s sharp prow. He could feel the raw force of the fierce wind that, were the station to become separated from the tether that held it to the synchronous station far overhead, would toss it—and all of its fragile contents—as if it were no more than a child’s beach ball. Jake listened as the wind spoke to him, listened to the voice of Jupiter.

“You’ve got that look again,” Marie said. She was nursing a precious cup of coffee in her hands, sipping the liquid gold slowly, as if it were the nectar of the gods.

Jake snapped the cap on his own cup of tea, the only drink he could afford. He carefully measured a spoonful of sweetener into the dark brown brew and added a dollop of ersatz cream to lighten it. That done he sat back and sipped it slowly so as not to burn his tongue.

“I heard weather reporting a storm heading this way,” Marie continued. “Figured that you’d be heading out, but wasn’t sure until I saw your face.”

“Am I that transparent?” Jake grinned as he took another sip. “And here I thought I was being old stone face.”

Marie grimaced. “Don’t kid around, Jake. Mining these storms is dangerous business. You should leave it to the kids.”

Jake snorted. “I’m a lot better than most of them. Hell, by the time I was their age I’d already worked the wind all the way around Jupiter three times. Isn’t a thing me and Pumpkin can’t do better than them; not a single damn thing!” He took another sip. “Besides, you know how much we need to mine the storms.”

Marie didn’t respond immediately. Everyone who worked in the stations knew how expensive it was to bring goods, especially raw materials, down the elevator from geo-synch. Every gram they could mine was one less they had to bring down. It was also one gram less dependence on JBI’s mining operations on Europa, Io, and Callisto.

Jake leaned forward. “Now, don’t get upset again, Marie. You know I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to. Shoot, one day I’ll get lucky and find a big one. Then I’ll pay off my debts and get shy of Jupiter faster than the wind could carry me. Take you with me, I will. You can bet on it.”

“You keep saying that,” Marie replied sadly. “But every time you get a little ahead you find some change you want to make on that ship of yours. Tell me, have you made any progress on repaying the loan in the last few years? Or have you kept rolling over the loan to pay for the modifications?”

Jake hesitated. “I’ll admit that Pumpkin needs quite a bit of upkeep.” Then he grinned widely. “But then, she’s not a lot different from any other woman!”

Marie slammed her soft plastic cup down, which lacked the effect she wanted, and slopped the expensive coffee over the side besides. “Don’t make a joke about it, Jake! I nearly have a heart attack every time you say you’re going into one of these storms. I never know if you are going to come back.” She clenched her hands before her. “I don’t think I can take it much longer.”

Jake took her hands in his own. “Listen honey, Pumpkin’s a good ship and I know what I’m doing. There’s no need for you to worry. Shoot, there isn’t a storm the old man can throw at us that Pumpkin and me can’t beat. Haven’t I always come back to you?” He squeezed her hands when she nodded. “And I always will come back, Marie. To you, darling. To you! You’ve got to believe that!”

Marie sniffed and pulled her hands free. “The problem is, Jake, that I don’t think I can really and truly believe that any more. I worry about you. I’m always afraid that something will happen, that I will lose you. I’m sorry, but I just can’t help the way I feel.”

“Man’s got to go where he can make some money,” Jake said. “Storm’s the only way Pumpkin and me can get the high payoffs. Hey, don’t I make enough to live on from what I find?”

“You could make a lot more if you’d run shipments or take passengers. You could even get a good station job with JBI.”

Jake paused, but only for a second. “JBI won’t give an independent like me any shipping contracts, not while they have their own huge fleet of transports. And you know as well as I that Pumpkin isn’t set up to handle passengers. Shoot, there’s hardly enough room for me and crew!”

“You could let the bank have Pumpkin and take a position on one of JBI’s stations,” she said quickly, not willing to concede.

“Huh, I’d sooner cut off my arm than let them turn me into one of their popinjays. Besides, they don’t like us old guys—want them young and pliant, they do. Shoot, can you picture me in one of them fancy uniforms, strutting around like I was somebody?”

“You’d look great in JBI blues.” Marie shot back. “And you aren’t that old; you’re only forty-five!”

“Yeah, forty-five and nearly broke. Which is why, with the payment on Pumpkin due next week, I’ve got to go after this storm. Now come on, give me a kiss for luck and let me go. I’ve got to check on that lazy crewman of mine.”

****

Rams, Jake's sole crew member, was talking to the refit boss when Jake arrived at the shipyard bay. Both of them were wearing their pressure suits, which meant that they had either just come back in or were preparing to go out.

“Costing me time and money to let you two jawbone all day,” he grumbled as he approached them. “How’s the inspection going?”

Rams snapped to attention as if he were some damn JBI staffer. No matter how much Jake protested, Rams would not stop this silly routine. Jake half expected him to salute.

“Checks t’damn 'all right!” Rams chimed in a singsong Jupe accent so thick that you could cut it with a laser torch.

The boss nodded agreement and shoved the clipboard into Jake’s hands. “Signed and certified by your crew, Cap’n. Double checked every item m’self, I did.”

Jake scanned the sheet. All the checklist items were neatly marked off. Apparently everything he’d requested had been done, or at least Rams had signed that they had. The evening before he’d personally inspected the internal systems work for himself, just to be absolutely certain it had been done correctly. “I’d like to put my own eyeballs on the deck fittings,” he remarked and pointed to three items in the middle of the list. “Wait here until I suit up.”

The boss blustered. “Look here, I have other things that—”

Jake turned and glared at him. “If I remember my rights, a ship’s not certified until its captain signs off, no matter how many crewmen think it might be.” He glared at Rams and the boss, defying them to contradict him. When neither replied, Jake stamped to the fitting room.

****

Pumpkin floated high in her berth. Her keel was fully retracted, leaving only the enormous bulb of her counterweight hanging beneath the smoothly rounded hull. Jake noted the deep scars on the surface of the bulb, each one a mark from the storms they’d weathered over the years. Similar scars on the nose of the ship itself had been erased as part of the refit. Jake nodded when the boss pointed out the fresh welds where the scars had been.

The boss wore one of the new suits, lightweight and flexible in stark contrast to Jake’s bulky, heavy, second-hand suit.

“You did a good job, there,” Jake admitted and pointed at the ladder ahead of them. “Now, let’s take a look at the topside fittings.”

Even at this altitude, still within Jupiter’s atmosphere, the effective gravity was just a bit more than two gees. Adding that to the weight of the heavy pressure suit made climbing the ladder a major undertaking, even for someone in good shape. Jake, long accustomed to working the under Jupiter’s heavy gravity, didn’t mind. Besides, the climb gave him an opportunity to inspect the hull’s sides.

The shiny new deck fittings stood out from the rest of the deck gear. Jake bent over one of the new blocks and checked to make certain that it had been fastened per spec. He carefully read the serial number off the block and checked it against his own manifest to be certain that the numbers matched. He’d ordered those blocks from the best fabricators in high orbit and was damn sure that these shipwrights weren’t going to foist some substitute off on him.

“Look here,” he said as he pointed at the mains’l shroud, the covering that protected the sails until they were deployed. “That looks like a cold weld—see how rough it is! I want that corrected before we leave. Smooth it out and show me the deep scans afterwards!” Nobody was going to abuse Pumpkin while he was around!

“You don’t need scans of that weld. It isn’t load bearing,” the boss protested. “That weld’s just decorative—to make the installation look smoother.”

“It might be,” Jake bit out. “But if a worker gets sloppy on something trivial then he’s probably sloppy where it matters. If I were you, I’d fire the slob who did this,” he advised.

****

Early the next morning, after another detailed inspection of the shroud, Jake made himself comfortable in the captain’s chair. The tell-tales on the status board all read green.

“Rams, is everything in order down below?” he shouted down the short corridor to the forecastle.

“Aye Cap’n,” Rams responded. “I even tied down the fine china and put away your best crystal.”

“Very funny,” Jake replied dryly. Four plastic cups and two bowls constituted their entire dinnerware.

He turned to the console and toggled the intercom. “Pumpkin is ready to go, Echo Two. Can you grant me clearance?”

“Pumpkin, this is Echo-2 control. Ready to accept the report, Jake?” It was Marie’s voice. He’d forgotten that this was her shift.

“Sure, Marie,” he responded laconically. He’d already gotten all of the weather information he needed before boarding, so this last bit of official folderol was pretty irrelevant.

“Weather reports the wind at one-twenty meters per second and falling,” Marie recited in a sing-song rhythm. “The storm’s about one hundred and twenty thousand kilometers away and moving south by southeast at about two hundred meters per second. Weather predicts that the center will pass about eighteen thousand kilometers to the north of the station.”

“Excellent. That will give me plenty of time to get into position to make at least a double pass as it goes by.”

Marie hesitated and then resumed her report. “Laminar wind flow of the Kilo Kilo and Lima Lima bands will be somewhat disrupted by the storm, but weather predicts no lasting effects beyond the double Kay bands. We do not advise . . .”

“You don’t have to say it,” Jake interrupted.

“We do not advise the northerly course you have filed,” Marie continued as if she hadn’t heard. “Please record your acknowledgement that you will not hold the station responsible for loss or damage as a consequence of your sail plan. Do you so acknowledge?” There was a barely concealed crack in her voice, as if she were hoping that he would not do so.

“I understand and acknowledge,” Jake said dryly, and then added; “Don’t worry, Marie. I’ll be all right. Done this plenty of times. Don’t worry.”

“I have recorded your acknowledgement,” Marie continued in her official voice. “You are cleared to depart.”

The huge clamshell hatches behind Pumpkin groaned ponderously open, exposing the ship to the whipping winds that howled around the station. Pumpkin bobbed and strained at the clamps that held her fast to the berth as the wind sucked at her stern.

“Pumpkin ready to depart,” Jake said as the little ship strained toward the opened hatch. “Goodbye, Marie.”

“Fair winds and good passage, Cap’n.” she replied with the standard sign off and then added in a rush. “Watch yourself, Jake. Come back to me.”

With those words she released the station’s clamps. Jake could hear them clang through the pressure hull as they released. Now, the only thing holding Pumpkin to the station were her own tie-downs.

“Ready for release," he warned Rams as he tightened his own seat belt another notch. As soon as Rams acknowledged that he was secure Jake hit the release button. The retraction motor in the bow whined as it pulled the docking lines aboard.

Pumpkin drifted quickly backwards. The closer she came to the opening the faster she moved. In a matter of seconds the ship had accelerated so that the walls of the station whipped past in a blur.

Then Pumpkin was free. She slipped into the air stream and was tossed backwards, rocking and tumbling until her speed equalled that of the surrounding wind. The radar image of the station disappeared in the white hash from Jupiter’s constant electrical activity.

“I’m setting our course for sixty-five degrees,” Jake shouted over the rattle of the gear as Rams lowered the keel to stabilize them. “I figure that we’ve got three days to get ourselves into position.”

After Jake checked Rams' work to make certain that the keel had been set properly, he activated the winch that pulled the mainsail out of the shroud and into the wind. The sail luffed for a moment until Jake forced Pumpkin’s nose into the wind and tightened the main sheet. The ship heeled dramatically as the breeze caught and filled the sail, tilting them to a precipitous thirty-degree angle. As the ship leveled she drove forward, cutting across the prevailing wind at a steep angle.

A few minutes later, after he was satisfied with the set of the main, Jake deployed the small foresail and winched her as tight as she’d go, forcing the wind through the venturi formed by the tight angle between main and jib. With the additional sail area unfurled, Pumpkin increased her speed. On this course he needed to run as close to the wind as possible. Pumpkin ran smooth and true, as if she was grateful to be finally free.

“The barrier layer feels a mite rough today,“ Jake said casually as he fought the wheel. The little craft was being tossed about in the turbulence at the boundary between the dense atmosphere beneath them and the relatively light air above them. There was continual turbulence between the layers, causing them to mix and tumble and make the boundary layer resemble the rolling, tempestuous seas of Earth.

****

Pumpkin raced toward the oncoming storm with hardly a hairsbreadth deviation from Jake’s carefully plotted course. When the inertial navigation system indicated that they were in position, Jake hauled the jib back, turned Pumpkin head to wind, and let the main fly free. Pumpkin rocked precipitously for a moment.

“This heave-to trick of yours always scares me,” Rams said nervously as Pumpkin began swinging wildly.

Jake laughed as the ship’s oscillations damped with each swing. “Don’t worry, Rams. Done this lots of times. She’ll run slow into the wind this way. All we have to do now is wait for the storm to come to us. Keep an eye on the manometer. Soon’s it starts to fall we’ll need to make ready.” That last instruction was just to give Rams something to concentrate on while they waited. He’d set the automatics to alert them long before the pressure gauge showed any sign of movement of the storm’s approach.

He was surprised at Rams’s reaction. In their few years together he’d taught Rams how to balance keel and ballast and how to adjust the buoyancy of the ship. He told him the secrets of playing the winds of Jupiter’s storms to capture its treasures. He had tried to teach Rams to love the wild winds of Jupiter’s wine-red seas. He wondered if his efforts had been wasted.

“I wish we could see what is happening out there,” Rams said wistfully.

“Sure, and I wish that I had a ship that was ten times the size of tiny Pumpkin, but wishes won’t make it so,” Jake said. “It's black as pitch outside.” He didn’t need to add that the radar was useless; there was so much electrical energy around Jupiter that returns from more than a few tens of meters away was pure hash, impossible to decipher.

The echophones were more useful, although not in any way the designers of those systems intended. Jake had learned over the years that he could use the echophones to listen to the approaching storms. He’d learned that Jupiter’s winds had their own voice.

Sometimes the winds sang soft songs of the vast distances they travelled as they swept the vast planet, as if they were boasting of the millions of kilometers that had passed beneath their fleet feet. When Pumpkin was moving, he felt that the winds sang a slow song, one of gentle passages across the vast uncharted distances, of ports hundreds of thousands of miles apart, of long voyages where only the wind and the ship mattered.

When a storm approached the wind whispered hymns of power and majesty. There was a deepening to Jupiter’s eolian voice, a deep basso that seemed to say, “I am coming. I am coming to duel with you, pitiful little humans. I can crush your tiny craft, rip your very atoms apart and spread the pieces over a billion square kilometers. I could kill you in an instant!”

Jake knew that he and Pumpkin could best any storm. He’d acquired the skills needed to ride the updrafts and beat to weather in a hundred voyages. The ship might just be a tiny bulb of metal and plastic, but—unlike the storms—he could use his knowledge and skills to show Pumpkin how to ride the pressure waves and dance on the cyclonic winds.

“Come ahead,” Jake whispered to himself as he listened to the storm’s challenge. “Come and get me if you dare!”

****

Alarms shrilled within the cabin. Jake was off the bunk and onto his feet instantly. All traces of sleep vanished as he tightened his truss and worked his way back to the helm. Jake’s heart was pounding furiously. He could feel the rush of adrenaline, the nervous sinking in his stomach, the tingling of his entire body as the excitement of the storm’s arrival washed through him. This was what he lived for, the challenge of beating Jupiter’s furious storms, of the anticipation of great wealth that they would find, of the excitement of the moment. Nothing else equalled it. He was grinning broadly by the time he reached the helm.

Rams was already fighting the sails and the wheel. Jake noted that Rams had already lowered the keel to maximum length. Good. The blinking red light on the console told him that Rams had also started pumping ballast to give Pumpkin some more weight.

Their kilometer-long diamond fiber keel contained pipes and pumps to pull denser material into the keel to balance the force of the wind on the sail. Since it was always easier to lose ballast than bring more aboard it was wise to enter the storm with a full load. According to the indicators, it wouldn’t take long for the ballast pumps to finish.

“You’re showing her too much of our beam,” Jake shouted as Pumpkin heeled to port. “Let me take the helm!”

Jake slid into the seat and twisted the wheel. As Pumpkin turned he quickly adjusted the main, pulling it in as much as possible. He then tightened the jib. Pumpkin responded to the adjustments and slewed into her new heading, cutting into the storm and accelerating quickly.

Rams lowered the gain on the radar in preparation for their mining run. If the storm was carrying anything from down below it would show up on the short range radar display far brighter than the static.

Jake jibbed the ship from side to side, favoring always the side of greatest pressure and bearing into the teeth of the storm. Pumpkin’s relative speed increased with each maneuver as Jake worked their way to the center of the raging arms that guarded the periphery of the storm.

“Down on Earth they’d call this a million year storm!” Jake shouted as Pumpkin rocked ahead. “Just a tiny little turbulence out here, eh?” He laughed as Pumpkin tilted from a sudden gust.

“I’d rather not be on Earth in a storm like this,” Rams admitted. “Too much open down there, I’m told. No protection against the wind at all.” He shivered visibly. Like most native Jovians he was most comfortable in the close confines of ship and station.

Jake laughed. “Grew up down on Earth. Didn’t come to work the old man until I was in my teens. You’d like Earth, Rams. Lots of pretty girls, plenty of fresh food, and air that doesn’t smell like damned ammonia all the time.”

“Nothing wrong with our food,” Rams protested. “Besides, what good are pretty girls to me? I am already married.”

Jake grunted. He’d hardly call Rams arrangement with a woman back on Earth a marriage. As far as he knew, Rams had only seen his bride in photos and never touched or spoken to her. Such were the ways of his people. He wondered wryly how they would ever have children; would Rams mail her a frozen specimen?

Pumpkin heeled suddenly as another gust hit. Instead of steady westerlies the fierce winds were now blowing the ship directly south. One look at the new heading told Jake that the storm was to their north, and passing them by. He had misjudged the track and sent them too far below the storm’s path.

Jake quickly released the wheel and spun Pumpkin about. He let the jib balloon wide and let the main swing to the opposite side. For a moment he could picture the titanium-strengthened sails whipping like soft silk in the intense breeze as they flew across the deck and then filled with the wind that was now to their back. Pumpkin tipped forward as the sails filled.

The wind drove the ship downwards for a few seconds until Pumpkin found her balance, steadied, then accelerated as she raced northward along the face of the storm. As they passed closer to the center of the turbulence the pressure decreased and they dropped lower and lower.

“Have to stay clear,” Jake said as a caution to Rams, but mostly as a reminder to himself. “If we fall into the low pressure at the center, we’ll lose too much altitude. Be a bitch to fight our way back.” He said it calmly, knowing full well that if they fell too far into the low-pressure center they could die. Without the supporting P12 layer they would fall forever until Jupiter crushed the ship as if it were made of foil.

But the risks of falling were worth taking. Close to the center were where the strongest updrafts could be found. Nearest the center were the vertical winds that brought the riches of the deep up to his level.

Metallic, ice, and stony meteorites dropped through Jupiter’s atmosphere until they reached a point where their density equalled their surroundings. At that point they floated, a sargasso of astronomical history. Any storm whose center reached down to that level wrenched them upwards and tossed them about. And, occasionally, the storm brought them up to where Jake could mine them.

There was a sound like raindrops on a metal roof. “That’s gravel hitting us!” Rams exclaimed excitedly. “Should I drag the scoop?”

“Wait a bit,” Jake replied with one eye on the radar. He didn’t want to waste his time on this early, tiny dross. Farther along, closer to the storm’s mouth, the gravel would be larger, the riches would be more plentiful. He made a slight adjustment to turn Pumpkin more toward the center and felt her drop noticeably.

The clatter of the gravels’ impact grew louder. A field of bright sparks glowed in the display; a decent radar return that meant that they were at least half a meter across. The rocks were prime size!

“Hit it!” Jake shouted and jinked the ship sideways as Rams kicked the release on the scoop. Pumpkin bucked as the wind hit the deployed netting. Jake fought to keep her on course, fought to keep her from falling into the center as he steered the sharp division between safety and certain death.

The stream of gravel didn’t seem to have an end. There was a continuous pounding on the hull. In a matter of moments their net was loaded to capacity and began to drag on the ship, slowing her speed.

Rams reeled the scoop’s harvest into the hold as Jake fought to work Pumpkin outward and upwards. He had to make use of the updrafts, skipping from one to the next while avoiding the even more fierce downdrafts.

The proximity alarm sounded a shrill warning. Jake glanced at the display and saw an enormous radar return. It was so large that it had to be nearly three meters across!

Jake spun Pumpkin’s wheel, hoping to keep the fleeting phantasm in view. But the huge nugget disappeared from the display, leaving only the occasional sparks from gravel. “Did you see that?” he asked. “Did you see that big mother?”

“See what?” Rams said in puzzlement, looking up from the scoop controls. Apparently he had not been distracted from pulling the scoop aboard when the alarm sounded.

“We almost hit a big rock. From the way it reflected the radar it had to be pure metal, I’ll bet—a solid nickel iron meteorite! Damn, if we’d caught that one it would have paid off a big hunk of Pumpkin’s debt.”

“Next time, for sure,” Rams said repeating the standard prayer of the storm miners. He really didn’t sound as if he believed Jake at all. “But for now let’s get out of here. I want to see what we’ve caught this time.”

Jake turned Pumpkin outward, away from the storm’s center, away from the tantalizing riches that he had just missed. The winds dropped and Pumpkin rocked along on a course to the nearest station.

****

Jake was upset. Not only had they barely made a profit from their catch from the storm, but, worst of all, none of the other miners believed him about the huge nugget he’d seen.

“Probably another miner’s craft,” one of them said. “Better get your recognition coder checked, Jake—else you might think a station’s one of them there Jovian whales!” The room had erupted in gales of laughter at that.

Their amusement was his own fault, he thought miserably, reflecting on the fact that he had exaggerated slightly on a few occasions in the past. He rose, took a bottle by the neck and stepped toward the joker. “You calling me a liar, Brian?” he muttered.

“I think it is time that we found ourselves something to eat,“ Rams said loudly as he put himself between the two miners. “Captain, let us go.”

“You’ll see,” Jake shouted as Rams steered him away from his glowering adversary. “I’ll come back with the biggest damn hunk of rock anybody’s ever seen down here. Just you wait!”

“What shall we have to eat this evening?” Rams asked once they were away.

“Steak and gravy,” Jake replied grimly. “Best meal we can afford on what we made. Yes, station steak and gravy would be just the thing.”

****

“You the captain who brought that little ketch in last night?” a harried-looking man demanded as he approached their table.

Jake looked up from his plate of station steak and gravy—the cafeteria’s nightly special. A single glance took in the man’s expensive clothing, his neat haircut, and the pair of new, unblemished boots he wore.

“Pumpkin’s a barque, not a ketch,” Jake said slowly, indicating by tone that he thought the man’s education sadly lacking. “And who the hell are you?”

“Pavel Grobbka,” the man introduced himself. He sounded as if he had other things on his mind. “Listen, I need someone to run me back to station E-2. I understand that’s your home port.”

Jake scooped another big spoonful of beans and chewed them slowly, as if they were pieces of the real steak he couldn’t afford. He swallowed his too-dry beans and then took a drink of cheap beer to wash them down. “I think you’ve got me confused with the JBI liner desk. They can sell you a ticket on the next packet ship out of here.”

“I can’t wait until next week,” Grobbka protested. “I have to get back to E-2 as quickly as possible. Listen, I’ll pay if you’ll take me right away.”

“Me and Rams here figured to spend a day or two resting up,” Jake drawled. “Might sail back the day after tomorrow.”

Pavel placed his hands on the table to bring his face level with Jake’s. “Tomorrow or the next day is too late, Captain! I really need to leave immediately! Tell me what you want to take me as a passenger and I’ll pay it.”

Jake pushed some beans and rice together with his spoon, moving them into a tiny puddle of thin pseudo-gravy. “Money’s not the point. Like I said; Pumpkin’s not outfitted for passengers and, just in case you didn’t hear me the first time, I’m in no hurry to leave. Need my rest, you know.”

Pavel slumped into the extra chair and put his head in his hands. “But you’ve the only ship available. All the rest either have to be refitted before they can sail or are already cleared for someplace else. You’ve got to take me!”

Jake slowly savored a mouthful of the highly spiced rice that was mixed with his beans. “Life’s too short to be rushing about. What’s so all fired important that you can’t wait another week?”

“I have to get up the elevator to my wife,” Grobbka explained. “I was supposed to be back last week, but was delayed by . . . well, no reason to go into that.” He stopped for a moment and then said, almost too low to be heard; “I guess I’ll miss the delivery.”

Jake’s ears perked up. “Delivery? What; some big deal cargo coming in that you have to handle?”

The man smiled sadly, “In a manner of speaking. It’s my first child. My wife’s up in geosynch right now, waiting for her time. I . . . I was supposed to be with her.”

Jake wiped his mouth and finished the last of the beer. “C’mon Rams, we got to empty out the equipment hold.”

Rams choked on his beans. “Why? You told me to pack all the spare gear in there just this morning.”

Jake stood up. “Well, things change. Come on. We can’t expect our new crewman here to sleep on that pile of crap, can we?”

“Crewman?” Grobbka and Rams exclaimed.

“Well, sure,” Jake smiled. “I said that Pumpkin don’t carry passengers and she doesn’t. Crew’s another matter entirely.” He looked at their startled expressions. “Well, come on! We got a delivery schedule to meet!”

****

There was a celebration in progress at the Rat’s Nest when Jake and Rams wandered in. Surprise of surprises was that Marie seemed to be in the middle of the festivities.

“I passed my finals!” she shouted as she threw her arms around Jake and planted a huge kiss on his lips. “God, I missed you!” she added when they came up for air. “I was so afraid.”

“Didn’t I promise you that I’d be back,” Jake replied. “And I missed you, too,” he added.

Marie danced away and pulled him into the circle of fellow celebrants—all station people, Jake noted.

“Great news, isn’t it?” remarked a tall black man. “Master Marie Monarimi. Has a certain ring to it.”

“She’ll have a station of her own within a month or two, you can count on it,” said another—Jake thought his name was Toma, a guy who shared watches with her.

Marie sneered. “Not likely. I’m tenth on the list, which puts my station a year or more away.”

Toma shook his head. “I heard that fabrication is launching two new stations a year, Marie. You might move up that list faster than you think.”

“Yeah,” the black man said. “I think a few of the old hands are ready to rotate back to Earth. Cross your fingers for luck!”

Jake wondered if it were true. Was it possible that Marie would be leaving E-2 to manage one of the floating stations that circled Jupiter with the winds?

****

“You’ll come with me, won’t you?” Marie said when they reached the privacy of her quarters. “I can support the both of us on a master’s salary. You wouldn’t have to mine the storms any more. You wouldn’t have to put yourself at risk so much.”

“Still have to make the payments on Pumpkin,” he said slowly, as if pointing out the obvious. “No sense letting the ship go when I put so much into her.”

“You could get a station job—I could authorize that.”

Jake shook his head. “Don’t know much about station tending. Besides, what would happen to Pumpkin if I had some kind of job?”

“Well, for starters, you could stop thinking about that damned ship of yours and start thinking about us for a change. Jake, I want you with me when I get my station. I need you with me when I go.”

“Pumpkin has to be moored at one of the tethered stations, you know that,” Jake continued, oblivious to her protests. “Can’t mine the storms without adequate weather data and the tethered stations are the only place I can do that.”

“Forget mining the fucking storms!” Marie screamed. “You won’t have to do that once I start drawing a master’s pay. You won’t have to sail that stupid barque of yours. You won’t have to do anything but be there for me!”

Jake stood up abruptly. “So you want me to be a damn lap dog? I’ve always paid my own way and always will. Spend your master’s pay to buy a cat or something if you want a pet. I’ll have no part of it!” With that he stomped out and made his way to where Pumpkin was berthed.

The ship’s bunk was especially cold, hard, and lonely that night.

****

Rams woke him the next morning. “I saw Master Landston having breakfast with Marie in the dock cafeteria,” he reported. “Did you two have an argument again?”

“Keep your nose out of other people’s business,” Jake bit back as he rubbed sleep from his eyes. “Marie’s a grown woman. She can eat with whoever she wants.”

Rams looked thoughtful. “Ah, I see. You did have an argument, didn’t you?”

“I think you need to repack the sails, Rams. Wouldn’t be surprised if it took you all day to do that.”

Rams was taken aback. “You will not be helping me.” It was a statement of fact, not a question.

“No, I think I need a bit of breakfast myself. Guess I’ll wander over to the cafeteria and see what they have that might interest me.”

Rams smiled as he pulled on his work gloves.

Marie was sitting in a corner of the cafeteria when Jake arrived. She was freshly showered and wore a clean uniform that was in stark contrast to Jake’s rumpled bearing. There was a half-empty cup of tea before her. Landston was nowhere in sight.

Jake sat down. “Good morning.”

Marie stared at him. “Do you think that you can just walk in here and act as if nothing happened last night?”

“Missed you terrible,” Jake said and gently stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Maybe we both need to forget about the future for a little bit and let things settle themselves out.”

Marie pulled away. “No, that’s what we do every damn time! I can’t just let things drift any more, Jake. I want to know what sort of future we are going to have. I want to feel confident about what we can build together, and that means that I can depend on you next week, next month, next year.”

“Sorry you feel that way,” Jake said slowly. “After you been down here in the old man as long as I have you’ll realize how little control we really have over the future. Storm could blow that station of yours off of its track so’s you could never find your way back. Ships go out and get lost, broken, destroyed by a storm or maybe have some other mischance. You plan too far in advance and you’re bound to be disappointed. Future’s a chance happening here on Jupiter, not something you can depend on.”

Marie chewed her lip. “I can’t live that way, Jake. I need someone I can depend on. I want somebody stable—someone willing to invest time and energy in a relationship. Damn it, Jake; I want to know that my man is going to try to stay alive for me and not rush off into every damn storm that comes along!”

“Now, you don’t really mean that, do you, darling?” Jake smiled widely as he drawled out the words. “Nobody puts as much time and energy into a relationship as old Jake. Come on, let’s go home and make up.”

Marie stiffened. “Don’t try to wheedle me into bed, Jake. Stop that,” she pushed his exploring hand away, but gently. “I really shouldn’t let you touch me. Ouch! That pinched!” She aimed a slow swing at his chin, which he easily deflected and pulled her closer. “Damn you, Jake. Damn you to hell and back!” Marie said as she returned his kisses with increasing fervor. “But first, let’s get you a shower and a shave.”

Rams had the entire sail set repacked by the time a smiling Jake returned.

****

Marie was excited when she got off shift and burst into their quarters. She shook a flimsy in Jake’s face. “Why didn’t you download the mail today?” she demanded. “Look! Look what came! This is important!”

Jake snatched the flimsy from her waving hand and tried to read it in the dim cabin light.

“It’s an offer of a contract with JBI!” Marie exclaimed before he could finish reading the tiny text. “Someone over at corporate has actually offered to give you a long-term contract! They want you to make speed runs between stations for high priority shipments.”

Jake scanned the address block and recognized the name at the top. It was that Grobbka fellow, the one with the pregnant wife. Apparently this must be his way of repaying the favor.

“Looks like tight schedules, constant demand, but the pay could be good,” Marie said excitedly as she danced around the room.

“Pays not good, but adequate,” Jake said slowly. “You know that JBI won’t give a small shipper like me top rates. I’d probably get all the shit jobs they don’t want.”

Marie sat in his lap and threw her arms around his neck. “Don’t you see? You can do this. No more storms. No more putting yourself at risk. It’s a good, safe way to keep Pumpkin.”

“Maybe,” Jake admitted slowly. “But, before I reply I think I need to talk this over with Rams and see what we’d have to do to the ship. Might need some more modifications, you know. Could be costly. Cargo take different equipment.”

“Then get another loan,” Marie laughed. “Hell, I’ll even pay part of it. Oh, Jake. I do love you. Now we can be together. Now we can have a future!”

“Together don’t come with making freight runs,” Jake corrected her.

“But you will always come back, won’t you,” she said smugly. “I’ll know that you’ll always come back to me!”

****

A month later Pumpkin had been refitted. Jake had them widen the hatch to the scoop bay, which was now the cargo hold, and replace the heavy-weather sails with a set of standard issue. The new sails would allow Pumpkin to make speedier passages, provided they stayed out of the heavier winds.

The contract required a number of safety modifications that would make the barque less agile. Jake had protested, but let Marie and Rams overcome his objections. He might be able to carry higher value cargo, they argued, if he complied with JBI’s safety regulations.

“First shipment’s due in two days,” Rams announced breathlessly as soon as he returned from the Factor’s Office.

Jake looked up from the satellite shots and rubbed his chin. “Look here,” he pointed at a spot of turbulence at the edge of the KK band. “There’s a big storm due around that time. Supposed to pass real close, just northeast of us.”

“Not a problem,” Rams replied quickly with a flashing smile. “According to the manifest we are to be heading southwest, in the opposite direction, completely out of the path of the storm. We are so lucky!”

“Just the same I’m going over to weather to take a look at the raw data myself. Never did trust those pointy-headed weather people to make a decent prediction. Want to get a good look at this monster for myself.”

Jake knew how to read the signs of Jupiter’s weather, having figured long before the scientists had put an equation to it that the depth of a storm was a function of its radius and its angular speed. The higher the product of the two numbers the deeper it would pull up the stuff that floated below, where even the five hundred million tons of meteorites that rained onto Jupiter each year were light enough to float. Jake could look at the first satellite pictures of a forming turbulence and decide whether it was worth the trouble to mine its depths. This gave his a clear advantage over the others who waited until weather confirmed Jake’s instincts and therefore arrived too late or found themselves in the wrong position.

Rams came back from dinner to find Jake arguing with the yard boss. The heavy canisters of their new sail sets were lined side by side on the dock floor. Four of the stevedores were swinging Pumpkin’s old heavy-duty sails into the sail locker.

“What is happening?” he asked as he ran to Jake’s side. “Why are you changing the sails?”

Jake finished giving the boss instructions and turned to face Rams. “It's the storm!” he said with rising excitement in his voice. “Rams, I’ve never seen a storm this deep. It’s the biggest, widest damn thing that the old man has ever boiled up! From the satellite pictures I figure that it must go at least two thousand kilometers deep. This one is going to bring up stuff that we’ve never seen before—it’s going to be the richest haul we’ll ever make!”

“But what about the cargo?” Rams cried. “We must make the run tomorrow when the shipment arrives down the elevator! Whatever shall we tell the JBI?”

“Screw JBI and its stinking cargo!’ Jake shouted. “Didn’t you hear me? This storm is the big one! This storm is going to make us rich beyond belief! Now, come on, get a move on. We have a lot to do if we’re going to set sail this evening.” He turned to shout more instructions at the stevedores as Rams stood with his mouth agape.

****

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Marie screamed when she arrived at the dock, oblivious to the