Part 11: Jupiterian Adventures

MARUCIA'S STORY

Once the great reconfiguration was done and things calmed down, order was reestablished, our host, now called XOXLNDU instead of Sender, was quite considerate of our specific needs and wishes, THEY understood that we were scientifically curious about the planet Jupiter and that it had always been mysterious to the human race, visible in the distance with telescopes. but physically unapproachable until here and now. Our foremost curiosity concerned the Jupiterian life forms, whom we were now meeting and learning about, but another of our major priorities was to find out about the Great Red Spot of Jupiter.

XOXLNDU informed us that THEY always had to keep moving, constantly swimming through the Atmosea to ventilate fresh breathing air (hydrogen, helium, methane, ammonia) for the crew of various modular creatures that composed THEM, so we could just as well take a trip to the Red Spot and see it for ourselves.

Like anyone's observations of a planet, your perception of things depends upon where you happen to be at any moment, thus a sunrise or sunset fools you into believing that you are standing still and the sun is merrily twirling around you, whereas it is actually the planet rotating. We had been tucked away inside one of Sender's bladders to protect us from the violent reconfiguration of two Nations, but plugged into THEIR neural network so that we could actually monitor everything without lifting a finger. But the whole point of exploring is to go somewhere and see things for yourself. We wanted out.

There was some concern for the safety of my unborn fetus-- which they knew about before I did-- because Jupiter's AtmoSea can be dangerous, but it was determined that as long as we remained in the vicinity of XOXLNDU we would be sufficiently protected. So we were allowed to fly free.

I should explain that the Great Red Spot was as much a mystery for XOXLNDU as it was for us, THEY knew nothing about it. Perhaps THEY had known as the SENDER entity, but lots of brain modules had been accidently squashed in the mating melee and some memories had to have been lost. So THEY were as enthusiastic about our little road trip as we were.

THEY asked for directions along the way, when we swam past other townships. There are no signposts on Jupiter, or even landmarks, it's all churning and frothing AtmoSea, it's impossible to get down to the rock core of the planet because the atmosphere becomes too dense to penetrate. But we did learn that the GRS was volcanic in nature. Superheated gasses foamed and bubbled up from some hole in the planet's core, stained red or brown. We were warned that it is far too hot to swim in, one could only look from a distance.

We were allowed to park our Jupship high atop XOXLNDU's skeletal ridge allowing us a scenic view of the serrated landscape, resembling islands, facing the direction of flow. To us it looked like a peaceful view of a mountain chain ahead of us (the size of England, a thousand km north to south, sounds about right), churning, swirling clouds in the sky above and below , but otherwise we could almost not feel that we were screaming along at high velocity, keeping up with the storms around us, except for a gentle rocking like on a train.

The GRS was not too far away, by Jupiterian standards, it took about 60 of our hours to get into the vicinity. Except for those other Jupiterian communal entities and floating life forms we passed nothing. I guess that's like any ocean, actually, difference being just a matter of scale.

I'm tempted to say that visibility is not great on Jupiter, the AtmoSea is always cloudy and the distances involved er Jupiterian, sometimes spanning millions of kilometers. We have to rely on our various energy-wave sensor-scanners to navigate. But every so often there's a break in the clouds and you get a nice clean image of what's ahead of you. We got one of the GRS, startling and beautiful. Although from that perspective it was not a "spot" but a "tower", a column of fluid fire. A crimson tornado, a red twister. Remember that the GRS is 3-4 Earth-planet diameters across, about 50,000 km, so we're talking Epic Big here.

XOXLNDU informed us that it was getting too hot for THEM to get any closer. But Niels and I were in a Jupship that could survive flying through the sun, so we decided to make the plunge.

It's funny: we could only go out of phase from physical danger because the Jupiterians had given mankind the formulas essential to the technology we now had, but they themselves could not avail of it. Because they were too big to encase themselves inside a Jupship, since they didn't have enough metallic materials to build such machines in their size.

So we went on ahead, into that cauldron of fire, ignoring the blistering temperature and cannonballs of molten lava whizzing up at us. We joked about going into Hell, but only because we were so comfortable and cozy. When we got to the center of it all, we descended into the magma core of Jupiter. I mean, why not? We got a feeling of vast freedom, finally unobserved for the first time in years, either by the Media of Earth or the Jupiterians.

(Maybe I shouldn't mention this, but we found sex to be wonderfully entertaining, after all that wasted time of denying that we were a "cosmic couple".)

We observed some life forms living in the magma. We think they were like us; out of phase with the intense heat and pressure, and therefore actually comfortable. There were various species, none of which seemed to be intelligent, but it's hard to tell when they have no hands or feet. Like dolphins or octopuses, you know. But they were definitely motivated, doing weird stuff. We took videos, some rather entertaining. It seemed they couldn't see us, but-- once again --hard to tell, they just went on with their daily lives, coming and going, ignoring us but somehow avoiding bumping into the Jupship. So we stayed a while to study them. And each other.

NIELS' STORY

Maru and I were down in the core for about a week, having fun, actually. We'd lost contact with XOXLNDU, no radio waves could get through the iron core either way, so XOXLNDU seemed to be quite glad when we popped up again. We called THEM as soon as we could, coming out of the GRS.

THEY had traveled on, circling the GRS, since THEY can't really stop without asphyxiating their crew. We followed their signal, caught up within an hour. We could travel much faster than THEM because we could slip througth the AtmoSea as if it were vacuum, being out of phase with any and all physical hindrences, while THEY had to laboriously swim through a very thick and semi-solid AtmoSea.

We joined them and reassumed our perch on XOXLNDU's skeletal ridge, preferring to be outside rather than inside, although we were always trapped inside our little Jupship. But we didn't mind that so much, now that we were having lots of sex.

It was about then that we discovered that Maru was pregnant, XOXLNDU had known since conception and assumed that we knew... at least that's what THEY said.

As XOXLNDU's "guests" we had a limited social life, since it was like being on a large ship out at sea (actually a submarine, since we were submerged in the sea, not floating upon it), our only acquaintance being the captain. There were millions of other entities on that ship, but we couldn't talk to them. It took too much hardware to translate words or to even sound them out. Jupiter is very noisy (storm always raging. etc.) so audio is not usable, communication is via neural pulses. But even so, we couldn't chat with a muscle module or even a brain bag, the only functionally intelligent "person" aboard was the collected apex of the entire neural system, XOXLNDU him/her/itself.

We could communicate with other "ships", but it had to go through XOXLNDU for it to function. Not that we were being contained or manipulated, it just worked out that way. We couldn't complain; our host was always considerate and friendly to us. And of course, we were just as weird to THEM as THEY were to us.

Hey, THEM and THEY is too clumsy, I'm just going to call XOXLNDU "him" & "he" from now on. Maru will probably say "she" because she gets a feminin vibe when they talk, but I get a "guy" vibe.

I've mentioned that XOXLNDU was friendly, well, he was: friendly, interested, curious, endearing. Talked with us a lot-- almost all the time. He must have had a seperate audio channel and an orchid of brain bags dedicated just to us, because he was still piloting the ship and dealing with all the logistics of a nation, showing no siugn of being distracted. Actually, his personality had changed a lot after the reconfiguration-- more brain bags, some rearrangement of neural channels will do that to you --he'd been stiff and academic before, a slightly arrogant superior being. Now he was Our Bud, one-of-the-guys, having fun showing off his knowledge of Earth trivia and vicariously thrilled that Maru and I were finally lovers. Asking embarrassing questiuons, offering cheeky advice. He was a blast.

THE LOKUSTS

We'd been with the Jupiterians about two months, finding it mostly peaceful, except for a minor pirate attack-- another community that wanted to steal as many of our modules as they could, but were fought off by XOXLNDU's symbiotic defenders. Most other communities tried to peacefully coexist. It takes a certain amount of intelligence to appreciate the concept of universal ethics being of benefit to everyone. The problem for Jupiterians is that when their configurations get changed so do their personalities and ethics. Anyone can become their own worst enemy.

But most other communities can usually be reasoned with, deals can be made, there are worse dangers out there. And they attacked us.

Let's call them Lokusts. Because that is what they are: swarms of tiny monsters that consume everything in their path. I say "tiny", but that's Jupiter-relative, they're actually the size of a Earthian battleship and their many many teeth are like rows of pointy rocket ships.

They came suddenly and without warning, a darker cloud than usual, moving fast, then XOXLNDU was inundated. They were everywhere, face-on, biting flesh, ripping modules apart. XOXLNDU rolled over to present the solid floor as a shield for the little monsters to batter against, but most of his body was open, being exoskeletal, many of his modules were unencased, exposed to nature. And attacking lokusts, which were small and could get in anywhere. It was gruesome, how quickly the carnge took place, blue Jupiterian blood spraying everywhere.

The lokusts were much faster than XOXLNDU, he could not just outrun them, his only defense was to twirl on axis and accellerate. That proved to be somewhat effective.

That sounds like XOXLNDU could just jam his foot (which he does not have) on the gas pedal and zoom away, but his "ship" was more like an old Roman slave-galley than a customised Zipship speedster. Forward propulsion was acheived by raw muscular effort: various specialized module-creatures of Jupiterian flesh and blood grunted against huge fan-shaped oars, rowing as hard and fast as they could; gigantic flotation bladders were rapidly and repeatedly squeezed to effect a jet of thrust against the fluid resistance of the AtmoSea.

Accellerate THEY did, just barely outspeeding the swarm, but you can probably understand that there was a physical limitation to such a strain, even Jupitarians have to breathe and THEY were soon gasping. While the Lokust swarm kept on coming fast, full of energy, quick and peppy, ready to go. Ready to gobble.

Maru and I, in our Jupship, were safe, being out of phase and also enclosed. But we could see it all happening right below us and were horrified. We had to do something.

Our Jupship has no weapons, designed to transport two emissaries of peace. The only clout it could offer was the option of turning off our Phase Shift and driving head-on into an opponent, kamikaze-style. Not a manouvre we were at all interested in, knowing we'd be immediately squashed flat by atmospheric pressure. Nej tak!

Jupiterians have no metal technology, but they do have natural defense module-creatures with specialized abilities The symbiote antibodies, of course, and also the fast-mounted dart-throwers. Their darts are semi-poisonous, nonlethal but effective for knocking out most creatures-- although not much good against an endless swarm of speeding lokusts. (It makes sense they have no damage-doing weaponry, since they might be interested in stealing healthy modules to enrich their configuration, but killing them would be stupid. Except maybe for lokusts.

Maru and I flew directly at the horde, knowing they couldn't harm an incorporeal ghost like us. Of course, we couldn't hurt them either, but they didn't know that yet. We met several Lokusts head-on and passed right through them. They didn't even flinch, just tried to gobble us up, getting nothing for their efforts.

But the Jupship is bright and shiny, probably looks like a bite-sized meal to them, so a bunch of them started to follow us. Lokusts are ravenous creatures of pure greed-rage, with no intelligence whatsoever. We should be able to outsmart them.

Of course we could easily outspeed them with our MEST-drive space ship, so we did, not allowing them to catch up and learn that we were an insubstantional phantom they couldn't eat. So we'd fly around and gather a crowd of Lokusts, leading them far enough away, then accelerate pedal to the metal (we could do that) to lose them and come back for more. And more, again and again, until the swarm thinned out.

Between us and XOXLNDU's own defenses we finally managed to get away from the swarm. There had been damage, but XOXLNDU was large enough to have many reserves and could still operate. It was bad, but could have been much worse. Sometimes, if the lokust swarm is big enough, an entire colony gets consumed, leaving only an empty exoskeleton behind.