CHAPTER 1
Jupiter
“Did you ever watch the movie 2010?” Wilx asked me.
“Sure. Except the first one's better.”
“I know. I've seen it way more times,” said Wilx. “So when did humans actually first make contact?”
“It was 2020,” I replied. “His prediction had misinterpreted Plato's ten-year error.”
“What does Plato have to do with it?”
“Never mind. Humans didn't end up going to Jupiter until 2052,” I added. “And nothing momentous happened.”
“Hmm,” said Wilx. “What's Jupiter like?”
“It's like Rip's ego. Big and gassy. A never-ending storm that looks interesting from afar but can be fatal from up close.”
“How many planets rotate that star again?” asked Wilx.
“Five,” I said. “Used to be nine, then four of them collided with each other and became the Planetglomerate.”
“We will go to Jupiter,” declared Wilx suddenly. “I've seen those movies and read those books enough to have interest in the matters of that planet.”
“It really is just a bunch of gas,” I said.
“There must be something special about it, something that made the prophet Clarke write those stories.”
“He probably just picked a random planet in the galaxy. It could have just as easily been about Saturn or Neptune.”
“No,” said Wilx. “It is a sign. There's something about Jupiter.”
“So you think if we go to Jupiter the movies will come true?”
“Not exactly, but something will happen. You never ignore a sign.”
“What about the time you ignored that 'NO LEFT TURN AHEAD' sign and we ended up being diverted through a gauntlet of Dementia-Mirrors?” I asked.
“That sign didn't say 'NO LEFT TURN AHEAD.' It said 'NO STONE LEFT UNTURNED UNSTONED.' Had we gotten stoned and turned rocks over at the beach we probably would have missed out on the Dementia-Mirrors. Plus we might have seen some interestingly rare aquatic creatures. What did you expect would happen?” argued Wilx.
“I don't know. Anyway, humans already went to Jupiter and nothing much happened.”
“That was a long time ago. We're more prepared than humans were. I've seen 2001 more than anyone.”
As much as I wanted to avoid going near the Planetglomerate, I decided to save my breath. If he wanted to go to Jupiter, that was where we would end up going. Wilx always had final say on the chartering of the ship, being that he actually knew how to run the computers.
Rip had been in cryogenic sleep for the past year, having hidden himself there in order to avoid paying the tollbooth fees of certain finicky dimensional border-crossings. He was only meant to be out for a few hours, but we hadn't got around to waking him up yet. Wilx now saw no reason of it until we reached Jupiter. I think he enjoyed the fact that our situation already seemed to mirror the film, by having a frozen team-member who would (hopefully) be awoken upon arrival at the Gas Giant.