Leviathans of Jupiter by Ben Bova Page A

black emptiness of the universe. It made them uneasy, even frightened. Only when the ship was approaching planetfall did passengers come to gape at the world they were approaching.
    Dorn ushered Deirdre through one of the hatches that lined the circular passageway between the elevators and the blister. She stepped through and gasped.
    As Dorn closed the hatch, Deirdre suddenly felt as if she were standing in space. The lights went out automatically when the hatch shut and there was nothing between her and the infinite universe but the transparent curving bubble of glassteel. Her knees went weak.
    So many stars! The universe was filled with hard unblinking points of light: red, blue, yellow, it was overwhelming. Clouds of stars, swirls of stars, endless boundless teeming stars that sprinkled the blackness of space with color and beauty. Back at Chrysalis II they had observation ports, but nothing like this. This is like being outside!
    Dorn heard her gasping breath. “Are you all right?”
    â€œI…” Deirdre had to consciously remind herself that she was perfectly safe, standing on a glassteel deck, warm and protected from the vacuum out there that stretched to infinity. “I think so,” she half whispered.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Dorn said softly. “I forgot how overwhelming it can be the first time. I’ve spent much of my life in spacecraft. This dark forever is like home to me.”
    She turned toward him, saw the starlight glinting off the etched metal side of his face.
    â€œThe Sun is behind us,” Dorn began to explain, “on the other side of the ship. We’re in shadow here. That’s why you can see so much without the Sun’s glare cutting down visibility.”
    â€œIt’s … it’s the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen.”
    â€œThe universe,” Dorn said, as solemnly as if praying. “Infinity.”
    For several minutes Dorn pointed out the brighter stars for her, identified blue-hot Rigel and the sullen red of Betelgeuse.
    At last she interrupted him. “You said we could talk in private here.”
    â€œYes,” he said, nodding gravely. “The blister goes all the way around the ship, but it’s divided into compartments that are soundproof.” He hesitated. “I believe the ship’s management thought couples might enjoy romantic liaisons here.”
    Making it under the stars, Deirdre thought. Not a bad idea, once you got accustomed to having all those unblinking eyes watching you.
    â€œYou asked me when I became a cyborg,” Dorn said.
    â€œI don’t want to pry,” said Deirdre. “If it’s painful for you—”
    â€œPain is part of life. If we’re going to work together at the Jupiter station, you deserve to know about me.”
    So he told her. Told her of his life as a mercenary soldier during the Asteroid Wars. How the corporation he worked for supplied their mercenaries with performance-enhancing drugs. How he had murdered a woman who loved him in a blaze of narcotic-driven jealous fury. How he destroyed the old Chrysalis habitat under the battle frenzy that the drugs induced. How he had held a minigrenade to his chest once his mind cleared and he realized what he had done.
    â€œYou tried to commit suicide?” Deirdre asked.
    In the starlit shadows Dorn replied evenly, “I wasn’t permitted to die. The corporations had invested too much in me. And besides, their medical technicians saw me as an interesting problem. So I was saved. I was rebuilt.”
    â€œThat’s how you became a cyborg.”
    â€œYes. Not every scientist works for the benefit of humankind. Some of them—many of them, I think—work to solve problems that intrigue them. Work to achieve things no one else has achieved before them.”
    Deirdre remembered a quotation from her history classes. The physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer had said, “When you see something that