Chapter 17 Chapter 16 Private Calls

"Hey, Dimitri. I'm Woody, transcode two in 15 seconds... Hey, Dimitri - add yards three and four, take the cube, add the square of π, and take the final The nearest whole number equals code five. Unless your computer is a million times faster than ours - damn it I dare say it can't - no one can explain this, neither yours nor mine. You still have a reason Give it a try, that's your specialty anyway. "By the way, according to my consistently excellent sources, this last attempt to persuade old Andrea to resign has failed. According to my analysis, your delegation is as unfortunate as the others, and you still have to bear the The chairman's repression. I'm so happy that the association deserves this punishment. I know he's in his nineties and getting a little, um, stubborn. But you can't get any help from me, even if I'm the world's —sorry, the entire solar system—the top performer at quietly dismissing aging scientists.

"Can you believe I've had a little too much to drink? We figured we'd have a little drink party once we managed to rendezvous with Discovery - damn it. And we've got two new members to welcome. Chandler La didn't drink—alcohol was too human—but Walter Curnow was nothing like him. Tanya was as cold as a rock, as you'd expect. "Our fellow Americans - I sound like a politician, hell - have successfully emerged from hibernation and are now ready to go to work. We all need to act fast; and not just because there is no time left Not much, and things seem to be going from bad to worse for Discovery, and we could hardly believe our eyes as we watched her pristine white hull turn a dirty yellow.

"Of course the blame is on Io, which spirals the spacecraft down about 3,000 kilometers. Every few days, a volcano on it will spew megatons of sulfur straight into the sky. If you have seen the movie , and it's impossible to really imagine how much that's like a sulfur cloud floating over hell. Even if we'd be flying head-on towards something more mysterious -- and perhaps more dangerous -- I'd be glad to avoid it now . "I flew over Laurasia when it erupted in 2006 and it was horrific. But nothing compares to this - worlds apart. Now we're going through the dark side and it's even scarier. You What you see only makes you imagine more, as horrible as the hell I know...

"Some of the sulfur lakes aren't hot enough to glow, and most of the light comes from electrical discharges. Every few minutes, the ground always looks like it's going to burst, like a giant strobe light clicked on it. That comparison might be okay , the magneto-current tube between Jupiter and Jupiter (see explanation in Section 11.--Reviser's Note) has countless amperes of current flowing, and there will often be bursts and releases of electrical energy here and there. Then you will see The largest lightning strike in the solar system, and with it half of our electrical switches tripping.

"There just erupted once at the junction of light and dark, and then I could see a huge cloud coming towards us, climbing upwards in the sunlight. I doubt it can rise to our height, even if it rises to this position, then It wouldn't do us any harm at the time. But it looked ominous—a space monster trying to devour us. "Shortly after arriving here, I realized that Io was reminding me of something. It took me days to find out what it was, and then I had to check with the mission center archives because the ship's library couldn't help Busy – what a shame. Do you remember how I introduced you to The Lord of the Rings at the Oxford Symposium when we were both kids? Well, Io is Mordor (in Lord of the Rings -Reviser's note): Check the third part. There is a passage in it that reads: 'The hot magma meanders forward like flowing water...then cools down, like a struggle from the depths of the painful land lying contorted like a dislodged dragon.' That's a great description. It was written a quarter of a century before anyone saw Io's true face, how did Tolkien know ?So nature is imitating art.

"At least we don't have to land there. I guess even our belated Chinese counterparts don't think that way. But maybe someday; some areas look pretty stable and don't get a constant brimstone infestation. "Who would believe we sailed all the way to Jupiter, the giant of the planets—and then put it in the back of our minds. But that's what we do most of the time. When we're not looking at Io or Discovery, we just think about that... …artificial objects. "That thing is still 10,000 kilometers away and above the libration point, but from the main telescope, it is almost within reach. Since it has no features, its size cannot be seen, and it cannot be seen two kilometers away with the naked eye. Judging by its length. If it is solid, it must weigh a gigaton.

"But is it solid? It has almost no radar echoes, even when it's facing us head-on. All we can see are the black silhouettes of Jupiter's clouds 300,000 kilometers down. Regardless of its size, it looks like a monolith we dug up on the moon. "Well, we're going aboard Discovery tomorrow, and I don't know when I'll have the chance to talk to you again. But, old friend, there's one more thing to say before I say goodbye. "About Caroline. She never really understood why I had to leave Earth, and in a way I don't think she fully forgave me either. Some women believe that love isn't the only thing - it's everything. They might be right ...Anyway, it's too late to argue.

"If you have a chance to meet her, try to comfort her as much as possible. She said she wants to go back to the mainland. I'm afraid if she really... "If you don't find her, try to tease Chris. I miss him beyond words. "He will believe Uncle Dimitri - if you tell him his father still loves him and will return home as soon as possible."