The Jupiter Plague

“Kennedy Airport,” Killer shouted over the whine of the turbine, making a tire-squealing turn around the corner and diving into the mouth of the Twenty-third Street Tunnel under the East River.

The two doctors rode in the back, sitting opposite each other, and there was no way that he could avoid noticing that her lab coat was very short and, when she was seated, rode well above her knees revealing a most attractive length of tanned leg. Much nicer than the last leg that he had brought under his arm. He would rather loot at this kind. The medical profession tended to stern, sterile and well ordered, so that whenever; hit of visible femininity managed to penetrate he went out of his way to make sure that he appreciated it.

“The airport,” she said, “… then it must be an accident. I hope it’s not one of the Mach-5’s — they carry seven hundred passengers…”

“We’ll find out soon enough, there should be something on the radio.” The sunlit mouth of the tunnel was visible ahead and he called through to the cab. “There might be a news broadcast. Killer, tune in WNYC.”

As they came out into the open Ravel’s Bolero swelled from the loudspeaker. Killer tried the other stations, but none of them were carrying a news broadcast so he switched back to the official city station as the one most likely to get the news first. They tore down the deserted expressway with the Bolero throbbing around them.

“I’ve never rode an ambulance before, it’s quite exciting.”

“Weren’t you ever on emergency duty while you were interning, Nita?”

“No, I stayed on at Columbia after I had my M.D. because cytology is really my field… have you noticed, the road is empty of traffic?”

“It’s fully automatic, a radio warning is sent to all cars for miles ahead so that they’ve pulled over by the time we reach them.”

“But — there aren’t any cars pulled over, the road is just empty.”

“You’re right, I should have noticed that myself.” He looked out of a side window as they roared by one of the entrance roads. “I’ve never seen this happen before — there are police blocking that entrance and they’re not letting any cars through.”

“Look!” Nita said, pointing ahead.

The ambulance rocked as Killer eased it over to an inside lane to pass the convoy, seven bulky Army trucks rumbling after a command car, bouncing and swaying at their top speed.

“I don’t like this,” Nita said, her eyes wide. “I’m worried. What could be causing it?” She was suddenly very female and very little like a doctor: Sam had to resist the impulse to reach his hand across to hers, to reassure her.

“We’ll find out soon enough, anything this big can’t be concealed for long…” He stopped as the music died in midswell and an announcer’s voice came on.

“We are interrupting this program to bring you an important news flash. Two hours ago satellite tracking stations were alerted by the lunar radio telescope that an unknown object had been detected approaching the Earth along the plane of the ecliptic, and this was quickly identified as the ’Pericles,‘ the ship designed to penetrate to the surface of the planet Jupiter…”

“But — it’s been years!” Nita gasped.

“… would not respond to attempts at radio contact. This continued after the ‘Pericles’ went into orbit around the Earth, making six revolutions in all before breaking orbit with what the space service has called very faulty control of the rockets, and then proceeded to make a landing approach. However, in spite of all radio and visual warnings, the ‘Pericles’ did not attempt to land at either Sahara or Woomera spaceport but instead made an almost vertical descent on Kennedy Airport in New York. Normal flights were interrupted and there was a certain amount of damage that occurred during landing as well as feared loss of life. Stay tuned for further bulletins…“

“How — how bad can it be?” Nita asked.

“It could be pure hell,” he said grimly. “There must be two thousand flights a day in and out of the field and it sounds as if they had very little warning. Then it depends where the spacer landed, far out on the runways…”

“Or on the buildings!”

“We don’t know yet. But I do remember that the ‘Pericles’ is as big as an apartment house and just about the toughest thing ever constructed by man. It would be hard to hurt the ship but I pity anything it sits down on top of.”

“But why — it seems to stupid! Didn’t they know any better?”

“You heard the news, they said the ship was badly controlled. It’s been out there for over two years, no one ever expected it to come back. There’s no telling what shape the survivors are in and I suppose that it’s lucky they were able to land at all.”

“Mother of God — look at that,” Killer said between tight lips, pointing ahead through the windshield.