The Ganymede Club by Charles Sheffield Page B

anything new was interesting. For all he knew, the spaceport access route was always crowded. But Lola had told him that they would see hundreds of spacecraft on the ground as soon as they got near enough, and now he felt cheated. The thin plume of lifting ships, taking off under laser boost, had been visible from fifty miles away as violet jets in the late-afternoon sky; but by now the novelty of that had faded.
    "It's nothing. Just a traffic jam."
    Lola said it, but she didn't believe it. Jaime and Theresa Belman might pretend that everything was normal, that the family trip to Ganymede was a vacation they had been planning for a long time. At ten their son was young enough to accept the story. Lola, at twenty-two, knew better. She wasn't much interested in news broadcasts, but at the moment they were hard to ignore. Everyone seemed to be making boring speeches: accusations of skullduggery, frantic boasts of Earth's military might, mockery of Belt threats and weapons—and warnings to civilians to prepare for possible attack.
    After a few days of that, the speeches were just noise in your ears. But this—clogged roads and tunnels, nervous passengers, checkpoints tended by men in uniform—was different. It seemed like history, a video reconstruction of ancient times. This was the sort of thing that had happened a hundred or two hundred years ago, but not now.
    Most significant, her parents had suffered a sudden and unexplained change of mind. Instead of all four of them leaving Earth for Ganymede in one week's time, she and Spook had to leave today , without adequate time to pack, without visiting grandparents, without the farewell party for friends. The explanation—that cheap tickets were available—had been enough for Spook. He couldn't wait to be off into space. To Lola, though, her parents' statement was no more credible than the political speeches of the past month. Her mother and father wouldn't even listen to her plea: that she would rather stay and travel with them. She and Spook had been hustled onto the bus with maximum speed and minimum dignity.
    They were slowing down now, creeping along at a walking pace. Finally the bus halted completely.
    "The spaceport terminals are one-point-two kilometers ahead," said the driver. "Unfortunately, the tunnels beyond this point are presently impassable for vehicular traffic. Passengers must proceed the rest of the way on foot. There will be signs to direct you to your flights."
    The whole bus filled at once with a hubbub of protest.
    "What about our luggage? Will it be loaded automatically?"
    "We were supposed to meet our group at the drop-off point. Are there signs for that?"
    "I have four cases with me, and they're heavy. How am I supposed to carry them?"
    "A kilometer? You stupid machine, I can't walk a kilometer. I need wheelchair assistance. I can't walk more than a few steps."
    That came from an old man who had been sitting just behind Lola and Spook. He seemed to have no trouble at all walking as he hurried forward and began to hammer on the blue cylinder of the driver's control unit with his black walking stick.
    Lola grabbed her brother's hand. "Come on. We've had all the help from the driver we're going to get."
    "But our luggage—"
    "Can look after itself. Either it gets on the same ship as us, or it gets on the next one." I hope. Lola felt she should be crossing her fingers. "We can't worry about it now. Come on. "
    Even on foot, progress along the tunnel was slow. Vehicles were everywhere, some empty, some still containing passengers conducting hopeless arguments with the automated driver units. The lighting was poor. It had never been intended for anything more than vehicles, whose controls had no need for any sort of illumination.
    Lola followed the signs for Gate 53, still holding tight to her brother's hand. She knew he was supersmart, but when the mood took him he could be a super-smart-ass. He wasn't called Spook for nothing. If he exercised his famous