Jupiter Found

      by Robert F. Young

      ©2020 Positronic Publishing

      Jupiter Found is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, locales or institutions is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except for brief quotations for review purposes only.

      ISBN 13: 978-1-5154-4595-1

      Table of Contents

      Jupiter Found

      Jupiter Found

       Godhead can be more than a guilt complex growing out of the knowledge of good and evil. It can also be a sense of fulfillment that comes from the ability to create.

      8M sunk a new shaft, lowered his skip-arm into it, and scooped up huge handfuls of iron ore into his blast-furnace belly. Around him swirled the grayish murk that passed for an atmosphere on Jupiter. Dislodged pebbles, propelled by the rampaging wind, pelted ceaselessly against his metal hull. The temperature stood at —169 degrees Fahrenheit.

      A picture of himself of old sitting at a roseate fireside flashed upon the screen of his memory. It was superseded by a picture of a pretty girl walking down a springtime street. Resolutely he ignored both sequences. They were remnants of an old movie that had been written around a young man named John Sheldon, and John Sheldon was dead.

      8M, nee John Sheldon, chased the ore with several skiploads of limestone and coke from his stock-stomach; then, his blast-furnace belly replete, he stopped to rest. But not for long. The ingots from his last hearth-heat were due to be removed from his soaking pits in a few minutes, and he could not let them overstay their time. The life of a M.A.N., model 8M, was not an easy one. But then, he had known that when he had bequeathed his brain to the Company.

      He was not sorry. Far better to build bases on the wind-torn surface of Jupiter than to lie in cold and eternal oblivion beneath the unheeding surface of Earth. And there was the longevity factor to be considered too. As a man, even if he had lived, he probably wouldn’t have reached the age of ninety. As the first M.A.N., however, he might very well reach the age of nine hundred and fifty.

      A patriarchal age indeed— but, unlike the patriarchs of old, he would have no sons and daughters to carry on after he was gone.

      The message that he had been momentarily expecting from the orbiting Raphael came through. His transceiver picked it up, converted it into thought, and relayed the thought to the ganglionic sealed unit that encased both his transplanted brain and the nutrient solution that sustained it. “Model EV just dropped. Will chute into your area any moment.”

      “Good,” 8M pulsed into the trans-transmitter. “Building a base the size of this one is no job for one M.A.N.”

      “You are hereby notified,” the Raphael went on, “that Gorman and Oder Developments, Incorporated, has informed us that one Lawrence Dickens, discharged several months ago for rebellious conduct detrimental to the Company’s good name, has started up an advance-construction corporation of his own and may try to sabotage the base in an attempt to obtain Gorman and Oder Developments’ Earth Government contract. The Raphael’s matter detector indicates that there is another overseer ship in Jovian orbit, and it is possible that Dickens may already have chuted one of his Mining, Adapting Neo-processors into your area. If so, you

      will recognize it by its greenish-yellow coloring. Its model designation is ‘Boa 9,’ and Dickens himself will be the operator. You are hereby advised to stay on your toes.”

      ‘‘My tracks are the best I can do,” said 8M wryly.

      ‘‘The Company frowns on levity,” the Raphael said sternly, and signed off.

      Annoyed, 8M activated his transperipheral vision. The Company frowned on too many things, if you asked him. Sometimes it even frowned on free will. Consider, for example, its going to all the trouble and expense of creating a self-sustaining, self-reliant Mining, Adapting Neo-processor like himself, and then arbitrarily forbidding him, on the pain of death, to use edenite—an iron-like ore endemic to Jupiter—in any of his melts. He should have been permitted to make his own decision in the matter. Certainly, if the ore had proved to be injurious to his “system,” he would have ceased using it at once. There had been no need for the Company to forbid him to use it. He was a M.A.N.—not a little child.

      The rotating transperipheral beam relayed more murk to his retinal screen, more desolation. Jupiter was a place of constant atmospheric turmoil and treacherous terrain. A human being, using the body God gave him, could not exist anywhere on the surface without the protection that a base afforded, and as a consequence, the base had to be built beforehand. All previous attempts had failed, and 8M represented mankind’s last hope of ever colonizing the planet. If he failed, the project would be abandoned, and Jupiter’s rich resources would be allowed to remain in their native state. Thus far he had succeeded—after Herculean efforts—in laying the foundation. Now there remained the building of the base proper, and for this he was to have a helpmate.

      Lord knew, he needed one.

      *

      While he was waiting for the EV to contact him, he removed the ingots from his soaking pits and began processing them into structural steel. As a M.A.N., he left much to be desired. He was excellent for mining, and his blast-furnace belly functioned admirably; but his open hearth lacked sufficient tonnage capacity and was much too slow in turning out heats, while his blooming, roughing, and finishing mills were inadequate for the task on hand, not because the internal area devoted to them was too limited, but because the available space had not been put to maximum use. The same objection held true for his continuous mills, and as for his parts-replacement shop, he sometimes wondered whether he would last out the nine hundred and fifty years guaranteed him by the Company after all.

      He had just started the glowing ingots through his blooming mill when the EV’s “voice” came through the thought-converter: “EV to 8M. Drop completed successfully—am awaiting your directions.”