Halfway through dinner in the captain’s quarters, Guerra asked her, “But why Jupiter, if I may ask? Why don’t you start with the research bases on Mars? After all, that’s where the most interesting work—”

She didn’t wait for him to finish. “The leviathans,” she said, her voice still muted but quite firm. “The leviathans are on Jupiter. Nothing else in the entire solar system is so interesting, so … challenging.”

Captain Guerra’s shaggy brows knit. “Those big whales? What makes them so interesting to you?”

Katherine Westfall smiled sweetly, thinking that if Archer could prove that those Jovian creatures were intelligent, the IAA would offer him their chairmanship on a silver platter.

To Guerra, however, she said merely, “The scientists want an enormous increase in their budget so they can study those creatures. I’ve got to pay them the courtesy of visiting their facility in person to see what they’re doing.”

To herself she added, I’ve got to stop them. Cut them off. Bring Archer down. Otherwise I won’t be safe.

LEVIATHAN

Leviathan glided among the Kin along the warm upwelling current that carried them almost effortlessly through the endless sea. But the food that had always sifted down from the cold abyss above was nowhere in sight. All through Leviathan’s existence, the food had been present in abundance. But now it was gone. The Elders flashed fears that the Symmetry had been disrupted.

At least there was no sign of darters, Leviathan’s sensor parts reported. They watched faithfully for the predators. As a younger member of the Kin, Leviathan was placed on the outer perimeter of the vast school of the creatures, constantly alert for the faintest trace of the dangerous killers.