Helmuth watched Dillon with a certain compassion, tempered with mild envy. Charity Dillon’s unfortunate given name betrayed him as the son of a hangover, the only male child of a Witness family which dated back to the great Witness Revival of 2003. He was one of the hundreds of government-drafted experts who had planned the Bridge, and he was as obsessed by the Bridge as Helmuth wasbut for different reasons.
Helmuth moved back to the port, dropping his hand gently upon Dillon’s shoulder. Together they looked at the screaming straw yellows, brick reds, pinks, oranges, browns, even blues and greens that Jupiter threw across the ruined stone of its innermost satellite. On Jupiter V, even the shadows had colour.
Dillon did not move. He said at last: “Are you pleased, Bob?”
“Pleased?” Helmuth said in astonishment. “No. It scares me white; you know that. I’m just glad that the whole Bridge didn’t go.”
“You’re quite sure?” Dillon said quietly.
Helmuth took his hand from Dillon’s shoulder and returned to his seat at the central desk. “You’ve no right to needle me for something I can’t help,” he said, his voice even low-er than Dillon’s. “I work on Jupiter four hours a daynot actually, because we can’t keep a man alive for more than a split second down therebut my eyes and my ears and my mind are there, on the Bridge, four hours a day. Jupiter is not a nice place. I don’t like it. I won’t pretend I do.
“Spending four hours a day in an environment like that over a period of yearswell, the human mind instinctively tries to adapt, even to the unthinkable. Sometimes I wonder how I’ll behave when I’m put back in Chicago again. Sometimes I can’t remember anything about Chicago except vague generalities, sometimes I can’t even believe there is such a place as Earthhow could there be, when the rest of the universe is like Jupiter, or worse?”