The Ganymede Club Read Online Free PDF

she picked the actuary who had done "the least work as a consultant for the past five years," rather than "for the past five Mars years."
    He went on. Age (thirty-one), height (one-point-eight meters), weight (sixty kilos), education, profession, health profile from infancy, personality profile, children (none), long-term liaisons (none), parents' and grandparents' health history, health profile of siblings, food preferences, use of stimulants, sleep needs, sexual preferences and habits.
    Julius paused. This was the place where people often became coy.
    Neely Rinker described the strength of her sexual needs and the frequency of their fulfillment, including her tastes for and extensive experience with vaginal, oral, and anal sex. She spoke calmly, fully, and clearly, without batting an eye. Julius felt that the answer was affecting him a lot more than her.
    But the very next question was: "Current residence?"
    And she was hesitating, biting her full purple-black lower lip. "You really need to know that?"
    "Certainly, or I would not be asking. Low-gravity environments induce calcium loss. High-gravity environments impose excessive cardiovascular load. Nonstandard atmospheres change blood ionic balance. Deep habitats often introduce a high level of ambient radioactivity. Need I continue?"
    "I guess not." Neely Rinker drew in a long breath. "All right, I'll tell you. I live on Ganymede. In Moira Cavern, forty kilometers below the Hebe access point."
    Julius nodded and entered the data into the computer. His deduction had been confirmed. After all the secrecy, it was nothing even to raise an eyebrow. Ganymede was by far the most populous of the Jovian satellites, even though the hot prospects for development today were on Callisto and, as soon as the Von Neumanns got through with their work, on Titan. Ganymede was a safe, settled, and well-regulated environment. If the Earth-Belt situation deteriorated further, he might even head for Ganymede himself.
    He went on, working his way through the second-order variables: hobbies and recreations, religious beliefs, phobias, dream patterns, ambitions. When he had everything, he paused.
    "That's it. Unless there is something else that you think may be significant, and want to tell me about? Remember, a mortality computer can't do better than the data fed into it."
    She stared back, the beautiful dark face as expressionless as an obsidian mask. "Nothing else, Dr. Szabo."
    "Very well." Julius performed the run. The results came back without even a request for backup data. "According to what you have given me, your future life expectancy is one hundred and nineteen years. I assume that you would like a printed and signed statement confirming the input and output?"
    "That is not necessary. A hundred and nineteen? All right, now I want to do the second case."
    Julius nodded. "I might add that one hundred and nineteen is rather good. The average life expectancy for all females of your age is ninety-two years. But now, I wonder if we will in fact be able to run the other case that you need. Unless you can provide equally complete input data for your proposed partner—or for whoever that other person might be—"
    "That won't be a problem." But suddenly she was restless, unwilling to proceed, standing up from her chair and walking across to the window. She showed none of the fear of open spaces that a Ganymede cavern dweller typically showed, but leaned against the thick transparent plastic to watch the setting sun strike the silvered sides of buildings, thirty or forty kilometers away. The ziggurat's next level was a full half-kilometer down, and beyond Oberth City the naked red plain stretched far and wide.
    "How old are you?" she asked suddenly. "How old are you really? " She spat out the question without warning, as she turned back to face Julius.
    The temptation was to destroy her instantly, annihilate her where she stood. She knew—she must know, to ask such a thing. But if she knew , why