Jeff Carlson - The Frozen Sky

“Then he is looking for us.”

“Maybe he’s trying to convince the Brazilians to stop shooting. He’s no threat to them.”

“They don’t see it that way, Von.”

“This is my fault,” Ash said. “I should have kept him in storage. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Vonnie looked at Metzler and Frerotte to clarify. “Ash and I thought Lam would disappear, then we’d pick him up later. Maybe a lot later. He was supposed to be like a long-term scout.”

“Well, now we’re up to our ears in shit,” Metzler said, taking the sting out of his words with a friendly nudge. “Koebsch is going to hit the roof.”

Vonnie leaned into Metzler and bumped him back, both apologizing and flirting. Dealing with Koebsch and the Brazilians wasn’t how she wanted to spend her time. She wanted to study the sunfish, but managing the human factions outside the ice was almost as critical as dealing with the aliens below.

Ruefully, she thought, We’re so selfish.

As a species, we’re self-important and self-involved. I guess that’s the primate in us, always obsessed with what the other guy has and how to get it .

In prehistory, base reflexes like envy and desire had propelled early man to develop better tools, better organization, and better dreams — but thousands of years later, those same drives left them permanently divided.

Vonnie wasn’t sure if the sunfish were less greedy. Competition had made them tough and clever. Maybe no race could increase its intelligence without conflict of some kind, and yet she’d seen them act without regard to self. For the sunfish, the whole seemed to come before the individual, which would be a fundamental difference between them and Homo sapiens .

“Let me talk to Koebsch,” Vonnie said.

“I’ll call him, too,” Ash suggested.

“There’s no reason to get you guys in trouble. Tell him you were surprised to hear ESA signals from FNEE territory. I’ll swear I’m the one who uploaded Lam’s files to their digger.”

“Koebsch won’t believe you.”

“He’ll pretend he does. He doesn’t want to take more disciplinary actions, so he’ll go along with it. First let’s see if we can exchange signals with Lam. That’s the evidence we need to show it’s really him. How close are we?”

“I’ve moved nine spies inside the FNEE grid,” Frerotte said. “Most of our eyes and ears are still a few kilometers out. It helps that they’re blasting. The vibrations cover most of the noise our spies make in the ice.”

Vonnie scrolled through the lay-outs on Frerotte’s pad, examining the dots and lines representing the tiny mecha he’d arrayed against the Brazilians. Some of his pebble-sized spies hadn’t moved in weeks. Others had drilled, squeezed, and melted their way toward the Brazilian’s territory, advancing with painstaking care to avoid detection.

Mecha this size were unable to host AIs. Spies had only the barest level of self-awareness. Linked together in groups of ten or more, they could muster enough judgment to think as well as a cat, but these spies had been running silent, each separate from the rest. They needed human input.

Frerotte’s a spy just like his mecha , Vonnie thought, admiring his work.

Henri Frerotte was a pale Frenchman with a slight build and slim, agile hands. Nominally, his role in the ESA crew was as an exogeologist with secondary responsibilities in suit maintenance and in data/comm. That was why Koebsch had put Frerotte in charge of their perimeters. Distributing sensors was easy work. The mecha did most of it automatically. But for an assistant, Frerotte was too skilled with systems tech, and he was too eager to interfere with the Brazilians.

Vonnie believed he was an operative sent by one of the European Union’s many intelligence agencies such as Germany’s BFV or France’s newly-formed Directorate of Internal Security. Ash probably worked for an agency, too, and Vonnie wasn’t sure how to feel about that. What if Ash had seeded the FNEE digger with Lam’s mem files not to preserve him, but purposely as a disruptive weapon?

“I don’t know if Colonel Ribeiro will pull back,” Vonnie said. “If he does, or if he calls us, that could be the right time to signal Lam.”

“We’ll be ready,” Frerotte said.

“Thank you.”

“Thank me, too,” Metzler said, nudging her again. “I’ve got big news. Eat lunch with me and I’ll show you. Otherwise you have to wait for the group presentation tonight.”

Vonnie smiled. “Tell me now or I’ll break your arm.”

Do we have at least this much in common with the sunfish ? she wondered. Sex affects everything we do even when those urges are subliminal. It’s part of our self-absorption, I think. We can’t leave each other alone.

I like it. I like watching him and feeling him watching me. It’s a distraction, but it gives us energy, too.

I want him to want me.

Looking at her three friends, Vonnie saw the same spark in Ash’s face. They were young, in close quarters, and subjected to unending stress and excitement. Pheromones were merely part of the spell. The ape in them yearned for physical contact, grooming, and reassurance.

Gene smithing also made their society more free in its sexual norms. Western Europe had already been more sophisticated than most of Earth’s cultures, placing few taboos on nudity or female equality. By the twenty-second century, the defeat of venereal diseases and infallible birth control had led to an era called the Age of Love. Sharing partners, threesomes, and group sex were common experiences for young men and women in the European Union.

Vonnie’s main consideration now, away from Earth, was to avoid disrupting her professional relationships. None of them wanted to waste time on jealousy or drama.

“We can have lunch,” she promised. “Don’t make me wait if you’ve had a breakthrough.”

“Well, sort of. The fucking Brazilians are causing problems we don’t need,” Metzler said. Was he posturing for her benefit? “The explosions scared off most of the lifeforms in the area, so it’s taken longer than we anticipated finding sunfish. The good news is we think we’re near a colony because Tom came back again this morning.”

“I love Tom!” Vonnie said, yelling in celebration.

Tom was the name they’d bestowed upon the most easily identifiable sunfish. Others were Jack and Jill and Hans and Sue .

One of Tom’s arm tips had healed in a whorl after a partial amputation. His deformity made him unique. It seemed to have affected his thinking. He was the only sunfish who’d signaled their probes instead of attacking. Then he’d run from them. With further contact, they hoped to coax Tom into a dialogue… opening the door to meaningful contact between humans and sunfish…

Vonnie kissed Metzler’s cheek, smelling the faint, pleasant salt of his skin. He touched the back of her neck. His fingertips caused an erotic thrill. Beside her, Vonnie saw Ash glance at Frerotte, and she knew they all felt the same adult heat.

We have this lander to ourselves , she thought. We could do whatever we want in here.

“Uh, let me show you the latest sims,” Metzler said, rubbing his face where she’d kissed him. He tried to cover the gesture by looking for his pad, but he couldn’t find it, flustered by the two women.

Ash had blushed. Vonnie felt a similar warmth in her cheeks. Even adapted to Europa’s gravity, their hearts were too strong not to betray their arousal. Vonnie basked in it. She enjoyed feeling healthy even if she hadn’t gotten over the fear of making herself vulnerable.