Brandon Morris - The Enceladus Mission - Hard Science Fiction

Ten minutes before the event, Stone had them wake the crew. On his monitor, Martin saw how Francesca stretched as if she just had enjoyed a relaxing nap. He himself was extremely tired, but sleep had been out of the question. Devendra unbuckled his safety belt and opened a door in the wall, behind which there obviously were tools. He reached specifically for a pipe wrench. He looked down at himself, closed a button on his blue tunic, and adjusted his turban.

“Reporting for duty,” he said.

“Flight Director to mechanic,” began Stone, “I think I am speaking in everybody’s name when I thank you.”

“Now, just let me do my job first. You can always thank me afterward. And then I would like a nice, cold beer.” Devendra gave a broad smile. The smile was genuine. Martin thought, How did he manage to do that?

“We have seven minutes left. You know the procedure?”

“Confirmed.”

“Okay. Then you should get started with the cover.”

Devendra turned around and bent down. He lifted the floor covering near the wall and rolled it backward. A round cover with a latch could be seen. Lift, turn, and the cover opened. The hole below was dark and large enough for one person.

“This is FD. There are twelve steps leading down.”

The Sikh briefly looked at the hole, got down on one knee, and started to carefully descend. After nine steps, his head had disappeared.

“Is everything okay?” Stone asked. “You have now reached the bottom of the hole. It won’t go any deeper. You’ll have to stoop. I know it is rather cramped. At shoulder height you should see a glowing mark at the three-o-clock position.”

“Confirming.” Devandra’s voice sounded muffled, which must be caused by the acoustics of the access hole.

“What do you see?”

“Three crosses. Who came up with that idea?”

“Good.” Stone ignored his question. “Directly below the crosses there is another lever that locks the radar chamber. The chamber is about as deep as the access tube. According to our data, its bottom is filled with cold water. In the upper area of the exterior wall you will find the radar module. Don’t worry—it is electrically shielded, so there is no danger that way.”

“This is Arora. I am opening the chamber. Just a moment, I am shining my light into it. Everything is as described.”

Martin heard the Sikh wheeze and groan as he climbed into the chamber.

“Man, it is cold here.”

“Don’t worry, it will soon be warmer than we would like.”

“Okay, I have arrived.”

“The module is facing forward and rests on a sheet bolted to the exterior wall. It doesn’t look pretty, but it works. You have to loosen the two lower bolts.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, do that now. Nothing is going to happen yet. The exterior pressure holds the sheet tight.”

“Okay, I am unscrewing them.”

The screen only showed a light shining erratically at metal surfaces in a dark room. Martin assumed, Devendra probably stuck the flashlight under his armpit . Martin heard him swear while working on the second bolt, probably because his wrench had slipped.

“It’s finished.”

Stone continued, “Okay, well. Now you have to push the sheet outward as hard as you can. This will confuse the radar system for at least a moment. We are going to start the system at that instant. If this doesn’t work, I don’t know what to do. Then some cold water will trickle through the gap and you two are going to suffocate after a while. However, if it works, the jets will be activated. And then the water streaming through the gap into the chamber will be hot. Very hot.”

“I understand and accept the risk.”

“Devendra Singh Arora, I will be glad to get you out of Valkyrie quickly and unharmed,” said Stone. He then made an announcement on the general radio channel.

“FD to everyone. I am about to start the countdown. At minus three seconds I will deactivate sound transmission from Valkyrie .”

A good decision, Martin thought .

“Ten… nine… eight…”

Martin switched off the screen. He folded his hands on his lap and looked at his fingernails. Whatever happened down there now, they would not feel it up here. The laser pumped its energy silently into the drill vehicle. The generators created a deep hum, which was sometimes drowned out by a cracking noise. The ice was shifting, and deep inside the ice, two people were fighting for survival.

Loud applause interrupted Martin’s musings. He pushed the monitor’s power button. The video feed from the cockpit was still off, but Valkyrie’s status indicators were active. The drill jets were working again. The vehicle had turned and now was working its way toward the surface. It would break through the ice about 90 meters east of his location. At that moment, the helicopter with the emergency physician flew over the camp. Martin got up and grabbed his jacket from a hook on the wall. His scarf still was inside a sleeve, so he simply wrapped it around his neck. Cap and gloves, too. All that takes way too long , he thought, but I know how cold it is outside .

The wind hit him with full force when he left the protection of his cabin. Ice crystals felt like small nails someone threw at his skin. Nevertheless, he was not the only one who had ventured outside. A spontaneous welcoming committee was on its way. The area where the vehicle would emerge was already cordoned off with colored tape. It looked like a carnival was about to begin, but the people were not filled with joyous anticipation. Martin wondered how Devendra would be doing . Since the reactivation of the jets, the communication with the crew had occurred on a private channel.

Martin shifted his weight from one foot to another and tried to somehow stay warm. The ice crunched beneath his feet. The crunching sound became louder, until he realized it was not being caused by his efforts to warm up, but came from deep below. He looked toward the flag markers. There, the ice became much brighter. It now seemed to be less white, more like a mirror. This was the heat from below, which first turned the ice glassy, and then completely liquified it. First, there were only two small, dark spots—liquid, bubbling water. The spots grew, merging into a lake with a boiling content that resembled a geyser. Then a dark, shiny sea monster emerged. Its iron body moved at a slant from below to reach the surface of the ice, which at first broke below it until Valkyrie reached stable solid ice.

Still at a slight angle, it rested on the ice like a stranded whale with its head raised. The exit was at a height of about two meters. Three men brought a ladder and anchored it at the respective slots on Valkyrie . Two other men used it to get on board. A few seconds later, one of them emerged from the hatch and called out something Martin could not understand from a distance. Another man brought a stretcher that he passed to the rescue worker at the hatch, who maneuvered it inside. Two minutes later he reemerged, feet first this time. He pulled the now noticeably heavier stretcher behind him, the first rescuer probably pushing from inside. Something or someone was strapped to the stretcher, and the two men managed to move their burden down the ladder. There the third man started to help and they all took off, almost at a running pace, toward the helicopter.

Martin did not see his colleague from India again until he visited him in the hospital. Devendra already managed to reach his left arm toward him. Both arms and his torso were bandaged. The scalding water had hit him in a relatively narrow stream. The areas affected were severely burned, but they were small enough his life was not endangered. At this point, Martin already knew who would replace Devendra aboard the Enceladus spacecraft. Has the Sikh already been told? Martin did not want to be the one to tell him, so he completely avoided the topic of spaceflight.