Brandon Morris - The Enceladus Mission - Hard Science Fiction

Martin felt warm drops running down his cheeks. He could not wipe them away. He turned around and went back to Francesca’s spacesuit. The pilot’s eyes were closed, and she was breathing steadily.

“Let’s fill up,” he said to her, as if she was awake. Then he took the tank and connected the valve to her suit’s life support system. The display showed the oxygen supply increasing. Afterward, he did this with his own spacesuit.

Seven hours after setting off from Valkyrie , they met the rescue team halfway to the lander. Hayato and Jiaying had brought enough oxygen for everybody. Martin was happy, like a little child, until he remembered Francesca and Marchenko. The Japanese engineer took the sleeping pilot from Martin’s arms. From here on, the terrain got easier. Only 13 hours after they had started walking they once more reached the place from where they had started their journey into the depths of the Enceladus Ocean not even ten days ago. It seems like we have been gone a very long time, maybe half a year , Martin thought.

They could not enter the lander as long as Francesca was still unconscious. Hayato woke her up with a small dose of adrenaline from the injector. After Martin made sure her eyes were open, he walked toward the lander module. He left it to Hayato to tell her what had happened. Francesca, who had just stood up, collapsed and sobbed inconsolably. Jiaying and Hayato tried to console the Italian woman. I know nothing can console her . Francesca lay on the ice, with Hayato and Jiaying crouched next to her.

After ten minutes, Francesca raised herself on her arms and got up. They all marched toward the lander in single file. It was not easy getting in. First Hayato and Francesca connected to the SuitPorts and went inside. Then the automatic system separated their suits so the SuitPorts were free again. Martin took the suits and carried them a bit away from the lander.

“Commander to ground team. We are waiting for you up here,” came over the radio.

Martin thought of the laser concentrator Hayato had mentioned. Jiaying had already connected her suit to the SuitPort.

Martin replied, “Commander, there is something I’ve got to do here.”

“Martin, what’s going on?”

He did not listen to what Jiaying called after him via the helmet radio. She is probably worried about me again. I am sorry for this, but I have an important task ahead. I will never have such an opportunity again. He turned around, and no one tried to stop him.

He jumped in his suit to reach the laser concentrator with its large metal dish. The device was still connected to the optical cable that had been cut somewhere inside the ice. Martin knew the optical fiber core was surrounded by a conducting metal mesh. Together with the dish on the surface, the cable can form an antenna that can amplify potential differences in the ice and transmit them into space—at least if I adapt the software a little bit. He accessed the maintenance protocol and made his changes. Now the antenna would take variable electrical currents in the ice, amplify them, and broadcast them as a signal.

The rest is up to you , he thought. I hope you make the most of it.

There is:

The I.

So much more Not-I.

The confusion.

The curiosity.

The visitors, who are so different.

The exchange, which is not working.

8 billion not-I’s who do not understand the knowledge of the Twenty-Seven Ages.

8 billion cells without an I.

The regret.

The wish to help.

The others.

The foam-born.

Different, yet still the same.

An address.

A giant without a ring, surrounded by rays.

There will be:

The ascent.

Getting up, taking a shower, working, exercise, free time, exercise, sleep—just two weeks ago, this routine had seemed terribly boring. Now Martin wanted nothing else. They had already created schedules for the coming twelve months. Marchenko was no longer there, so the shift duties had to rotate more quickly. About three times every two weeks his work rhythm would overlap with that of Jiaying, so they could spend a night together in the cabin.

The crew had quite a few plans. Most of all, they wanted to remodel the garden. Sol would start to crawl around a few months from now, so he should have a safe playground. Mission Control had given permission for this. The resource usage was back in the normal range. Therefore, they would not need the eco module for growing food or generating oxygen. Nevertheless, there ought to be a few plants there, so the child grew up with a little bit of greenery. They would just have to make do without fresh food.

They had more time for their return trip than planned, as their stay on the surface had been shorter. This allowed for a bit of sightseeing in the solar system. The planned course would lead through several fly-by maneuvers around other moons of Saturn and then initially into a wide orbit around Jupiter. Space probes rarely came by here, so the scientists would be happy about every scrap of data the crew could transmit back to Earth.

For the time being, Francesca had taken over Marchenko’s cabin. She said she would manage and just needed some time.

Every day, the research community on Earth sent new questions the astronauts could not answer. The scientists would have liked them to have continued the mission. There appeared to be two factions among them. Some scientists could not believe what Martin and Francesca had reported from the depths of the ocean, and therefore they tried to find natural explanations in the dataset. The others were fascinated by the idea of communicating with an alien intelligence and pushed to build suitable devices for this, maybe giant antennas. Martin preferred the skeptics, for if they won out, the Enceladus Ocean would remain undisturbed for the foreseeable future. If someone realizes what this could mean for developing theories of physics, the alien intelligence might become a slave of humanity. After this intelligence had just accepted the idea of not being alone in the universe, it might not be able to withstand the arguing power of humans.

The media on Earth had turned all the astronauts into heroes, with Marchenko being far ahead. In his home country, he had even replaced Yuri Gagarin as the most famous space pioneer. One advantage of his being a dead hero was that he could not refuse when politicians of all stripes claimed him.

Jiaying had already been offered a high position in the Communist Party. She had asked for some time to think about it. Martin feared their return to Earth.

Hayato Masukoshi took care of Sol whenever he had the time for it. Martin had never seen him this happy—even when Sol cried for hours, Hayato never became impatient. It was a quiet, shy happiness that deeply touched Martin.

He himself ignored journalists’ requests for interviews. The PR department was very unhappy about that. Sometime during the next few days I will have to change my mind, he knew. Luckily, live interviews were impossible. That would give him sufficient time after each question to think about an answer.

Amy seemed quieter than she used to be. Martin suspected she felt that the events, particularly Marchenko’s death, were partially her fault. How could she have known what ideas he would come up with? Per standard procedure, NASA was already investigating if someone had made mistakes.