“Please keep some distance,” Francesca said, “we are going to test this while you guys are still outside.”
Martin and Hayato took a few steps backward. Suddenly a bolt of green flashed down from the sky and hit the barrel. Martin jerked back in surprise and stumbled in slow motion, but Hayato’s hand kept him from falling.
Francesca apologized, “Sorry, guys.”
The ray of light appearing above the concentrator seemed to come out of nothingness. At their height it was about one meter wide, and further up it tapered off. At the same time, it became more translucent and then disappeared completely. That they could see the laser at all indicated a minimal atmosphere existed here.
“Works great,” Martin said into the microphone. “Nice Christmas lighting!”
The barrel-shaped concentrator started to buzz. It did not even take a minute for the charge indicator to turn green. The beam vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Martin saw an afterimage, but knew it existed only in his visual cortex.
December 16, 2046, Enceladus
A farmer who had a goat, a wolf, and a head of cabbage with him wanted to cross a river. The boat was so small he could take only one of the animals or the cabbage at a time. How would all of them get safely to the other shore? Martin thought about this ancient riddle as the four of them discussed moving into Valkyrie. The solution was a bit easier than in the case of the farmer—Martin and Francesca walked to the drill vehicle and entered it through the main entrance on the roof. They activated the life support system and pressurized Valkyrie. Then they took off the suits they had come in and entered the spacesuits belonging to Valkyrie via the SuitPorts. Protected by these, they reentered Valkyrie after they had depressurized it by remote control. They picked up the suits they had arrived in and carried them back to the lander, where they reattached them to its SuitPorts. Then they would return to the drill vehicle and the trip could begin.
Every journey begins with a farewell. Martin had imagined the scene dozens of times the night before. He had tried to imagine what words he would use when saying goodbye to Jiaying. Now it is all different, though. He started saying the words he had come up with, but they sounded so hollow. I am helpless because I cannot describe what is happening inside me. And I have a guilty conscience because I am afraid of—but also looking forward to—the coming time, even though Jiaying cannot accompany me.
The solution was incredibly simple. Before stepping inside his spacesuit, he hugged this woman, whom he still did not know very well, drowning in this embrace, and everything was good and right. When he let go of her, he felt his eyes welling up. Jiaying turned away. He noticed she touched her cheeks with one hand. This was the signal to jump into the SuitPort. The visor fogged up when he went outside. This must be from the sweat from my short work-out on the stationary bike earlier, he thought.
“You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out, you do the Hokey-Pokey, and you shake it all about.” Strange that right now a children’s song should go through my mind. It was so odd he almost laughed at himself. He had to control the urge, because otherwise Francesca would think he was suffering from symptoms of the bends. Click. Now the suit from the lander was back in the port. They walked the 30 meters to Valkyrie one last time, connected to the system, and went inside. Martin looked around carefully. Theoretically I can still cancel, can flee, retreat, but I know this is not truly an option. He would stare into the eternal darkness with Francesca. She was the world’s best pilot, and no one knew the Valkyrie system like she did—at least no one less than a light hour away—in other words, some of those pilots back on earth.
“Commander to Valkyrie, starting laser,” Amy’s voice said from the mothership.
Martin adjusted the camera so he could see the concentrator. The green ray was there.
“Energy supply at 100 percent,” Francesca reported. The newly focused ray of light moved through the fiber-optic cable attached to the concentrator and into Valkyrie. Here the energy was transformed into heat. The heat became electricity, and when Francesca activated the jets the heat melted ice into water. Then the ray heated it to water vapor, which produced more electricity via a generator, and at the same time melted the ice ahead of them, wherever the jets were aimed.
“Permission to start granted.”
“Thanks, commander, we will see you later.”
At the moment, no further words were necessary. Francesca had all the important data on her screen, and Martin watched the displays. Valkyrie started to tilt forward. Way back in the Antarctic this looked impressive when seen from outside, he recalled. Now, only the walls around him moved, while the seat and the console were mounted in such a way they would pivot to stay horizontal. After ten minutes he was no longer sitting inside a tube; he was now in a tower, without having changed location. Valkyrie dug into the ice with increasing speed.
“All systems normal,” Francesca reported to the mothership and the lander, even though their fellow astronauts saw all data in real-time. “Have fun up there. Rossi, out.”
After moving within the drill for almost two hours, Martin dozed off in his seat for the first time. The background sounds on board were soothing, and it was so different from being in space. The vehicle rubbed against its surroundings, the water vapor jets howled, the intensity of the noise varied, but he no longer felt like a tiny speck in a vast emptiness. It seemed to him that humans were not made for staying in a vacuum. The ice around them was powerful, true. It could squash then immediately if there were tectonic forces, but it was not infinite. It had a limit and dimensions, and humans were in principle able to reach those limits and, even better, go beyond them.
Their limit was at a distance of 5,000 meters from the surface. When he awoke from a confused dream, it was still 4,800 meters away.
“Well, are you back?” Francesca gave him a friendly smile. “If you want to, you can lie down properly.” She pointed to the folding beds hanging from the wall farther up. Martin shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and stretched.
“Thanks, but that’s not necessary. But if you are tired…”
“Maybe later,” Francesca replied.
Martin looked at his watch. They had been going for a little more than two hours. A hundred meters per hour—not bad, compared to what Stone had managed to get out of Valkyrie earlier. Martin massaged his temples. He felt a slight headache, maybe because of the dry air. They had traveled for over a billion kilometers, but the engineers had not managed to provide a comfortable atmosphere. He tried to recall what he had dreamed of, but he had forgotten most of it. I still remember one image, though. I am tied to something and experiencing incredible pain. Yet instead of crying or screaming, I always yelled, “I, I, I.” Sometimes the brain produces strange short-circuits.