The new ESA camp was twelve kilometers southeast of the trench where Vonnie, Bauman, and Lam entered the frozen sky. When that system of vents collapsed, it had destroyed the carvings as well as any chance of venturing back into that region of ice. The collapse had left an uneven, unstable pit in Europa’s surface 1.3 kilometers across.
Someday the glacial tides or an upswell in the ocean would fill the hole. For now, it was a scar and a grave.
Lam and Bauman’s bodies had been abandoned after religious services and commendations were delivered near the pit by ESA, NASA, and PSSC teams while Vonnie watched from her bed in the new camp.
Their rovers and satellite analysis had located another system of catacombs, which could be accessed through the crevices where they’d assembled their hab modules and flightcraft. Too often, there were only a few meters of ice separating the caverns below from the fissures leading up to the surface. That was why the mecha were on high alert.
Studying their datastreams, Vonnie made sense of their grid at last. Koebsch wasn’t an idiot. On Europa, any threat would approach from beneath them, not from outside their ring, so he’d spread his assets for mapping purposes, measuring the ice with radar, sonar, neutrino pulse, and seismographs…
…and weapons systems. The jeep was tied to their defense net, its dashboard winking with steady updates from the Clermont, the ESA ship in orbit above Europa.
But we don’t need to be on alert, Vonnie thought. “The sunfish won’t come,” she said.
“What?” Ash turned in her seat to bring her helmet around, revealing a face full of suspicion.
Vonnie kept her voice tranquil. “They won’t come,” she said. “The ones who chased me know we’re outside the ice. They might be listening, but they’ll never risk a blow-out by coming to the surface.”
“They seemed like they, uh, like they did anything to kill you even if it meant suicide for them,” Ash said. “Koebsch is worried they’ll dig away the ice beneath us.”
“I don’t think so. They must be even more afraid of vacuum than we are.”
“You can’t know how they think.”
“We’ve been in space for nearly two hundred years. We were watching the stars before our species learned how to talk. Their sense of distance is limited. All they’ve ever known are their ears and their sonar.”
“Right. You’re right.”
Ash was humoring her, but Vonnie saw an opportunity to sway the younger woman. “They think the universe ends here,” she said. “They have no concept of the stars or other planets or anything past the surface. Only death. Try to think how many times their populations must have asphyxiated when eruptions or quakes ripped open their homes.”
“You found air locks in the ice.”
“They’re smart.” Vonnie couldn’t stop herself from saying it. “They’re marvelous.”
“They’re monsters.”
“They’ve never had a chance to be anything else.”
Ash didn’t answer. They’d reached the command module, and Ash busied herself with the jeep’s console. She seemed to be receiving a radio call that only she could hear.
“We need to get back into the ice and figure out how to talk to them,” Vonnie said.
ESA Camp Map
23.
Koebsch wasn’t happy to see either woman. He met them at the air lock as they stowed their pressure suits, obstructing their way into the module. To his left was the mission’s primary data/comm room. To his right was one of the multipurpose labs where they’d brought Vonnie’s armor.
“I could have sent your jeep back to medical, but let’s get this over with,” Koebsch said.
Vonnie tried to cover for Ash. “She told me not to come,” she said.
“Did you think you could sneak in and steal your AI?”
“No, sir.”
“Nothing happens on our grid without my knowing it.”
“No, sir.”
“All right.” Koebsch gestured for them to go left toward data/comm, not to the lab. Vonnie hesitated, but she wouldn’t get another chance to prove she wasn’t a head case. She dutifully followed him into data/comm.
The cramped room had two chairs. Koebsch leaned back in his seat as Vonnie perched on the edge of hers. Ash stayed at the hatch with her arms folded.
“You want to go back into the ice,” Koebsch said.
He tapped the radio in my pressure suit, Vonnie thought, feeling irate. But she didn’t show it. “I think we should mount another expedition this week,” she said.
“It’s not going to happen. Not yet.”
“I don’t mean people at first. We should send in mecha. The best choice would be probes that are the same size and shape as the sunfish.”
“We’re building them now.”
Vonnie flared at his imperturbable calm. “Then we can program some of those probes with my AI! Lam will have more success than anything new.”
Koebsch shook his head. “You have to realize, there are people on Earth who’ve proposed sealing off the ice.”
Vonnie’s heart stopped. “We can’t do that.”
“Yes, we can. A few explosive charges—”
“We’ve discovered intelligent life.”
“I believe you. I want to believe you. Everyone involved with the agency has wanted to find something like this since we were kids, right?”
Vonnie stared in surprise. Koebsch was a government appointee. She’d thought the ESA was just a job to him.
“We’re not sure the sunfish are intelligent,” he said.
“They use language and engineering.”
“They seem to, yes. There’s good evidence. But their intelligence hasn’t been so well demonstrated that no one is questioning it. If we send in your AI and he’s glitchy, we’ll be giving the wrong people more ammunition.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“You’re acting a little glitchy, too,” Koebsch said, leaning forward and patting Vonnie’s arm. “Do you know what the Stockholm syndrome is? Sometimes a hostage will begin to defend the people who grabbed her.”
“That’s bullshit. The sunfish are amazing. Hell, there’s no question they’ll be profitable, too,” Vonnie said, stewing with contempt. “The military and pharmaceutical lobbies must be screaming for DNA samples.”
“Yes.”
“We need to help whatever’s left of the sunfish empire.”
“How? Are you proposing an evacuation? To where?”
“I don’t know. We should send down food and oxygen. We could lead them to safer areas. They don’t have radar. They might not know the best places to hide. That would be an easy way to demonstrate our goodwill.”
“It might come to that, but there are only eleven of us. My first responsibility is to make sure we’re safe. That includes maintaining our food and air supplies for the duration of our mission.”
“There will be supply ships.”
“Vonnie, the sunfish look like they’ve been down there for thirty thousand years. They’re as old as the last existing populations of Neanderthal Man, maybe older. A little more time won’t matter.”
“They’re telling each other about us right now. They’re telling each other I killed dozens of them!”
“You acted in self-defense.”
“They must think we’re the monsters. The longer we wait, the worse it will be. They’ll build more defenses. They’ll prepare for war. We need to try again before they get too entrenched.”
“We will. Vonnie, we will, but not before we’re ready. Meanwhile, you need to help me. Let us use what we can from your AI’s mem files and delete its personality.”