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“He really likes you,” she said.

Vonnie didn’t answer. As a teacher, she had learned to be charming. It was part of the job. She was less comfortable with her newfound charisma. She’d become a polarizing figure in their group, a crusader and a leader.

People want to be inspired, she thought. Are they helping me because I’m famous?

What if Dawson went out of his way to take an opposing view for the same reason? Because he resents seeing me in the limelight and wants it for himself?

Vonnie hoped her friends appreciated her for her own qualities, not the image of the hero created by the media buzz, and yet she found herself playing into that role more and more. Most of the crew respected her conviction. Some of them, like Metzler, even welcomed her volatility.

As she opened their schematics of the new probe, she said, “Can you hack our own datastreams?”

“Yes,” Ash said. “Why would I do that?”

“Everyone has different encryption packets depending on who they’re communicating with on Earth. I’m curious who’s on Dawson’s lists.”

It would be easy to conceal illicit transmissions in their data bursts. All of them were linked with a myriad of government agencies, labs, universities, and media outlets — but if Dawson stood to profit from his decisions, if he was saying what a corporation wanted to hear in order to classify the sunfish as animals, Vonnie was well-positioned to stop him. She could use her celebrity to burn him in public opinion.

“What if Dawson’s in a gray area legally or flat-out breaking the rules?” she said. “He’s got his nose turned up so far, it makes me think he knows something we don’t. He might be taking bribes. Hell, he probably has a deal with someone. That’s why he’s taunting us.”

“I’ll peek,” Ash said. “The tough part will be getting a minute without Koebsch online to see what I’m doing. Maybe while he’s sleeping. Let me wait until I’m in the command module tonight or tomorrow.”

“Tonight.”

“I need an excuse to drive over, Von.”

“Here.” She opened the remote operation link to the armory, which, like Koebsch’s central data/comm post, was in the command module. “The forge doesn’t work right with our link. We can take the jeep after we finish our redesign. Koebsch will want to tell me everything I did wrong anyway, so I’ll keep him busy. Trust me.”

“I do trust you,” Ash said.

Vonnie met her gaze, then responded with total candor. “You’re my best friend in this place,” she said, which was true, but inside, she thought, I wish I knew who you were working for.

She needed Ash’s help to stop Dawson. But who would stop Ash if the girl was on the payroll of MI6 or another intelligence agency? Vonnie took it for granted that Ash’s directives were ultimately identical to Dawson’s: to own and control everything of value on Europa while disrupting the efforts of any other group to do the same.

Once upon a time, Vonnie might have laughed at the predicament they’d brewed for themselves. Instead, she cursed herself.

Face it, she thought. You’re outclassed.

The only people who’d been sent to Europa without covert training might be the poor, honest fools who’d volunteered when no one imagined there was anything more than bugs in the ice, namely Vonnie, Bauman, and Lam. Too much was at stake. As soon as Earth realized the larger ramifications, new players had been sent for a different game.

If the Allied Nations accepted the sunfish as a sentient race, that might affect who was permitted to mine the ice, where they were licensed to operate, and how much they paid the sunfish in trade goods.

If any country or gene corp got a head start on developing useful applications of Europan DNA, that could lead to the priceless first-to-market position for new meds or treatments.

Cryogenics and improved cancer resistance were top priorities for Earth’s military and civilian space forces. Astronauts who could sleep safely for months at a time would allow ships to travel farther than ever. Soldiers who could be stored, forgotten, and yet come up fighting would act both as deterrents and as first strike weapons. They could be stashed all over the solar system until needed.

Germany had spliced cockroach and black fly genes into some of their Special Forces commandos with solid results. China was known to have tried rat and chimpanzee DNA. The side effects were minor, and there would always be volunteers eager to trade their health for glory and strength.

Dawson was correct that Europan lifeforms dealt with high levels of radiation in addition to extreme cold. Christmas Bauman had felt that many of them must have evolved the ability to suppress and repair cellular damage, and Bauman’s word was enough for Vonnie. If she’d believed there were revolutionary genetics here, Vonnie wanted that magic for the human race, too — but it wasn’t fair for any single group to own it, and it wasn’t right to condemn the sunfish for anyone’s profit margin.

Vonnie felt like she was standing in a mine field. She didn’t know where to step. Someone she depended on today might betray her tomorrow, and she remembered when she’d met Ash. She’d done everything possible to convince Ash that she would put the team first.

Could the same be said for Ash’s intentions?

35.

Ash will be my friend as long as it suits her, Vonnie thought. I think she genuinely likes me. That’s part of why she saved Lam. But no matter how she feels about me or the sunfish, eventually we’ll go home. She’s made a career for herself there, so she’ll lie or steal from me if that’s what they tell her to do. Won’t she?

What can I promise her that they haven’t? I don’t have a lot of money. Even if I was a division leader, any promotion I offered would be a joke compared to the job they’ve given her.

Who can I trust? Metzler? Koebsch?

Sitting with Ash in front of their holo display, Vonnie hid her reproach by tapping at the probe’s schematics. Removing the radar array created complications in the probe’s power grid.

In silence, the two women made corrections, needing no words to fulfill this task. Vonnie traced a line to bridge the hole in the grid. Ash added a secondary net so the probe could reroute its energy needs if it was damaged.

“Simple,” Ash said.

Vonnie wished everything was so easy. She felt sad and resentful, and she tried to shake her mood.

She copied the newest data from Probes 112 and 113 to her station, then let an AI collate those files with their existing programs. Each interaction with the sunfish would refine the movements of their probes’ arms.

But we need to do more than upgrade our mecha, she thought. We need a new approach. Instead of waiting for the sunfish to accept us, what would happen if we marched straight into their homes? They understand certainty.

The irony was she wanted the sunfish to be more uncertain. For their own welfare, they needed to question themselves.

Were they capable of ending their kill-or-be-killed aggression once they realized there was more to existence than the frozen sky? Even if they hadn’t grasped the notion that the ESA probes and spies came from outside the ice, they must feel as if they’d encountered brand-new lifeforms.

Earth had agreed that the next stage in communicating with the sunfish might be an attempt to provide gifts — fabric, meat, steel tools, and tanks of compressed oxygen — but they were concerned this wealth would draw new attacks, not only from the sunfish but from other species. Also, they were undecided if giving steel to the sunfish was worth the impression they wanted to make.