The ice. Deuterium-deuterium fusion reactors kept people alive on Luna and Mars and everywhere in between. Water/oxygen futures had become more valuable than gold. The solar system was in bloom. The Chinese had expanded with total commitment, and other nations were growing as fast as possible to keep from being left behind.
“They’ve already given up on most of Europa,” Lam said. “It’s too easy. They’ve been tearing it apart for twenty years without finding anything. I even helped them. They’re all posting my sim like it’s proof — like this safe zone is the only one. SecGen Harada will make sure the expedition doesn’t find anything she doesn’t want us to find.”
The Japanese minister had been born in space, and represented six thousand colonists who made up a crucial part of the Earth-orbit economy.
“What do you want to do?” Vonnie said.
“We’ve got a little time, long enough to post so much data they can’t bury it,” Lam said. “You know what I mean. If we wait now, they’ll come up with rationales to keep waiting. First we’ll run more surveys. Then we’ll practice safety plans. Maybe they’ll send in a few crawlers. Meanwhile five or six months go by, and they’ll downplay the whole thing.”
“What do you want to do, Lam?”
“I want to go in.”
It was a career move they’d only make once. They would either be heroes or subject to a great many lawsuits, probably jail time in Lam’s case. Vonnie suspected he’d ask for political asylum. The carvings meant that much to him, more than seeing his family again, more than his apartment in Hong Kong — and for all the right reasons.
Lam wanted to save this world. He wanted proof of the diversity of life implied by the carvings and the complex food chain that must support the carvers.
There would be little or no fossil record inside the ice. At best, the tides would hold a churned-up mishmash of species carried far from their time and habitats, but that was the point. There could be priceless information everywhere. There might be life in other regions.
He accepted that the mining would never stop. Humankind’s appetites were larger than any group of protestors or indignant scientists, but the mining could be restricted. They could be more diligent.
Bauman only argued for a day. She was too much like Vonnie and Lam. Otherwise she wouldn’t have come to Europa. It didn’t help that the men on the radio talked like slaps in the face. They were terse and controlling. Bauman didn’t appreciate their arrogance. She asked Lam to concoct a sim that showed the carvings were in danger, which wasn’t untruthful. The mecha had resealed the trench with steel, glue, and tents, but the carvings were still reacting to near-vacuum. Who could say what data was being lost as the ice broiled?
Forty-eight hours later, they were given permission to enter the trench — only the trench — and Lam laughed and ran for his armor.
“Game over,” he said. “Game over. Once we’re inside, we’ll need to keep poking around, right?”
“Hold on.” Vonnie hugged them both, starting with Bauman. She blushed a little as she approached Lam. “I wanted to… You can’t feel anything in a scout suit,” she explained, and he smiled, touching her hip. Maybe it was the promise of the beginning of something more.
Each set of armor weighed two hundred and twenty kilos. Suiting up required mecha assists. First they took off their clothes. Vonnie blushed again as Lam averted his eyes. Robotic arms painted her temples, throat, wrists, and thighs with nanocircuitry. Then she climbed into the open shell of her suit. She slipped her legs in, connected the sanitary features, and extended her arms into its sleeves.
The assist lowered her helmet over her face. Her armor folded shut. Thousands of needles — some invisible, some as long as four centimeters — sank into her nerves and veins. It didn’t hurt except for the cortical jack. There was a dull, gritting pain. She was online.
Bauman and Lam repeated the process.
Data/comm showed all systems go, but they visually inspected each other’s seals and collar assemblies. They also triple-checked life support. They intended to wear their suits for a six hour shift, but no one left a ship without carrying the maximum load, which was twelve hours of oxygen and five days of food.
In space, astronauts could lug extra cylinders of compressed oxygen or run air hoses from their ship. Inside the trench, there wouldn’t be room for bulky packs or hoses.
As the crew member tasked with their well-being, Vonnie wanted a large safety margin. During training, she’d once spent an uncomfortable thirty-six hour period in her suit, mastering several tricks to recharge her air supply, swapping new cylinders into her pack by herself, adapting nonstandard hoses, changing out filters clogged with smoke or fluid. They prepared for emergencies. She would bring spare cylinders into the trench, although after a single day, even fresh oxygen could not dispel the stink of sweat. In polite company, astronauts called it living with yourself. In cruder terms, the joke went eat yourself. The suit became a toilet. More important, they had no practical limitations on power. Each set of armor contained a plutonium rod which would drive it for decades.
Vonnie walked into the air lock first. The lock was big enough to hold three people in an emergency if they crammed together, but one at a time was more comfortable, so she had a few moments alone.
As she waited outside, she looked across the brittle plain unassisted by her visor. Human perceptions were self-deceiving in this environment, yet she wanted a personal connection. She wanted to try.
The curvature of the moon was noticeably wrong. The horizon seemed too small, too near, while the sun suffered its own fun house effect. It was too far away, yet too bright. The ice glistened and winked. Vonnie had the feeling of standing in a mirage. Leaning blocks of ice jutted from the surface to the northeast. Aside from this ridge, there were no points of reference, only the eerie plain dwindling into blackness and the unfathomable, looming face of Jupiter.
Europa was exotic and alluring — but slowly, a chill filled her mind. The amazement she felt became a vague fear like a premonition.
Her visor was synthetic diamond. Five centimeters thick, it could withstand small arms fire and seventy standard atmospheres of pressure. Fitted with transparent circuitry, a suit’s visor was also designed to shield its wearer from the desolation of space by swaddling her in data. Without those displays, death felt very close. It engulfed her. Vonnie was only safe because of her helmet, gloves, and armor, so she distracted herself with the superhuman abilities of her suit.
“Lights up,” she said. “Grid One. Radar active. Mecha team alpha to me.”
Lam and Bauman emerged from the ship as Vonnie organized her squad of machines — two small burrowers like meter-long centipedes — a stout digger shaped like a wheeled spider bristling with tools, cameras, and arms — and seven relays and beacons ranging in size from a fist to a soccer ball.
Blazing with cameras and spotlights, they approached the long tent erected above the trench, where other machines had prepped two additional plastic bubbles. The three people entered the nearest bubble without the mecha.
“Stage one, go,” Vonnie said.
Her visor darkened as UV lights scoured their armor, baking off every Earth smell and microbe. Next they were sandblasted with melted ice mixed with a dusting of native rock. Fans cooled the exterior of their suits to -160° Celsius, the ambient temperature